July 5 roundup

  • “After drunken driver kills son, mother billed for cleanup” [Greenville News, S.C.]
  • Cities, states and school districts in California will be among losers if Sacramento lawmakers pass bill authorizing phantom damages [Capitol Weekly; more on phantom damages]
  • New from Treasury Dept.: steep exit fees for many corporations departing U.S. domicile [Future of Capitalism, TaxProf]
  • Jonathan Lee Riches is back filing his hallucinatory lawsuits again, and courts don’t care to stop him [Above the Law] More: Lowering the Bar.
  • Funny 1988 letter from Wyoming lawyer to California lawyer about fees [Letters of Note via Abnormal Use]
  • L.A. family is considering adding another valedictorian lawsuit to our annals [L.A. Times, earlier]
  • Effort to compensate Japanese nuclear accident victims is proceeding without much litigation [WaPo]

7 Comments

  • “After drunken driver kills son, mother billed for cleanup”

    Not news to me. I was stationary at a junction and a car piled into the back of me. The driver got dragged away to hospital and his car got dragged away on a lowloader.

    I got sent the bill for his hospital treatment because he claimed that I was reversing away from the junction (at such a great speed that his car was a rightoff. Yeh right!).

    I let the lawyers deal with it and never heard another word.

  • To my surprise, the news clip noted that the drunken driver was an illegal immigrant who never bothered to get a driver’s license. So we have an innocent dead citizen, a grieving family outrageously billed for the cost of the accident, and the taxpayers get stuck for the expenses of seventeen years of incarceration for the perp. Tell me again about the benefits of uncontrolled immigration….

  • I am dying to know the legal theory on which the estate of the victim of a drunken driver is liable for the cost of cleaning the road. He did not request this service and was not responsible for the mess, so why should his estate pay?

  • Looks like JLR has changed the reason as to why he was in the pokey. Originally, he sued Blizzard because WoW forced him to commit identity theft and steal credit cards.

    Whotta loser.

  • another valedictorian lawsuit
    “You don’t want your kid to be a loser. ”
    sheesh. really?

  • Bill, perhaps the fee for cleanup was added to the towing bill, which would be presented to the family of the deceased. As the mother says, “I had to pay for the vehicle removed and to clean up the street from Justin’s blood on the ground.”

  • RE: the Wyoming lawyer who sent that funny letter to a California lawyer:

    Didn’t she or those in her firm do research to find out which California lawyers specialize in which areas of law? Trying to use an international-relations firm to do domestic collections on back child support, is like having a ’57 Chevy transmission that breaks–and, you try calling a John Deere dealership to get the ’57 Chevy fixed. They both have mechanics and do transmissions, but there the similarity ends.