“Have you been hurt in an accidental car? Has the government sold your lungs without asking nicely?… Answer me!” — humor from Keaton Patti on Twitter. “The lawyer opens a briefcase. It’s full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.” Call for a free use of phone!
8 Comments
Someone asked about the lemons:
Sounds like an ad for the Ronco Law-o-Matic: “It slices! It dices! It anathematizes!”
I used to be on the other side of David J. Gorberg. Believe it or not, he was “more reasonable” than some. Always seemed to me to be a pretty decent guy, in spite of being a plaintiff’s lawyer advancing claims on behalf of clients who had massively overvalued their cases. At least, he never threatened to hold up one client’s settlement to improve the position of other clients. A tactic that is unethical, yes, but not uncommon with certain high volume counsel.
I love CarLitGuy’s stereotypes. I trust defense lawyers about as much as I trust plaintiffs” lawyers and as much as I trust doctors, airline pilots, and Indan chiefs. People are people. Most job stereotypes fail miserably in the real world.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers and their clients massively overvalue their cases. 100% true. Defense lawyers massively undervalue their cases.
Not only have I never held up one client’s settlement to improve the position of another, I don’t even recall in all the cases I’ve resolved ever seeing an advantage in doing so.
Ron, I wasn’t offering stereotypes – I merely compared my experiences with David J Gorberg with my experiences with certain, specific, other Lemon Law attorneys. I wouldn’t begin to speak for the whole profession, I’ve only seen one tiny specialty practice within it.
As to the advantage? Several Lemon Law attorneys were very high volume, very little research of their client’s claims. It was to their advantage to hold up settlement of cases where defense had a lot of exposure in order to “move” the lower value cases, knowing that neither they, nor we, could possibly try every case, but that the courts would happily award payment of their fee demands (but not ours) if their client got anything.
Statutory Repurchase of the vehicle plus reasonable and customary fees in response to a boiler plate demand letter was often our FIRST offer.
Seemingly, you have had different experiences. Or you like to paint with a broad brush.
Those are fair points/clarifications. You can see how I read it the way I did, right?
Its good Ron, I could have said (and I’m sure you expected to read) that David AND his clients massively overvalued their claims, but he was a real professional, and knew what the cases were worth.
Also, the unidirecitional fee shifting in the Lemon Law field creates some incentives for plaintiff counsel that just aren’t present in other forms of comon litigation – or if they are, I’ve not seen much mention of them in the case law I used to read from around the nation (again, focused on the issues that were likely to come up in the Lemon Law area of practice).
Also, my employer’s approach to settling these cases was not always typical of auto manufacturer warranty defense generally. But mostly, I was trying to say something nice about my sometime adversary David J Gorberg. I suppose that’s out of character for the defense side.
I should probably clarify that statutory repurchase wasn’t our first offer for the majority of David J Gorberg’s clients, but most of his clients didn’t have a state “Lemon Law” case – majority of his auto work (at the time) was the typical breach of express / implied warranty claims, with the Mag-Moss claim thrown in for fee shifting purposes. Almost exclusively diminished value, cash settlement claims. His work may have shifted since I got out of the business, but doubtful its changed much. There have been no recent, significant changes in either the Lemon Laws of the states in which he practices, or the case law surrounding those claims, so far as I’m aware.