'Web of Deceit' Implicates Lawyers
Hat tip to Martha Neil at the ABA Journal for her story alerting us to the spreading scandal in Detroit that could eventually implicate at least a dozen lawyers. We first learned details in January, when The Detroit Free Press published text messages suggesting a romantic relationship between Detroit's married mayor, Kwame M. Kilpatrick, who is a lawyer, and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty (who has, since the scandal broke, started law school). But documents ordered released last week by the Michigan Supreme Court shed new light on the scandal and raise questions about the roles of several other lawyers.
As the Associated Press recounts, the documents show that the city quietly settled a lawsuit it once vowed to fight, perhaps not for the best of reasons. After a jury in September awarded $6.5 million to two police officers who said the mayor forced them out of their jobs, the city initially said it would appeal. But then it changed course and privately settled the case for $8.4 million, within hours of learning that the officers' lawyer, Michael Stefani, had copies of the text messages and planned to make them public. The settlement included a side deal, not filed with the court, in which Stefani agreed to turn over the text messages to Kilpatrick's lawyer.
That revelation has drawn scrutiny to nearly a dozen Detroit-area lawyers on charges raging from perjury and obstruction of justice to violations of legal ethics rules, as Crain's Detroit Business details in an article yesterday. They include several lawyers employed by the city, outside lawyers who worked for the city and the mayor, and even the lawyer who represented the two police officers. The judge who presided over the officers' trial described the situation as "a web of deceit," adding: "The advice about 'Follow the money' just becomes 'Follow the lawyers.'"
Sphere: Related ContentPosted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 4, 2008 at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
From Martha's Vineyard, a Case With a View
It is debatable whether George Washington ever chopped down a cherry tree, but we can be certain he was never dragged into court over it. Not so the Martha's Vineyard property owner and his unfortunate landscaper who must pay $90,000 after chopping down 10 of his neighbor's trees. Boston lawyer Terry Klein, at his blog Decisionism, urges anyone considering chopping a neighbor's tree to read yesterday's Massachusetts Appeals Court decision, Glavin v. Eckman.
So who knew that Massachusetts has a law imposing treble damages on anyone who cuts down a neighbor's tree? Certainly not Bruce Eckman. His view of the ocean from the pricey Aquinnah section of this resort island off the Cape Cod coast was obstructed by trees inconveniently located on the lot of his neighbor, James A. Glavin. In 1996, Eckman asked Glavin for permission to cut the trees, but the neighbor said no. Five years later, apparently unable to endure his obscured view any longer, Eckman hired a landscaper and gave him his marching orders: cut down any trees that blocked the view. The landscaper complied and thus this litigation.
Complicating it all was that these weren't just any 10 trees. These were large, mature oak trees. In fact, the trees were a key part of the reason Glavin purchased the lot, which adjoined another lot on which he'd built his vacation home five years earlier. The trees, as the court explained, "were ideally situated to provide shade and serve as a backdrop to a pond that Glavin planned to restore."
That Massachusetts law against cutting your neighbor's trees is silent on how to measure the damages should such cutting occur. Courts generally use either the value of the cut timber or the diminution of property value. But Glavin argued that neither would compensate him. He asked for, and the jury awarded, damages based on what it would cost him to restore the trees. This came to $30,000, the jury concluded, and the trial judge tripled that to $90,000. This was OK, the Appeals Court said, given that "any diminution in market value arising from the wrongful cutting was of less importance than was the destruction of the special value that the land and its stand of mature oak trees held for Glavin."
If there is anyone comparable to George Washington in this tree-chopping tale, it may be the landscaper, who chose not to appeal the jury's verdict against him. It is almost as if the landscaper chose to say, "I cannot tell a lie."
Sphere: Related ContentPosted by Robert J. Ambrogi on March 4, 2008 at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
After Huge Verdict, Lawyer Joins Niro Firm
Chicago plaintiffs' lawyer Raymond P. Niro was a frequent topic among bloggers in recent months as his offer of a reward to unmask the anonymous author of the blog Patent Troll Tracker eventually led the author to unmask himself. Now Niro has news of a different sort, announcing yesterday that lawyer Lee F. Grossman has joined his firm, Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro.
Like Niro, Grossman has had a string of victories representing plaintiffs in patent and trademark suits, most recently in November when he won a $21 million verdict against Sears, Roebuck and Co. after a jury found that the retail giant misappropriated the trade secrets of a Wisconsin carpenter and the family business he started in his basement three decades ago. Niro, of course, is the lawyer who IP Law & Business called the original patent troll. His own verdicts in 2007 included $84.6 million against Thomson Corp. and $12.1 million plus a 12 percent royalty against Sybase.
Sphere: Related ContentRodrigo González Fernández
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