by von
It only took a brief aside, and it all comes flooding back.
Professor Bainbridge, whose BMW M3 was the victim of a random stabbing, remarks-in-passing:
I’m also getting zinged by USAA’s cheapskate policy terms. Because my M3 is over two years old, the policy provides for replacement parts of "like kind and quality" to OEM parts. So USAA is only willing to pay about 60% of what the dealer will charge for repairing the top with OEM equipment. Naturally, however, my M3 lease requires that any repairs be performed by a BMW dealer using OEM parts. (The legal issues raised by these policies are quite interesting, by the way. Here’s a pretty good summary.)
Please, for the love of all that is holy, no. The OEM/non-OEM parts debate is not at all interesting. It’s particularly not at all interesting when you cut your Big-Law litigator’s teeth on fifty-state surveys of the law of "diminished value" (the bastard child of the OEM class action plaintiffs bar) and endless reviews of insurance company files. It is even more not at all interesting after you see clients and competitors ponying up ridiculous sums — $1.18 billion in the Avery case at trial (appeals still ongoing, SFAIK) — to plaintiffs lawyers who cherry pick the best little courthouse in Texas (or Madison County, Illinois, in the case of Avery v. State Farm).
There’s a reason that I started working on patent cases (with the occasional business fraud case to spice things up) — and it wasn’t because the "legal issues raised by these policies are quite interesting."
My apologies for the inside-baseball rant. Some things, however, scar you for life.
You have my sympathy. And I’m an ERISA lawyer.
Sorry, that should be $1.18 million in the Avery case. I’m trying to correct it, but the server seems to be on the fritz.
You have my sympathy. And I’m an ERISA lawyer.
Oh my God. You do indeed. I’ve always run screaming fron the room whenever ERISA was mentioned.
This takes me back to that time, long ago, when I was in college and my Dad was suggesting that I go to law school, since I had no idea what to do with my life. He used to say, “but you’d be such a good lawyer”, and I would mutter something in reply, until one day I just thought, what the heck, and looked at him with my best imitation of hauteur and disdain, and said: Dad, I have no doubt that I would be a great gift to the law, but what makes you think that the law would be a great gift to me? And that was the end of it.
I dunno, my wife has done some insurance defense and coverage litigation, and I’ve never been too eager to swap with her. Those OEM cases look like a really luscious combination of brain-numbing document review, funky legal analysis, and dealing with [persons whose habitual behavior calls for the use of a word that would violate the posting rules]. No thanks. If I feel like a break, I’ll do some tax work.
ERISA law – for those who found straight tax law insufficiently abstruse and infuriating. God help you, sir.
I remember going to a recruiting event and sitting behind a tax lawyer and an ERISA lawyer snickering scornfully at the presentation of their colleague in the bankruptcy division.
hi, i’m just a visitor… my friend and i were discussing what i thought was a unique shared fear of whales… he bet me that there must be millions with our phobia, so i looked it up and found your blog entry about your view on whales … that was dead on how you described how creepy the image of an expansive deep ocean is, mostly because it’s enough room for a whale to come in… god, so true! just want you to know that my friend kenny and i are right with you! if i saw a whale while under water, i’d forget where i was, try to scream, inhale ocean water and die. 🙂
Antitrust litigation, anyone?
I just moved back into BigLaw from a tiny litigation boutique, and man this is dull. On the other hand, the clients generally aren’t insane, and I rarely feel the need to either giggle or express disbelief when someone explains the facts of a new case to me.
for brainteasers, this just wandered in the door.
Client builds a trailer park on top of a dry wash. Per County’s request, Client places a 60″ pipe in the wash, about 8′ below grade. Pipe is not transferred to Flood Control District. Works great for 40 years, during which time there is substantial development upstream, a lot of the storm flows from which are funnelled into Client’s pipe (without his authorization). Pipe fails in major rainstorm.
Random other facts: the client actually had to build a second pipe, not in the wash, which joined into the main pipe in a Y. Storm flows from significant upstream development was placed in this pipe (again without authorization). Oh, and the city and county utterly failed to build an adequate regional storm drain facility.
Inverse condemnation and/or government tort liability, raising issues of the Common Enemy Doctrine as well as the Natural Watercourse Doctrine. My head hurts.
Wow, this thread is like lawyer/nerd nirvana!
I kid, I kid… sorta.
Damn, Francis, those facts sound almost like a hypothetical constructed from the first two major trials my wife worked on. Seriously. I wonder if she still has the memos.
Real lawyers:
Please stop scaring the law students
-Law Student.
Well, I don’t understand what the legalities are all about, but isn’t Bainbridge some sort of libertarian? Didn’t he choose that policy voluntarily? As a lawyer, isn’t he better able than the vast majority to understand the contracts, including insurance policies and car leases, he enters into? Doesn’t he understand that he paid a lower premium, and probably a lower lease rate, because of these provisions?
So his complaint is?
“So his complaint is?”
That once again the real world is more complicated than Ayn Rand’s juvenile fantasies?
“Adhesion contracts” (written on the blackboard by Professor Kingsfield).
“If you complain, nothing happens, so you might just as well not bother.” — Eric Idle
Bernard:
Here are your instructions: Move to Madison, Illinois. Become eligible for jury duty. Sit on every jury.
That once again the real world is more complicated than Ayn Rand’s juvenile fantasies?
I hate it when that happens. But then, I’ve been down on Rand ever since I, as an impressionable 16-year-old sitting up reading in the wee hours of the morning, said to myself “well, it’s getting very late, so I’d better go to sleep as soon as I finish John Galt’s speech.” Oops.
“But then, I’ve been down on Rand ever since I, as an impressionable 16-year-old sitting up reading in the wee hours of the morning, said to myself “well, it’s getting very late, so I’d better go to sleep as soon as I finish John Galt’s speech.””
Have you slept since?
That speech goes on at length, but not quite THAT length. It’s been a while since I was 16 (impressionable I may still be).
You read the whole thing? I’ve never met anyone else who has. Even the hyper-Randroid my sister dated in college confessed that he’s read thirty pages or so, and then skipped ahead until it was over.
In further ‘remind me why law school was a good idea again’ news, I’ve just been told that I’m responsible for preparing a deposition outline for one of plaintiff’s expert witnesses. Which will involve reading everything he’s ever written. In time for an April 27th deposition. And he’s written a lot. Did I mention he’s a Nobel Laureate? So he’s written a lot. And by a lot, I mean a lot.
Expect me to sound much more authoritative about economics in the future, if I live through the month.
“You read the whole thing? I’ve never met anyone else who has.”
Hell yeah! My favorite part was where Rand. . oops. . I mean Galt. . ‘proved’ that social welfare is bad by describing a factory where health care is socialized and an old woman breaks her leg, so everyone has to pay for her care, and then they resent her, so they just kill her instead. This raises a number of problems and/or laughs, but my first thought was ‘so in the improved market-based version, after she breaks her leg, she can’t provide for her own care and just dies earlier? Viva le revolution!’ I became rather dubious at that point.
Remember that the kind of “reading” one does when eyelids can barely be held open is not like other reading. And I probably skimmed large chunks. In any case, about the only thing I remember about it today is pure tedium. One would think that the wonders of the market could have provided that lady an editor, but one would be wrong.