There are lawsuits that can be classed as frivolous and then there are those cases that go a step beyond. Some of these cases are so absurdly ridiculous that you just have to laugh when you hear the details. The amusing fact is that people will go to great lengths to make a million or two. Here are a few comical cases that you won’t believe.
A personal injury practice encounters all kinds of clients (some with pee-stains on their sweat pants), and all kinds of “injuries.” Since a plaintiff’s practice cannot sustain itself on cases predicated on finger-cuts from ketchup packets, diarrhea from oysters or intentional infliction of pinkeye, we wait for those clients with cases that are worth our time and carry modest settlement value. Generally, the personal injury plaintiff will fit neatly into one or more of the following categories:
1The Lottery Winner: This client is overly excited to meet with you, and discusses his or her “injury” in terms of money, rather than pain or treatment. Typically, he was involved in a minor incident mere hours before he consults with you, and may even stop at your office on the way to the emergency room (unless he is bleeding). He acts as if he has walked into the regional lottery office with a winning ticket and is looking around for the over-sized check and balloons. This client usually has the whole family with him to help “celebrate.”
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At Bitter Lawyer, we’re on top of the world of legal humor and going down fast. Which is why we bring you the best of what’s out there every day, served up by a Bitter Bartender for discussion at happy hour over a good Martinez. Or to peruse privately while sitting at your desk contemplating a memorandum of law and a bucket of KFC. Here are the goods for Tuesday, September 13.
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I am not Denny Crane. This is sad for me.
I am not the lawyer that has gone his entire career without a loss. My first trial as a first-year associate was a glorious defeat. Forget the one-time loss, I am a lawyer that loses in some facet almost every day of the work-week. But that’s the thing, it’s part of what I bargained for so that I could be in this business. This law thing is not for those who cannot cope with losing.
This is not a paid advertisement. This is just me ranting about attorneys masquerading as experts.
As a member of a state bar, two federal bars and three bar associations it is unsurprising that my contact information lands in the hands of many different people that want my time and money. Every day at the office, I receive solicitations for CLE classes in exotic locations (i.e., Rockford, Illinois), staffing services that want me to hire their paralegals (hello … I’m an associate) and publishers that are trying to get me to buy their ungodly expensive handbooks on how better to do my job.
Headlines from the Bitter Newsroom as disease-causing as your daily shower—but don’t tell the cat:
• Former SVP and general counsel of Intel, Bruce Sewell, is the new head of Apple’s legal department. I heard it was the commercials that swung him. [ArsTechnica]
• Anything seem super freaking shady about this to anyone? A personal injury law firm recently made a donation of a “welcomed surprise” to their local fire department. What was it? An extrication rescue tool called a Beast Cutter that cuts trapped victims out of vehicles. And I’m sure there’s nothing short of an agreement to have to call the donating firm every time they use it. [Fire Chief]
• Serena Williams and Juan Martin del Porto may be eating up all the US Open headlines, but behind the scenes and on the sidelines—presumably not getting a ball shoved down his f—king throat—is retired lawyer Jerry Loughran. He’s 61, but for the purposes of the tournament, he’s a ball boy. [Boston Herald | The New York Times | ABA Journal]
• What part of “Do as I say, not as I do” is it that prospective law students don’t understand? Despite overt demands, countless blog posts and semi-clever listicles, law school applications continue to set all-time records. Wisconsin law schools are buried in apps, and GW Law School is enjoying 7% greater consideration love. [Wisconsin Law Journal | The GW Hatchet]
• It’s often said that you can’t polish a turd. But why can’t you? That’s what Scott Bloch, former chief of the Office of Special Counsel for the George W. administration is being accused of doing. The online bio for Bloch at his current firm of Tarone & McLaughlin LLP says “he attained notoriety” in his last position. And, well, interpretations of that statement can be argued a lot of ways. [TPMMuckraker]
• Peddle power isn’t so powerful if there’s no legal biz to motivate. [The Washington Post via ABA]
• “Hulk Hogan filed a lawsuit today against two of his many attorneys, claiming they wrongly charged him more than $1 million in legal fees.” Then he ripped off his shirt and hit them over the head with a folding chair. Team Terry Bollea. [Tampa Bay Online]
• Dream big, law students. You don’t have to be a stuffy lawyer your whole life. You can move on to the thrilling, sexy world of secondary-loan-market funds. Cheers. [Philly.com]
• Mascots give people something by which to unify themselves, I suppose. For the Brenner Law Firm, it’s a screeching, Coca-Cola-drinking macaw named “Chewy” who lives in the partner’s office. For New York University, it’s a bobcat. And the girl who created the most recent incarnation of the bobcat is suing the university for using her like a graphic-artist whore and stiffing her on payment and credit. [New York Daily News]
• Outplay, Outwit, Outlast—legally speaking. The new season of CBS’ Survivor has some lawyerly competition this season. And California bachelor/law student Jaison is developing quite the following even though the season doesn’t premiere til Thursday. [The Shark]
• Murdered Yale graduate student Annie Le’s tragic story isn’t doing anything to help the ivy university’s public relations. Hopefully the security guard at Yale Law can stay awake enough to keeps people out of the law library walls. [The Volokh Conspiracy]
Laid off from Biglaw? We know, it’s horrible. The profession has been turned on its head. All that money, that schooling. All the years of suffering those hoards of social invalids and Napoleons in your firm. And now you’re in the poor house.
Or maybe not…
You can wallow in self-pity, groveling for scraps as a “temp” slave or toiling in whatever insurance defense mill will hire you, OR you can go where the smart money’s been headed for years—Ambulance Chasing!
Sure, they won’t let you into the good country clubs, and people snicker behind your back, but really, when you’re pulling down six figures in this downturn, who gives a fuck?
Yeah, it’s true. You can make a pile of money filing those “1-800-INJURED” cases. Fishing for hungry plaintiffs in this economy is like running around Skid Row with a pull-cart full of heroin and Thunderbird. And this shit ain’t brain surgery either. Even a Big Firm paper pusher like you—the kind of guy who doesn’t know a courtroom from a cloakroom—can run this practice model.
Looking to start? Here’s a crash course. (It differs from city to city, but the general gist of the operation is always the same):
First thing you need is business. Most people think Plaintiffs’ lawyers get their cases from the cheesy ads they run during Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil. Untrue. The best sources of clients are “Referral Lawyers.”
Trial lawyers go out and get cases on their own. They get them from other attorneys in exchange for a “referral fee”—or a third of the trial lawyer’s take. If the trial lawyer nets $3 million in fees, the referral lawyer who brought him the client gets a check for what Wall Street bankers used to call “a unit.” That’s rare, of course, but if he refers enough cases to enough lawyers… well, you get the picture.
Some referrals come in from other lawyers who don’t do personal injury law or are too busy to take them. But a lot of them, the high volume cases that fund a firm’s regular cash flow, come from storefront practices in the desperate parts of town—places where saying, “I’m going to talk to my lawyer” has cachet. Where the slightest trip on a sidewalk or slip on a banana peel is a “compensation” event.
But how do you find one of these referral sources? That’s easy. Scour the local bar registry and look for attorneys with addresses in the scariest parts of town—generalists with ads in three languages, claiming to handle everything from paternity claims to class actions. Invite one to lunch. If he shows up in a Lexus, you’ve got your man. (I’d normally recommend you become a referral lawyer yourself, but if you could score business, you wouldn’t be reading this right now.)
Next thing you need is a good doctor. The first thing a Referral Lawyer does when a prospective client consults with him is make sure the person gets medical treatment to create a record. If the client has no basis to see a true physician at a hospital or clinic, the Referral Counsel sends him to a “Personal Injury Doctor.”
A Personal Injury Doctor’s practice is part medical clinic/part litigation support company. The doctor immediately writes a modified form report finding the client suffered a myriad of subtle and amorphous neck, back and “soft tissue” injuries from his slip-and-fall accident. The doctor then “treats” the client and gives favorable testimony in exchange for the lawyer agreeing to pay the “medical” bills out of any recovery in the case.
The lawyer agrees because he needs the doctor to support his client’s injury claim, and the more treatment the Personal Injury Doctor provides, the greater the patient’s damages. The lawyer can also then negotiate for a bigger settlement by arguing that the plaintiff has huge doctor bills to pay. And this increases the lawyer’s fee, which is a percentage of the gross recovery. And that means a perfect, symbiotic relationship.
If your Referral Source doesn’t have a good Personal Injury Doctor, find your own. Use Google Maps to locate every medical clinic within two blocks of anything with “palm reading” or “pawn shop” in the title. In the right neck of the woods, there’s a “Dr. Nick Riviera” every four blocks.
Some lawyers think the trick to writing a good complaint is laying out detailed allegations and backing them up with as many supporting exhibits as possible. In business litigation, that’s often true. Saying, “Here’s how you breached the contract, and the proof” early can bring some opponents to the settlement table.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers write Complaints as bare bones as possible to preserve every conceivable argument as to how and why the defendant is liable.
Plaintiff’s story:
“I tripped and fell on a can of tuna fish somebody left in Aisle 6 at SuperFresh. My back and neck are such a mess and I can’t do anything and I had to take the last month off. It’s sooo terrible.”
The Complaint:
“Plaintiff, as a result of the Defendant’s negligent and/or reckless failure to observe and maintain the aisles and/or store inventory or other items in such a way so that objects would not be present on the floor of said aisles and/or, upon information and belief, train employees and/or agents to observe or maintain walking areas in the store and/or implement policies to maintain or observe walkways within the store in a safe condition, was caused to fall and impact with the floor, causing her severe and substantial injuries as more fully set forth herein.”
Why the “broad net” approach? Because claiming the plaintiff fell over a tuna fish can in Aisle 6 is too narrow a story. Suppose the tuna fish is kept in Aisle 15? Suppose Aisle 6 is the cooking oil, adult diapers and feminine hygiene products? You need to be able to maneuver the client’s version of the facts to react to the other side’s evidence contradicting her story. Maybe she tripped on a soup can. Or a loose piece of molding on a display shelf. Perhaps wolves chased her from the meat aisle.
Always think “shotgun.” You never know what the hell you’ll be claiming near trial.
You’re a lawyer, so you already know that the facts on which a case turns often have nothing to do with the specific event or dispute at issue in the Complaint. An ugly admission in Discovery having little, if anything, to do with the crux of the case can force a defendant to cough up a settlement.
You know how in shareholder suits, class action firms demand sensitive and embarrassing information to push the Board of Directors toward a payout? Well, small-time plaintiffs’ suits work the same way. Discovery often leads to a treasure trove of irrelevant ugly information that can drive the value of a lackluster or frivolous case sky high.
In the hypothetical slip-and-fall case just described, say the plaintiff’s lawyer finds that the store employee charged with cleaning the aisle at the time of the incident was fired for drinking on the job. Now the lawyer can claim the store should have terminated that worker sooner, and the store’s failure to do so created a situation where a drunk forgot to clean the aisle, which caused the Plaintiff to fall.
Or perhaps the lawyer will catch a scared store manager in a self-serving lie, stating the aisle was inspected every hour when in reality it was only inspected twice a day.
Neither lie proves any of the plaintiff’s claims, but you can be damn sure to use them to push for a settlement—knowing the defendant fears their disclosure at trial would spell doom.
Get out your rod and tackle, and head for the deep waters.
After the Discovery phase is over, the parties file Motions for Summary Judgment (MSJs), arguing the court should find in their favor on admitted facts without holding a trial. In a huge piece of business litigation, this juncture is nerve-wracking—wondering if the court will throw out some (or all) of your claims or defenses based on the wording of an agreement.
But in injury cases, you don’t have to worry about that so much. They’re he-said/she-said disputes, which can only be decided through testimony at trial. All you have to show is a thin hint of facts under which a jury could find in the plaintiff’s favor to get past an MSJ. The standard couldn’t be lower, and judges don’t like having their rulings publicly reversed on appeal.
The safest course for any state court is to deny the motion and allow the plaintiff to have his day in court, which is necessarily a gift to the plaintiff.
Just act like you know what you’re doing. There’s a one-in-ten chance you might actually have to try the damn thing.
Yeah, plaintiffs’ work carries a stigma, but you’re going to have to get over your “prestige” fixation sooner or later. What did you think? That Big Firm of yours was going to make you an equity partner? Hate to burst the dream, Spanky, but its time for you to get real.
Law is a trade, and a deeply devalued one for the reasonably foreseeable future. Corporations won’t be paying what they were before, even when the economy comes back. But Americans? Americans will always be litigious and opportunistic. And they’ll never stop getting in fender benders, tripping on cracks or blaming their children’s ugliness or imbecility on lead paint or the Indonesian plastic used in G.I. Joe action figures. You’ll never have a shortage of clients.
It’s hardly discussed, but it’s a well-known fact that good plaintiffs’ lawyers with solid pipelines of referrals can easily earn multiples of the average billable-hour slave’s salary.
Oh, and they rarely work weekends. Case closed.
