Of Course It's Bogus

When a pretrial settlement is the goal, truth goes out the window.

However, you have many people, such as reporters, who don't understand the gamesmanship attorneys play in civil suits.


It will be interesting how the Dershowitz angle plays out.

It Doesn't Matter What You Do As a Teacher

As I have written before, all you have to do is exist to get yourself named in a civil lawsuit. Anything can be alleged, and unless the complaint violates some technicality, it isn't going to get thrown out by a judge, let alone be disregarded by a jury. That's because of the requirement that there must be a pretrial mediation or settlement conference to discuss financial payouts to plaintiffs.

If lawyers were halfway honest about civil suits and teachers, they wouldn't write a 10,000-word piece of bullshit like this lawyer did putting the onus on teachers when in fact they know good and well teachers don't have to do anything wrong to get named in a civil action. Few actually do anything to warrant a lawsuit.

The suits are all about getting a pretrial settlement, an insurance payout, from a school district. Public school teachers cannot be held personally liable (thanks to having qualified immunity) if what is being alleged happened within the scope of their duties. Outside of school, probably, but not during school or any school-sponsored event.

If there is ever a trial and a judgment, extremely, extremely rare when it involves parent lawsuits against school districts, then THAT would be considered a "victory" for the plaintiffs. Few if any ever go that far for the simple reason insurance carriers won't pay attorney fees for a trial and appeals. Those expenses can run easily six figures or more.

What happens, of course, is by settling with parents, even MORE civil cases, most of which are groundless, get filed by lawyers who don't have the ethics to turn these parents down. The lawyers also know they won't be sanctioned by judges for filing frivolous actions.

You Can Be Sued For Merely Existing

Teachers are under the mistaken belief, expressed here by (of course) a lawyer, that if they follow all of the steps listed in the article, they will never be named in a civil action.

Just a teacher's mere existence can give an unethical or unscrupulous lawyer grounds to file an utterly meritless lawsuit. Since virtually all of these types of lawsuits are leveled against a school district, a teacher has no real recourse to clear his or her name, especially if the media gets wind of it. A teacher has even less chance when school districts settle out of court, which happens in virtually every civil action. That's because district insurance carriers will NOT pay for attorney fees to go to trial and the appeals process. Lawyers know this dirty little secret, plus the fact judges almost never sanction plaintiffs' lawyers for Rule 11 violations, so they continue to file meritless claims in order to get a pre-trial settlement. It's a win-win for them and their clients while people falsely accused must spend the rest of their lives trying to clear their names and have little recourse to do so. Nowadays the problem is magnified thanks to the existence of the internet and internet searches.

Lawyers will never admit to these truths, but they are there. The civil court system is so utterly broken because of the requirement that ALL lawsuits that happen to pass muster on technicalities (jurisdiction, causes of action, statute of limitations, etc.) regardless of the truth of the allegations MUST go to mediation. Typically this is done after discovery is completed but can occur at any point during the legal process. The mediation or settlement conference is almost always the end of the line for a civil case. The school district and its insurance carrier will always capitulate to a payout while denying the truth of the allegations made in a complaint. In my view, any false case to get an insurance claim is for all intents and purposes insurance fraud. However, if a person has access to the right lawyer, a lawyer who is comfortable violating the ethical requirement of exercising "due diligence" before taking somebody on as a client, that person will get a big payday and no worries about prison time and such for committing fraud. When the person gets his or her big payday, he or she can go blow it in on trips, a mobile home, jewelry, or whatever else comes to his or her mind. It's like winning the lottery for him or her. Meanwhile, teachers and staff wrongly accused wind up with nothing, not even a decent reputation, after being trashed in this manner.

I believe lawyers who file false complaints in order to get that payout should be subject to sanctions, including disbarment. They have no real sanctions against them now, or they would not be engaging in this systematic fraud.

Ed Etc.

Of course the "complaint" was going to get thrown out.

If the allegations were true, there would have been charges filed by the DA. This is nothing but a classic nuisance suit for the plaintiffs to get a few bucks. The attorney appears to be the "go-to" guy if you want to file an insurance claim against a school district. Of course the school district will settle because insurance companies will not pay attorney's fees. These civil cases should NEVER be reported by the media absent any criminal charges filed by the DA since the standards for proof are far lower and actually non-existent since the goal is not a trial but a settlement conference.

Moreover, the attorney has utterly no business filing a complaint with TSPC over unsubstantiated allegations made in a civil suit. Only truly serious ethical charges and criminal convictions should get their attention.

No doubt the teacher involved will get into trouble with TSPC even though the charges are dubious. Few administrators are ever properly sanctioned by TSPC when they are guilty of something.
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WCSD has applied for federal funding for additional staff to help those affected by the Sparks Middle School shooting.
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No Whine Before Its Time

I had to post this thing separately. I personally don't give a shit about the travails of a bunch of rich drunks (oh, I know some of these people affected aren't all that rich and few affected lost some inventory), but it is illustrative on how we are supposed to feel sorry for people who engage in a frivolous hobby like wine collecting.

The comments following the article are more worth reading than the article.

A key paragraph:

Now, amid concern that century-old bottles have been spoiled or celebrated vintages rendered anonymous by lost labels, some of the city’s most prominent wine collectors — including Donald Drapkin, a hedge fund manager who estimated the value of his wine collection at $5.2 million — have sued WineCare, which is now in bankruptcy court.

If you got that much money to blow it in on a bunch of wine bottles, you should be paying your fair share of taxes.

I'd throw his frivolous lawsuit out.

Good for the School District

even though the chances of ever getting the settlement money paid back are slim to none.

Fraudulent civil suits against school districts, as I well know, happen all the time because plaintiffs' attorneys know they will never be held accountable for filing frivolous, fraudulent lawsuits, as those cases are almost always settled out of court. District insurance carriers refuse to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars in attorney fees and court costs.

The difference in this case is a man was wrongly accused and actually went to prison for five years while the "victim" and her mother cashed in on a huge insurance claim.

This video from last June is good:

View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.

Etc.

The alleged accusers in the Jerry Sandusky case have to have their names made public. That's only fair. If you are making an allegation, put your name with it. If it happened, then you have nothing to be ashamed about.

Something, however, tells me that many of the allegations have been exaggerated or even made up in order that these "victims" ultimately get a giant insurance payout from Penn State's insurance company.

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I doubt the wife and kids will see much if any money in this $3-million award when her husband died during a three-way sex romp. The defendants are appealing the case and will probably win.

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A sleazy Oregon attorney gives school districts all kinds of advice to circumvent the law and screw over teachers and other school staff.
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Yes, VAM is a scam.

Thin-Skinned Principal

Some principal is trying to sue people over anonymous comments made in a public forum, which only goes to show that the comments were right about her performance as an administrator. She's just too dumb to realize it.

I suppose she thinks being related to a higher-up is just dandy:

An attorney representing LaQuanda Brown Carpenter, principal at Alcovy High School, has filed a lawsuit against 11 "John Does" who commented about Carpenter on the Newton Citizen website.

The lawsuit claims that Carpenter has "experienced enormous suffering and damage to her reputation in the community and to her trade or profession" as a result of the website postings.

Carpenter is seeking court costs and monetary damages to be determined by a jury.

She will lose big time.

Etc.

It's so nice to know the poor little rape victim who I supposedly didn't report his plight to the authorities is getting the help he needs:

By the way, there is no way on a security guard wage she could get this stuff.

Our civil court system is completely broken to allow these kind of obscene cases to be settled, let alone be filed in the first place.

Remember, I cannot countersue this despicable human being who calls herself a mother or her equally despicable attorney. I don't know without further research whether I can file a claim to open the school district's records of this matter through the Nevada Open Records Act. They can't really hide behind gag orders because it is a public entity and the school board, accountable to taxpayers and voters, must approve settlements.
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Mitt Romney should take a course in math before criticizing Obama.
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As a discarded teacher, it does NOT warm my heart to hear that NYC teachers, who supposedly are the best-protected in the country, undergo similar kangaroo hearings to those in Nevada.

Because of the Watering Down of Sanctions

that were once part of the FRCP Rule 11, bullshit lawsuits like the case where I was named were allowed to continue with the expressed purpose of getting an insurance payout. Congress was trying to change this, but so far nothing has happened.

The biggest outcry against the watering down of sanctions is of course by business, and then you have THAT problem of businesses wanting to get out of responsibility when they really DO screw up. But there ARE frivolous lawsuits and the attorneys who file them have NO sanctions against them whatsoever. If you are named as a defendant, there is NO way you can clear your name.

Outrage Upon Outrage

Our legal system, including and especially the civil system, which can be easily gamed if you have unscrupulous lawyers and milquetoast insurance adjusters, is completely and totally broken.

I am so pissed off. It appears the mom got her little payout; hence, why my part of the case is being dismissed. When the board or whoever decides to approve the settlement, the judge will end the case and then you know what will happen. I will be tarred and feathered like Joe Paterno over nothing, and I can do absolutely nothing about it.

I filed a complaint with the State Bar of Nevada:

I want to file a complaint against three lawyers who have been counsel in a case which has either been settled out of court or is about to be settled out of court. The case is _____ filed in U.S. District Court. I was representing myself in this matter, and the lawyers involved in this case on both sides, Thomas P. Beko (Bar number 2653) for the plaintiffs, and Debra O. Waggoner (Bar number 5808) and C. Robert Cox (Bar number 1780) for WCSD, were always diligent in sending me any and all information pertaining to this case. That is, until recently.

Waggoner and Cox on November 9, 2011, filed a "stipulation for extension of time to complete discovery and related deadlines" with the court. In this stipulation was noted a mediation meeting of November 21, 2011, to resolve or try to resolve the issues. Since I was named in this case, which generated a lot of unwanted publicity, I had every right and expectation to have received this document in the mail. My being pro se should have NO bearing on this. However, Waggoner and Cox NEVER sent this document in the mail. The ONLY way I found out about ANY mediation hearing was a chance lookup on the U.S. Courts website, which of course charges a fee to look at the documents. I found this document only last night, a full month AFTER this document was filed with the court and some two weeks after the mediation was supposedly held.

With regard to Beko, he contacted me by mail in a letter dated November 21, 2011, which happened to be the day of the scheduled mediation. Here is what he wrote:

As this litigation has progressed, we have determined that we are willing to dismiss you from this lawsuit. Please contact me at your earliest possible convenience, so that we can discuss this matter further.

Not one word was mentioned about any mediation hearing or why he was willing to dismiss the case. I wrote back to him.

Then a letter from Beko dated December 6, 2011, states this:

In follow up to our exchanged correspondence, enclosed herewith please find a proposed Stipulation for Dismissal and Order. Please sign this stipulation and return it to me in the enclosed self-addressed and stamped envelope. Upon my receipt of the stipulation, I will obtain the other needed signatures and file it with the court. Upon receipt of an order confirming the dismissal, I will send a copy to your for your records.

That was it. I signed the document and mailed it back to Beko, but now I wonder if I should have mailed it back at all given the fact nothing was disclosed. Again there was NO mention of any mediation hearing or settlement of the matter or why I was to be dismissed. The ONLY assumption I can make is the case was settled out of court, yet I have had NO information from either party. I feel like information was kept from me for no reason at all. I know that if I had hired a lawyer, this would not have happened. I almost feel like both sides were being sneaky about it rather than simply negligent, thinking I would never find out.

Lawyers not only need to communicate with their clients, they also need to communicate with others involved in a case. Concealing information or failing to notify other parties is NOT ethical, in my book.

They have no argument at all why they failed to notify me of any hearing, settlement, or failing to mail a document. They had always done it in the past.

If you need copies of the documents, I can mail them to you.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Mom will get her money and move to either Klamath Falls or Eureka and drop a load of cash on a house. To hell with how she did it.

Fuck them. Fuck them ALL.

Legal News, I Guess

I will be scooping the northern Nevada and AP media on this, but I just thought I'd let readers know that I am being dismissed from that silly Sparks Middle School "rape" case wherein I was accused, along with a counselor there, of "failing to report" something that never was brought to my attention and never happened.  The alleged "rapes" were said to have happened in early 2007, with the suit having been filed in September of 2008, about a month after I had my kangaroo hearing on bogus charges at WCSD.

The plaintiff's lawyer contacted me about two weeks ago saying he wanted to dismiss the case against me.  I wrote back, and today I received an original copy of the stipulation for dismissal which I signed, dated, and mailed back to the lawyer.  After he and the school district's lawyer sign this stipulation, it goes to Judge Larry Hicks, who will then sign it and the dismissal will be official.

I fully expect the entire case to be thrown out of court within the next six to eight weeks.  Currently both parties are filing pretrial motions.  Unfortunately, I doubt there is anything I can do legally to clear my name.

News, Etc.

In good news for bloggers and others, it appears copyright troll Righthaven is on its last legs; it hasn't filed any lawsuits in several months and has suffered one legal setback after another.

Good riddance.
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The "shock doctrine" is coming to your friendly neighborhood school.
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Delusional bitch deserves to rot in anonymity.  What else did she expect?

No sympathy here, Monica.
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A batterer beats the shit out of people, and he has the nerve to ask for their forgiveness and support.
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Frivolous Lawsuits, Inc.

If a civil case sounds unbelievable, it probably is.

I commented in the comments following the article with several posts like this:

Of course the claims are frivolous. The thing is phony on its face. I don't think a single person on this discussion board understands the low standards in filing a civil suit. All it takes is somebody to find a clever, unethical, or rotten lawyer willing to bend ethical standards against filing false claims and twisting or making up "facts" to conform with the causes of action filed, and a plaintiff is in business. A gullible media compounds the problem because their "reporters" don't understand what is being filed is an insurance claim and goes about naming staff names, which is almost impossible for school staff to fight. They can't sue for libel. There is NO such thing as a "local" case in this age of the internet. Reputations are ruined. People here are calling for people to be fired or jailed without ANY facts at all other than what a lawyer has filed in court and claims happened.

I have been through a similar case which was totally fraudulent. Lawyers who file false insurance claims and defraud a court in this manner should have action taken on their law licenses. It's that serious a violation because lawyers who take these phony cases do not exercise due care or look at these claims with a skeptical eye as kids DO lie all the time and can be especially vicious in their lies. It's all about the money, and school districts are easy targets because they will NOT allow kids to be forced to testify in a civil case and the resulting negative publicity.

***

Lawyers on both sides know the goal of the plaintiff's attorney is to get a pretrial settlement, not a trial (few of these cases EVER see a courtroom), so they will drag the case out for years, goldbricking the billable hours and making hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. The actual plaintiffs get little money by comparison. Staff members named in the suit have no say at all; the school district's risk management department and the insurance company call all the shots. Settlements are almost always the result of these suits. It's a win-win for the plaintiff's lawyer because he or she can claim a "victory" when in fact a settlement isn't actually a victory in the legal sense. They got the money. That's all that counts.

Meanwhile, staff members have their reputations ruined because of the media. But who cares about them in this cynical game?

News, Commentary, Etc.

A gangster organization decides to blackmail the United States government by lowering its credit rating.
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One doesn't have to read the jobs report for July to know hiring is practically non-existent for job seekers.

Almost all of the jobs listed are either part time, phony "sales" jobs, or jobs with descriptions so specific, nobody can qualify for them.
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For some reason Noam notices America is on the decline.
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Yesterday was supposed to have been the settlement conference in the bogus lawsuit that I am named in. I assume mom is getting her little extortion settlement because WCSD is too chickenshit to pursue it further.

Unless you have worked for them. Then the district will fight you to the death.

Despicable.
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Jamestown, New York, honors the 100th anniversary of Lucille Ball's birth.

She was born there in 1911, and she was eventually laid to rest there following her death in 1989.

I Love Lucy episode "The Diet," one of the early episodes:

This Just Frosts My Ass

It appears the lawyers in the bogus "rape" case where I am named as a defendant have decided to have a "private" mediation on August 5, 2011. If there was a way I could download that document filed with the court to here, I would do so.

Of course the "case" will end there. That was the whole point of that bottom feeding son of a bitch plaintiff's lawyer to file the suit. It was NEVER meant to go to trial but instead to shake down the insurance company for cash. If you or I did such a thing as commit extortion/insurance fraud, we would be in jail. There will be NO more discovery, no getting "experts" to talk about this matter, nothing. The mother and her son will get at least 100k for what amounted to a frivolous lawsuit, while the attorneys on both sides will get hundreds of thousands of dollars, courtesy of Washoe County School District's insurance company. There was no evidence the district's lawyers EVER sought to have the case dismissed; after all, why SHOULD they? They are getting money, too, for dragging it out and getting more compensation for their billable hours. Everybody is going to get rich except those people who had their names smeared and dragged through the mud, not only by the Sanchez attorneys Tom Beko and Rebecca Bruch of Erickson, Thorpe & Swainston, of Reno, but also by the Reno Gazette-Journal, the Sparks Tribune, and other local media. The case in turn was reported by Associated Press and published all over the country. Of course, a bogus case doesn't stay local anymore because of the internet. Literally anybody in the world can google it, so this is actually a "world" news story.

There is no regard for the truth. When the matter is settled, both sides will lie their asses off to the media. The national press will get wind of this, and my name and the counselor's will be further dragged through the mud. I have visions of Nancy Grace yammering about this shit, and Matt Drudge having this shit story on his website. Meanwhile, there is no way I can sue the plaintiffs once the matter is settled. It's over, done with. The reputation, meanwhile, is thrown in the trash can, as many people believe any kind of bullshit a plaintiff's lawyer alleges. The most I can do is file a complaint against the plaintiff's lawyer with the Nevada State Bar, and you KNOW how quick fellow attorneys are to sanction their own. They stick together, just like doctors and school district administrators.

It just pisses me off. You read this here first.

Update for the curious: This case was settled out of court in December 2011. It was settled without my knowledge or consent. I represented myself in the matter, but lawyers on both sides failed to notify me of the mediation hearing which had occurred on November 21, 2011. They were ethically bound to notify me as spelled out in the Nevada Rules of Professional Conduct, and they failed to do it. Of course I was totally opposed to settling, since I could not countersue the plaintiff's and their attorney if it happened. The plaintiff's lawyer sent me a stipulation to dismiss to sign, but he did NOT inform me there was a settlement out of court. If I had known it, I doubt I'd have signed it. Not only that, but readers here and all over the world will never, ever know the details of the settlement. I do not believe the mother received much money at all, and the school board which approved the settlement is bound to the public to release the details as they are supposed to be accountable to the voters. However, they and the superintendent have kept the details secret. When I raised a stink via email, with the local media being sent copies, the district actually had Google go in and zap my email.

A lying parent and her lying lawyer got away with this, and the only reason they got away with it is because the district's insurance company refused to pay attorney's fees. It had nothing to do with the nonexistent "merit" of the case. Cynical lawyers KNOW this game, and that's why they make up shit like this one did in "my" case.

With a Couple of Losses Under Its Belt,

copyright troll Righthaven is going to stop filing frivolous lawsuits against those of us out here who may excerpt small portions of the LVRJ and other papers in the Stephens Media group, which employed the law firm.

One should always be wary of quoting too much from copyrighted works, and always, always attribute the quotes, whether by naming the person who wrote the piece and/or linking the posts.

It's a big victory out here for us peons.

News, Etc.

Democratic Underground and Field & Stream, to name just a couple of defendants, are striking back against the shyster Righthaven law firm. I also learned of a new legal word to me, barratry, which summarizes exactly what this gang of shysters are doing:

"The plaintiff's claim is barred by its unclean hands, in that the plaintiff is engaged in barratry."

(Barratry is defined as the excessive incitement of litigation. Righthaven defendants say the company's typical procedure of suing without trying to resolve copyright infringements out of court backs up this claim. Righthaven says it's not practical for newspapers to contact alleged infringers to request they stop infringing.)

It appears Sherm whatshisname from the LVRJ will have to give a deposition later this month.

There is this other legal concept new to me, called champerty:

The questioning of Frederick may involve issues including the allegation of champerty, which is defined as an improper relationship between a party funding a lawsuit and the party actually filing the suit.

In other words, you need really good lawyers who know the ins and outs of the law to be able to fight these scumbags. I don't see how Righthaven can prevail. I just wish outfits didn't settle with them because that is the whole point of the lawsuits to begin with. It's a shakedown operation.
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The rescue of the 33 Chilean miners trapped since August 5, if successful, must rank among the greatest rescue stories of all time:

A drill digging a rescue shaft has reached the underground chamber where 33 Chilean miners have been trapped since August 5.

CBS News correspondent Seth Doane, outside the mine in Chile, reported sirens and horns blaring this morning at about 8 a.m. ET, announcing the long-awaited breakthrough.

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If he were alive today, music great John Lennon would be 70.

A statue dedicated to his memory was unveiled in Liverpool. It was designed by a 19-year-old American, Lauren Volers.
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Legal News

I received in the mail today a manila envelope from Washoe County School District's law firm, Maupin, Cox & LeGoy, some pleadings regarding the phony lawsuit filed in federal court two years ago whereby I and a counselor were named as "negligent" in failing to report alleged "rapes" (failing to report is a misdemeanor in Nevada) made by a lawyer of a student of mine back in 2007. This lawsuit was reported all over the local and regional media, and even Associated Press got wind of it. The case is Sanchez, et. al v. Washoe County School District, et. al. Anyway, since I am representing myself in this case, I now receive any and all documents from both sides of the case. As I wrote some months ago, the plaintiffs had depositions from a number of the defense witnesses, although yours truly never gave one because I was out of town. This time it is the defense's turn, and only two people are being deposed: the student and his mother. These depositions will be held near the end of the month. The law firm is also asking for various documents, including psychiatric records, medical records, and tax returns. If I had the financial resources, I would attend these depositions and directly challenge both son and mother about the absolutely false allegations being made, but I am simply too destitute to make a trip to Reno for just that thing.

I am fairly confident the case will be dismissed provided the defense lawyers move to have it thrown out; it should be, as much as I loathe Washoe County School District for its treatment of me. But facts are facts, and nobody should be allowed to get rich over false allegations. The media, though, created a libelous situation by naming both me and the counselor when our names should not have been published.

News, Etc.

West Virginia's unemployment situation is just one example of what a mess our economy is in this country. This state's unemployment fund is just about broke.
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This is one itty-bitty victory for victims of the sleazy Righthaven outfit.

I can't imagine the law firm's nuisance suits to hold up in court.