Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Stupid Lawyers and Their Clients: UPDATED

This post was longer, and arguably better, before the computer shut down because the battery died because I forgot to plug it in and the %#!&*(^ battery died and I only have Word 2000 on this computer which doesn't save as it goes like Word 2007 or 8 or whatever it is that I have at the office. Supply your own punctuation.

Anyway. Lawyers and their clients, sometimes should be shot. There's a guy in New York that bought a 12" sub from Subway last month. He bit into it - and nothing happened. But, he saw that in a part of the bread that he'd not got to, there was a 7" knife baked in. He says he saw the knife before "anything happened." But he did get a stomachache. He and his lawyer have filed, or are about to, file suit seeking a million bucks as damages.

As a lawyer, I offer my humble apology.

HAH! I found the original post deep in the bowels of Word. You get two for the price of one. Here's the original:

The First Thing We do, Let’s Kill All the Lawyers

The full quote from Shakespeare is of course:

“CADE Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vowsreformation. There shall be in England sevenhalfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hoopedpot; shall have ten hoops and I will make it felonyto drink small beer: all the realm shall be incommon; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go tograss: and when I am king, as king I will be,--

ALL God save your majesty!

CADE I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;all shall eat and drink on my score; and I willapparel them all in one livery, that they may agreelike brothers and worship me their lord.

DICK The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

CADE Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentablething, that of the skin of an innocent lamb shouldbe made parchment? that parchment, being scribbledo'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but sealonce to a thing, and I was never mine own mansince. How now! who's there?”

Of course if you want chaos, have no rules: but, sometimes it makes sense to kill the lawyers and the clients.

I caught a bit of Fox News earlier. They interviewed a “victim” and his lawyer. The victim went to a Subway last month in New York. He ordered a 12” sub. Baked into it was a seven inch knife. He didn’t bite down on the knife. He did get a stomachache. (There’s a vague allegation of the metal contaminating the bread that made its way into his stomach.) And he did get a lawyer. And they did sue Subway. (Said lawyer, according to a Google search, is running for the New York City council this year.)

Anyway, said victim and said lawyer are seeking $1,000,000.00 from Subway for the man’s stomachache. (My thought is that the resulting alleged stomachache is more the result of the need in most states for a physical injury to predicate a claim for pain and suffering than any actual physical injury. Again, I’m sorry for my profession.)

Said victim and said lawyer waxed on about it being a case about public food safety. Said victim opined that food safety in restaurants was important in New York because “people can’t eat at home three meals a day.”

I just finished a mediation. My proposed settlement of this important piece of litigation: the victim gets ten years of free subs at Blimpy or Jersey Mike’s, his choice (I’d take the latter). The lawyer gets the publicity she garners in the next couple of days, for better or worse, seeing that that’s what she is in it for in the first place.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They could leave a knife and a fork in my weekly Jersey Mikes giant philly cheesesteak and I doubt I would even notice it. It's that good. The way knife laws are in New York, it's a wonder he didn't get busted on the way to his lawyers office. How ironic. Then he really would have needed a lawyer.

Anonymous said...

Here's my plan for tort reform: all punitive damages go the state.

The victim is reimbursed for his actual physical damages, which in this case amounts to a bottle of pepto, and Subway pays his therapy bill for any psychological trauma caused by their sandwich. The rest of the $1 million dollars goes to the state of Georgia- not him.

If he still wants to sue, he's free to do so.

I think my plan would weed out the frivilous lawsuits pretty quickly, without trampling on anybody's rights.