Victim's lawyer may get $6-million

[Judi Lynn]

Victim's lawyer may get $6-million
Jurors awarded $15.67-million to a shooting victim. Her legal team could take 40 percent of that money.
By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN, Times Staff Writer
Published December 18, 2004


TAMPA - When jurors began deliberating Thursday over how much in punitive damages to award shooting victim Lai Chau, they asked the judge: "How much would the lawyers be getting?"

Judge Sam Pendino couldn't, by law, answer.

Friday, the head of Chau's legal team, high-profile attorney Barry Cohen, wouldn't answer.

"Lai Chau is getting a whole hell of a lot more than she would've gotten without lawyers," Cohen said. "What we got is an amount that we earned every penny of."

Based on the formula of the Florida Bar's contingency fee agreement, Cohen stands to make at least $3.4-million.
(snip/...)

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/12/18/Hillsborough/Victim_s_lawyer_may_g.shtml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Is it me, or is this entire story slanted to attack the existence of attorneys altogether? I know they are high on the hate list of the _Bush assortment of half-snapped loons.

For a group eager to eviscerate lawyers, right wingers surely do use them a lot, don't they?

[AP]

1. When people complain about lawyers fees, a good thing to remind them

is that you don't pay taxes on court awards. If you got 15 million dollars from working for it, you'd pay about 1/3rd of that in taxes. So, with a jury award, you don't give the government anything, even though if it weren't for the judicial infrastructure the gov't provides you wouldn't get a penny. But you do pay a "tax" and that is to your legal team, and your legal team pays income tax on what they make -- so about 10% of your award goes to the government (which is a little less than what rich people pay on their stock dividends) and 20% goes to the people who worked really hard to get you your award.

[rainbow4321]

4. Paraplegic Sues Chrysler Over Heated Seat

How does it take a day to realize you have been burned so badly enough that you need skin grafts? You would think he would have seen icky skin stuff on his pants when he took them off that night? And wouldn't you smell your clothes burning when it initially happened??


http://www.baytownsun.com/wire.lasso?report=/dynamic/stories/C/CHRYSLER_LAWSUIT?SITE=TXBAY&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) -- A paraplegic man who suffered burns when the heated seat of his SUV malfunctioned is suing Daimler Chrysler Corp. for $14.1 million.

Matt Beller, of Klamath Falls, who filed the suit this week in U.S. District Court in Eugene, said he was in his 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee when the temperature of the driver's seat climbed to more than 150 degrees last Feb. 20.

Beller says he has no feeling below his chest because of military injuries and said he did not know he had been burned until the next day. He underwent skin graft surgery and had to lie on his stomach for three months, he said.


Beller, 29, says the problem is nationwide and that others have suffered from it. Beller seeks $10 million punitive damages, up to $3 million for non-economic damages and up to $1,150,000 for economic damages for past and future medical expenses.


edited for typo

[AP]

5. If it's a BS suit it will be dismissed by a motion for summary judgment.

Find me a story that describes an outrageous VERDICT rather than an outrageous initiating process.

[Straight Shooter]

2. He's right, she would have settled for much, much less, without lawyers

I would like to see the cost of their experts, the depositions, the travel time, the endless late nights and loss of sleep, the paralegal fees, on and on and on. I think jury awards are approximately 1 percent of the total cost of health care. No one ever asks how much the lawyers defending the insurance companies are making, as they do their best to give as little as possible to the injured party.

bush only hates lawyers because he isn't one, and he himself filed a frivolous suit against Enterprise Rent-A-Car way back when. Halliburton is also notorious for filing lawsuits.

[rainbow4321]

3. He was also REJECTED at Univ of TX law school....

when he applied to get in..so, yeah, he probably does have a chip on his shoulder when it comes to lawyers.

[Muzzle Tough]

10. It's in the article.

It says:

"Cohen said his firm took the case on a contingency basis. Besides time spent on the case, the firm paid about $300,000 for depositions and expert witnesses, he said. "If we don't win, we don't get anything," he said."

People who think lawyer fees are too high don't understand the costs and the risks. If they had lost, the lawyers would have had to absorb that cost as a loss.

It's the same thing with people who don't understand why U.S. drug prices are higher than Candaian drug prices. Canadians get cheaper drugs, because they only pay for the cost of manufacturing the drugs. Manfacturing drugs is cheap. But inventing new drugs is expensive. The U.S. is home to almost all drug research, because we are pretty much the only country in the world that allows drug companies to charge high enough prices to recoup those costs. Many new drugs that get developed will never get to market, and the cost of developing those drugs must be absorbed as a loss. And for every dollar spent on expensive U.S. drugs, several dollars are saved from unnecessary hospitalization and surgery costs, and people also benefit from increased longevity and reduced suffering.

Everyone hates lawyers until they need one. And everyone hates drug companies until they realize how much worse off they'd be without them.

[Nordic]

6. lawsuits are the very last line of defense against corporations

in this country.

That is why Bushco is against them.

Think about it. The only thing corporations fear these days are big-ass punative awards.

[Blue_Tires]

9. too bad so many of them are working FOR big business

instead of the little man

[w4rma]

7. I could care less about those fees. She would be getting ZERO without

those lawyers' help. And without that money as incentive to help she would NOT have that help.

[Muzzle Tough]

8. The lawyer fee does not bother me one bit.

What does bother me is the reason for the lawsuit. From your article:

"Chau sued her apartment complex, saying it failed to protect her from three assailants who abducted her from the parking lot of the Remington Apartment Homes in 2001. They drove her around town and shot her three times in the head."

Come on now. Why should the landlord be sued? That's ridiculous.