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How’s that? In 1988, Rhode Islander Paul Greider cracked Michael Trainor’s skull. As a result, Trainor suffered permanent hearing loss. Although Greider escaped jail time (he got probation), in the civil suit, he was ordered to pay Trainor $1.5 million. The court ordered him to pay $400/month, which he hasn’t been doing. He now owes almost $5 million! So the judge gave Greider a chance to catch up, ordering him to pay $3,000 to Trainor within 60 days (and $1,000 to his lawyer). Think he did it? Nope. 30 days in the hole, said the judge. Said Trainor’s lawyer:

He got away without jail for the crime, but now he’s going to jail because he won’t pay the civil judgment imposed as a result of his crime. That’s a bizarre individual.

Tru dat. You can read more in The Providence Journal article here.

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Leave the poor boy alone! Grant Stranaghan, age 15, of Ulster, Northern Ireland, dared to attend school with his hair 2 inches below his collar. Gasp! Hair must not be below the collar (of course, this just applies to boys), so Grant was suspended for 3 days. Since returning on November 26, he has been kept apart from his classmates, even during breaktime. That’s 2 weeks of solitary. His pop is taking the case to the High Court.

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(If you have seen this entry before, SORRY! The site gets a lot of new visitors.) The American Bar Association selected Legal Juice as one of the 100 best websites by lawyers, for lawyers (though Legal Juice is really for regular folks, which obviously excludes most lawyers.) If you want to vote for Legal Juice (in other words, PLEASE VOTE FOR LEGAL JUICE), click on the link below, scroll down 7 blawgs, and vote! (The shameless plugging does take its toll. Make my whoring worthwhile.)

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If you’re a neighbor of 15-year-old Ryan Bowen, you could always move. (One poor family did.) So what do you have to do to get the court to issue an ASBO (Anti-Social Behavior Order) against you? And to take the unusual step of naming you? (The ASBO imposes a curfew, prevents Ryan from associating with certain people, and imposes other restrictions on his behavior.) As reported in The Herald Express, here are some of the allegations the court heard before imposing the ASBO:

Police legal adviser Mr Quinn told the court that Ryan was a ‘complete thug – and that’s putting it mildly’. He added: “He may not yet be 16 years, but in his short life he has terrorised the people of Teignmouth and the surrounding area. He seems to have no redeeming features.

He targeted vulnerable neighbours, subjecting them to obscene and racial abuse, threatening their children and attacking their cars and homes.

Ryan went to one woman neighbour’s workplace and subjected her to an abusive attack there.

Ryan fired a BB gun at people, pushed used condoms through their doors, walked over their cars, and jumped up and down on them.

One family had finally moved because they could no longer take the abuse and intimidation meted out by Ryan and his friends – only to be subjected to more abuse when they ran into the teenager in a Tesco store. “He was not satisfied to drive them out of their home. He still approached them and abused them,” said PC Colley.

Ryan would ride a mini motorbike around the area until 11.30pm and midnight – kicking out at parked cars as he went.

Hoochiemama. It’s no wonder that “Devon and Cornwall Police’s legal adviser Peter Quinn told magistrates …: ‘Police and the authorities have become increasingly aware of what a force for evil this boy is.'” Click here to read the entire Herald Express article.

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angry_man.png Perhaps Illinois attorney Marvin Gerstein will now keep his temper in check … and trim his bushes. As stated by the Supreme Court of Illinois:

On or about June 15, 2005, Respondent [Mr. Gerstein] received a Notice of Public Nuisance signed by Jason Arrasmith, an Environmental Control Officer for the City’s Public Works Department. The notice stated, in part, that the City had inspected Respondent’s property and found that the bushes and vegetation growing in the parkway in front of Respondent’s house were a nuisance because they created a visibility hazard for drivers entering and exiting driveways near Respondent’s house. The notice directed Respondent to abate the nuisance by cutting the vegetation to a maximum height of 24 inches by June 23, 2005.

You already know he didn’t do it. On July 5, 2005, Mr. Gerstein met with City Attorney Jack Waaler and agreed to wack the weeds by July 12th, and that Mr. Arrasmith “had sole discretion to determine whether his yard was in compliance with the agreement.” Come July 12th, think Mr. Gerstein complied? Nope. So the City sent a contractor to do it. Gerstein was not pleased. Here’s the letter he sent to Jason Arrasmith that same day:

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viva%20italia2.jpg Would I make this stuff up? (It would save a lot of time.) But no, it’s true. A summons was issued by an Italian court for Signor Topolino (Mickey Mouse) and Signor Paperino (Donald Duck), who “are kindly instructed to appear before the Naples Tribunal on December 7.” How could this happen?

In what the newspaper [Corriere della Sera] describes as a “bizarre” bureaucratic blunder, the Disney cartoon characters have been named as witnesses in the trial of a Chinese man accused of peddling counterfeit toys and decals bearing the images of the pair.

Corriere dell Sera, Italy’s most respected newspaper, denounced the error as emblematic of Italy’s justice system where delays – which it says are caused by lack of proper staffing and other resources – often result in cases being dismissed on technicalities.

Viva Italia! viva%20italia.jpg Here’s the Earthtimes story that brought this to my attention.

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Straight from the ABA’s “Sample Press Release” – “Editors of the ABA Journal today announced they have selected [blawg name] as one of the top 100 best websites by lawyers, for lawyers.” If you want to vote for Legal Juice, click on the link below, scroll down 7 blawgs, and vote!

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british%20police%20officer.jpg Here are some highlights (from Barrie Segal’s book “The Parking Ticket Awards”):

Disabled driver Peter Stapleton was given a fine after stopping to re-attach his artificial leg which had fallen off while driving. After he refused to pay the fine the ticket’s cost spiralled to £465.

Truck driver Michael Collins was given a parking ticket after a burst water main had caused the road to collapse, leaving his 17-tonne truck stranded.

Nicky Clegg was driving with her 82-year-old mother and 11-year-son when a tree fell and crushed the front of the car. They all escaped without serious injury but when Ms Clegg returned to the mangled wreck the following day she found she had been issued with a parking ticket.

Robert McFarland’s horse was given a parking ticket under the heading, “Vehicle Description: Brown Horse”.

In July 2005, Dennis Williams was convicted at Carmarthen Magistrates’ Court for littering after throwing his parking ticket on the floor just as a street warden was walking past on litter patrol. The warden then promptly booked him for littering.

A Brooklyn priest was given a ticket after rushing to park outside a hospital to administer the last rites to a dying woman.

Similarly, David Holmes got a parking ticket outside a hospital when he drove himself there after having a heart attack.

A warden gave a ticket to the Dundee Utd disabled fans’ coach for parking outside the ground.

A young mother was given a ticket after pulling over because her three-year-old son was choking. Instead of helping her, a passing traffic warden just gave her a ticket. [Cold!]

Last year a parking attendant at a hotel car park was found to be charging people using the car park for the Snowdon Mountain Railway £4 if they spoke in English but only £2 if they spoke Welsh.

Funeral directors McKenzie and Millar were amazed to find their hearse given a £60 parking ticket by Edinburgh City Council as they waited to load a coffin into their vehicle.

A motorist who received a ticket in an NCP car park, despite returning to her car an hour early, was told the attendant had fined her because he had “reasonable cause to think she would stay longer than the four hours for which she had paid”.

Crazy. Here’s the article, which has just a few more.

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big%20mistake.gif Lawyer (and doctor) Lawrence Dry took on a medical malpractice case. This was a case that he had reviewed and rejected just a month before. Only this time, not recognizing it as that case, he agreed to take it on. Big, big mistake. Here’s where it gets a little crazy. When a lawyer blows a sure winner, he gets sued for malpractice (rare). Or, when a lawyer brings a clearly frivolous case (which is also very rare, despite the propaganda to the contrary), the lawyer has to pay the other side’s costs – if a court so rules.

Now try and imagine a situation where the lawyer gets nailed for losing a clear winner, and for bringing a frivolous case. Yeah, makes your brain hurt, but it happened to Mr. Dry. Seems he filed suit without having an expert to back up his theory (WHICH WAS THE WRONG THEORY, INVOLVING THE WRONG DOCTOR). He later dismissed the case voluntarily. This didn’t sit well with his client. Nor did it sit well with the doctor, who had been defending himself for 2 years. So they both sued Dry and … won! How? Dry apparently had a solid case for the blindness he suffered due to the surgery – but against a different doctor (the anesthesiologist, not the surgeon Dry sued). And the surgeon who was sued had a case against Dry because Dry never produced an expert supporting his theory that the surgeon was responsible for the client’s blindness. The surgeon recovered $80,000 from Dry, while the former client recovered $750,000 from him.

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