Posted on 01/21/2009 8:45:04 PM PST by Feline_AIDS
Elizabeth Shelton, 21, filed a lawsuit in Houston in December against the truck driver that she accidentally rear-ended in a 2007 crash, while she was intoxicated, and in which her boyfriend was killed. Though she was convicted of manslaughter, she is now suing for $20,000 damage to her Lexus SUV and for "pain and suffering," basing her claim on the fact that the blameless driver she hit was uninsured. In all, her lawsuit names 16 defendants, including insurance companies and banks. Shelton is the daughter of a state court judge. [Houston Chronicle, 12-18-08]
What a moron!
It doesn't work that way. Sure, the truck should have been insured, but if the driver of the truck was not a fault, it does not make the owner or driver of the truck responsible for the accident.
He told us that several times during my teenage years. I would meet people who would say, “Gee, your Dad's a judge, that must mean you don't have to pay speeding tickets”, to which I would respond, “Ah, no, you've never met my Dad, have you?”
To a person, all of the Federal judges I knew through my father's tenure were absolute, upstanding individuals who would never use their position to improperly influence any court decisions on the behalf of their family members. One of the judge's family suffered through a long period of their only son being arrested numerous times for misdemeanor drug possession and DUI, always supporting him emotionally (and I'm sure financially), but never giving him an easy out. He's still a drug and alcohol counselor with 20+ years of sobriety who still credits his father with being his inspiration.
I guess my point here is my father went out of his way to explain to us that we should never expect preferential treatment, and as I grew up with a bunch of judges’ families, it seemed that was absolutely the norm and never the exception in my limited experience.
The only reason she has a lawyer who will take this case is because of her daddy. Lawyers like easy money cases - not these uninsured motorist cases.
If only more public servants had the character they used to. Now it’s all about what you can get away with. It’s about cheating the system, not respecting the system as a good and just governor for all of us.
As the father of three boys, I can’t imagine what you went through. I am so sorry for your loss.
She is the living definition for the most vile,despicable word you can use to describe a woman. And it rhymes with runt.
“If only more public servants had the character they used to”
Again, I can only tell you from my limited experience growing up, but there was a certain demeanor that the judges we knew had, they were generally reserved, but very intelligent and reverent of their job - they never seemed to take their positions for granted or ever flaunt it. If anything, they shied away from using their appointments to personal gain in anyway.
I’ll tell you one thing that has struck me that differentiates those judges I knew growing up and the public servants today. Almost to a person, those judges served in the military and many saw combat. The Chief Judge was a Marine in the South Pacific during WWII, the number two (my best friend’s father) earned a Silver Star in Korea, my father worked his way through college on an AF ROTC scholarship, and while he never saw combat, served an additional 27 years in the ANG after his four in the AF, finally retiring as a full bird.
The point being those people fought for our freedom - how many people would serve in Congress if one of the criteria was to have experience fighting for this country?
It’s no surprise at all. I know two associate circuit judges and a police chief who wiggled out of drunk driving cases during the late-’80s and ‘90s. And there were deaths in one of those cases. Welcome to your late awakening in our organized crime Nation.
My father was the City Attorney, District Attorney, then a judge. I knew that I would much rather face time in jail than my father, if I had ever gotten in trouble. He would have been the last person to help me out of legal trouble.
I never got into any.
suing Mc Donalds for getting scalded for mishandling a HOT CUP of COFFEEGo here before running your mouth.
I’d hit it.
She should be in prison. A man is dead at her hands.
Old news...
Yup. Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to."
The old joke to define chutzpah is of a boy, having just been convicted of murdering his parents, begging the judge for leniency because he is an orphan.
The SUV swerved across two lanes of traffic and hit the cargo truck Lance Bennett was driving, according to police.
“It was going about 100 miles an hour and it hit me from behind,” said Bennett. "I saw them come at me at full speed and they just hit me from behind."
"They were driving crazy. If I hadn't been driving this big truck, I'd probably be gone too."
“If we all had fathers that were state court judges....”
...who bought us Lexus SUVs
Is she doing time or is that too much to ask?
What made you think of that old case?
Another moneyed prima donna gets off with a slap on the wrist. If it had been me, I’d have been sent away for 40 years. American jurisprudence sucks. A total disgrace.
Perhaps not surprisingly, he is a juvenile court judge.
And I found this little tidbit about the plaintiff's attorney, Mark Sandoval.
“Sandoval has been suspended twice by the State Bar for a total of four years, thrown in jail for a day for lying to a judge, kicked off a legislative ballot for lying about his residence, fined the maximum by a jury on campaign finance violations after acting as his own lawyer, and had his fees garnisheed by the IRS for several years for failure to pay his taxes.”
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2007_4445490
Rotten apple didn't fall far from the tree, apparently.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.