Politics: J'accuse!

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
I don't see why. The punitives are allowed under the current law, they just go to the plaintiff and the plaintiff's counsel. If AG is right and giving the punitves to the state would reduce the incentive to seek punitives, it should make it less expensive to produce cars.

Yes, but you would have the people who have the most to gain from puni's making the laws that determine what qualifies, how they're capped, how they're calculated . . .

No thanks. ("Yesterday, the Nebraska Legislature passed a statute recognizing an out-of-state address of incorporation as prima facie evidence of a wilful and wanton disregard of the rights and property of another.")

(ETA: A lawyer must always ONLY be pursuing her client's claim, and depending on that effort to produce her reward. As soon as a lawyer has her OWN claim, one that the client does not have, the lawyer can no longer be trusted to counsel on such things as settlement. At that point, their interests diverge, and are adverse.)

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Not Me
In this state, that would be Club and about 4 other people.

You have never been to southern California, I take it.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Here. This is real:



A family photo from 2003 shows Cpl. Charles Graner and Spc. Lynndie England in Virginia Beach, Va.

Is it me, or is her head - like - REALLY small?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
You have never been to southern California, I take it.

No, but I have been to Mexico. Is it much different?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
AAAAARGH.

Stupidity this monumental has to be willful, because otherwise he'd be unable to find the proper sequence of keys on the keyboard.

Fuck you. I know what you meant by this.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
The Governor's policy will likely result in a net decrease in P claims being pled in the short term, until the legislature loosens the standard to make them available as an "add-on" to the damages award in nearly every case, whether the plaintiff has bothered to pursue it or not. The plaintiff's bar and the legislature of almost every state will have a unity of interest that makes the client irrelevant. Every plaintiff's side lawyer will have the state as an additional client or lienholder, but unlike the case with a medical lien, the state needn't come out of pocket or lift a finger --- it can just re-write the rules to increase the number of liens it holds.

All of this resulting in lower taxes. I am for it. Where do I go to cast my vote for it?

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Not Me
No, but I have been to Mexico. Is it much different?

Very. For one thing, not many Mexican women have implants.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch

You put your neck out on something, and you might get rich. This doesn't piss us off when it happens in the lottery, but that's because there are too many multiple suckers to keep track of.

The lottery pisses me off for other reasons as well. That said, creating these incentives for the pursuit of lottery-like winnings for a few is not necessarily socially desirable. Compare, for example, the devotion to basketball with the devotion to study hall in certain locales.

You're not addressing my post regarding the hard conversation at the beginning of the retention. Whose claim is it? You're taking away the punitive damage claim from the client and giving it to the lawyer, and this strikes you as a smart thing to do?

As I said, I believe that it can be structured so that the claim remains the client's. If you want me to change it, what about allowing a flat amount (say $100k) that is the client's? The conversation has to look different then, because it's a bit more complicated to say "I don't want you trying to prove punis above x amount".

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by bilmore


(ETA: A lawyer must always ONLY be pursuing her client's claim, and depending on that effort to produce her reward. As soon as a lawyer has her OWN claim, one that the client does not have, the lawyer can no longer be trusted to counsel on such things as settlement. At that point, their interests diverge, and are adverse.)

Let's ban class actions then. Money for me; coupons for the class members.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Let's ban class actions then. Money for me; coupons for the class members.

There is always going to be some sort of incremental difference and divergance between interests in the contingent fee situation. A very early settlement works out to a huge fee per hour, but isn't as advantageous for the client, who gets the work, essentially, for free, and would benefit from the later, higher, settlement. But, that's just incremental. This puni's situation results in a true adverse situation. Client says, settle, because I get nothing more from the puni's fight, but attorney gets LOTS more for the puni's fight, and so fights, and loses.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by bilmore
There is always going to be some sort of incremental difference and divergance between interests in the contingent fee situation. A very early settlement works out to a huge fee per hour, but isn't as advantageous for the client, who gets the work, essentially, for free, and would benefit from the later, higher, settlement. But, that's just incremental. This puni's situation results in a true adverse situation. Client says, settle, because I get nothing more from the puni's fight, but attorney gets LOTS more for the puni's fight, and so fights, and loses.

Contingency IP matter- usually P is Joe schmoe- but on 2 cases I've been in its a smaller company. D says let's kill this case- I'll give your company business- we will buy our widgets from you, you dismiss. Me, actually the GP, umm what's my 33% of what you might sell?

Real world on contingency cases, i think raises so much conflicting crap that this analysis is silly (not you atticus). And do get me started on the oil well reclimation patent where 100's of companies were infringing a little and we were going to take them down serially.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by bilmore
Client says, settle, because I get nothing more from the puni's fight, but attorney gets LOTS more for the puni's fight, and so fights, and loses.

This strikes me as a problem only if you're using a bifurcated system, where actuals are awarded and then the jury goes back to consider punis, giving the client the opportunity to say "settle for that amount without appeal instead of pursuing punis". Is that the system in every state?

(And don't forget, I've proposed to structure having the lawyers' fees come out of the punis, if any which gives an incentive to the client to collect some punis.)

But let's settle this: If I agree to a 5% cut for the client of punis, will that create enough of an incentive? Will it, atticus?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Not Me
No, but I have been to Mexico. Is it much different?

Back off of SoCal.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The WSJ ran an article by Lieberman today, in which he does not think removing Rummy is a good idea.

I have already stated that, based on what we know to this point, I don't think Rummy should be forced out because of the prison scandal.* I was just surprised to see a Post op-ed take the counterpoint.

By the way, I don't know if you cited Holy Joe for the "one of your guys believes this too" effect, but if you did you may want to rethink that.


* This of course could change once the DoD is forced to give a straight answer about exactly who was supposed to be running Abu Ghraib and what people at the Pentagon knew about the application of the "stress matrix." Also I reserve the right to call for Rummy's dismissal for other rational or irrational reasons as the opportunity presents itself.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
But let's settle this: If I agree to a 5% cut for the client of punis, will that create enough of an incentive? Will it, atticus?

Hell if I know. I'm not an economist; I can only work with round numbers like 0% and 100%. Five percent is less than we give a non-injured whistleblower in a qui tam case under the FCA, and technically in that case it's coming out of a common fund the entirety of which should belong to the government in the first place, so I can't say it's inconsistent with principles.

If we kick 5% of the award back to the client, we incrementally improve the incentive. But then we've bought back into the "windfall" problem that supposedly motivated the principles on your side (ha!). In return for selling out that principle, we've given the statehouse the right, interest and incentive to maximize punitive damages awards that it previously didn't have, except in the most remote sense that it's taxable income to the plaintiff already. So in exchange for a symbolic reduction of the windfall because it pisses you off that people are getting money they don't deserve, we've bought into Bilmore's conflict of interest problem, my statehouse incentive problem, and the possible lingering problem of unenforced regulation of business because now the state would rather get a punitive damages pop from each and every, say, pollution or product liability case than actually engage on regulation enforcement. That's a pretty complicated thing to embark upon just to say "fuck you" to the nine people or so who wind up getting rich from punitive damages windfalls upheld on appeal.