Lawyers – The Second-Oldest Profession Strikes Again
Sometimes PJM's Burt Prelutsky feels bad about making fun of lawyers. But after a spate of recent news stories, this isn't one of those times.
I have a confession to make. On many occasions, I have been one of those people who have ridiculed people for no other reason than that they’ve been lawyers. I have generalized about them as if they were all a pack of ambulance chasers or, worse yet, politicians — or, worst of all, ambulance-chasing politicians such as John Edwards.
But, it’s just not fair and I apologize. After all, many lawyers serve a useful function as they go about drawing up contracts and wills. However, that being said, I wouldn’t want any of you to assume that this is to be taken as my mea culpa to the entire legal profession. There are still any number of law school grads who could teach snakes how to crawl. There are still criminal defense attorneys who, while paying lip service to the notion that everyone deserves the best defense money can buy, will devote their lives to bamboozling juries into letting rapists, pedophiles, and serial killers go free.
To make matters worse, you will rarely if ever hear one member of the American Bar Association utter a single discouraging word about one of his disreputable colleagues unless they’re facing off in an election.
Recently, I read about two lawsuits that were so infuriating that I found myself harboring second thoughts about going ahead with this apology. In the first case, the attorney’s name is Daniel Becnel, Jr. I’m just glad that my name isn’t Daniel Becnel, Sr. It seems that of the 489,000 claims that have been filed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he is responsible for 60,000 of them! Asked about measuring Katrina’s devastation in terms of dollars and cents, Mr. Becnel replied, “There’s no way on earth you can figure it out. The trauma these people have undergone is unlike anything that has occurred in the history of our country.”
Even allowing for a certain amount of legalistic hyperbole, that is one of the stupidest things I’ve heard in quite a while. I suppose in the heat of the moment, and perhaps distracted by the amount of loot he’s likely to see when those 60,000 cases are settled, he must have forgotten the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11, just to mention a few of the more notable traumas that spring to mind.
Of the 489,000 claims, 247 are for at least a billion dollars. But that’s nothing. One of them is for $3,014,170,389,176,410. Having been to New Orleans on a couple of occasions, I can only assume that the actual value of the dwelling was $410, and that the remaining $3,014,170,389,176,000 is just for the heck of it.
Speaking of John Edwards, I bet when he saw those kinds of numbers being bandied about, he regretted wasting his time running for president.
The part that annoys me the most about these lawsuits is that they’ve been filed against the federal government in spite of the fact that during LBJ’s administration the Army Corps of Engineers was ready and eager to repair New Orleans levees until a bunch of tree-hugging busybodies got an injunction to prevent the work being done. As usual, their only concern was that it might have disrupted the plant or animal life in the immediate vicinity. It seems to me they’re the folks who should be sued.
The other case involves a guy in Colorado named Scott A. Gomez. I haven’t been able to track down the name of the lawyer who’s handling his case, but Mr. Gomez, who was incarcerated in Pueblo County Jail on a weapons-related charge, had already broken out once before. Quickly recaptured, he decided to try again in January 2007. He and a fellow inmate broke through a tile ceiling in the shower, climbed through the opening, and made their way through a shaft to the roof. So far, the plan worked like a charm. But when Gomez tried to descend 85 feet to the ground using a makeshift ladder of bed sheets and mattress covers, he fell the final 40 feet, as Wile E. Coyote could have predicted.
His lawsuit, which seeks an unspecified amount of money, contends that the authorities are responsible for his hurting himself because they made it too doggone easy to escape.
The fact of the matter, at least in this court’s opinion, is that they only made the first part easy. Clearly, they made the last 40 feet very hard indeed.
Case dismissed!
Television writer Burt Prelutsky is the author of Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco (101 Reasons Why I’m Happy I Left the Left).
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6 Comments
1. Josh:Burt, I agree that lawyers do serve a legitimate purpose sometimes. Case in point: I was in a car accident. Hit head on by a large pickup truck, I was driving a small car. His fault as attested by several witnesses and the citation he recieved. I was hurt, neck back and knees. He leaned against his truck, unhurt, looking smug with his arms crossed. He didn’t even come over to see if I was ok. Right then I knew I was going to sue this jerk and I did. My lawyer got me paid off pretty good. Enough to compensate lost work time and buy a new car. I was grateful. So in my case the lawyer served a just purpose. But is there a dire need of tort reform? You bet. It’s not just the lawyers though. It’s the sue crazy populace that want to become overnight millionares for the most ridiculous reasons. And the snakes that loophole their way out of convictions of pedophiles and the such should be shot at dawn.
Frank
Jan 26, 2008 - 5:41 am 2. Fred Beloit:Burt, lawyers and judges sometimes come up with great concepts that echo down through the ages. One is the concept of “frivolous law suits”. What ever happened to that one?
Jan 26, 2008 - 8:55 am 3. Julian Tepper:I dislike criticism when it’s aimed at easy targets, especially when it is short-sighted or just wrong. No group is easier to make fun of than lawyers, especially when they play a part in matters that are important in the personal sense.
But, lawyers do so much more. I would say so much that most of us are not aware of, but that’s not the case.
Please keep in mind the “Stella Awards,” meant for silly or outrageous results atrributed to lawyers. Ms. Stella was the injured party in the McDonald’s scalding coffee case. Remember also that the case went to trial only because McDonald’s refused to settle it at the $20,000 first demanded by Stella. The burns were third degree, the coffee was excessively hot (known to McDonald’s) and others had also been injured by it.
Take care when making fun of anyone or thing. You may wind up making fun of yourself.
Jan 26, 2008 - 10:50 am 4. MarkD:So Julian’s point is McDonald’s deserved to pay what the jury awarded?
Well, McDonald’s doesn’t pay. People who eat there pay. People who buy insurance pay.
The person who was actually responsible for the coffee being too hot didn’t pay. The health inspector who checked the restaurant didn’t pay.
The idiot who drove away with a cup of hot coffee between her legs, and her lawyer got a lot of money from people who basically had nothing to do with the problem. Nice syustem you’re defending.
Jan 26, 2008 - 3:38 pm 5. cmr:Why all the hype about attorneys?
Jan 28, 2008 - 3:19 am 6. Andrew:I agree there are some bad ones -
I just paid a fortune in a case that would have gotten better results with a court appointed attorney. However the real problem
is the prosecutors. They are lawyers too – with an agenda all their own. Their paychecks and promotions are based solely on their conviction record. They are indiscriminate – doesn’t matter innocence or guilt – prove they’re
guilty one way or another. Their
job is to destroy peoples lives anyway they can to further their own careers. If you want a case
history that will shed some light on it- I can highlight that.
This blogger is pretty shortsighted and has bought into corporate America’s narrative of lawyers being the bad guys. While it is true lawyers are often out for themselves it is in their best interest to give their clients the best possible representation. Corporate America pays and lobbies to create an illusion of lawyers out to fleece America don’t buy this crap. They are the ones best suited to protect your rights as consumers and individuals. Think about the McDonalds case if you want. Prior to her injury McDonalds had over 300 injuries due to their high coffee temperature. They failed to respond. The woman got severely hurt. The jury of her peers, people like me and you decided the damages. In cases such as these there are punitive damages in excess of personal damages. This is because McDonalds would have no incentive to change their coffee policy if the award was not substantial. If it is cheaper for an asbestos company to pay injured people $50,000 than change their injurious policies they will continue to do that. This blogger has bought the rhetoric and isn’t smart enough to see it.
Jan 28, 2008 - 6:04 am