How dreadful for him.

:)
/that is all.

Ok maybe not...
Father in law got sued by three women for sexual harassment at the business he owned. The judge awarded the three women and their lawyer $20.

The $20 was lost wages they were to receive is they were not sent home to change cloths and come to work dressed professionally.
//OK, now I'm done.

The attorney got a bowl-load of free advertising AND fiddy cent..

TFA: The panel cited the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1997, which limits attorney fees to 150% of a jury award.

"The rationale is that a lot of these cases are dubious and that prisoners need to be discouraged from bringing these cases and lawyers need to be discouraged too,"

By definition, a plaintiff (like Dreadlocks Boy) who _wins_ a jury decision hasn't brought a dubious case. Prisoners _lose_ dubious cases. Limiting the attorney fees of successful cases (thus making it harder for them to retain attorneys) just makes it harder for them to defend against genuine civil rights violations while doing nothing to prevent actual dubious cases.

Q. So why not limit attorney fees for just lost prisoner cases instead?

A. Because fark you, that's why.

Bobblehead_Dave: :)
/that is all.

Ok maybe not...
Father in law got sued by three women for sexual harassment at the business he owned. The judge awarded the three women and their lawyer $20.

The $20 was lost wages they were to receive is they were not sent home to change cloths and come to work dressed professionally.
//OK, now I'm done.

Dude, what?

Also, the lawyer has a point. This kind of thing makes it really unlikely other lawyers will take on these kinds of cases. And if the court settled, there was obviously a reason to do so. So pay the man.

This is dread. man. Truly dread.

MooseUpNorth: By definition, a plaintiff (like Dreadlocks Boy) who _wins_ a jury decision hasn't brought a dubious case. Prisoners _lose_ dubious cases

Yeah, but it wasn't enforcing a *real* civil right, like the right of corporate personhood, it was just a religious discrimination case with one of those little religions no one cares about anyway. It's not like it's important.

Don't you leave most of your freedoms at the prison door, after all, it is prison. They seem to be saying that they can't search his hair for contraband. So if i'm a sikh, they can't ask me to take off my turban? What about my kirpan?

"The rationale is that a lot of these cases are dubious and that prisoners need to be discouraged from bringing these cases and lawyers need to be discouraged too," said Brooklyn lawyer Richard J. Cardinale,

Well, durr.

A precedent that will henceforth be known as the Dread Stop Decision.

"The lawyer should have received 75000"

And that is exactly what is wrong with the system. Or did he work a full year on that and only that case?

What truly bothers me about this case is that they need a law to say that lawyers can only get half again as much as their client for a case. Why should the lawyer make more than the aggrieved party (assuming a decently sized award - this guy deserves more than $1.50)?

lucksi: "The lawyer should have received 75000"

And that is exactly what is wrong with the system. Or did he work a full year on that and only that case?

Office rent. Utilities. Salary for retained paralegals and receptionist. Fees for investigator (if necessary). Subscriptions to legal databases. Office equipment. Office supplies (especially paper). Registered postage. Taxes. Etc...

beefoe: Don't you leave most of your freedoms at the prison door, after all, it is prison. They seem to be saying that they can't search his hair for contraband. So if i'm a sikh, they can't ask me to take off my turban? What about my kirpan?

Have you considered the possibility that there's more to this case than what the article is reporting? The phrase "touched his hair" sounds like it came straight out of the defendant's brief.

A big wad of hair is just one more place to hide things in. If you're a criminal, it should be cut off - don't really care if your "religion" says not to. The Muslim religion says polygamy is ok - does that mean we allow Muslims in the US to have multiple wives? No. What about voodoo? A lot of that stuff is illegal also.

Racist.

fark him, his client, and his client's dreads.

I_Can't_Believe_it's_not_Boutros: A precedent that will henceforth be known as the Dread Stop Decision.

Ow.

Stop it.

Bob Marley died for this?

His duty to his client was to tell his client to grow a pair. A recovery of $1 is not worth any expenditure of time and any reasonable person would have foreseen that touching someone's hair doesn't generate any actual damages.

It's ok, he is going to make a lot more once the civil rights lawsuit goes through.

Typical retard lawyer.

The comments here are pretty sad.

Civil right litigation is litigation against a government entity for actions that violates a person's constitutional rights. Most times suits involve government entities for using excessive force, for illegal searches, violating a person's religious rights, violating a person freedom of speech, etc...

Without these types of suits, there would be no recourse when the government violates your constitutional rights, and therefore no reason for the government to change it course or behavior.

The initial legislation that governed civil rights litigation provided that when a jury found for the plaintiff that the government would have to pay their attorney fees. The initial legislation realized that often times the person whose constitutional rights were violated would not be able to afford an attorney to go up against the government which has virtually unlimited resources.

The amendment that limits attorney fees to only 150% of the reward in cases involving people who are incarcerated places a chilling effect on an incarcerated person's ability to sue when their rights are being violated.

In this case it involved someone who had their religious right violated when guards continued to touch his hair in violation of his religious practices. The inmate may have been an unsavory character serving a sentence for a horrible crime so the jury didn't want to give him a large reward despite finding that his religious rights were in fact violated. Many farkers here apparently have the attitude, well fark him!

Now consider this. You or your family member was convicted for driving under the influence. Lets say it is one of those state's that have a .006 BAC level (instead of the more common .01 or .008 states). So you, or your family member, had a grand total of 2 beers and now have to serve a sentence. While serving the 3 day sentence one of the guards takes a disliking to you for whatever reason. They decide that they are not going to feed you any food for the three day period you are in custody. (new window) Or in the alternative they decide the are going to spit in your food everyday just before they hand it to you. (new window) Or maybe they will tell another inmate to beat you up. (new window) Or maybe they put you into the cell with another inmate known as the booty bandit, knowing he will rape you? (new window)

Sadly these things happen more often then most know. So the jury doesn't like the person, what happens? They find the plaintiff but reward him a nominal reward of $1. The attorney who spent a couple of years of his time preparing the case now has no way to be compensated for all the time he spent, simply because his client was incarcerated when his constitutional rights were violate. If that person's constitutional rights were violated in the exact same manner and not incarcerated than the attorney would be entitled to a fair fee.

What will happen the next time a person goes to an attorney following a violation of their right while incarcerated? No attorney will represent him. And, if the governmental entity doesn't get sued there is no motivation for them to resolve known problems. This is not a good thing. This is horrible.

I heard about this guy last year. He had been put in super solitary confinement not because he was violent, but because he refused to cut his dreadlocks because he was a Rastafarian. For some reason, there was a rule still in place at that prison that any prisoner who doesn't cut his hair is to be put in solitary confinement. It had been years until someone finally would agree to hear his case. Absolutely disgusting.

MooseUpNorth: By definition, a plaintiff (like Dreadlocks Boy) who _wins_ a jury decision hasn't brought a dubious case. Prisoners _lose_ dubious cases

Then your definition is silly. Whether a prisoner wins or loses a case is a crapshoot. Sometimes you win dubious cases. Sometimes you lose slam-dunk cases. The fact that the prisoner won tells us very little about the case's merit.

Also: If the prisoner deserved more than a dollar, then very well - pay the man. But if the violation was so small that the prisoner deserved only a dollar, then his lawyer deserved a pittance as well. If you really want lawyers to be fighting minor violations like this, you can ante up for them. There's nothing stopping you from starting such a nonprofit. The taxpayers shouldn't have to, however.

JeffreyScott:

+1 on the response. You're not from around here are you?