Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Lost in the weeds of litigation: couple spends cool quarter mil pursuing $2000 claim

I can recall that, when I practiced law, individual litigants could become obsessed with their suits.  One guy stands out in my mind in particular.  A front-line supervisor down at the Navy Shipyard in SOuth Philly, he had no intention of applying for his boss's position when it came open.  But someone encouraged him to throw his hat into the ring.  When he came in 4th, he claimed it was age discrimination.  I represented his organization at the time and took the case forward to the EEOC on the organization's nickel.  We lost after a three-day hearing in front of an administrative judge.  My guy insisted that, if we took his case into federal court, discovery would reveal documents that would damn the defendants.  I pursued his case on a contingency basis.  When discovery was complete, we had no such documents.  We went to trial wearing only our legal figleafs and we lost again.  I left the law firm for a business venture and only heard second hand how this guy turned up in the office of the head of litigation, crying and pleading to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

The moral of my story:  Beware of becoming a plaintiff in a lawsuit.  You may start out calmly enough.  But all too often the suit becomes an obsession.

The worst story I have ever heard in that category is the one linked here.  This couple refused to pay a $2000 lawn-care bill to their condo regime.  That was ii years and $220,000 in legal fees ago.  They recently won a $145,000 verdict, remitted to $85,000.  They are now trying to win some legal fees against the defendants.  The husband is quoted as saying, ""A $2,212 grass bill and I spent almost a quarter of a million dollars to defend? It just doesn't sound right. This has been an absolute nightmare." Well, no kidding?  So whose fault is it anyway?

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/new-tampa-homeowner-wins-judgement-against-homeowners-association/1253895


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