TexasCHLforum.com

Gun rights violation costs city

In case the link goes dead:

In Oct 2008, man with concealed carry license open carried a Glock (which is legal in PA and requires NO license) in a Home Depot. A police officer arrived, detained him, searched him, and seized his weapon. The man was never charged and the Glock was returned (no indication how long this took).

The man retained a lawyer and sued in Federal Court for civil rights violations. The city decided to settle last month rather than go to trial (more than two years later).

Side note: the author of the column at the link says that the lawyer retained by the man has criticized the author before for supporting tort reform, and specifically cites his (the author's) contention that the PA civil system is designed not to protect victims but to allow lawyers to take the lion's share of awards and settlements.

The author further notes that in this case, the man's lawyer has retained $21,000 of the $23,500 settlement as his fee for the case.

Allentown must have more of a Liberal bent that I would have thought. Some of the Philadelphia area is Liberal heaven but most of the ABE (Allentown, Bethlem, Easton) area is pretty much blue collar and there are lots of hunters and guns. I wonder if this was just a isolated incident. Based on the cost to the city, it may be even more isolated in the future.

The author does have a point. Why does the lawyer get 89% of the settlement?

I wsa on a civil trial jury once. Lawyers in that case got expenses first, 33% of what was left. Unless it's lots of millions, the lawyer probably gets more than the victim.

Remember Big Tobacco and Dan Morales and his buddies? Lawyers got it all.

C-dub wrote:The author does have a point. Why does the lawyer get 89% of the settlement?

They (the lawyers) went to school, they have the hired help and they do all of the work and they know the .

All the plaintiff has to do is show up and look innocent.

True, but it wasn't the lawyers civil rights that were violated. This is almost like being violated a second time, but by the lawyer. Here, let me help you and then take almost 90% of what you got from the city for violating your civil rights. I guess that's why the author referred to PA's lack of tort reform. It's not that I don't think someone doesn't deserve to be paid for their work, but 90%? What would happen if the government tried to take 90% of our income in taxes? Speaking of taxes, I bet Mr. Corliss had to pay taxes on the $2,500 he did receive if not the $23,500 awarded.

I wonder if there was anything else not mentioned that Mr Corliss received.

An attorney owes an accounting to his client, not to the public.
Information which we do not know is what were the expenses involved, and what was the agreement between the client and attorney.

The firm I retired from had a policy that we never took more than the client got .... many times we actually lost money, sometimes a LOT of money. ... we hoped that client would refer other business.

We did handle at least one "false arrest" injury suit against a large chain of stores once, but I walk there now, so I won't say which one; and we handled numerous Texas Tort Claims Act cases, and several Federal cases, up to and including Texas and US Sup. Ct. levels.

If you are suing Subaru, Ford, G.M., Philips Petroleum, or governmental entities, you can rack up quite a bit of expense.
Plus, no telling what the contract between the attorney and client said. Many might be hourly billing, rather than a 45% if it goes to trial contingency fee ... if the client had been unhappy with the agreement, he could have always hired a different attorney, or fired the one he had and obtained different counsel; so apparently he was satisfied, only the reporter, a non-party to the agreement complained.

Last I heard, income from personal injury suits is generally not taxed, as it was specifically exempted, with exceptions (money awarded for lost wages etc)



IANAL

You know, if the lawyer was keeping 90% of a few million, that'd be one thing; but we're only talking about $23k, for 2 YEARS worth of work harrassing the government? Chump change.

We also don't know the terms of the settlement agreement.
It's quite possible that Mr. Corliss desired that all LEOs there be instructed in the law, rather than a monetary award, else he may not have settled out of Court, rejected the settlement offer and continued on for publicity.

RHENRIKSEN wrote:You know, if the lawyer was keeping 90% of a few million, that'd be one thing; but we're only talking about $23k, for 2 YEARS worth of work harrassing the government? Chump change.

Then he's being severely overpaid for not advising the client to try for more money in the first place.

I was being sarcastic; at least, I thought I was.

At this point, this thread has 11 posts, 9 of them discussing the lawyer. The author of the article didn't bother to give any information about the attorney/client agreement such as was this a contingent fee case (doubtful) or an hourly case. There is no information about the expenses in the case. There is no information as to whether the client settled against the attorney's recommendation and the recovery was too low to cover expenses. There simply isn't any information whatsoever to base any condemnation of the attorney. If such a vague and ambiguous statement had been made criticizing a CHL for something, everyone would be up in arms about irresponsible reporting.

No attorney or law firm in Texas or anywhere else I know of gets anywhere near 90% of a recovery on a contingency fee case. This sounds like the infamous McDonald's hot coffee case; the one about which virtually no one knows the actual facts of the case.

Chas.

I still find it suprising that yankees have open carry and Texas doesnt.

Why did the officer (who I assume knows that it is legal to OC) mess with the guy???

C-dub wrote:The author does have a point. Why does the lawyer get 89% of the settlement?

Now THAT is getting violated...

Sure it's a lot of money but I don't think $21K for legal fees from a Civil Rights case in Federal Court sounds out of reason to me. If you think that it does then you probably haven't retained the services of a top notch attorney lately.

It just re-enforces my intention and desire to keep myself out of court to the greatest extent possible. Which includes me keeping my mouth shut and my gun in it's perch at Walmart unless it's just absolutely unavoidable. Can you imagine what it would cost to defend yourself against criminal charges and then a Wrongful Death suit in a Civil Court?....oooops...wrong thread.