skydiver604 0 #126 January 18, 2012 Quote Quote practicing Cool! Let me know when you get good at it! LOL,,,that's funny You sound like like Horace Rumpole "The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,027 #127 January 18, 2012 Quote Quote Quote practicing Cool! Let me know when you get good at it! LOL,,,that's funny You sound like like Horace Rumpole But I bet he's never been to Penge.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skydiver604 0 #128 January 18, 2012 No, the Penge Bungalow Murders is / was a Rumpole exclusive "The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ghost47 18 #129 January 19, 2012 QuoteJust a friendly reminder, this thread has never been about you. Nor is this the penis measuring competition. Never claimed (or thought) that it was. Just replied to some posts regarding discussions of our legal system. Then got curious as to what I said that made someone think I wasn't a lawyer. Feel free to continue discussing the suit against Spaceland. Quotehave a wonderful day ! Thank you! It was less wonderful because dz.com seemed to be down all day, but I figure that was a SOPA protest thing. Glad it's back up. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andy9o8 2 #130 January 19, 2012 QuoteI searched but couldn't find... any info on the settlement for sure? As we discussed, there's a pretty fair chance it's being kept confidential. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
popsjumper 2 #131 January 19, 2012 Quote Quote I searched but couldn't find... any info on the settlement for sure? As we discussed, there's a pretty fair chance it's being kept confidential. Yeah. In the big scheme of things I would tend to agree to secrecy. Otherwise, it would be kind of like peeping into somebody's wallet. Question: I'm no lawyer...I'm asking. When you have a case, sometimes a lot of the outcome depends on prior history; precedent sometimes sets the tone, right? In a case like this where the awards are kept secret, do you, as a lawyer, have access to that info so that you can apply it to your case? (No, I'm not going to ask you to use your lawyer's ticket to go look it up.) My reality and yours are quite different. I think we're all Bozos on this bus. Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andy9o8 2 #132 January 19, 2012 QuoteWhen you have a case, sometimes a lot of the outcome depends on prior history; precedent sometimes sets the tone, right? Generally, precedent really is only derived from courts' rulings on issues of law, not from prior juries' verdicts on facts from evidence. A judge ruling on a point of law in a case (say, the legal status of a waiver) often derives some guidance from previous courts' (especially appellate courts') rulings on the same or similar legal issue. But juries never render their verdicts based, even in part, on what prior juries might have done. (A jury in one case would never be allowed to be told, during the trial, what a jury in another case had done.) However, if there is a trend of how jury verdicts in a particular locality tend to lean, that often does have an influence on settlement negotiations. Juries often reflect local demographics and ideologies. So, for example, juries in conservative-leaning counties often tend to lean toward the defense in personal injury cases, while juries in very urban and/or more liberal counties tend to be more plaintiff-leaning. As you can imagine, this factor has a lot of influence in settlement negotiations. QuoteIn a case like this where the awards are kept secret, do you, as a lawyer, have access to that info so that you can apply it to your case? Generally, no; at least, not as to the amount of the settlement (which I think is the main thrust of your question). However, if during the course of the case (before it settled), the judge made an important ruling of law, AND if the judge published a written opinion in support of that ruling (which is rare in state court, but more common in federal court), that published opinion becomes part of the overall body of "caselaw" available to the public to potentially be cited in future cases. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pchapman 279 #133 January 19, 2012 If something is settled out of court, then I guess it just becomes a contract between two parties, just like any business contract, with no requirement for anything to be made public. Whether or not it makes sense, I sometimes wish there were rules against going private on court cases. If you start something in a public court of law, you would have to report the results in the end, whether the dispute finished in court, though some official mediation, or privately. Otherwise society is left hanging with no answers. One side says the product or service was at fault for injuries or death, the other side says not, and in the end, we don't know. You get all these cases where there may have been a payout, maybe big, maybe just a small one as a sop, but with no liability or fault admitted. People then clam up because they say they are bound by the terms of the out of court agreement. If it was a part on an aircraft that failed, as an engineer and pilot I'm going to pissed at the legal system that the truth (as best is known) was not made public. Whether I have any right to know the truth, that's another matter. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
