Instalawyer.com
Monday, August 23, 2004
People for the American Way and the NAACP have published a disturbing report on voter intimdation and suppression. Among its findings:
In 2004 in Texas, students at a majority black college were challenged by a local district attorney’s absurd claim that they were not eligible to vote in the county where the school was located. It happened in Waller County – the same county where 26 years earlier, a federal court order was required to prevent the local registrar from discriminating against the students.
In 2003 in Philadelphia, voters in African American areas were systematically challenged by men carrying clipboards, driving a fleet of some 300 sedans with magnetic signs designed to look like law enforcement insignia.
In 2002 in Louisiana, flyers were distributed in African American communities telling voters they could go to the polls on Tuesday, December 10th – two days after a special Senate election was held.
In 2000 in Florida, thousands of voters whose names mistakenly appeared on a flawed list of felons were purged from the state’s voter rolls. Despite the ensuing outcry and litigation, the state has not yet restored the rights of many of those voters -- and in fact has begun a new purge of an additional 40,000 names for the 2004 election.
In 1998 in North Carolina, GOP officials openly planned to videotape voters in heavily Democratic districts in a partisan attempt to avoid alleged “voter fraud,” until the Justice Department stepped in to warn that taping minority voters at or near the polls would violate federal election laws.
I was one of those who have been saying about Florida in 2000, "Get over it!" Howver, with documented evidence of denying the franchise to a large number of voters, based on an unforgivable mistake, "I think I'd better think it out again!"
Monday, July 26, 2004
Pal Glenn links to yet another John Stossel hatchet job on trial lawyers -- this time ripping John Edwards for being a good trial lawyer. As usual, he's just dead wrong.
"Every product you buy has a built-in cost to cover what lawyers make through lawsuits." No -- lawsuits about defective or unreasonably dangerous products have made those products safer.
First, let's call it what it is: people -- through their lawyers -- suing wrongdoers for for injuries caused by their misdeeds. If it's so wrong that some lawyers make a lot of money taking enormous time and financial gambles on behalf of their clients, then I'd like to know how much ABC pays Stossel. I'll bet he wants for nothing. On the other hand, is Stossel jealous over how much Edwards has made in his career?
Why do we have airbags, headrests, even seat belts? Because the auto industry, having been sued for its failure to make their products safer, finally did it. A sad truth is that corporate america will not do anything unless it is in their financial interest to do so. "Hit 'em in their pocket books" seems the only way to get them to make positive changes. Now, that's not why we file lawsuits, but if one consequence of a case is that the defendant will act more responsibly in the future, that's OK with us. Us, meaning the public.
A good example is water heater litigation, something I've had some direct contact with. Did you know that the water heater industry has known since the late 1950s that its gas fired water heaters can ignite flammable vapors and cause a fire? All they had to do to reduce the potential of this catastrophic occurence 90% would have been to sell their water heaters with an 18 inch high stand. But that cost too much, so they slapped a 35 cent label on their water heaters, which they knew did not effectively warn the public, and continued to make gazillions of dollars. All the while, a person a day on average was being burned or killed from a water heater fire.
In other words, they made a financial decision to absorb the costs from successful personal injury cases arising out of their defective water heaters, and did so for decades. It was cheaper than making their product safer. Only through the efforts of trial lawyers have they now finally developed new technology to eliminate the threat.
"But paying higher prices is not the biggest effect of what the lawyers do. What may be worse is what the fear of lawsuits do to medical care and innovation." I think this is just crap. I tell my doctor friends that all they have to do is their best. Just like me, if they screw up, they might actually have to take responsibility for their actions. How unfair! And frankly, unless it's a pretty bad screw-up, they probably won't get sued anyway.
"Everybody is in mortal fear of being sued." Good propaganda, but if it's true, it means we've got a lot of really lousy doctors out there. I'll just say what I have said on this blog for the last year and a half: no decent lawyer will file a medical malpractice lawsuit unless he's damn sure he's got a case. Example: I just reviewed a possible case involving a psychiatric hospital. Seems the guy checked himself in because he was suicidal, and they zapped him with all sorts of central nervous system depressors, as well as 100mg of MS Contin [an opiate], twice a day. Family reported him to be acting like a zombie. After three days, he was found dead. Cause of death: opiate toxicity. The hospital proably killed the guy, but the consultant who reviewed it for us wasn't terribly excited about who was negligent and how. So we turned down the case, because it wasn't clear cut enough.
To invest three to five years and tens [or hundreds] of thousands of our dollars, it better be clear negligence, clear causation, and catastrophic damages. Otherwise, it's too big a gamble. And I would bet my bottom dollar that most, if not all, trial lawyers feel the same way.
Stossel plays cute, saying first that most doctors are being sued [note the tense] and then saying that 76% of U.S. obstetricians have been sued. The one is not supported by the other. Just because I may have been sued in the past doesn't mean that I am one of those lawyers who are being sued currently. In other words, it's a false or misleading statistic.
Then Stossel takes Edwards to task for a cerebral palsy case he won. Now, it's very hard to make a case that labor and delivery caused birth injury. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists will have us believe it never happens. But it does. I represented a little boy who was profoundly impaired becuase the idiot OB/GYN waited hours before a C-Section, when he should have known the baby was in serious trouble. In other words, he was reluctant to do what Stossel syas most OB/GYNs do more often: C-Sections.
I had an expert who did 90% of his work for the defense supporting me completely. I never even had to disclose him to my opponents, because the case settled fairly early in the proceedings. Even so, it still took three years and close to $20,000 to get there, and because the doctor had filed for bankruptcy, this child, who was going to require care that will cost $18 million over his lifetime, got much much less, limited to only the doctor's relatively low insurance coverage. There's justice for you. And if Stossel had his way, I guess we wouldn't even have been able to do that much for that poor child.
Stossel blames trial lawyers when hospitals cover up malpractice by failing to report it. Shouldn't he be castigating those institutions for doing the Watergate thing? For failing to insist that its doctors and staff perform medical services at least reasonably? Why shouldn't they be held responsible for their misdeeds?
I'm fine with the concept of personal responsibility. But consistency demands that we hold doctors, manufacturers, and hospitals responsible when their negligence causes injury.
Stossel says that "this kind of fear doesn't make Americans safer." No, but the people, through their lawyers, holding manufacturers, doctors and others responsible for their negligence or defective products has made us safer.
Oh and by the way, when the conservatives bitch about big media being liberal, take a look at Stossel and his bully pulpit. He's touting the straight Republican tort reform -- and anti-Deocratic ticket -- line.
John Stossel: give me a break.
Friday, July 23, 2004
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
In the Techno-Geek category, here's a cautionary tale.
CompUSA was selling a DVD-Recorder for what seemed to be a very good price -- $199, after rebate. It was the Lite-On, model LVW-5001. I took a chance and bought one. I spent $50 extra [25% of the purchase price, mind you] to buy what the CompUSA folks said was a replacement policy. That is, if it breaks within the 2 year period, they will replace it with the same or like model.
I took it home and spent an hour putting it into my TV system. Dead on arrival.
Next day, I took it back. They said they had 3 in stock, but when they went to get a replacement, it turned out that 2 were also defective, and the only other one was a refurbished model. Did I ask for my money back? Did I run screaming from the store? No, and more fool I. I took the refurb.
This one worked, but had two funny characteristics. One, it overheated and failed on may functions. Checking the relevant message board, I found that thse models, unbelievably, do not have either a cooling fan or a heat sink! I also found that the color balance on recorded material was off. I had to adjust my hue and color depth to get a decent picture.
I went into the CompUSA store a week later, described the problems, and was advised to wait a couple of weeks, and then use my warranty plan to get a replacement. Because the 5001 was discontinued, I would get bumped up to the next Lite-On model, the 5005. OK.
I talked to the Tech Support gal a week later, just before my 14 day return window expired. She said to wait a week and then come in and get the replacement. OK.
Last Saturday, I unhooked the sumbitch and took it in. After waiting 45 minutes, I had the new model. And a cash register that said I owed them an additional $218! Turns out the replacement plan only applies my purchase price toward another unit, if that unit is more expensive. It appeared irrelevant that I had a deal with the Tech Suppor gal; besides, she denied having the arrangement with me to replace the 5001 with the 5005. I threw a fit, and after 15 more minutes, they refunded my money. So, I got my money back, but I've got a hole where a DVD-recorder ought to be.
Moral: beware of these replacement plans. They usually do not provide what the sales people say that they provide. Also, beware the bait and switch, because that's what I think was happening. They make the deal with you, and then make you wait, and then finally give you the new unit, and...surprise, it's more money! I'll not do business as CompUSA again, unfortunately.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
I don't know Bill Hobbs, but his comment on my earlier post about the Bredesen sellout of Tennessee's workers is, shall we say, misguided. He is also insulting, by headlining the comment "A Lawyer's Whine." For the record, I'm not whining: I'm pissed! He says:
Cutting the high cost of worker's comp insurance in Tennessee will mean increased job creation. More jobs is good. More money flowing into trial lawyers's pockets doesn't create more jobs, just wealthier trial lawyers.
First, no worker's compensation carrier has said that it will cut the cost of comp insurance contingent upon passage of this legislation. History teaches us that that carrot is always dangled in front of us, and then it's yanked away when we lose interest, down the line. So, I have no doubts that the cost of comp premiums will go UP, and not down.
Second, I have been shown no data that the cost of comp coverage is costing Tennessee jobs. All I have seen is the unsupported, bald assertion made by the Bredesen Administration. Having worked with comp for 12 years, I can tell anyone willing to listen that Tennessee's benefits prior to this legislation were quite middle of the road, contrary to the line put out by the proponents of the change.
Third, where does Hobbs get off with the nonsense about "wealthier trial lawyers?" If I was "wealthy," I wouldn't care about the legislation, and I damn sure wouldn't handle worker's compensation cases. By statute, the maximum fee a lawyer may recover for representing a worker's compensation claimant is 20% of the recovery. Most worker's compensation claims are resolved for under $20,000. Thus, I will work a comp case for -- sometimes -- years, and maybe get a fee of $4,000. And don't forget that you sometimes lose. I represented the nicest fellow in the world for 9 1/2 YEARS, tried the case, and the judge ruled against us. You've got to factor in the losses and no recovery claims [i.e., those where there is no permanent injury and therefore no fee], which these knee-jerk tort reformers fail to account for.
Fourth, Hobbs may be right about a 40% cut in revenue. But he fails to understand how the drop comes about, and what it really means. There will likely be a cut in claims made, because the new law reduces potential comp recoveries so low that many lawyers will not be able to afford to take the case. Put another way, Joe Lawyer is not going to take on a case if he's going to lose money on it even if he wins the case! So, there is a two-fold agenda at work here: (1) Big Insurance and the Chambers of Commerce get rid of those pesky employees who had the bad taste to get hurt on the job, and (2) those trial lawyers who operate at or near the profitability line may be forced out of business, which means even fewer claims to worry about. At bottom, this legislation repesents a very cynical approach to protecting our citizenry. Remember, an employee hurt on the job may make a comp claim, and ONLY a comp claim, against his employer. It's the exclusive remedy. The translation of all this, for the uninitiated, is: Bend over, grab your ankles, and....
What really gets me and those like me is that our Governor, who ran a campaign designed to engender trial lawyer and regular folks support, just spat in our faces -- and our clients as well -- by forcing this legislation down our throats. Hobbs's argument is a mirage; it looks real good till you stare closely at it. Then it dissolves.
Spam sucks. While I'm not in the league of some friends of mine [Read Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds], I'm getting 30-40 pure crap emails per day. It seems like I get one every 5 minutes or so. What a pain.
Speaking of Glenn, he's a real sweetheart. He's posted an ad for my firm's web site on his blog ads. This is my great experiment: can an Internet presence generate new cases for a predominantly plaitiff's personal injury firm? Five years ago, I was convinced that the answer was "No." Now, I'm not sure. I figured that the exposure from the mega-hits that Glenn gets is one not terribly scientific way of finding out. If I get hits on the firm's site, then I'll know.
The verdict so far? Not great. I've had like 1 hit all day. Well, I'll give it time. Life is long....
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Apparently I'm not the only one who is scratching his head at the lack of attention given to Al Gore's speech yesterday. I watched most of it on C-Span last night. Boy, he was pissed. And after actually listening to what he said, as opposed, apparently, to folks like these, he made good sense.
Has not our credibility in the eyes of the world suffered due to the prisoner abuse scandal? Aren't the torture tactics used on these prisoners reminiscent of Stalinist gulags and the Gestapo? Aren't we, as Americans, sickened and disgusted by the obvious conclusion that torture of prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions is a top-down policy of this Administration, and not the aberrant acts of "a few bad apples"? Don't we expect reasonable and humane treatment of our prisoners, just as we would expect the same if our people are taken prisoner by an enemy in the future?
I'm just as mad as Gore was.
Look, I'd like to believe that what happened in the Iraq prison and what may be happening in Guantanamo is off the reservation, and that the Bush Administration did not intend to treat our prisoners this way. But then I look at reports that the president's own Office of Legal Counsel has called the prisoner treatment provisions of the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete," and that strikes me as a rationale for treating prisoners the way I would expect the KGB or the Nazis to have done. As Wilford Brimley's character said in the movie Absence of Malice, "It ain't legal, and by God, it ain't right!"
Yeah, it IS politics, because Bush is running for office, and so is his opponent. But my rant has nothing to do with politics. We're Americans. We don't do the things that we apparently ARE doing, as dictated by policy from the White House. We have always seen ourselves as the guys in the white hats. This policy changes that for a lot of people.
Frankly, it was refreshing to see a professional politician speak his own mind, without thinking too much of the consequences. If Gore had done stuff like this 3 1/2 years ago, he'd be president now.
In my absence, Tennessee's Democratic governor, whom all us trial lawyers supported, sold us down the river, by pushing forward a worker's compensation "reform" package that is execrable, to say the least. To find out how I really feel, check out my proto-blog post on my new web site, with links.
I've been off the radar screen for a while now. Lately, I can blame my absence on getting my firm's new web site up and running. The only thing I've had real trouble with is figuring out how to update the copyright and date last modified items in the footer. The site is written in Dreamweaver. Any mavens want to give me a hand and tell me how to change that?
Monday, April 05, 2004
I just got a cool email from my mother, forwarding one of Dennis Miller's rants, this time on Palestinians. It's online here, and here, but I've got to put it in here, 'cause it's great:
A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Here we go:
The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention.
Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no Palestinians" then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the Palestinians," weeping for Their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."
So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death."
I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters." Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could 've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, Especially two years ago at Camp David.
But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course -- that's where The real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel.
Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it -- for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.
It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about. The great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.
Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five Million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, Everyone will be pals. Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.
My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the Worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.
Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations in Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a Roomful of supermodels who've just had their drugs taken away.
However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've already lost some. After September 11 our president told us and he world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint. If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan. (Hey, wait a minute, that's actually not such a bad id . . . ooh that is, what a horrible thought, yeah, horrible.)
While I often disagree with Miller, he's dead right here. What's interesting is that he seems to have changed positions, in that he ranted about the Middle East back in May 2002, concluding that "if I can forgive that motherfucker Sinbad for beating me on Star Search, than Israel and Palestine can certainly get their shit together." He also had some wicked one-liners. Example: "On the other side of the sandbags, you have Ariel Sharon. Now, Ariel Sharon has never been a guy who knows verses 3 through 5 of 'Kumbaya.' But this recent intifada has hardened him like a dead guy on Viagra."
Miller's May 2002 proposal for the Palestinians:
Give the Palestinians CASINOS! It worked here in the U.S. for our Native Americans. Look, all religion has done is to jump-start a grudge war over it's individual beliefs and at least in casinos everyone can get along, have a few drinks, play a little Black Jack and forget their problems. You don't even have to build a lot of new buildings because they already have a thousand-year-old Holy Land theme going on over there. "C'mon, seven. Baby Jesus needs a new pair of shoes!"
He must be wise, because I think casinos are the way to solve a lot of problems, including Tennessee's ongoing fiscal woes.
