Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘crime and punishment’

Taxpayers still responsible for terrorist attack

A New York State Supreme Court Justice has denied a defense motion to set aside the jury verdict finding the Port Authority primarily responsible for the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. (AP, Mar. 2) Now to a whole new jury trial on damages for the up-to-400 remaining plaintiffs, unless the Port Authority appeals.

Aside from the bizarre assignment of responsibility (68% to the Port Authority, just 32% to the terrorists), the case also demonstrated yet another exemplary feature of our tort system: a speedy resolution of claims. The attack was fourteen years ago — and damages haven’t even been calculated yet (let alone the appellate process begun).

Originally covered by Overlawyered: Oct. 27, 2005.

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Update: Cincinnati foster care case

Updating our Sept. 11 (“Neglect Your Kid Now, Sue for $5M Later” and Sept. 26, 2006 items: Lifeway for Youth, a foster-care training agency, has agreed to pay $200,000 to settle Donna Trevino’s suit seeking $5 million over the death of her 3-year-old son, allegedly at the hands of his foster parents. “Trevino told police in April to take her children; that her son Marcus Fiesel, who was developmentally disabled, and his older brother and infant sister, were not her problem.” The money is supposed to be used on behalf of Marcus’s siblings, who may also be beneficiaries of further lawsuits being pursued against other defendants. (Eileen Kelley, “Birth mother settles lawsuit”, Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 10).

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Duke lacrosse update

When last we checked, the North Carolina State Bar had filed ethics charges against Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong for his handling of the Duke lacrosse rape case. (Dec. 29) After receiving an extension of time, Nifong has filed his reply to the charges. Blogger K.C. Johnson, who absolutely owns this story, has the details: here and here. The short version, according to Johnson:

The thesis of this filing: Nifong did nothing wrong, and if he gets the chance to engage in massive prosecutorial misconduct in the future, he’ll seize it. This is a man unethical to his core.

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Excessive force lawsuit

In August 2004, a security guard at a Pittsburgh restaurant roughed up Deven Werling, a patron who had insulted him. So Mr. Werling sued the restaurant, the security guard, and, of course… the city of Pittsburgh. It turns out that the security guard was actually a Pittsburgh police officer — an off-duty police officer — which made this assault a federal case. Now the city is paying $200,000 as part of a settlement the defendants reached with Werling just before trial (Post-Gazette; WTAE). Apparently,even though the officer was off-duty, he was working security in his official police uniform, and that may have been sufficient to put taxpayers on the hook.

Before you start feeling too much sympathy for the innocent city that was dragged into this suit, though, check out this nugget:

The city’s Office of Municipal Investigations found that Sgt. Eggleton contradicted himself under oath, and he was fired.

In October, the dismissal was reduced to a five-day suspension by then-Operations Director Dennis Regan. Mr. Eggleton continues to work as a sergeant.

So excessive force and lying under oath = five-day suspension. That will be red meat for the next plaintiff’s lawyer who sues the city over police brutality.

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The Great Escape

Pop quiz: the police try to pull over a car, and the driver, instead of slowing down, flees at high speed. The police should (A) Let him go; (B) Keep chasing him, and pray that he doesn’t kill anybody; or (C) Try to physically stop him by bumping his car with theirs.

Okay, here’s the real pop quiz: which of those will not result in taxpayers getting the shaft and trial lawyers making out like bandits? We know from experience that the answer is not (B). The Supreme Court heard oral arguments (PDF) on Monday in a case entitled Scott v. Harris to decide whether (C) is a viable option.

Harris was a 19-year old driver in Georgia who was doing 73 in a 55 MPH zone; when police tried to pull him over, he sped up and tried to escape, reaching at least 90 miles per hour on a two-lane road. Police officer Scott joined the chase, and after Harris drove recklessly for about 10 minutes, running red lights and weaving through traffic on the wrong side of the road, Scott bumped his car to stop him. Unfortunately, Harris lost control, crashed, and was rendered a quadriplegic. A sad ending for Harris, to be sure — but in a sane world, his fault. In our world, of course, he immediately sued Scott for violating his fourth amendment right not to be “unreasonably” seized.

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr, who co-represented Scott on appeal, has been blogging about the case. (Technically, the Supreme Court is addressing the narrower question of whether Scott is entitled to qualified immunity — but as any Overlawyered reader knows, lawsuits are crapshoots; if immunity is denied and Scott is forced to go to trial, the case will probably settle so that Harris can’t win the lottery from a befuddled jury.)

If the Supreme Court rules for the driver — though oral arguments didn’t seem to be in his favor — then trial lawyers will have successfully created a no-win scenario for police; criminals will be free to flee without fear of police pursuit. Maybe it’s just me, but that would seem to be a strange incentive: criminals who surrender peacefully go to jail, and those who refuse to submit are rewarded with cash or freedom.

  • Related to this story, a reader (okay, Ted Frank) passes along another police chase lawsuit story which is (predictably) “Not about the money”: parents collect quarter-million-plus for kids’ deaths fleeing high-speed police chase [Robesonian Online]

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Lerach Coughlin partner faces D.C. ethics charges

G. Paul Howes, who’s handled Lerach’s high-profile litigation over losses arising from the Enron collapse, faces serious ethics charges over actions he took during his earlier career as a federal prosecutor. “On Feb. 1, the D.C. Bar Counsel filed eight charges against Howes after a four-year investigation, accusing him of violating bar ethics rules by committing criminal acts, making false statements in court, offering prohibited payments to witnesses, and interfering with the administration of justice.” Ethics proceedings against federal prosecutors are rare; disbarment is among the possible sanctions that could be asked. It doesn’t appear Howes is going to win any popularity contests among his former law enforcement colleagues:

Amy Jeffress, deputy chief of the office’s Organized Crime and Narcotics Trafficking Section[,] referred to Howes — though not by name — during a Jan. 31 debate on the power of prosecutors at American University, Washington College of Law.

“He actually left the office and moved all the way across the country to San Diego to escape his shame and his bad reputation,” Jeffress said, according to a recording of the debate. “He basically became a pariah in our office. His name is a synonym around our office for no-no. You don’t want to do what he did.”

(Brendan Smith, “Former Prosecutor Charged With Misconduct in Gang Cases”, Legal Times, Feb. 15).

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Nancy Grace (& lawprofs) on the Duke case

K.C. Johnson has assembled the details (Feb. 19) on the CNN/Court TV commentator’s scurrilous handling of the lacrosse rape allegations. For more on Grace, see Mar. 1, 2006, as well as Legal Blog Watch, May 4, 2005, and Suz at Large, Mar. 2, 2006 (quoting Prof. Bainbridge’s pungent assessment).

The legal professoriate does not escape unscathed from Johnson’s attention, either. He is a particular critic (e.g., Jan. 21) of the televised pronouncements on the case of New England School of Law professor Wendy Murphy. And recent assertions by South Texas College of Law professor Kathleen A. Bergin on the Feminist Law Professors blog (Jan. 29, declaring the players “far from ‘innocent'” whether or not a rape is proven in court) fail to stand up to critical scrutiny, Johnson says (Feb. 18). (More: Cernovich).

P.S. And here’s the Saturday Night Live parody. Plus: Ambrogi, Bainbridge.

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