Cheltenham, U.K.: “A businessman is facing a £300,000 legal bill after losing a boundary battle with his neighbour – over an area of land of just seven square yards.” About half of that represents the loser-pays bill that will be handed to Martin Charalambous and his partner for pursuing a legal campaign through appeal whose cost far exceeded the value of the land. [Daily Mail, Telegraph, This Is Gloucestershire]
Posts Tagged ‘loser pays’
When they sue the wrong person
When the wrong defendant is named in a civil complaint — wrong in the sense of being “different guy with the same name” — you might think it would be relatively routine to order the complainant to compensate the bewildered target. But it’s actually unusual enough to rate news coverage. [Jim Dwyer, “Hello, Collections? The Worm Has Turned,” New York Times]
“Judge dismisses lawsuit claiming Miley Cyrus’ pic discriminated against Asians”
“The novel legal claim was filed by Lucie J. Kim in a class action suit against the singer earlier this year that sought $4,000 in damages for each Asian and Pacific Islander living in Los Angeles County.” Kim complained that Cyrus was photographed with an Asian friend and other friends pulling back their eyelids; Cyrus apologized when the photo became public in February. Cyrus sought tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees for what she felt was a frivolous claim; the request was denied. “Henry M. Lee, Kim’s attorney, said his client is considering appealing the case.”
“Judge: Man has to pony up $10K to sue workers he robbed”
Clinton Township, Michigan: “A man who was shot and allegedly beaten by party store operators he had just robbed was ordered Monday to post a $10,000 bond in order to continue his lawsuit against them.” [Macomb Daily via Obscure Store; earlier]
Canada’s loser-pays rules
A Canadian plaintiff’s lawyer credits them with reducing defendants’ propensity to file obstructive motions [AmLaw Daily, interviewing class action attorney Andrew Morganti — last paragraph]
“Skydiver’s Parachute Fails to Open, Instructor Saves Her, She Sues for Two Broken Fingers”
Personal injury law attorney/blogger John Hochfelder, who’s also guestblogging this week at my other website Point of Law, has this story from Gardiner, New York. More: Coyote, Right-Thinking from the Left Coast.
Wrongs without remedies dept.
The New Jersey Supreme Court denies recourse to victims of meritless lawsuits.
Lawsuits against theme parks, and fee-shifting
Disney, Universal and Busch Entertainment weren’t eager to discuss the details of their legal defense but that didn’t stop the Orlando Sentinel from developing a searchable database of 477 state and federal cases filed against the three companies over the years 2004-08. Most cases were slip-falls, very few went to trial as opposed to settling, and in general the companies seemed to enjoy a fair bit of success both at satisfying patrons before their discontents reached the stage of lawsuits and at defending against the suits if brought.
It seems the companies are also willing to utilize provisions of Florida law that go further in the direction of “loser-pays” than do the laws of many other states:
Plaintiffs who lose sometimes end up footing the theme parks’ legal bills. The theme-park companies can, and do, go after unsuccessful plaintiffs, seeking reimbursement for their legal expenses. Under Florida law, anyone who sues anyone else over a personal injury faces this possibility. If the defendant offers a settlement but the plaintiff rejects it and then loses the case (or, in some circumstances, even if the plaintiff wins the case), the defendant can demand the plaintiff pay the defendant’s legal bills.
Reports of other successful defendants pressing their rights under such provisions in Florida or elsewhere are not exactly common, leaving the question of whether 1) the theme parks are making more aggressive use of the Florida rules than other defendants, 2) plaintiffs who go to trial against theme parks are atypical in some way, or 3) other defendants use the fee-shift provisions too, but we just don’t hear about it much.
Ezra Levant on Overlawyered
The high-profile Canadian free speech advocate (and target himself of the atrocious attentions of Canada’s speech tribunals) has this to say:
Overlawyered.com is a great U.S. website about the American affliction of too many lawsuits. Canada has a simple rule that America lacks, that has made us far less litigious: in Canadian civil courts, the loser has to pay a portion of the winner’s legal fees. That means nuisance suits are far less common.
Which is why human rights commissions are so bad — they remove that damper on frivolous suits, inviting the worst bullies and harassers to abuse the system….
Background:
No-go for sanctions defense of “I’m not a good lawyer”: Shales v. Local Union No. 330
The losers of a union election sued the winners in federal district court in Chicago, but it wasn’t a very impressive lawsuit. One plaintiff claimed that the threat of being fired caused an asthma attack, but since she in fact got a raise, and she had been having asthma attacks for 25 years, and there wasn’t any threat, her claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress didn’t get very far. The district court issued $80,000 in sanctions under Rule 11, just a fraction of the $200,000 that the defendants claimed to have paid in legal expenses, but James Gordon Banks objected to even this amount on the grounds that he was poor (though this was in some doubt, because of the assets in his wife’s name) and because he was only recently out of law school. Unfortunately for him, he drew Judge Easterbrook on the appeal, and we know that the judge does not suffer fools lightly:
If Banks really is a bad lawyer (as he depicts himself), and is poor because people are not willing to pay much, or at all, for his services, then he should turn from the practice of law to some other endeavor where he will do less harm. No court would say, in a medical-malpractice action, that a doctor whose low standards and poor skills caused a severe injury should be excused because he does not have very many patients. No more is a bad lawyer excused because he has few clients.
The $80,000 sanction was affirmed, and many took note of the humorous opinion: ABA Journal; UK Times OnLine; Wisconsin Law Journal; Courthouse News.