“Can I sue?”
I am asked the question almost daily. The answer is, of course, simple: You can always sue. The real question is, can you file a lawsuit and win. In the United States, there is little harm in trying. That’s because losers aren’t required to pay the cost of hauling a defendant into court. Neither the government nor private parties bears any risk when they take aim at someone and miss the mark.
That’s wrong.
In Great Britain, losers pay the other side’s litigation expenses. That seems just. It is expensive to wage war in the courts....
February 8, 2013
One of the down-sides of practicing law is having little time to do such things as watch television. Without a steady diet of the flickering screen, a certain sense of cultural illiteracy grows. So when I found myself in a hotel the other day, I turned on the tube. Wow.
I was huffing and puffing my way through an hour on an exercise bike while watching Fox News. The commentary was acid, even rancid. If Obama says hello, it’s disingenuous. I called my wife afterwards to report that full half of the country had lost its mind.
The next night, still stranded in the same hotel, I...
January 31, 2013
Justice delayed, we’re told, is justice denied. In Connecticut, delay is routine. State lawmakers can change that during the current session of the General Assembly. Lawmakers should reform the manner in which jurors are selected in civil and criminal cases. All it would take is a simple change to one state statute.
Lawyers call the process of jury selection “voir dire,” pronounced “vwah deer,” although westerners like to pronounce it “vor dyer.” It is an old French term meaning “to see, to speak.” It is the process of questioning...
January 31, 2013
Laws banning assault weapons, prohibiting clips capable of carrying dozens of rounds of ammunition, and requiring background checks of all gun purchasers will be about as effective in stopping gun violence as selling chastity belts in red-light districts. Most murders are crimes of passion and impulsive opportunity. Now that the United States is awash in guns – with approximately 80 firearms for every 100 people – lethal violence is everywhere.
Ask young men growing up in the nation’s inner cities. They’re dropping like flies in places like Chicago. We’ve...
January 17, 2013
January 13, 2013
IF you or a loved one needed life-saving surgery, would you choose a surgeon who had only read the textbook, or would you want a doctor who’d...
January 3, 2013
I’m not sure why the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association turned on Irving Pinsky the other day. Pinsky filed a claim before the state’s...
January 3, 2013
Imagine my surprise tonight when a reporter from a local paper sent me an email asking to see a copy of my sentencing memorandum in the Jason Zullo...
January 3, 2013
Irving Pinsky’s phone has been ringing off the hook. Some callers are wishing him well. But 50 or so folks want him dead, or so they...
December 27, 2012
Discussion turned, in the wake of the Newtown killings, to better mental health services. If we could simply identify homicidal rage before...
December 27, 2012
I spent the other day reading a book my wife gave me for Christmas, Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun. It’s the report of one family’s...