Motel owner 99% liable for murder is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Minivan-drownings suit could cost taxpayers plenty” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 6 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

June 10 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

February 22 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

After the trial ended Tuesday, the mall’s lawyer, Terrence Cranert, said they would appeal.

He said there was significant evidence the jury didn’t receive, including a statement from White’s passenger who told the CHP that he and White had stopped to smoke marijuana after leaving the mall. Cranert said they weren’t able to find White’s passenger for the trial, but felt the information should have been allowed.

The judge, however, disagreed.

White’s passenger also told the CHP that he and White went into the back of the truck and opened a tool box to get the marijuana, according to Cranert. “They would have to unstrap the motorcycles,” Cranert said.

[Ventura County Star reporting, liability and damages phases]

Deep pocket files: Highway 101 crash is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

In May 2001, Cheryl Jane Hale was driving four children to a sleepover in her 1987 Ford Bronco. She didn’t bother to have the children wear their seat belts, so, when she took her eyes off the road to argue with the backseat passengers, and thus drove off the road and flipped the car, 12-year-old Jesse Branham was thrown from the car and suffered brain damage. A jury in Hampton County, South Carolina (the second jury to be impaneled—the first one was dismissed in a mistrial when it was discovered after two weeks of trial that five of the jurors were former clients of Branham’s lawyers) decided that this was only 45% Hale’s fault, held Ford 55% responsible, which puts Ford entirely on the hook for $31 million in damages.

On Monday, the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed because of prejudicial closing arguments that relied heavily on inadmissible evidence. More importantly for lawyers practicing in South Carolina, the Court adopted “the risk-utility test with its requirement of showing a feasible alternative design.”

How bad of a judicial hellhole is Hampton County? Though Hale was a co-defendant, she cooperated with the plaintiffs throughout the trial in their case against Ford, even sitting at the plaintiffs’ table; but because the judge classified Hale as a co-defendant, it meant that Hale got half of the peremptory challenges of the “defense.” More from Comer; no press coverage that I’ve seen yet. (cross-posted from Point of Law)

Update: Branham v. Ford is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

In 2004, a 17-year-old boy skating down a Mission Viejo street hit “an alleged defect in the street and took a tumble. In a bicycle he would have rolled right over it,” [self-insurance pool executive Jonathan] Shull said.

The boy suffered a brain injury and his family filed suit, alleging municipal negligence and asking for money to help care for him for the rest of his life.

Under state liability law, a city might have to pay the full settlement if a jury finds it was even 1% liable for the injury, according to Shull.

California towns ban speedboarding is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

This was, said the lawsuit of Pearl Iris Garza, Montez’s mother, the fault of Port Isabel taxpayers. (Montez’s estranged girlfriend, Belinda Leigh Camacho, the unwed mother of his child, also sued.) An Overlawyered reader can expect that. What surprised even me was that the plaintiffs also sued the manufacturer of the phone. (Isn’t it nice that through five years of blogging on the subject, the plaintiffs’ bar still has the capacity to cause outrage? Or maybe I’d be a happier person if I were more cynical.)

Port Isabel is in the south part of South Texas, so you won’t be terribly surprised that a jury found that Montez was only 60% responsible for his death, with the city 25% responsible and JCW Electronics 15% responsible. (Or maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised that the jury ascribed that much responsibility to Montez.)

Fortunately for Port Isabel taxpayers, the Texas legislature modified its joint and several liability and comparative fault rules to bar any recovery to plaintiffs who are more than 50% responsible for their mishap. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.002(a)(1). Nevertheless, lower courts (including the notorious Corpus Christi appellate court, see 176 S.W.3d 618) bought Montez’s trial lawyers’ argument that JCW was still on the hook because Chapter 33 only applied to torts, and they were ostensibly suing under “implied warranty.” Final judgment was issued against JCW of $140,000 to Garza and $376,200 to Montez’s son. (Camacho got nothing.)

But the Texas Supreme Court sensibly noted (citing decades of precedent) that such lawsuit allegations sound in tort, correctly applied the law, and threw out the case. (JCW Electronics, Inc. v. Garza, No. 05-1042 (Tex. Jun. 27, 2008) (via Steenson); Jail Suicide/Mental Health Update, Winter 2003 (pdf)).

Note cases like this when you see leftist Texas groups count up “business victories” in the Texas Supreme Court and falsely argue that the Court is in the pockets of business interests when the real problem is lower courts making bogus rulings to favor the trial lawyers. And note that had the jury found Montez 49% responsible instead of 60% responsible, JCW and taxpayers would still be on the hook.

Rolando Montez’s fatal phone call: JCW Electronics, Inc. v. Garza is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

April 11 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system