Category Archives: Frivolous Claims

 

August 17th, 2009

Defense Lawyer Claims Pain Is Not A Personal Injury


I swear I didn’t make this up. A local defense lawyer sent a demand letter to a plaintiff’s attorney that he delete “pain” from the injuries in a suit because “pain is not an injury.”

When Eric Gottfried, the plaintiffs attorney, got the letter, his jaw dropped. Pain not an injury? In his response, Gottfried referred the defense lawyer to a “beginning tutorial on how ‘pain’ is central and essential to a personal injury lawsuit.” You can see the demand and response here: /DefendantsNonsense.pdf

The case seems to be a routine personal injury matter, as per Gottfried: Plaintiff is hit in the rear by the defendant in a car accident. Plaintiff has suffered a number of injuries, including a fractured nose (with surgery), three fractured vertebrae, fractured rib and rotator cuff injury, among others.

The tort “reformers” like to use anecdotes to “prove” that there are frivolous lawsuits. (Many of those cases, in turn, are pro se matters.) So here is the flip side: The most utterly worthless and frivolous legal argument that I can imagine coming out of a real law firm.

The difference, of course, is that defendants get paid to make frivolous arguments (when billing hourly) while plaintiffs lose time and money doing so (while using the contingency fee).

Links to this post:

is pain an injury?
yes, it is. the end. ok, not really. frivolous lawsuits are bad. just about everyone agrees on that, though there’s plenty of room for reasonable disagreement as to what makes a lawsuit frivolous. what we don’t hear about nearly as …

posted by Andrew Dat @ August 24, 2009 4:53 PM

if frivolous lawsuits are bad, what about frivolous defenses?
we are always hearing about these evil, un-american frivolous lawsuits that threaten the very fabric of our society. ok, i get it. i dislike frivolous lawsuits as much as anybody. they devalue the claims of the truly injured, …
posted by @ August 18, 2009 10:10 AM

 

December 18th, 2008

Chamber of Commerce Flubs Tort "Reform" Propaganda Campaign

The Chamber of Commerce has blown its own propaganda campaign regarding frivolous lawsuits. At this website designed to spread the myth of the frivolous lawsuit as a bona fide problem, they mistakingly included a pro-consumer eight-minute video called Mr. Fancy Pants. If you hold your cursor over the pictures after the video runs, you will see which one it is.

The video was produced by Injury Board, a collection of plaintiffs attorneys, and discussed last year at TortDeform.

Whoever put the Chamber site together apparently didn’t listen past the opening minute or so, which gives the propaganda angle. The rest of the video goes on to explain how the Chamber puts together their lobbying efforts and that judges already have the power to sanction litigants over frivolous cases.

I expect the Chamber to pull down the video after I post this, and perhaps slap someone upside the head for not bothering to actually watch the stuff they put up on their own site. I’m sure their corporate contributors will be delighted. Since it will likely disappear from their site, I’m putting the video here since it is also on available via YouTube. Enjoy the video…now being actively promoted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

P.S.: These additional videos linked at the end of a clip are likely embedded by YouTube. If you look at the bottom of the video that I posted, for example, you will see unrelated “pants” videos. Which means that corporations that want to use this stuff need to re-code the YouTube videos to exclude those frames and links.

 

December 18th, 2008

"Pants" Pearson Loses Bid for New Trial Against Dry Cleaner


Former administrative judge Roy “Pants” Pearson, who infamously brought a $67M lawsuit against a dry cleaner for allegedly losing a pair of trousers, has lost his bid for a new trial. That he subsequently lowered his demand to only $54M didn’t seem to matter (Previously: Pants Lawsuit Ends in Victory for Dry Cleaners.)

Covered extensively up down and sideways by every writer with a keyboard, the D.C. Court of Appeals has now weighed in to reject the appeal.

Pearson’s claim, briefly summarized by the Court in a 23-page opinion, was:

Pearson’s claims regarding the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” sign are premised on his interpretation that the sign is an unconditional and unlimited warranty of satisfaction to the customer as determined solely by the customer, without regard to the facts or to any notion of reasonableness — a position he has consistently advocated both in the trial court and on appeal…

[Pearson] argued unambiguously that “[a]s a consequence of offering an unconditional guarantee of satisfaction a merchant is required to satisfy a consumer’s demand for lawful compensation (for example, for any amount of money). (emphasis added by Court of Appeals, at page 13 of decision)

The trial court, said the appellate bench, showed “basic common sense” to reject the unlimited claims of Pearson and that Pearson’s fraud claim “defies logic.”

The court’s opinion is rather matter-of-fact about the case, with a long recitation of the facts and extensive citation to case law. There are no gratuitous comments about the ludicrous nature of the demand, other than the legal analysis of it being without basis, and no discussion of sanctions.

The court may realize that such sanctions and commentary are unnecessary since, in the court of public opinion, Pearson has been tried and convicted and there was nothing new to add.

The decision is here, courtesy of How Appealing: Pearson-v-Chung.pdf

 

August 29th, 2008

New York Law Blogger Sued For Defamation (Updated)

Will Brooklyn lawyer Marina Tylo be spanked for a frivolous defamation suit against a New York law blogger?That is the question being asked by Scott Greenfield over at Simple Justice. It seems that Tylo screwed up by serving a Summons prior to purchasing an index number. That’s a no-no in New York, and has been for years. You have to first pay the index number fee to start the suit, then serve the summons.

Tylo was sued for legal malpractice as a result. But because the subsequent attorney still had time to rectify her blunder, the malpractice case against her was dismissed.

Andrew Bluestone, whose blog focuses on New York attorney malpractice, wrote the story up. Sort of. He actually just wrote a prefatory paragraph that introduced the decision. You can see his posting with the decision here: Serving a Summons before Buying an Index Number

But that blog post seemed to make Tylo upset. So she sued Bluestone, apparently because he had the audacity to report the story. Her claims include libel, negligence, gross negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and “tortious interference with prospective contractual relations.”

According to her legal filing, this is the entire text of Bluestone’s allegedly tortious conduct, this being his introduction to the court’s decision:

Here is the full text cite for a legal malpractice case in which plaintiff’s attorney served a summons before buying the index number. Khlevner v. Tylo, 10733/07

That’s it! You want the definition of frivolous? You got it right there in that filing. A simple factual statement. He didn’t even offer his opinion, which of course, would be protected anyway under that little First Amendment thingie.

(Addendum: The exact definition of a frivolous suit is right here. Conduct is frivolous if:

(1) it is completely without merit in law and cannot be supported by a reasonable argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law;

(2) it is undertaken primarily to delay or prolong the resolution of the litigation, or to harass or maliciously injure another;)

And what kind of relief does Tylo seek? Aside from 10 million bucks, she wants Bluestone to remove his posting. The relief she requests includes:

  • A retraction of his “libelous” statement; and
  • “Removal of above stated statements, as well as other like and similar statements, from all publications, blogs and other media.”

Perhaps she thought that by suing him she could purge the Internet of this posting, so people wouldn’t see it when they looked her up. Tylo, of course, is not the first to have this brilliant idea of trying to purge the Internet of unfavorable references. She apparently has no clue about something called the Streisand Effect. (She also might find Dan Solove‘s book, The Future of Reputation On the Internet, to be of interest. Though reading it before filing suit would have been wise.)

So as a result of her idiotic suit against Bluestone she has drawn more attention to herself. Which probably wasn’t what she had in mind. Especially since others might now offer their opinions. Like Greenfield did. Like I do now. And those would be constitutionally protected opinions I might add, though frankly, anyone with a license to practice law in this country should already know that.

One last thing, by the way, since I found her bio. If she cares about her Internet reputation, she might want to put a bit more care into how she presents herself:

I am a very experienced and competant attorney. I finished NYU law school and have over 14 years expiernce in legal matters relating to Real Estate. Even though by using a great attorney such as my self you can save a whole lot of money I do not charge excessive legal fees. I also have a lot of expeirnce in investing and owning real estate and thus I am in a position to trully understand and appreciate any pitfalls associated with all types of real estate transactions including Litigation, Closings, Tenant issues, and transactional negotiational matters. I am licenced in the State of New York and all Federal courts, and Supreme Court of the United States. I will fight for my Clients tooth and nail to get the desired results.

Ms. Tylo, welcome to the electronic age.

You can find more on the subject here (updated periodically as more write on the subject):

“From the annals of the truly stupid comes this latest attempt to shut down a blawger.”

“If some books are destined to on the big screen, there are some lawsuits destined to appear at Overlawyered.com.”

“I can’t disagree with Scott, but the more salient point, in my view, is that Tylo chose the wrong defendant…”

“This wasn’t a very good idea, since filing a frivolous lawsuit against a law blogger is not the type of event that other bloggers will ignore.”

 

February 6th, 2008

Empire State Building v. Jeb Corliss


If the name Jeb Corliss doesn’t ring a bell, he is the guy who got busted trying to parachute off the Empire State Building in July 2006. He was caught right away and arrested. The reckless endangerment charge was dismissed (currently on appeal), and he now brings an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation. For background, see Marc Randazza’s two posts on the subject:
Jeb Corliss Sues Empire State Building and Jeb Corliss Lawsuit Update (with video).

Jeb Corliss, it seems, is a moron of the first degree. Either that or he is such a publicity hound that he knows bringing a stupid lawsuit will simply bring him more publicity, and any publicity is good publicity.

The essence of his argument seems to be that he is an experienced BASE jumper and knows what he is doing and therefore won’t get killed doing it and won’t land in traffic. Well jolly good for all that.

But he isn’t the only one in the City of New York, and there just might be a few people walking down below near this spectacular landmark building that are stunned at the sight of a man parachuting down into one of the busiest places in Manhattan, and that they just might take their eyes off the taxis, busses and other vehicles flying by as they cross the street. Worse yet, he could be seen by someone actually driving one of those vehicles who would be, and this isn’t exactly a surprise, severely distracted.

Now I once saw a guy parachute unexpectedly into a high profile event, so I have a perspective on ground reactions to such a thing: In Game 6 of the 1986 World Series at Shea Stadium, Michael Sergio floated down out of the sky onto the field. And the crowd, myself included, was pointing and roaring while he was still hundreds of feet off the ground. Let’s just say he had everyone’s absolute and undivided attention.

Great stunt. Now picture that with moving vehicles on the street below. All of a sudden, not such a great stunt. Dumb stunt. Dangerous stunt. The kind of stunt where pedestrians can get inadvertently run down by large moving vehicles.

This clown doesn’t want me on the jury regarding his lawsuit. In my view, the police and security were well within their rights to do most anything humanly possible to stop him from creating a dangerous condition on the ground. The idea that they demonstrated “extreme and outrageous conduct,” as required under New York law to bring a suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress, will most surely fail. (And the idea that a BASE jumper actually suffered emotional distress from the experience is too stupid to be believed.)

He’s suing for the intentional infliction of emotional distress after planning this stunt, he says, for two years. Frankly, I think the guards that stopped him have a better claim against him.

Elsewhere: