Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘personal responsibility’

“[O]ur entire world is a potentially dangerous place in which to live”

Dismissing a suit claiming that cigarettes and upholstery should have been flameproof, a Kentucky federal judge last month had this to say:

No court has found that there is a duty to make our world fool-proof or risk free. Nor is there a duty to warn of obvious consequences of foolish behavior.

In this case, we will reject the opportunity to hold that just because something could happen, failure to prevent it is unreasonable….

Nothing this court can do will change what happened. But we are obliged to ensure that the law is applied dispassionately, and in a principled way.

[Patrick at Popehat]

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Drunken totter into subway train’s path: $2.3 million

Dustin Dibble, 25, of Brooklyn “got so drunk that he fell into the path of a subway train – costing him his right leg – but a Manhattan jury still awarded him $2.3 million after finding that NYC Transit was to blame.” [New York Post (“Drunk Rides Gravy Train”) and more (Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls award “incomprehensible”), N.Y. Daily News] John Hochfelder has more on the tendency of the New York subway system to be sued by tipsy totterers, and see also this City Journal compilation of mine from back in 1993.

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Paralyzed in crash after underage drinking, wins $2.5M from homeowner

George Baldwin, then 19, drank while visiting the Pfeifer sisters at their home; he got into the car as a passenger with intoxicated friend William Klairmont and was paralyzed in the resulting crash. Now Lauralee Pfeifer, the girls’ mother, will pay $2.5 million in a settlement:

Unlike other lawsuits alleging that adults played a role in teenage drinking parties, Pfeifer did not buy the alcohol for the teens or know they were drinking in her home. Pfeifer did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement, said Michael Borders, her lawyer.

But Salvi said Pfeifer should have monitored the teens and suspected they were drinking, especially because her daughters had been caught drinking before.

[Chicago Tribune]

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“Alcoholic sues Marriott after falling over a stairway while plowed”

“Michael Fenton admits he’s an alcoholic. He went on a two-day bender at the Marco Island Marriott Resort and Spa last January. In an inebriated state, he then plunged over a stairway some 100 feet. Now, he’s suing the hotel for serving an addict and causing his brain damage.” [Naples, Fla. Daily News via, and with headline from, Obscure Store]

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Dives into river on dare, jury awards $76 million

“Timothy D. Hoffman broke his neck when he sprinted down a dock and slammed headfirst into the bottom of the shallow river. Good luck collecting, though: The defendant, C&D Dock Works, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy because of the incident.” According to those present, Hoffman jumped in on a dare to win money from co-workers; the owner of the dock works said there had been a rail at the dock’s edge. [Obscure Store; Orlando Sentinel]

More: commenters, and John Hochfelder, point out the bankrupt defendant’s effective failure to mount a defense. And Jacob Sullum has a post at Reason “Hit and Run”.

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“Judge’s daughter sues driver she ran into during crash”

“Convicted last year of intoxication manslaughter for the death of her boyfriend, the 21-year-old daughter of a state district judge is suing the truck driver she ran into during a drunken driving crash. …[Elizabeth] Shelton had a blood alcohol concentration more than three times the legal limit, two tests showed.” (Brian Rogers, Houston Chronicle, Dec. 18). Feral Child has been digging up all sorts of interesting stuff about the lawyer representing Elizabeth Shelton, too — his name is Mark Sandoval — and his past dealings with her father, Harris County Judge Pat Shelton. He wonders whether it has something to do with standards being lower in Texas, although, unfortunately, we can think of this sort of thing going on in many other states too. And then Mark Bennett of Defending People jumps in and does even more research about Sandoval’s disciplinary record. And does he ever find stuff.

The Houston Chronicle deserves credit for breaking the original story, but as you may have noticed it took only hours for two skillful bloggers, SSFC and Bennett, to push it much farther. The blogosphere is proving itself extremely powerful in shedding a quick and bright light on some of the darker corners of the legal system.

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Sliding down stair railing while drunk

“One may sympathize with the family of Todd Jette, who was killed in an unsuccessful attempt to slide down a stair railing at Adobe Gila’s Bar and Grill in Dayton, Ohio. … One has less sympathy for the lawyers who have just filed suit on behalf of Jette’s estate, arguing that the restaurant was negligent for failing to save Jette from himself.” (Social Services for Feral Children, Dec. 9; “Greene restaurant facing lawsuit”, WHIO, Dec. 9; Kelli Wynn, Dayton Daily News, Dec. 13, 2006).

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“He’s not a klutz”: $4.5 million for NYC cop shot in tippy chair

A Brooklyn jury has awarded $4,548,000 to Anderson Alexander, a former New York City police detective injured when the office chair he was sitting on tipped over and he shot himself in the knee with a 9 mm Smith & Wesson he was holding.

“This case is not about him shooting himself,” Alexander’s lawyer Matthew Maiorana told the Daily News. “This case is about a broken chair and an unsafe workplace.”…

Alexander, 49, who retired on a three-quarters-pay disability pension, moved to South Carolina, where he works as a sheriff’s deputy.

(Scott Shifrel, “Ex-city cop wins huge award after chair he sat in broke, sending bullet into his knee”, New York Daily News, Nov. 26).

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