Most people who talk about the tort system are lying.

On the Community Blog, there is a link to an article where some moron is suing a dry-cleaner for $65 million for losing a pair of pants. Business interests have fed this to the news outlets to further their agenda of polluting potential jurors and ensuring too-small, unjust verdicts in the future.

First the story itself: A lawyer, and not just a lawyer but a judge has attacked a poor but honest Korean dry-cleaner over a pair of pants, and stands to gain $65 million, bankrupting the defendant and tearing part of the fabric of our social contract. This is stupid for sooooo many reasons. The fact that this plaintiff has been to law school means that he may have rudimentary knowledge which lets him file things in court without finding out that no decent lawyer will consent to represent him. It violates the standards of the national trial lawyers association to state a number for a demand in the complaint, so this $65 million is pure fiction on the plaintiff's part. That this plaintiff is an administrative law judge is not surprising. The ALJ corps is where lots of politically connected yet incompetent or crazy lawyers are hidden. They are far more likely to display "judge-itis," a disease which discomforts everyone around them. The Defendant, had he chosen, could have found a decent and honest lawyer to defend him at a modest price, rather than spending "thousands of hours" in the defense of the case on his own. Indeed, my thought of defending this guy would be to make a "Rule 68 Offer of Judgment" for about $200 which, if refused and the judge or jury returns a verdict of less than that, obligates the Plaintiff to pay all of the costs of the case, including the Defendant's attorney fees. A competent lawyer for the Defendant would have this case in front of the responsible trial judge for motions to dismiss and for sanctions (penalties) against the Plaintiff for his behavior. My mother could get sanctions against this Plaintiff.

Judges are drawn from the population of lawyers. Some of them don't have a compassionate bone in their bodies. Some of them stay up nights worrying whether they are making the right decisions. Losers. Winners. In other words, people. Four people out of my class that I know of have been judges. Three of them are good and honest and caring people who do their best, even though sometimes they make decisions which I think are wrong. The fourth was our class asshole, and was the stupidest and most abusive judge in the history of West Virginia.

Instead of hating lawyers, we should hate what some lawyers do. There are a lot of lawyers who do crazy or mean-spirited things. One of the leaders of the Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas (website: Godhatesfags.com) is a lawyer. (She also figured in the events the last time I was threatened with arrest.) Ann Coulter is a lawyer, or at least a law school graduate. She is terminally deficient in skills of logic. But John Adams was a lawyer. And Abraham Lincoln. (He also did medical malpractice cases.) And Rudy Guiliani. And Richard Nixon. Oh, hell, and lots and lots of decent and honest people.

When a moronic case is filed, it gets press because the business-insurance interests are served by that publicity. They seldom publicize the FACT that essentially ALL of these cases are settled justly or dismissed. Oh, someone's going to talk about the hot-coffee-at-McDonald's case. How tiresome. McDonald's served coffee at something like 190 degrees fahrenheit. That is too hot to drink, but they served it that hot so that it lasted longer. Liquid at that temperature causes full thickness burns when it is applied in any quantity. That McDonald's outlet had been specifically advised that customers had been seriously burned by their coffee. They kept serving it. An old lady bought a cup of coffee, dropped in in her lap, and suffered third degree burns over her lower abdomen, genitals and thighs. She needed extensive hospitalization and skin grafts. She incurred tens of thousands of dollars in medical expenses. If this were your mother, would you tell her to sue or not to sue? Moreover, NOBODY reports the end of that case. The high verdict was reversed on appeal, and it ended up settled at a just amount.

In the meantime, there are decent, honest and hard-working lawyers out there who represent people minding their own business who were plowed by a drunken or negligent driver. These are the victims who have incurred $10,000 in medical bills, have a permanent spine impairment and pain, and who the insurance company will offer $30,000 to settle the case forever. This potential plaintiff's lawyer is worried about the constant barrage of ads by (secretly) insurance company-funded "citizen's" groups whose object is to convince the public (i.e., all potential jurors) that nobody should receive a just verdict. If I were to go door-to-door and give potential jurors a list of lawyers who represent insurance companies, and tell them THE TRUTH that the judge won't let the plaintiffs' lawyers tell them that there is insurance in the case, they would come for my license.

All that being said, the trial lawyers groups which represent the richest trial lawyers are lying, too. They say that they promote justice for the sake of justice. Bullshit. Only when justice meets money do many of them undertake a case. There are hundreds of poor slobs who find themselves in criminal trouble but who are either innocent or guilty-with-an-explanation that would soften the just result, but the so-called best trial lawyers won't touch them without a $100,000 retainer. I say "so-called" because there are DAMN few of these prominent lawyers who are anything like as good as they say. A well-known, very expensive lawyer in northern West Virginia has tried 3 high-profile murders in the last year, and lost all of them badly to the same $80,000 a year prosecutor. I have about the same level of success in state-appointed cases ($45 per hour) that I do in private pay cases ($150 per hour when I can get it.)

So if you want the truth about our justice system, ask the lawyer you know who wears an off-the-rack suit, drives a Chevy or 8 year old Audi, and who represents real people. They are the honest and honorable people who keep the justice system going.

Mizpah!

R