Had I been one of those passengers, not only would I not sue, I'd sponsor the pilot on Totalfark for life.

Damn straight. Throw the lawyers in the Hudson instead.

jakker: Damn straight. Throw the lawyers in the Hudson instead.

Don't forget the cement shoes.

They could sue the geese but the geese would win. Geese are some bad ass motherfarkers.

FTFA: After going through all the possibilities, the "Tort Law Guru" makes this final summation:

"In any event, I don't see this as a big dollar item case."

And that, all you lawyer apologists, is what's wrong with our legal system.

All the talk about protecting the little guy, "trust juries", evil corporations, and your rights as an individual is just lawyer smoke screen for "HOW MUCH CAN WE GET?"

At least this guy has the balls to admit it.

I know. Since they hit a V-formation of Canadian geese, let's ...



Sheila: Times have changed
Our kids are getting worse
They won't obey their parents
They just want to fart and curse!
Sharon: Should we blame the government?
Liane: Or blame society?
Dads: Or should we blame the images on TV?
Sheila: No, blame Canada
Everyone: Blame Canada
Sheila: With all their beady little eyes
And flapping heads so full of lies
Everyone: Blame Canada
Blame Canada
Sheila: We need to form a full assault
Everyone: It's Canada's fault!
Sharon: Don't blame me
For my son Stan
He saw the damn cartoon
And now he's off to join the Klan!
Liane: And my boy Eric once
Had my picture on his shelf
But now when I see him he tells me to fark myself!
Sheila: Well, blame Canada
Everyone: Blame Canada
Sheila: It seems that everything's gone wrong
Since Canada came along
Everyone: Blame Canada
Blame Canada
Copy Guy: They're not even a real country anyway
Ms. McCormick: My son could've been a doctor or a lawyer rich and true,
Instead he burned up like a piggy on the barbecue
Everyone: Should we blame the matches?
Should we blame the fire?
Or the doctors who allowed him to expire?
Sheila: heck no!
Everyone: Blame Canada
Blame Canada
Sheila: With all their hockey hullabaloo
Liane: And that biatch Anne Murray too
Everyone: Blame Canada
Shame on Canada
For...
The smut we must stop
The trash we must bash
The Laughter and fun
Must all be undone
We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before somebody thinks of blaming uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus!!!!

SABAZZ

Holden C: FTFA: After going through all the possibilities, the "Tort Law Guru" makes this final summation:

"In any event, I don't see this as a big dollar item case."

And that, all you lawyer apologists, is what's wrong with our legal system.

All the talk about protecting the little guy, "trust juries", evil corporations, and your rights as an individual is just lawyer smoke screen for "HOW MUCH CAN WE GET?"

At least this guy has the balls to admit it.

Also FTFA: "My visceral reaction is that there's probably no case, because there's probably no negligence"

The gist of the article is basically that unless the ATCs were saying, "Hey, Rick, let's send a plane out to hammer the crap out some geese. You know, just for teh lulz" then there's not much if anything of a case.

Settle down.

House of Tards:
The gist of the article is basically that unless the ATCs were saying, "Hey, Rick, let's send a plane out to hammer the crap out some geese. You know, just for teh lulz" then there's not much if anything of a case.

Settle down.

Thanks for helping me prove my point. Early on he mentions there is no case, but the final word is there is no money.

As if having an actual case was a deterrent to trial lawyers.

The birds weren't on the radar scope of the controller, thus the pilots didn't know about them.

The only way I could see that going anywhere is that some reports show that the birds were visible on some of the other screens. So, perhaps they could try to target the TRACON for having inadequate hardware.

There's no way that it could happen though. It's 1950's technology in all the TRACONs and ARTCCs, and it's rare to find a piece of radar equipment that was built after the mid 70's. Some of the facilities have newer screens, but the radar units still doing the work are ancient.

Goose the lawyers and let them drown in the Hudson. It needs more sediment.

Holden C: FTFA: After going through all the possibilities, the "Tort Law Guru" makes this final summation:

"In any event, I don't see this as a big dollar item case."

And that, all you lawyer apologists, is what's wrong with our legal system.

All the talk about protecting the little guy, "trust juries", evil corporations, and your rights as an individual is just lawyer smoke screen for "HOW MUCH CAN WE GET?"

At least this guy has the balls to admit it.

wtf are you talking about: first, he went through the liability question. The damages remark was almost an afterthought. In any event, one of the first things you do as a lawyer evaluating a possible case is to see if it's even worth the time of you and your client to work on.

Suppose the case had a maximum value of $2,000; you think he'd be a better person if he said "hell yes, I want to spend tens of thousands of dollars developing this case, and have my client spend dozens of hours answering discovery, preparing for deposition and trial-- only to make it a waste of time for all of us."

Seriously- is that what you are saying?

Sue the families of the dead geese. Duh.

He continued: "But, if there is negligence, then these passengers are clearly in the 'zone of danger'...

Someone else read this and immediately switched the words around and thought of "Top Gun", right?

Right?

...guys?

farkuufarkinfark: Goose the lawyers and let them drown in the Hudson. It needs more sediment.

You really want to pollute the Hudson to the point of no return, don't you? Have you no conscience?

ALL OF YOU CAPITAL HUNGRY, ANYTHING FOR A BUCK COCKSUCKERS ARE GOING TO DIE, SOMEDAY, WITH OR WITHOUT YOUR ASSISTANCE, PERMISSION OR APPROVAL.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

*bows to the room*

Holden C: House of Tards:
The gist of the article is basically that unless the ATCs were saying, "Hey, Rick, let's send a plane out to hammer the crap out some geese. You know, just for teh lulz" then there's not much if anything of a case.

Settle down.

Thanks for helping me prove my point. Early on he mentions there is no case, but the final word is there is no money.

As if having an actual case was a deterrent to trial lawyers.

No, you twit. He says no negligence, ergo no case. He then proceeds to talk about damages, which would be very relevant if there were a case, but basically as a throw-in in this context. And people like you and subby think you have some massive indictment of the legal system or the legal profession, because he talks about damages. I've heard too many people trying to pass off this banal, insipid "reasoning" as real criticism too many times and I don't have the patience for it anymore. Just stop already.

Talk about a non-article piece of fluff.

They could sue the enviroweenies who prevent the airport from taking effective bird-remediation measures.

I was on a Delta flight yesterday. As we prepared for landing, the flight attendant asked the woman beside me to put on her shoes. The flight attendant said to her, "You never know when you might have to stand on a wing in the water."

I do not believe in laws limiting lawsuits or in lawsuit caps on money. But I wish fervently that judges would look at the merits of a case when it is first introduced and, if no valid reason for the suit exists, he would dismiss it. Judges have that ability in many cases. It's the 'I don't want to make that decision, so I will leave it to a jury' mentality.

IF a judge dismisses it, and the person(s) filing the suit still think they have a valid claim, they can appeal. - One caveat here, as long as the Judge did not dismiss it with prejudice- This prevents one judge from just knocking down people or claims he doesn't like. It would make ambulance chaser lawyers do more work to get a case tried, or more likely, a case last long enough that the defendants decide to settle rather than drag it on for years, so it would cut down on frivolous lawsuits without imposing some artificial cap. I am not so smug as to believe it will get rid of frivolous lawsuits however.

USA USA USA!

Man On Pink Corner: They could sue the enviroweenies who prevent the airport from taking effective bird-remediation measures.

Somewhere, some tort lawyer just got a massive erection.

LAWYERS R TEH SUXX0RZ!!11!1!

/am I too late for the party?

quickdraw: They could sue the geese but the geese would win. Geese are some bad ass motherfarkers.

Geese are just another overrated animal that can smell fear and is aggressive enough to push those around that they smell it on. I used to jog on my college campus and all the other runners would biatch about the geese and claim to be attacked. At the risk of playing the internet badass card, when I came running those geese would get the hell out of the way. I was prepared to kick them if they got out of line, and they knew it.

But all in all, I like geese. When I used to smoke on the balcony of my off-campus apartment these same two geese would come over to the balcony every time I had music playing. They seemed to like the soundtrack to conan the barbarian the best.

jakker: Damn straight. Throw the lawyers in the Hudson instead.

But that would be polluting the water.

Cubist Robot Party: The only way I could see that going anywhere is that some reports show that the birds were visible on some of the other screens. So, perhaps they could try to target the TRACON for having inadequate hardware.

Doesn't matter. Birds are very mobile in 3D space. Airliners, somewhat less so, especially on takeoff. 50' in any direction, and there would have been no incident. Predicting which way to move that 50' is the problem.

/and you have to get agreement from the birds
//do we have an agreement with geese?

CygnusDarius: jakker: Damn straight. Throw the lawyers in the Hudson instead.

But that would be polluting the water.

About time for the 'What do you call 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea' joke.


/A good start.

Ninja Wicked: USA USA USA!

What, was the "Obvious" tag broken?

If I were one of those passengers, all I'd want are reimbursement for any lost luggage and lifetime Chairman's Preferred status. And I'd demand a raise for the pilot.

He should have seen the geese.

Weapons of mass geestruction MY ASS!

He's as guilty as Bush!

If you sue...you suck

Not a word for the poor geese. It's like that old joke about Hitler snuffing six million Jews and a clown.

Sue God. They were his geese.
The pilots just got a good saving throw.

I'd just demand my luggage replaced and a lifetime of first class seating when flying on that airline. Or at least a refunded flight in first class.

Sue the geese. Sue CFM, the engine manufacturers.

Better yet, sue Airbus for making planes full of FAIL.

Next time, buy planes from these guys:

mama's_tasty_foods:

wtf are you talking about: first, he went through the liability question. The damages remark was almost an afterthought. In any event, one of the first things you do as a lawyer evaluating a possible case is to see if it's even worth the time of you and your client to work on.

Suppose the case had a maximum value of $2,000; you think he'd be a better person if he said "hell yes, I want to spend tens of thousands of dollars developing this case, and have my client spend dozens of hours answering discovery, preparing for deposition and trial-- only to make it a waste of time for all of us."

Seriously- is that what you are saying?

Wait, let me get what you're saying. First you dismiss his remark about how much money the lawyers could get as an "afterthought", and then you make a case for needing to consider how much money a suit should bring.

So you tell me, what is the "maximum value" to make it worth it for a trial lawyer? All other lawyers make it pretty clear - it's their hourly fee.

Clearly the answer for trial lawyers is: as much as I can get. When the trial lawyers reap it in for pain and suffering, the amount they take of the victim's award never seems to be adjusted down because the maximum value was set too high.

Yeah, yeah, I know: the trial lawyers need all that money for taking the financial risks to defend the poor Netflix subscribers who didn't get their DVD's the next day, and to have the capital to sue giant Fast Food Corporations because someone had an MI after eating too many french fries.

See second comment of article


Of COURSE you can sue for this terrible tragedy. Upon information and belief, each of the deceased birds was carrying a flashing neon sign saying "WATCH OUT, ERRANT PILOTS!" But obviously that didn't make a difference. Alternatively, plaintiffs' theory is that the biords were each obviously intoxicated, to the point such that a reasonable airline pilot would have, in the exercise of due diligence, noticed the drunken fowl and steered to avoid them. Shamefully, countless passengers will now have to endure the horror of having actually survivied a plane crash - not to mention the horror of ballooning federal deficits and an awful economy. Additionally, 11:12 is right - we can easily envision a class action against all birds - a group that has been without responsibility for their errant ways for all too long now. Time to put an end to it! Questions? Free consultation? Greedy and love shameless, irresponsible finger-pointing? Call me - 1-800-sue-4csh, or e-mail me at gre­ed­ies­tofth­emallyb­abllo­rknabyenomc­o­m. Thank you.

Comment by Typical Plaintiff Attorney - January 16, 2009 at 11:25 am

Terrified Asexual Forcemeat: Not a word for the poor geese. It's like that old joke about Hitler snuffing six million Jews and a clown.

What happened to the clown?!

/I know, I know...

Holden C:
Thanks for helping me prove my point. Early on he mentions there is no case, but the final word is there is no money.

As if having an actual case was a deterrent to trial lawyers.

You have no goddamn point. The attorney in TFA is expanding in detail on his basic premise which is that there is no case, and EVEN IF there were some negligence, it would be so minimal as to not be worth pursuing.

To top it off, your cute little "Heads I win, tails you lose" attempt there was absolutely terrible. Lets say I have a leaky faucet. I call a plumber who says that I can fix it myself with a 25 cent washer and a wrench. Or he can do the same thing except charge me for travel time and at least 1 hour of labor, even though it will take about 5 minutes.

To me, the plumber is being helpful. Under your framework, the plumber is a money hungry douche.

I can't help but think that on 9/11, some lawyer somewhere was sad because all of the potential litigants on the planes died.

And yes, I hate lawyers even when I need them. The last one screwed me out of $200 bucks, not counting the $3000 I had to pay to the insurance company. Never hire a lawyer with a perm.

Steve Zodiac: I do not believe in laws limiting lawsuits or in lawsuit caps on money. But I wish fervently that judges would look at the merits of a case when it is first introduced and, if no valid reason for the suit exists, he would dismiss it. Judges have that ability in many cases. It's the 'I don't want to make that decision, so I will leave it to a jury' mentality.

IF a judge dismisses it, and the person(s) filing the suit still think they have a valid claim, they can appeal. - One caveat here, as long as the Judge did not dismiss it with prejudice- This prevents one judge from just knocking down people or claims he doesn't like. It would make ambulance chaser lawyers do more work to get a case tried, or more likely, a case last long enough that the defendants decide to settle rather than drag it on for years, so it would cut down on frivolous lawsuits without imposing some artificial cap. I am not so smug as to believe it will get rid of frivolous lawsuits however.

Dismiss if there's no valid reason for a suit? That's called a 12(b)6 motion to dismiss, and then they still have to pass the summary judgment hurdle. You all forget that lawyers have to put up huge amounts of capital (easily $100,000 for a case involving experts), and they are working on contingency. All this article shows is what all lawyers already knew: There is no case here. Just because someone went and got an opinion from a lawyer is no reason to bash lawyers collectively. If someone indeed files a claim, judge that claim on its individual merits. My guess is that you won't see more than a couple claims, if that.

I'm not a lawyer, but if I were, I would refuse to file a lawsuit in this case, just out of fear of killing my business.

Someone will do it though, and we can all hope and pray he/she loses enough business to be forced to leave the profession.

I read somewhere that 70% of the world's lawyers work in the U.S. I dunno how reliable that is but if true that's a pretty amazing stat. I say we sue the lawyers!

I... ...fail to see a reason for lawyer hate here.

He says "I don't see a case. And even if there was a case, it wouldn't be worth pursuing."

And yet he gets hate for that? What the fark..?

/I'm a newbie, I admit.
//Welcome to Fark, I guess?
///THESLASHER PATROLS YOUR STREETS AT NIGHT

Super Chronic:

No, you twit. He says no negligence, ergo no case. He then proceeds to talk about damages, which would be very relevant if there were a case, but basically as a throw-in in this context. And people like you and subby think you have some massive indictment of the legal system or the legal profession, because he talks about damages. I've heard too many people trying to pass off this banal, insipid "reasoning" as real criticism too many times and I don't have the patience for it anymore. Just stop already.

You must be new to law. You actually don't have to have negligence to have a case. You just have to have a bad outcome, a lot of "victims" and a deep pocket defendant. It's called "class-action" and "settlement".

What you do is you get enough people to claim pain and suffering, you file a class-action suit in a friendly state, and you make it cheaper for the defendant to throw you money in settlement than to pay their own lawyers to prove to a fickle jury that there truly is no negligence.

End result - no negligence, but still lots of money for the trial lawyers.

I love how all the lawyer defenders are so sure that that final remark was an "afterthought" and a "throw-in". Yeah, sure.

Steve Zodiac: I do not believe in laws limiting lawsuits or in lawsuit caps on money. But I wish fervently that judges would look at the merits of a case when it is first introduced and, if no valid reason for the suit exists, he would dismiss it. Judges have that ability in many cases. It's the 'I don't want to make that decision, so I will leave it to a jury' mentality.

IF a judge dismisses it, and the person(s) filing the suit still think they have a valid claim, they can appeal. - One caveat here, as long as the Judge did not dismiss it with prejudice- This prevents one judge from just knocking down people or claims he doesn't like. It would make ambulance chaser lawyers do more work to get a case tried, or more likely, a case last long enough that the defendants decide to settle rather than drag it on for years, so it would cut down on frivolous lawsuits without imposing some artificial cap. I am not so smug as to believe it will get rid of frivolous lawsuits however.

As a practical matter, there may be a few dozen new filings in a judge's court every single day; how can he possibly spend time reviewing newly-filed lawsuits when he has so much work to do on cases further along in litigation?

Also, you usually can't tell just by looking at a lawsuit whether it is meritorious. Most lawsuits drafted by lawyers, on their face, state facts which entitle the plaintiff to relief. The ones that do not, are usually identified as such by the defendants when they're served. It may take many hours of careful research to determine whether a suit is insufficient- time a judge just does not have- especially when most cases will end up being settled. Why would a judge waste all that time on a case that may go nowhere?

The stage where judges usually do more tossing out lawsuits, is summary judgment- this occurs after at least some discovery has been done by the parties. Here again, most summary judgment motions are not successful- but that may not be a sign of judicial corruption or cowardice. Lawyers, and their clients, may choose not to invest thousands of dollars on a case that will end up being thrown out before trial.

Almost all civil cases settle; only a tiny fraction end up going to trial. Nationwide, plaintiffs and defendants generally win trials about 50% of the time.

There was a study that came out recently, reported on here, that found that plaintiffs were usually better off settling before trial-- they generally got less money at trial than they were offered before trial. "Defendants made the wrong decision by proceeding to trial far less often, in 24 percent of cases, according to the study; plaintiffs were wrong in 61 percent of cases. In just 15 percent of cases, both sides were right to go to trial - meaning that the defendant paid less than the plaintiff had wanted but the plaintiff got more than the defendant had offered."

This probably jibes with my experience. As an old warhorse told me when I was first starting out, "a plaintiff's lawyer won't go broke settling cases." I find that the defendants usually offer us enough money so that it's not all we want, and not all we MIGHT get at a trial, but they offer enough money to where I have some risk- if my best possible day in court is $100,000, I won't take 50. But if they offer 85, then it becomes iffy- and you must compare the expense of trial in addition to risk.

The cases likely to go to trial are the weird ones- the questionable liability cases, where it's hard to judge who is correctly evaluating it. Suppose you have a case where liability is a tough sell, but the plaintiff was paralyzed- in that case, you may have a $7 million case, but the defendant may not think liability is 50/50, and will only offer you $100,000. Those are the kind of cases where the parties roll the dice. The ones that end up in large verdicts make the headlines. But the ones that end up in zero for the plaintiff, generally do not. Trust me though, there's a lot of them.

Holden C: mama's_tasty_foods:

wtf are you talking about: first, he went through the liability question. The damages remark was almost an afterthought. In any event, one of the first things you do as a lawyer evaluating a possible case is to see if it's even worth the time of you and your client to work on.

Suppose the case had a maximum value of $2,000; you think he'd be a better person if he said "hell yes, I want to spend tens of thousands of dollars developing this case, and have my client spend dozens of hours answering discovery, preparing for deposition and trial-- only to make it a waste of time for all of us."

Seriously- is that what you are saying?

Wait, let me get what you're saying. First you dismiss his remark about how much money the lawyers could get as an "afterthought", and then you make a case for needing to consider how much money a suit should bring.

So you tell me, what is the "maximum value" to make it worth it for a trial lawyer? All other lawyers make it pretty clear - it's their hourly fee.

Clearly the answer for trial lawyers is: as much as I can get. When the trial lawyers reap it in for pain and suffering, the amount they take of the victim's award never seems to be adjusted down because the maximum value was set too high.

Yeah, yeah, I know: the trial lawyers need all that money for taking the financial risks to defend the poor Netflix subscribers who didn't get their DVD's the next day, and to have the capital to sue giant Fast Food Corporations because someone had an MI after eating too many french fries.

What part about contingency don't you understand? You seem to suggest that all cases pursued by lawyers are frivolous. Remember the comair crash in lexington Ky, where the pilots took off on the wrong runway (too short) and it crashed, killing all the passengers (leaving only the copilot alive)? You can't tell me that the families of those people didn't deserve just compensation. No...in your mind, there are no lawyers in that situation. Lawyers only come into play when there is a frivolous lawsuit.

Holden C:

I'm quite surprised at your anger at the lawyers. They're not suing the pilot so what's your beef? One lawyer says there is no case and if there were there would be no money in it anyway. And suddenly your Mr. Class Warrior against lawyers because of the order he lays out his points? If you're going to judge all lawyers based on the opinion on one, perhaps you should base it on something the lawyer has actually written and not a blurb from something he said to a blogger.

I'm more mad at the submitter of this article. The link and tag are there to mislead and encourage me to click the link. Lawyers aren't suing someone and suddenly it's asinine because one lawyer somewhere was asked about it? What a waste of our time! ...Maybe we should sue for emotional distress and damages ;)

Ducks unlimited for there being so many geese.
Would be my guess.