Thursday, July 13, 2006

School District Short on Learning, Long on High Paid Administrators

Troubled Christina School District - troubled because of its own mismanagment - has cut 374 teachers, nurses, specialists, and secretaries (according to a story in the News Journal); eliminated educational programs and cut back on basic supplies. But they haven't let a single high paid administrator go, nor cut any of those positions.

Where are the children in the District's self serving priorities?

I wish the State would take over this district, abolish it, and start from scratch.

Delaware Supreme Court Holds Door Open for Loser to Pay

Justice Jacobs delivered the panel decision which reversed a Superior Court denial of a request for attorney fees. The Court describes the "american rule" which generally requires each side to bear its own costs of litigation, and then holds that the lower court took too narrow of a reading of the "bad faith" exception.

In this case, where the contractor bulldozed down the historical buildings despite the denial of his application for a permit to do so, the Court was hard pressed to think of a worse example of bad faith.

The matter was remanded for Superior Court to take a new look at the request for fees by the Historical Society.

Photo by News Journal file/SCOTT NATHAN

This is Michael Zimmerman's method of dispute resolution. Remind me never to do business with him.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

loser pays

Overlawyered pointed out this 9th Circuit case in which the District Judge made the loser pay for the expenses of the Respondents in defending against his frivolous claims.

It seems that the frivolous litigant sued the airport and its municipality because his private jet exceeded their weight restrictions. He had to use a smaller private jet to fly in and visit his vacation home. Awwwww!

The Court of Appeals remanded for a better explanation of the District Court's method of calculation... but it doesn't look like that's going to be a problem.

Fighting Back Against Red Tape Hassles

In a story i found on Ernie the Attorney, a person experiences great difficulties in cancelling his AOL account, and he gets it all on tape! Here's his TV interview, with audio from the event.

Massive publicity from this prompted an AOL apology and a firing of the CSR, along with a melt-down of the ISP-Server where the sound bit was originally hosted.