1992 Acura Vigor
Posted on 02/21/2005 11:59:45 AM PST by OXENinFLA
That was my question. Lawyers usually take these cases on contingency, If they lose do they pay 1/3rd.?
Egads! RADS! Who knew?
Finally a judge with brains. If anyone read the NY Post the other day, here in New York they awarded a heorin addict $3.5 million because while in jail he went through withdrawals and claimed he couldn`t breathe, like all junkies do when they can`t get a fix, so the gaurds put him on oxegen and he claimed that the oxegen gave him brain damage. So the other brain damaged on the jury decided to make the junkie a millionaire. Gee, where do you think that money is going to be spent on?
The guy's lawyer probably said that if the plaintiff settled he would violate the representation agreement and be charged expenses and legal fees by his own lawyer.
I'd support a loser-pays system only up to the amount of money the loser spent pressing his case. Huge financial resources do help you win a case. How unfair is it for someone to lose a case because the other guys had a bigger legal staff, and then be charged with paying for the legal staff?
Why does a guy who makes 150K drive a Honda?
We need more judges like this one. It has been my observation as a reporter, that verdicts by most juries in civil suits are influenced by the judge. The judges vocal inflection and body language when delivering the charge has a great effect on the verdict.
The plaintiff's expert witnesses included his treating physicians Drs. Lawrence Copeland, Paul Stewart, Aksay Sood and Syed Akbarullah, all from Las Vegas. Variale also presented testimony from physicians at the National Jewish Medical Center in Denver: Drs. Robert Bethel, Todd Kingdom and Craig Glazer. Gary Bakken, a warnings expert from Tucson, Ariz.; and Terrence Claurettie, a Las Vegas economist, also testified for the plaintiff.
I have never been on a jury that had to weed through "expert-for-hire" testimony, but I hope jurors are becoming skeptical of them.
I don't have a problem with the plaintiff being forced to pay the defendant's legal expenses if their suit is deemed "grossly unreasonable" or "non-sensical".
But I am somewhat concerned about a blanket loser-pays system. Good cases do lose sometimes. And many other cases are arguably legitimate claims that could reasonably go either way in a court of law. I have a problem with making the loser automatically pay in such instances. I don't think someone should have to put their livelihood on the line if they have a reasonable case to bring.
Perhaps a comprosmise solution would be to leave it up to the jury. Have them make two rulings. One on the merit of the case. And then secondarily (if the plaintiff loses), to rule on whether the case was "grossly unreasonable" or "non-sensical". If so, then the loser pays.
1992 Acura Vigor
Well, somehow these protection haven't stopped me from being notified of my status as a class action plaintiff in a case which I have never heard of, from which I stand to gain only a token benefit, but which promises to net the crusading plaintiff's attorneys a fat multi-million dollar payday. In at least seven different case over the years, I might add.
And BTW, the so-called existing protections to which you refer are all too often left to a judge's discretion, which means that they have virtually no real deterrent effect on whether a bad case is likely to be brought in the first place (as this article demonstrates.)
You know, the moral of that story is if you are ever the victim of a crime, sue the criminal. Chances are they won't even contest it... get the biggest default judgment you can, and hang onto it. You never know when your criminal assailant is going to win a stupid suit like this one and have some money to take. If your purse snatcher or mugger wins a suit like this, at least you have a shot at getting some compensation for their crime against you.
You'd be surprised how many rich people don't splurge on things like new cars...one of the most rapid means of depreciation you can find.
Sorry, but he does have a case. Whether you like it or not, prisoners are supposed to be given adequate medical care. The guards took it upon themselves to "medicate" a prisoner, causing him grave harm. I would agree, however, taht the judgment seems excessive. I'd like to know how it was calculated.
Trial lawyers got short arms and deep pockets
He lies?
Because he can...
Unfortunatly most judges are not aware of these protections either.
HONDA, We make it SIMPLE!.......
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