[Polybius]

To: Longbow1969 .... You are delusional to say the least. It took courage for her to do the right thing for her state, and her Family. What kind of a selfish nut would stay in office knowing that the enemy is destroying her state?

So, in order to "do the right thing for her state", Palin "courageously and unselfishly" showed that LEGAL BLACKMAIL WORKS IN ALASKA.

"You want to get rid of an elected Governor of Alaska? No problem! Just file a bunch of frivolous lawsuits and you can chase a duly elected Governor away by using legal blackmail!"

Palin left the Office of the Governor of Alaska far weaker than when she was elected to it.

Once upon a time, the battle cry in America when America was blackmailed was, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!"

Now, according to the Palin apologists, the battle cry is, "It takes courage for me to do the right thing for my state, quit and then rake in $12 million doing Reality TV with Kate Gosselin."

Palin could have stayed to fight for a "Loser Pays Law", like Texas now has, so that a Governor of Alaska would NEVER be blackmailed again.

Instead, Palin chose to leave office and cash in by selling books, giving speeches at $100,000 per pop, and doing silly Reality TV.

April 15, 2010: Sarah Palin income 12 million dollars since leaving office

That perceived lack of leadership, se_ohio_young_conservative, is why Palin's poll numbers are so toxic. Nobody really cares about Bill Clinton's sex life as compared to Sarah Palin's sex life as you implied at the beginning of your post.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Polybius
Since Jun 10, 2000

Another worthless troll.

[ari-freedom]

They didn’t just go after her. They went after her family from the very beginning. They even claimed her baby wasn’t even hers and that ‘bad mothering’ somehow caused Trig to get Down’s.

[gov_bean_ counter]

There are people from Alaska who post here and would disagree with your assessment of her tenure as governor.

[DJ MacWoW]

So she resigned so the state could start functioning correctly again and that's bad.

Making money honestly is bad too, right?

That's pathetic you know. NOT reliquishing power for the good of the state would have been selfish. If she had stayed and brought the state to it's knees you'd be screaming about that.

And being successful is now is a crime?

Only a twisted mind blames a conservative for the tricks of the liberal left.

[samantha]

It is not blackmail and you know it Perrytroll. It was out and out fraud,and scamming,Alinsky Political hi jinks rules which you use some times,like now. You are part of the problem.

I think you are 51 cards short of a full deck,and sound more and more like a Democrat every post.

[The Pack Knight]

To be fair, Alaska is actually the only state that has anything approaching a true "loser pays" system. Rule 82 of the Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure allows a percentage of attorneys fees to be recovered by the prevailing party, with some exceptions.

Of course, this rule does not apply to ethics complaints filed with the Attorney General, which is what Palin was dealing with. That procedure does however allow government officials to have their attorney fees reimbursed by the state when they are exonerated and when certain other conditions are met.

Texas, on the other hand, has no real loser pays system. In fact, it is probably one of the most generous states in the union for awarding attorney fees to prevailing plaintiffs - plaintiffs in virtually any contract, debt, or consumer case can recover attorney's fees along with damages. Prevailing defendants, on the other hand, can almost never recover attorney fees except in certain specific procedural circumstances (such as when a plaintiff fails to file a sufficient expert report as required under the med mal reform statutes) or if the plaintiff files a frivolous pleading.

The supposed "loser pays" system enacted by the Texas legislature this year really isn't anything like a true "English rule" loser pays system. All they did was direct the Texas Supreme Court to amend the Rules of Civil Procedure to allow the defendant to file a motion to dismiss the case without the need for hearing evidence if, based on the pleadings, the case has "no basis in law or fact". The prevailing party on this motion is to be awarded whatever reasonable attorney fees he has incurred to that point.

That means that if the plaintiff's case survives the motion to dismiss, the defendant has to pay the plaintiff's attorney's fees in getting past that motion. The plaintiff only has to pay attorney fees if his case is dismissed under that rule. He doesn't have to pay if he loses later, such as in summary judgment or at trial.

Furthermore, we have no idea yet exactly how the rule will work procedurally or what the exact standard will be. The statute that was ultimately passed by the legislature is pretty vague and gives the Supreme Court a lot of latitude in figuring out. All we know is that it will have to be ruled on within 45 days and without hearing evidence. Also, the statute gives the Supreme Court no time frame in which it has to promulgate the new rules.

Sorry to get long-winded, but as a Texas lawyer I don't want anyone to have any misconceptions about the existence of "loser pays" in Texas. Other than Texas's med mal reform (which is certainly a big deal), Texas is still a fairly plaintiff-friendly state.