After the glamourpuss tort-chaser’s campaign over environmental contamination at the high school met with one reverse after another in court, ending in a judicial ruling of no merit, plaintiff’s lawyers have now agreed to reimburse the city and school district of Beverly Hills for a not insignificant chunk of their legal expenses in defending the claims, in the sum of $450,000. As readers of this site know, prevailing defendants very seldom recover fees from losing plaintiffs or their lawyers in American litigation. The Civil Justice Association of California has details (Oct. 9).
This summer Viking published a book by journalist Joy Horowitz entitled Parts Per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School which, as its subtitle implies, would appear to place much credence in the lawsuits’ claims of disease causation from oil wells on the high school campus (undated L.A. Times review by Robin Abcarian). For the side of the story that proved more convincing to the courts, see the work of Norma Zager and Eric Umansky here and here as well as this article in Time. Brockovich herself, incidentally, now has a blog of her own.
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As readers of this site know, prevailing defendants very seldom recover fees from losing plaintiffs or their lawyers in American litigation.
And vice versa. Prevailing plaintiffs are usually forced to pay their lawyers from their own pocket, even when defendants drag the litigaton out for years without good cause.
But the important difference, Eric, is that the plaintiffs choose to bring a case. An innocent defendant does not have that choice.
There are good cases and there are bad cases. But the issue I’m addressing here is unnecessary and vexatious litigation. And since that may happen on either side, one can’t discuss one while ignoring the other.
I would add, by the way, that it likely happens more often from the defense side, since it is defense lawyers that bill by the hour, while contingency lawyers have a huge incentive not to waste time and money.
Contingency lawyrs also have a very large incentive to waste time… it wastes THEIR OPPONENT’S money! The more of their opponent’s money that is wasted, the higher the “nuisance” value of the suit.
A smart, long-term thinking plaintiff lawyer would NEVER try to hurry things up for the benefit of a single case, as it hurts the value of all future cases.
See the penalty for bringing forth a garbage case should be just a simple reversal of requested relief and damages.
Would make the attorneys, (who in FACT are the ones in control of any lawsuit), pause to offer their services to someone that is basically out of their mind! But as it is today, too many attorneys prey upon those that are deficient in order to grab at a long shot. But the norm is that they are covered and may end up with additional real estate in the process.
Cases should mean something REAL to all parties involved in the process.