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That didn't take long. Bill Myers reports in the Examiner that Ivey Epps and her mother, Bernea Bell, filed a $100 million lawsuit against Metro on Monday. The two women are seeking damages based on "severe and painful injuries" resulting from last week's deadly Red Line crash, and claim Metro officials are at fault for not inspecting the system's brakes and not replacing the 1000 Series cars. Note the description included of their attorney: "The suit was brought by Florida attorney Willie Gary, whom the Wall Street Journal once dubbed "flamboyant" for his private jet, posh offices and luxury cars. He won a $240 million verdict in an infringement case against Walt Disney Corp. In litigation against communications company Motorola, Gary once asked for $93 million in fees -- about $11,000 an hour. "This is a very sad and unfortunate occurrence," Gary said in a news release." UPDATE: A reader points out in comments that this is not the first lawsuit to be filed.
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I don't want to come off as pedantic, but I believe a lawsuit has been filed prior to this one...
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Legal-insurance-fees-mounting-for-Metro-49128387.html
June 26, 2009
The deadly Metro crash that killed nine people and injured more than 70 is already having a financial effect on the transit system, with legal fees and insurance premiums mounting.
The first of what is expected to be many lawsuits was filed two days after Monday’s crash, with the parents of 15-year-old Davonne Flanagan, who broke a leg, seeking $950,000 from the transit system because of what the suit called its negligence in maintenance and personnel training.
950K for a kid's broken leg?
When I was a kid we did that sort of stuff for free!
I'm actually amazed at how reasonable it is. Under a million dollars in such a high profile case?
The thing about all the cases coming is that every plaintiff has to win. Metro are so clearly liable in every way.
"Metro are so clearly liable in every way"
Then I guess you mean we are all liable. Since the maintenance problems which may be the cause of the accident are directly related to Metro being underfunded. Metro's funding is dictated by laws made by our elected officials, who generally react to the will of the people, which is generally to spend more money on shit like widening I-66 than on Metro.
Ah thanks, I missed that one.
Welcome
And how about the disparity in claims? Yikes. Young man's family files for $950k, and he broke his leg, a pretty serious injury.
Next suit is for $100 mil - and we don't know the extent of the two injuries. Hmm.
Fucking lawyers.
But. I too was traumatized by the crash (while riding the Yellow and Blue Lines) and feel it should be worth a few bucks.
Fucking vultures. $950K for a broken leg? $100-effing-million for unspecified "severe and painful" injuries. Go pound sand, you pack of whores. If you want to know why insurance costs so much, or why health care is out of the financial reach of Joe Sixpack, look no futher.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
ah, you say that until it is you or your loved one who is injured, then you want your constitutional right to a day in court...just like Judge Bork.
Or Roy Pearson and his pants lawsuit? I've got no problem with barristers who ply their trade in the name of justice and fair reparations, but it's time to crack down on scumbag shysters who encourage excessive or frivolous actions for the sake of fattening their own wallets.
There are already rules that punish truly frivolous filings and ethical rules that punish attorneys. Pearson was sanctioned $12,000 by the trial court and he has lost his job.
There's no need to make it more difficult for the truly injured to actually get lawyers and their day in court.
Do you think $100,000,000 is a resonable claim for a non-fatal injury where there is no loss of limb? Let's go ahead and throw in future earnings, and assume that these two won't ever be able to work again.
Multiple non-partisan studies have concluded that lawsuits are not driving the cost of health care.
I think it depends on how far up the chain of scumminess you want to go. Big pharma lobbyist/lawyers that game the system by paying off pols who vote 'yea' on bills that weaken FDA and CMS oversight--thereby resulting in additional opportunities for lawsuits--do more than their fair share.
Again, litigation expenses are not driving the costs of health care.
As far as damages are concerned, it's a question for the jury. Always has been, since the founding of this country.
I think I read that he broke his femur; if he did $950K isn't that bad. A broken femur is super painful, 6 month cast (usually up to mid-abdomen) and a good year or two of rehab.
$950,000 is ridiculous. Even if it gets taxed at 40%, the remainder invested at a conservative 4% would generate $22,800 per year. For a broken leg that will heal.
Medical and associated costs, I get. Endowing a perpetual annuity, not so much.
Don't forget the lawyer gets his cut too, plus you have to consider the other cost associated with being ambulatory for a long periods of time. Making a home accessible, home care and caretaker supervision and you assume he has adequate health insurance. All this can add up quickly. $950,000 is a big number, but not a laughable number; it is one I am sure WMATA is willing to work with.
I bet there are plenty of other attorney's PISSED at how low (in their minds) $950k is. It makes their 100 million look just a tad frivolous.
How do you know that the broken leg will heal correctly? Do you have copies of the medical records? From what the Post has written, it sounded like part of the leg was crushed as well, and injuries like that can be excrutiating and very hard to heal. Lots of rehab and probably ongoing pain and complications (especially for someone still growing.) I am not in favor of the flashy ridiculous lawyers jumping all over this like a bonanza, but if it was my family member injured or killed, you bet I would lawyer up and take their asses to court, especially in light of the use of the 1000 series cars and multiple system failures.
Heck, as it is I want to sue for mental suffering of being crammed armpit-to-armpit on the Red Line all week, with half the cars smelling like swamp ass and tourists. I'd sue for a kajillion dollars, but I'd settle for one good junkpunch to Catoe.
Damage awards are not taxable.
I love when people say such intelligent things as 'kill all the lawyers.'
Does that include Presidents of the United States as well?
I'm not in favor of killing anyone, but if we were to adopt such a policy, I might suggest that the corporal penalties inflicted be inversely proportional to the intelligence quotients of the population to be culled.
So you're saying Shakespeare isn't intelligent?
"Everybody says Shakespeare's so great. Well how come nobody's ever heard of him. Hell I'll write 'cha a play! All you need is a silly old king's hat, and some fancy sissy clothes out of your sister's drawers, and ya get up on the stage, and ya go nuts. I'm the king! I'm mad! I want the news from my kingdom! Help me out here gang!"
-Moe Phelps
"Dan, court cases are decided by a series of blow jobs. In fact, our entire civilization is built on blow jobs."
You do realize the "let's kill all the lawyers" quote is from Shakespeare, and it is quoted from the rubes who are trying to overthrow the hero (King Henry)?
It may be hard to win a case against Metro. Everyone knows they are screwed up, and if you ride, you share the responsibility.
What about this "Lawyers Use Web Site, Google Ads to Find Metro Crash Victims"
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/06/26/lawyers-use-web-site-google-ads-to-find-metro-crash-victims/
They defiantly don't waste any time.
In most cities where there are Metro crashes/incidents. They've learned to do a head count immediately after because people were boarding the buses off the streets who weren't even involved with the incident and filing false claims. I'm not saying this is the case, though.
i would not be surprised if they are aiming for such a high amount because they know if they went for a smaller chunk of cash, the settlement wouldnt be as great. i would sue for $100mil vs $1mil if i thought my settlement would be for $50mil instead of $500k. just my understanding of how these high filed cases with chance of settlement go...
http://www.williegary.com/wgary.html
i am all for victim's rights but what about bently's, mansions, and private jets screams protecting the justice system. this guy is an ambulance chaser who represents everything wrong with our judicial system.
The lawyer in this case, Willie Gary, is truly one-of-a-kind.
He has a private airplane. He's named it the Wings of Justice. He brags on his website about how rich he is, how many houses and cars he has, how much money he's made...um...helping people in need.
The guy makes Jackie Chiles look like professional.
Well, you can kiss Metro having enough money to replace the old cars or do proper maintenance. Obviously the people involved have a right to be upset, but I doubt the injuries in this case warrant anything near $100 million, and at most what they will get out of this is getting rich at the expense of the safety of those who still have to ride the metro.
I don't know. Multiple deaths and more injuries seem to be worth more than $100M. The injured surely deserve more than the "right to be upset." Besides, the juries are the ones who get to decide. The safety of those who continue to ride has already been compromised. Proposing that those who have suffered injury should continue to suffer without fairly determined jury-awarded damages simply adds insult to injury.
After reading some of these posts, it is really sad that some people have nothing good to say. I personally know the family very well and I was going to argue with some people, but it is not worth writing anymore words to express my angry towards those people who does not have a soul. Thanks to the people that have expressed their blessings and concerns for the families that have lost their lives and who is recovering from the accident.
QueenDC
After reading some of these posts, it is really sad to see how people do not have anything to say nice. I personally know the family and you can not imagine in a million years what that family is going through everyday and everynight.
It is easy to make a comment or express your views on something until you enter the siutation.
I would like to say thanks to the people whom expressed their blessings upon all the suviors and most important the victims family.
QueenDC
I certainly understand seeking damages. But people who file lawsuits of unprecedented amounts with bloodsucking lawyers are probably the same people who would have opposed fare hikes to cover replacing the 1000 series, had that occurred when it was originally proposed. What can we do other than seek out just-washed lobby floors and aging escalators and hope we get caught in some sort of incident so we can also sue someone and finally pay off student loans and credit card debt and move to a huge estate with a guest house in Potomac? And buy a fleet of Bentleys? And a jet! And a summer home in Antigua! And maybe a personal chef! And some new Louboutins! So necessary.
"But people who file lawsuits of unprecedented amounts with bloodsucking lawyers are probably the same people who would have opposed fare hikes to cover replacing the 1000 series, had that occurred when it was originally proposed."
um, sure they are :/ You have no reason to think that. And it's beside the point. A person injured by another's negligence or recklessness has the right to recover damages. Their position on rate hikes is irrelevant in the equation.
"What can we do other than seek out just-washed lobby floors and aging escalators and hope we get caught in some sort of incident so we can also sue someone"
Yes, I'm sure that's what these folks on Metro were doing last Monday.
You can file a lawsuit against anyone for anything. We could file a class action suit against DCist for reporting this suit was the first against Metro, when it wasn't, causing us all untold mental anguish. That does not mean the defendant is liable or the claim is legitimate. That's why we have judges and juries. Prudent attorneys would wait until they have some actual information about what happened before they filed a suit. Most likely, these guys are doing it for self-promotion purposes ("Hire Mike, He was the first to Sue Metro after the Red Line crash!") possibly at the expense of their clients' potentially legitimate claims.
The first case claims Metro's employee training and equipment maintenance was negligent. So far, all of the evidence points to a failure of the system that detects where the trains are. There has been no report that any Metro employee failed to do what they were supposed to do in relation to the crash. If the crash was not caused by faulty maintenance, then this case should be thrown out by the court.
The second case claims Metro was negligent in not replacing the 1000-series cars and not inspecting the brakes. Evidence so far seems to indicate the brakes were applied, but there has been no indication that they failed. Inspecting them would therefore be irrelevant; they would have been found to be in proper working order. It is also not clear Metro was negligent in not replacing the 1000-series cars. Negligence is the failure to take action that a reasonable and prudent person would do guided by ordinary considerations. Given severe budget and service concerns and an existing plan to replace the cars, it does not appear that Metro is negligent here.
From the little information we have about the lawsuits and the cause of the accident, neither of these cases appears to have merit. What is apparent is that there are self-important, grandstanding lawyers willing to use this tragedy for their own personal gain.
This was a horrific event, but not all horrific events end with large case settlements for real or pretending victims. As incredible as it sounds to some people, especially to personal injury lawyers, sometimes nobody is at fault.
filing early isn't necessarily for self-promotion purposes. Particularly when suing a government body or agency, there are often tight time limits on filing suit (If you're injured by the negligence of a NYC bus driver, for example, you only have 90 days to file your claim). Once more information is revealed through investigations and discovery, plaintiffs will be allowed to amend their complaints.
It is too early to tell whether any claims have merit, so anyone's judgment this early on is just a knee-jerk reaction based on your biased opinion about the value of the civil justice system and this lawyer in particular.
Without lawyers willing to take cases for nothing *unless they win* most people couldn't get lawyers, couldn't get their day in court when they are injured, and couldn't internalize the costs of bad behavior to bad actors. If the case *is* frivolous, the lawyer gets nothing, has to pay for all costs *and* gets sanctioned. This lawyer didn't get rich from frivolous suits. He got rich from meritorious ones. Your judgments about him and about the civil justice system have nothing to do with whether the people and families injured by the Metro accident have viable claims against anyone.
Just calm down.
Speaking of bias, you didn't read what I wrote. You read what you thought I wrote. I actually prefer (slightly) our system to the loser-pays system that exists in England and other places for many of the reasons you mentioned. But that does not mean I support an attorney that uses a high-profile tragedy and his clients for his own aggrandizement.
Yes, there are time limits, but typically they are one to three years. (Using New York's atypically short time limit in this context verges on hyperbole.) When suing government agencies, tort claims acts may shorten those periods and require additional procedural hoops, but federal and state courts have consistently found that Metro is not covered by a tort claims act. Thus claims here are probably limited by DC's 3-year statute for personal injury. There is no reason to file suit in less than a week if the deadline is in 2012.
In order to maintain a negligence claim, you must be able to show that an unreasonable or intentional action (or inaction) of a person (or organization) caused the harm. While some people have clearly been harmed, it's not clear that Metro was negligent, or that any claimant could have a reasonable understanding of what caused the accident. From what information we have so far, at least some of the plaintiffs' current theories of liability (training, brake inspections) seem dubious at best.
Actually, at this point there is no reason to file a lawsuit at all. The better procedure (for the injured client, not the attorney), is to file a claim directly with Metro. A lawsuit is needed only if Metro (or its insurance carrier) fails to adequately compensate victims for an injury for which it was responsible. Many people are injured every day and compensated for those injuries without filing lawsuits. That's what insurance adjusters do. Of course, that only compensates the victims, it doesn't help pay for the Wings of Justice.
Frivolous cases are filed all the time. Most are summarily thrown out. Except for suits claiming the IRS has no legal authority to collect the income tax, Attorneys are almost never sanctioned for them.
"Frivolous cases are filed all the time. Most are summarily thrown out. Except for suits claiming the IRS has no legal authority to collect the income tax, Attorneys are almost never sanctioned for them."
There is a legal definition of frivolity. Attorneys are sanctioned when their suit meets that definition, and plaintiffs have their suits thrown out. Just because you or someone else thinks a suit is "frivolous" doesn't mean it is legally so.
Aside from tight time limits, filing suit early may also help in getting more information out about what actually happened and who was at fault, and may help get that information out more quickly. Filing a claim with Metro would not accomplish that. There is also the chance to go first in court that may benefit your client over others injured in the crash or may help resolve issues in those cases, as well. Why not have the best lawyer do that rather than someone else? My point was there are many reasons for filing suit early, not just the one cynical reason you cite.
Frivolous cases and motions (by the legal definition) are filed all the time. They are routinely thrown out without sanctions against the lawyers. Judges don't like to go through the process of sanctioning an attorney unless the attorney's actions rise to being abusive or harassing. It makes news when a lawyer is sanctioned under Rule 11, which is the federal courts rule banning frivolous claims, defenses, and maneuvers. And you're wrong when you say "just because your or someone else thinks a suit is 'frivolous' doesn't make it so." If that "someone else" is a judge, it matters a lot.
"Why not have the best lawyer do that rather than someone else?" Are you suggesting that being the first to file suit, before you even know any facts about the case other than your client has been injured, makes you the best lawyer? Balderdash.
We found out today that the signal equipment that failed last Monday was recently replaced and that Metro was aware that it was malfunctioning. In my book, that looks bad for Metro's escaping liability here. But I doubt that anyone that has filed a suit against Metro was privy to that information last week. What if it had turned out that a CSX train had damaged Metro's signaling equipment just minutes before the crash?
Finally, having a lawsuit filed against you typically doesn't typically lead to full disclosure. Once you know anything you say can be used against you in court, you shut up. It is a little different here with the NTSB and others investigating a public agency than it would be with a private defendant. It is tougher for Metro to keep a lid on things. Discovery is rarely faster or better, especially when there is an ongoing independent review of the facts of the case.
Being the first in may mean you are the first to trial, but not always. And if your premature rush to court means that you miss some important fact, then resolving issues in your case could damage other legitimate cases.
Nothing in your response persuades me that the attorneys involved are not putting their own reputation ahead of their duty to provide the best possible representation for their clients. They filed early to get their name in the paper to get more clients.
@Stanton Park
Do you happen to know if this hold true for public transit? It seems like at one point common carriers were generally held to have more and higher duties than a reasonable person due to the nature of their businesses, but this may be a relic of history. I guess a related question is whether public transit agencies are common carriers.Common carriers and providers of public accommodation are generally held to a higher standard than others. I don't know whether this applies to Metro, but even if it does, if the NTSB investigation determines that Metro was not at fault, that should have some influence on the outcome of lawsuits.
Fair enough.