Dorchester, England: “A judge has criticized a council for spending £26,000 on a legal wrangle involving three noisy parrots, saying the costs were ‘out of all proportion’ to the case.” (Richard Savill, Telegraph, Nov. 1).
Posts Tagged ‘taxpayers’
“Britain has no responsibility to protect Iraqis from their own legal system”
Fun with international human rights law, continued:
Lawyers for two Iraqis accused of the murder of two British soldiers now maintain that the men cannot get a fair trial in Iraq, and are entitled to one here in Britain instead. A High Court judge will rule on the case this week. Lawyers have already received several thousand pounds for representing the Iraqis, who, although not British citizens, have their case in the British courts funded by British taxpayers. Win or lose, the lawyers will receive more from that source. If the judge rules against them, they will no doubt appeal. The appeals process is lengthy, and lucrative. If they win, then there will be another issue to be litigated: whether the Iraqis should be given asylum in the UK, on the grounds that Iraq is not a safe place for the accused.
(“Iraqi crimes have no place in our courts” (editorial), Telegraph, Nov. 16).
Banned for “dirty dancing”, wins $275,000 settlement
North Carolina: “The town of Marshall agreed to pay $275,000 for banning [Rebecca] Willis from a community dance hall on allegations her moves were too risqué.” (Jon Ostendorff, “Woman walks with $275k in dance hall case”, Asheville Citizen-Times, Nov. 14 and Nov. 13; Jonathan Austin, “Lawyer says ‘dirty dancing’ case finally settled”, News-Record and Sentinel, Nov. 13).
“Pothole pay-outs cost more than fixing them”
The liberalization of contingency fees in England has brought about a marked rise in pothole claims against local government authorities; it’s not clear whether that necessarily translates into an improvement in the target value of actual road safety. “Officials complained that a compensation culture has been created by no-win, no-fee lawyers and said legislation needed tightening to prevent ‘spurious’ claims.” (Independent (U.K.), Oct. 8).
October 2 roundup
- Cameras in the Neiman Marcus “loss security” (anti-theft operations) room? So unfair when they catch two employees making whoopee [Chicago Tribune via Feral Child]
- Flipping their wigs: after three centuries judges in British civil and family courts today end tradition of horsehair wigs [Times Online]
- The right number? $28 million to Boston victim of negligent Big Dig construction [Globe]
- White collar advice: “Always commit crimes with people more important than you are, so you can turn them in” [Dershowitz, Forbes]
- Injured while skylarking on freight trains, now want Oz taxpayers to pay for their injuries [The Australian]
- That’ll spoil the fun: New Jersey high court bars judges from discussing future employment with lawyers who have pending cases before them [NJLJ]
- Compromise on Capitol Hill lets Pandora survive a little longer to negotiate with music rights owners [ReadWriteWeb; earlier here, here]
- Rapists with leverage over the adoption of a resultant child? [four years ago on Overlawyered]
Station nightclub fire: government defendants settle
The state of Rhode Island and town of West Warwick, the last major defendants left in the lawsuits over the Station/Great White fire, agreed to throw $10 million apiece into the settlement pot, which now reaches $175 million, to compensate the 200 injured and survivors of the 100 killed in the 2003 blaze. The town of West Warwick, population just under 30,000, is expected to have to borrow heavily to enable its payment; it has a $4 million insurance policy, but defense litigation costs will be deducted before any of that money is made available for the settlement (RedOrbit/ProJo, more, AP/Firefighting News via Childs).
Dozens of private companies named in the suits had settled earlier, including many with peripheral or remote connections to the calamity, such as beer sponsor Anheuser-Busch, which together with a beer distributor agreed to pay $21 million, and radio operator Clear Channel, which paid $22 million. West Warwick will wind up paying much less than that, although its negligent contribution to the disaster (in failing to enforce key provisions of its own fire code) would appear immeasurably greater. Earlier posts here.
Rolando Montez’s fatal phone call: JCW Electronics, Inc. v. Garza
On November 14, 1999, high-school dropout Rolando Domingo Montez, celebrating his 19th birthday, was arrested for public intoxication and trespass after the owner of the boat on which he and his friends were sitting complained. Police placed him in Cell No. 1 of the Port Isabel City Jail. The next morning, Montez was permitted to make some collect calls from his jail cell to seek bail money from his mother, Pearl Iris Garza. Mom, complaining that Montez was in jail again, refused. But she generously came to pick up Montez on the 16th when he was released on his own recognizance. Unfortunately, while Garza was waiting in the lobby, and while police were responding to a call for assistance regarding a suspicious vehicle, Montez hung himself with the 19-inch phone cord from the phone he had used to make the calls.
City streets not safe to drive 100-120 mph on
Amanda Laabs was a passenger in a Porsche Carrera that was being driven at somewhere between 100 and 120 mph in Victorville, Calif., suggesting that the occupants were in quite a hurry to get to their destination, an In-N-Out Burger. Her driver did manage to slow down to an impact speed of 72 mph at the intersection at which he collided with the Mitsubishi of innocent driver Dorothy Specter. Have you spotted the allegedly responsible party yet? Yes, the city of Victorville, for designing the road with “inadequate sight distance and lack of warning signs, devices and signals”, so that Specter couldn’t see the Porsche coming, all that aside from the light pole that was too easy to run into. After pages of tortuous analysis, made more tortuous by the division of authority over the road between the city of Victorville and the County of San Bernardino, an appeals court upheld a trial court’s disposal of the case on summary judgment, but also declined the city’s request for fees, saying the city had not shown that an attorney would have assessed the claim as objectively unreasonable. (Laabs v. City of Victorville, courtesy Law.com; Civil Justice Association of California press release).
Update: The following was received April 14, 2010 from a commenter identifying herself as Amanda Laabs: “…You commented and had to make your business. If you had read it correctly we were not on our way to In-n- Out, we were turned around going the opposite direction for your information. I lost both of my legs in that accident and a good friend who was sitting behind me. This is a horrible site that allows people to be rude and insensitive to the people and family who were really hurt.”
“They can’t bring my dog back…”
“…so the only thing they can do is give me money”. The $206,000 that Shawn Snider and Beth Bayless-Snider are demanding from Denton, Tex. taxpayers for the mistaken euthanization of their three-year-old black Labrador mix includes damages for loss of “future breeding opportunities”. (“Couple Sues City for $206G After Dog Mistakenly Euthanized”, AP/FoxNews.com, Jun. 2).
May 28 roundup
- More on that New Mexico claim of “electro-sensitive” Wi-Fi allergy: quoted complainant is a longtime activist who’s written an anti-microwave book [VNUNet, USA Today “On Deadline” via ABA Journal]
- Your wisecracks belong to us: “Giant Wall of Legal Disclaimers” at Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor at Disneyland [Lileks; h/t Carter Wood]
- New at Point of Law: AAJ commissions a poll on arbitration and gets the results it wants; carbon nanotubes, tomorrow’s asbestos? California will require lawyers operating without professional liability insurance to inform clients of that fact (earlier here and here); and much more.
- Actuaries being sued for underestimating funding woes of public pension plans [NY Times via ABA Journal]
- City of Santa Monica and other defendants will pay $21 million to wrap up lawsuits from elderly driver’s 2003 rampage through downtown farmers’ market [L.A. Times; earlier]
- Sequel to Giants Stadium/Aramark dramshop case, which won a gigantic award later set aside, is fee claim by fired lawyer for plaintiff [NJLJ; Rosemarie Arnold site]
- Privacy law with an asterisk: federal law curbing access to drivers license databases has exemption that lets lawyers purchase personal data to help in litigation [Daily Business Review]
- Terror of FEMA: formaldehyde in Katrina trailers looks to emerge as mass toxic injury claim, and maybe we’ll find out fifteen years hence whether there was anything to it [AP/NOCB]
- Suit by “ABC” firm alleges that Yellow Book let other advertisers improperly sneak in with earlier alphabetical entries [Madison County Record]
- Gun law compliance, something for the little people? A tale from Chicago’s Board of Aldermen [Sun-Times, Ald. Richard Mell]
- Think twice about commissioning a mural for your building since federal law may restrain you from reclaiming the wall at a later date [four years ago on Overlawyered]