I am currently dealing with one of the dumbest lawyers I’ve ever met. he is the dangerous combination of dumb and dishonest. You can’t have a telephone call with him because he misrepresents it or is too stupid to comprehend what you’re talking about. a simple meet and confer took an hour because he can’t understand why I need to know which current and former employees he represents for the purposes of scheduling depositions.
wes tegg , you heard anything on that med mal case in front of you in April? If that thing goes, and it looks like it might, I think you're going to get a reprieve.
In a jurisdiction where Plaintiff does not get costs, can we agree that the cost of trial for the Plaintiff should not be considered in settlement discussions. All the time I get the following "Well even if you get a verdict, after you pay experts and x,y,z other costs you're going to end up worse than just settling now."
If your client doesn’t care how much he nets, I certainly won’t. If I were a mediator, I’d still use that as leverage against him.
Settled a disputed liability non-surgical commercial case for pretty good money today. I have about five commercial cases that feel "stuck" and need to settle. I'm hoping this settlement figuratively frees up the log jam.
I think I'm the master of settlements for minor children. They have to be court approved here and if they are over $25k you have to open conservatorship too and put the money in restricted bank accounts. I feel like I've had at least 6 minor settlement hearings in 2021. Tons of firms don't want to handle them because of all the extra work so I get referred a decent bit for them. Sometimes can be a major pain in the ass but I'll take them all day every day. Got 2 of them approved for siblings this morning.
Holy shit our Supreme Court just dropped a 119 page decision reversing and remanding a 10M+ products liability verdict because the plaintiff lawyer tampered with the jury. https://courts.ms.gov/Images/Opinions/CO151702.pdf
It's gonna take me a while to read this thing but apparently freaking Dennis Sweet pays some fake preacher dude who goes around preaching revival circuits in the area of a trial so that people on the jury will recognize him and it will sway them in some manner? Also Sweet lied about that in court and it was only found later after trial court ordered discovery on it that Sweet paid him. I'm trying to get work done so didn't read it close but sounds sketchy as hell. Heads are going to roll. I don't see how Sweet holds onto his law license.
I believe this is what some of Alabama’s more prominent lawyers would call doing it the good old fashioned way also: pay cash you fucking moron
The facts of that opinion align with countless stories I heard in college about the crookedness of society in the Mississippi Delta. The trial court’s denial of the motion for sufficiency of the evidence strains credulity, but that’s such a bullshit justification at the margins anyway the judge gets away.
I don’t doubt it, I just live in a bubble and don’t hear the background stories here like I do about north Mississippi
I’ve referenced my neighbor situation, but wanted to run facts by you tort guys before I take my next step. Neighboring house is a rent house. Owner is a Corp. Corp hired a handyman to cut down a tree that was fully in their yard. Handyman tried to cut it down himself and a branch destroyed my kids’ playscape and some gutters. Damages are the value of the playscape, which is probably around $2k-$3k and gutters a couple hundred. Corp hasn’t responded to my demand. Handyman told me to “put my big boy pants on” and sue him. Clearly heading that direction. Are there causes of action other than negligence that would be useful? I don’t want the handyman as a party. He clearly has nothing to lose and would just complicate things. I’m sure the Corp will bring him in but I’ll let them deal with that. Is there a scenario where the Corp is not liable? I know it’s silly over a couple grand (and not enough to involve insurance). But my hand is forced.
I keep getting beaten in the face by conservative judges and juries. Guess I'm gonna have to get on this revival circuit action to even up the playing field.
Don't know the specifics there, but generally most states have a rule that landowners are responsible for any dangerous conditions on their land that cause damage to others. If this were an act of God situation (bad windstorm, for example), you'd be out of luck. But since it was a manmade event, the landowner is responsible. They can always turn around and sue the handyman themselves for indemnification, but that's not your problem. Again, this is in general. Not sure what the specific state law in Texas says.
You’re smarter and more patient than me. I’d end up spending a hundred hours and seizing the handyman’s piece of shit truck or something.
I’m a consumer attorney so I see the other side of collection. No way this guy has any assets that are nonexempt, other than petty cash in his bank accounts.
Here you can slap a lien on just about anything once you get a judgment. I didn’t realize TX had so many exemptions.
This may not be the correct answer but as someone who will frequently take the most complicated route from point a to point b, it is the correct answer for me.
Lol problem with small claims is that a Corp can represent itself without an attorney and if you lose you can appeal with a cheap bond to county court and you get a new trial.
Is the corporation ignoring you or is their registered agent address out of date? If the latter, cause them a headache. Completely spit balling for fun, while I doubt the TX BOC gives third parties the right to seek administrative or judicial dissolution, but a phone call to the TX SOS may get the ball rolling. Then perhaps use administrative dissolution docs as evidence in your complaint for piercing the veil since they’re failing to follow corporate formalities I have no idea what I’m talking about but could be pedantic for days when it comes to entities
It’s a shell company that owns a bunch of rent houses. I contacted her when it happened, and she told me to speak to the handyman about it and when she offered his services to repair it and I told her I didn’t want the guy touching anything on my property considering he’s the guy that caused the damage she said I was “failing to mitigate damages.” I told her I was a lawyer and now silence...the one good move she made I guess.
What do you mean by "shell company"? How many is a bunch? Is this a mom and pop operation that has a few dozen rental houses or is it more sophisticated (an institutional investor)? If it's a mom and pop shop using a corporation to own single family residences, then they probably aren't very sophisticated. Maybe they have some buddies who invested with them. If so, perhaps you could cause a nuisance by alerting the TX RRC to a potential unregistered securities offering. Stagger Lee would know more about that, though
It’s essentially one woman that runs the operation. I know she employs real estate agents to keep properties occupied. The Corp owns dozens of rental properties throughout the Houston area.
If you don't allow the handyman who caused the problem to fix the problem, you aren't mitigating your damages!!!
as an update on this I had a long discussion about civil RICO in sex trafficking lawsuits against motels today do I ever enjoy creating more work for myself that doesn’t pay off or what
Keep us updated on this one. I have a seven figure claim that dragged me into it due to insurance fraud. A motel owner conspired with contractors to inflate estimates on fire repair and restoration to perform an egregious amount of unrelated work to property not damaged by the fire (code upgrades on adjacent property, etc). The underlying claim was a meth explosion in the motel. Property owner clearly knew meth was being cooked there. Would like to get treble damages and fees because the owner surprisingly owns the 112 room complex free and clear of mortgages or liens, among other properties.
Im pretty sure that’s not grounds for dissolution. And you’re right, a third party can’t force an administrative dissolution I’m not a litigator, but I’m pretty sure you just need to serve the registered agent. If that doesn’t work, you can seek alternative service (e.g., TX SOS) and get the ball rolling towards a default judgment
I’m guessing this isn’t an investor situation (just a mom and pop operation). Regardless, I’d be cautious about notifying anyone about unsubstantiated securities violation. You could open yourself up to defamation or tortious interference claims. one thing I do see happen a lot with entity ownership of single family rentals is the indirect owner (the individual) buys the property through Fannie loans in his own name and then deeds the property to an entity for liability protection. The problem with this is Fannie loans specifically prohibit ownership by entities and requires that the individual owner use the property exclusively as a primary residence. No one ever gets lender consent for the property transfer, nor could they under Fannie regs. In all Fannie loan docs, this is an event of default and would trigger a loan acceleration of not cured. If this went to litigation, it would cause a huge headache for the borrower/property owner.