Comments on: “Federal Judge Tosses $240,000 Verdict in Age Bias Lawsuit”

By: David Wilson

David Wilson — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:05:18 +0000

AM makes some valid points, but in my view, plaintiffs are hardly “victims” of plaintiff’s attorneys. In most cases, they make the first approach about filing lawsuit. They are attracted by the possibility of big money and their profit is always pure: all they lose is time. They can withdraw their lawsuit at any time if they really want to “move on with their lives.” Yet they almost always don’t take this route. Reform of the legal system is an idea, but a significant cessation of the flow of non-meritorious lawsuits would require a good deal more of a sense of personal responsibility and hardiness than our current culture has to offer. “Do I really need to file this lawsuit, given how much time and expense will be borne by the rest of society?” is not the sort of moral introspection most people perform. “Gimme all ya got and screw the rest” is more like it.

By: AM

AM — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 19:48:20 +0000

Thank you for your informative site. Any indication as to how much money the lawyers have been paid so far?

I imagine the plaintiff’s lawyer is working on contingency, but the defendant’s lawyers have likely made a pretty penny off this.

Often the tragedy of such cases is that at the end, defendant pays substantial money – but the vast majority goes to lawyers. In exchange for this “service,” The defendant is put through misery and the plaintiff gets so little compensation that it wasn’t even worth the trouble of litigation. Essentially the attorneys put everyone through years of misery just to earn their fees.

For example, lets say this case settles for $150,000 before the appeal, of which plaintiff gets half after the lawyer’s contingency fee and expenses. Estimate that defendant pays their own lawyers a total of $200,000 after all is done.

So at the end of the day, defendant has paid $350,000 in total, of which about $275,000 went to lawyers and $75,000 went to the plaintiff.

The tragedy is that plaintiff would have been much better off had she simply moved on with her life. Of course plaintiff’s attorneys don’t disclose this to their clients, and of course defense attorneys are always willing to drag a case out to bill hours.

I am in law school, who hopes one day to thoroughly research and publish a paper on this phenomenon. I recommend that you factor this sort of analysis into your website. Plaintiffs are often the victims of their lawyers, not necessarily people to be faulted for these lawsuits.

By: David Wilson

David Wilson — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:39:47 +0000

And isn’t age discrimination rational, given that differently-aged persons often have different abilities, the statute notwithstanding? And what in the Constitution gives Congress the power to make “age discrimination” illegal? Doesn’t the real effect on commerce come when lawsuits like this bring it to a screeching halt?

By: markm

markm — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:56:47 +0000

“Steward’s job tasks were split amongst a 60-year-old, 45-year-old, 35-year-old, and 33-year-old.” Does that mean that they hired four people to replace him, or that they didn’t hire anyone, but just split up his work among existing staff. In the latter case (which seems more likely), the guy was either not doing much or was redundant to begin with.

[They split up his work among existing staff.—TF]