Lowering the Bar

Appropriate-Shoe Motion Added To Lowering the Bar's Pleading Archive

2009-07-10T14:41:18-07:00

It seems appropriate to add the "Motion to Compel Defense Counsel to Wear Appropriate Shoes" (PDF) to the Archive of Useful Pleadings, and so I have.

If you encounter any other pleadings (or court orders, opinions, etc.) that you think should be added to one or more of the archive pages (listed in the left sidebar), please send them to me and appropriate action will be taken at the appropriate time.

Link: Lowering the Bar's Archive of Useful Pleadings

Motion to Compel Defense Counsel To Wear Appropriate Shoes

2009-07-09T16:10:31-07:00

Our lead trial counsel has a "lucky tie" that he wears every day (or at least he did during jury selection) even though it's getting a little threadbare. This is a fairly common habit among trial attorneys, and I haven't heard of anyone ever objecting to it.

A motion filed in Florida last month, though, contended that opposing counsel was trying to gain an unfair advantage by wearing homely old shoes:

1.    This is an action alleging personal injuries . . . .
2.    Trial is set to begin on June 15, 2009.
3.    It is well known in the legal community that Michael Robb, Esquire, wears shoes with holes in the soles when he is in trial.
4.    Upon reasonable belief, Plaintiff believes that Mr. Robb wears these shoes as a ruse to impress the jury and make them believe that Mr. Robb is humble and simple without sophistication. . . .
* * *
6.    Part of this strategy is to present Mr. Robb and his client as modest individuals who are so frugal that Mr. Robb has to wear shoes with holes in the soles. Mr. Robb is known to stand at sidebar with one foot crossed casually beside the other so that the holes in his shoes are readily apparent to the jury . . . .
7.    Then, during argument and throughout the case Mr. Robb throws out statements like "I'm just a simple lawyer" with the obvious suggestion that Plaintiff's counsel and the Plaintiff are not as sincere and down to earth as Mr. Robb.
8.    Mr. Robb should be required to wear shoes without holes in the soles at trial to avoid the unfair prejudice suggested by this conduct.

According to the Palm Beach Post, Mr. Robb's footwear -- which he admits he has worn for 12 years now -- is indeed well known to the legal community there. Earlier this year, another plaintiff's counsel offered to buy him a new custom-made pair of shoes if he would stop wearing the ancient loafers. (Obviously, he declined.) Apparently, however, this is the first opponent to challenge the loafers by motion.

Circuit Judge Donald Hafele denied the motion, after which plaintiff's counsel Bill Bone reportedly also tried the free-shoe offer. Robb declined again. He told the Post the shoes had nothing to do with his success.

"I've been practicing law for 21 years," he said, "and Mr. Bone thinks he's finally cracked the key to my success?" Robb scoffed at the idea. "Gotta be the shoes," he said. "Like Michael Jordan." Robb claimed that he had been planning to finally retire his "trial shoes," as he called them, but said this had changed his mind. "[T]hey're back in play," he said. "You ride that horse until it completely collapses."

Link: Palm Beach Post
Link: Above the Law

The Verdict is In: Juror Wanted to Go to Jackson Memorial

2009-07-08T18:59:17-07:00

As you may have heard, Michael Jackson passed away recently, and a memorial service for him was held on Tuesday here in Los Angeles. (I am normally located either in San Francisco or in my underground lair, but am in Los Angeles at the moment for a case.) Officials had been expecting as many as 750,000 people to show up in the area around the Staples Center, where the memorial was to be held, but through a combination of a surprisingly well-run ticket lottery and begging people to stay off the streets, they kept everything under control.

This is not to say that the city or its legal system were completely unaffected by the tragedy. For example, if you won or lost a trial in Pomona on Monday afternoon, and the jury seemed to reach a verdict with surprising speed, you might want to check into this:

Those who streamed into a cordoned-off area around the Staples Center included [name redacted], 42, [who] said he almost missed attending because he was serving as a deliberating juror for a trial in Pomona.
He told his fellow jurors Monday morning that he had gotten a ticket from a friend who won the lottery. "I went in and was like, I have a ticket so I hope we get outta here today."
It looked like a long shot, but after lunch "there was kinda a breakthrough and we reached a verdict," he said.

Hope it wasn't a death-penalty case.

Link: Los Angeles Times (July 7, 2009)

Yankees Fans Now Free to Move About During "God Bless America"

2009-07-07T14:47:45-07:00

Yesterday, the New York Yankees, the NYPD, and the city of New York settled a lawsuit filed against them by Bradford Campeau-Laurion after he was thrown out of Yankee Stadium last year. Campeau-Laurion said that he had gotten up to go to the bathroom during the seventh-inning stretch, but was prevented from leaving his seat by officers who said fans were not allowed to move around during the playing of the song "God Bless America." He said he told them why he needed to move around, but that they argued with him and eventually threw him out of the stadium, one of them allegedly saying "Get out of my country."

Although Campeau-Laurion does have a suspiciously French-sounding, hyphenated name, he is apparently from Queens (the one in New York). On the other hand, according to the New York Post, he is also a Red Sox fan, which might also explain the comment if it was made. If he was actually wearing Red Sox attire, he is probably lucky the New Yorkers actually took him down to the ground level of the stadium before throwing him out of it.

The NYPD contended that Campeau-Laurion was not ejected because he wasn't being patriotic enough, but because he was drunk and disorderly. (See "[H]e is also a Red Sox fan," supra.)

In the settlement, the Yankees stipulated that they had no policy or practice of restricting fan movements during "God Bless America," and had no intention of instituting any such policy; and the city agreed to pay the plaintiff $10,001 and to pay his attorneys' fees and costs. None of the defendants admitted liability. Plaintiff agreed to dismiss the lawsuit in exchange, likely being reasonably happy with getting ten grand in exchange for being forced to hold it for approximately three minutes.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented the plaintiff, argued it was a First Amendment issue. The settlement, said a spokesperson, would ensure that "the new Yankee Stadium will be a place for baseball, not compelled patriotism."

Link: New York Post (Headline: "Wee Change for Yankees")
Link: NBC New York
Link: NYCLU (with links to the stipulation and judgment)

Gambler Appeals; Wants More of His Money Back From Casino

2009-07-07T05:00:00-07:00

A 67-year-old South Korean man who lost millions gambling is appealing a decision in which a court ordered a casino to pay him the equivalent of over $2 million (U.S.) in damages for allegedly turning a "blind eye" to his gambling addiction. He says the $2 million is not enough.

Please note: All values in this post have been converted (very roughly) to U.S. dollars from the original South Korean currency, the won, to spare you any confusion over how much won he won or, more accurately, did not win. (There is no additional charge for this service.) Currently, a U.S. dollar will get you about 1,269 won, or one item at your local "Everything's 1,269 Won" store.

The man, identified only as "Chung," claimed that the Kangwon Land casino knew he was betting more than the casino limit, but let him do so. Mr. Chung contends it is therefore responsible for the $23 million he lost. This was not, however, a simple case of betting more than the limit, which was about $8,000. It appears that the casino enforced this. But, feeling constrained, Chung ingeniously hired other people to act as "subordinate bettors" so he could bet more, indirectly. He apparently employed as many as five subordinate bettors at once, allowing him to bet up to $48,000 at a time, and thereby lose much faster. Over a span of about four years, Chung claims he lost a total of $23.5 million, as a result of the casino turning a blind eye to the activities of his six-member wagering team.

Again, Chung won in the trial court (that's the English word "won," emphasized to suggest surprise) in the trial court, which awarded him over $2 million. And so, of course, he is appealing, hoping to force the casino to pay him the full amount. (I assume the damage claim includes whatever he was paying his subordinate bettors, but the report didn't say.)

Lawyers for the casino were quoted as saying that Chung lost the money in a "voluntary and normal way." It seems sort of voluntary, but not that normal.

This is the largest gambling-addiction lawsuit that I'm aware of since, well, since May, when Harry Kakavas sued the Crown Casino in Melbourne for causing him to lose $30 million (Australian dollars now). Kakavas claimed Crown Casino had primed him with $30,000 in "lucky money," which turned out not to be very lucky since he lost all of the lucky money plus another $29.97 million in even less lucky money. (To be fair, they didn't say who the "lucky money" would be lucky for.)

Link: AFP via Yahoo! News