Greedy Trial Lawyer
Show Me The Money, Not A Task Force
Category: News Defused
Diane Levin, posting on the Online Guide to Mediation, tells us how one civil lawsuit was settled when the defendant governmental entity agreed to launch a task force. At the end of these excerpts from Diane's well-intentioned article I will have some observations.
Creative path to resolution: money not the only way to settle lawsuits
The images on the five o'clock news tell the story: greedy plaintiffs, overreaching lawyers, justice in chaos.This month's issue of the American Association for Justice's Law Reporter paints another picture. In a print article, "Family of slain journalist agrees to nonmonetary settlement with city to improve emergency services, " it reports on the unexpected outcome of a lawsuit stemming from the death of a prominent journalist as the result of alleged deficiencies in the District of Columbia's emergency services.
According to the family's lawyer, their goals in litigation shifted from obtaining monetary compensation from the defendants to instead finding ways to ensure that other families would be spared a similar experience. In exchange for the family members dismissing their claims against the District, the District agreed to establish a task force to investigate the circumstances surrounding the response of the District's Fire and Emergency Medical Service and to issue a report of recommendations for improving the delivery of emergency medical services.
The family's attorney observed, "I hope that the example set by the Rosenbaum family will prompt other attorneys to consider creative resolutions to cases where the focus shift from an entirely monetary settlement to a resolution that has a broader impact than just on the litigants in the case." [This may mean that the task force was in addition to significant monetary compensation.]
Mediators of course will nod their heads in recognition--this is a story familiar to all of us. It's too bad it's not a story familiar to the public. Lawyers and mediators alike need to do a better job of telling these stories--stories which reveal the creativity and change that justice can produce.
Without minimizing the personal and public good which undoubtedly could come from this particular task force and any non-monetary agreement in settlement of an injury or death claim, I point out the following:
1) The governmental entity should have had the responsibility to create a task force or to otherwise remedy the deficiencies in its EMS operations without the need for this incentive.
2) No single person or family should be required to bribe a governmental entity (by relinquishing a valid claim for compensation) to do the right thing, whatever it is.
3) No governmental entity should accept this bribe to do what should be done (while smiling behind the backs of the victim or family of the victim).
4) Personal injury lawyers are supposed to fight for just compensation for each individual client. Clients should not be persuaded to accept, as total compensation, something as hollow as a task force. Mediators need to be extremely careful, especially in wrongful death cases, to keep the proper goal of a civil lawsuit on the table. Shifting to remedies in the public good (remedies that should be added to just compensation rather than substituted for it) may be a productive mediation skill but not one that should be utilized in the place of normal efforts at reaching fair economic compensation.
The bottom line - a greedy trial lawyer is not a mayor, city commissioner, legislator or policy-maker; he needs to focus on maximizing the compensation of each victim he represents. That is what his clients deserve and what best serves the civil justice system.
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