According to the Phoenix Business Journal, fewer civil cases are going to trial than a decade ago, and juries are awarding less in damages, according to a new U.S. Justice Department study of state courts in the nation's 75 largest counties. About 97 percent of civil cases are settled or dismissed without a trial. I guess I am still thinking about Perry Mason where attorneys are hired who actually believe in the case and their client and want to win it and do.
What occurs when cases linger on over years with each legal side asking for this that and the next thing thus dragging the case out, people forget what happened and who said what in spite of depositions. All it does is jack up the legal fees. In this case it was going on for two years before Greater Bay filed suit on November16, 2009. So, unless the defendant (The city of Lake Worth) is clear on the facts and has the recordings from the meetings that took place and all the reasons why the entire commission voted to terminate the contract with Greater Bay (and there were plenty of reasons), it is easy to make up weak excuses and reasons to settle.
The City of Lake Worth hired West Palm Beach law firm Boose, Casey Ciklin and two members of that firm were paid to give advice on drawing up the Contract with Greater Bay. Later Joslyn of Casey Ciklin (Boose was no longer as he was involved in the Masilotti corruption scandal eventually landing himself in federal prison) was retained to essentially tear that Contract apart when he was hired to defend the City of Lake Worth against Greater Bay's Breach of Contract suit. GB is represented by Damon Chase, (CLICK THE LINK) an interesting lawyer, of Freeman/Chase, Lake Mary, Florida.
Cara Jennings and Suzanne Mulvehill were singled out by our attorney at the settlement public meeting as Joslyn stated that in their depositions, Jennings said she did not help Mulvehill in her campaign and Mulvehill said that she did. It all depends on the definition of the word "help." Sort of like Bill Clinton when he said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word IS is." Mulvehill knew that Jennings supported her (wanted her to win) but Jennings did not knock on doors or give a campaign contribution to the Mulvehill campaign to the best of my knowledge. Now that the city is purging everything off the web site (which is absolutely STUPID), I am not going to take days to research this.
The local newspaper again suggests (because it NEVER identifies the commission) that it is Mulvehill and McVoy who had something to do with spending $10 million in Reserves. I have addressed that false allegation over and over again. It is untrue. This money was allocated before Mulvehill was elected and years before McVoy came on the scene. Neither one of these commissioners EVER raided Reserves. The present Commission, however, did.
As far as the local press' charge that we gathered signatures for the Respectful Planning PAC in a dishonest way, that charge is also bogus, ridiculous and slanderous. Basically with the current Charter allowing 65 feet to be built from Federal to Golfview and 100 feet in the downtown blocks west of Dixie, buildings could get that tall. The argument is not that they can't get to 100 feet. The argument is that they can. That is a fact. Voting yes on height limitations will allow us to retain our small downtown.
Suzanne Mulvehill is now out of politics so I don't understand the continued character assassination. I presume that the city and some politicians need someone to blame.
I do trust Mulvehill and McVoy and you should too. Joslyn said that it was McVoy and his PAC that sued the City. It was just the opposite and with his legal advice that went so far as to sue members personally wanting to take their homes, lawyers are hard to trust. It was a black day for Lake Worth. Over the past few years, I also don't trust the Press. They sure messed up on their endorsement for Commissioner District 2 and facts on certain issues continue to get in their way.
12 comments:
Really sad.The winners in Lake Worth are the ones who threaten the city the most. Forget our court system. As the brilliant Mr. Torcivia (our high priced outside legal council)whined"If we go to court,WE COULD LOSE "!So if you want to win in lake Worth,yell for millions, whether or not you have a legal claim.These cowards(The Mayor and Commission,City Manager Bornstein) and will crawl in a hole and throw money at you to go away.Does anyone know an attorney that will work on a contingency basis? I need a couple hundred thousand bucks,,,,,
The people who win in Lake Worth are the ones who threaten the most. Forget the court system. Wether or not you even have a legal claim, these cowards (our Mayor and City Commission,City Manager Bornstein)will crawl in a hole and throw money at you to go away. Lake Worth now has a target painted on our backs because city staff is too lazy and stupid to do their jobs,. The word is out-SETTLE,SETTLE AND SETTLE SOME MORE !!!Does anyone know an attorney that will work on a contingency basis?I need a couple hundred thousand bucks,,,,,
I'm not sure if you guys understand what happened here. Four mock juries were presented with this case and all four came back with a verdict against this city. All 4 awarded GB millions of dollars. The lowest award was 7 million and the highest was 19 million. There is not one lawyer out there that would not advise the city to settle. It was the only thing we could do. Instead of blaming the folks on the commission today who had nothing to do with the case, I would demand that the city do a public investigation into what happened here. The facts are clear that the city screwed up. You cannot be in a contract with your partner and work behind the scenes to destroy that contract or keep it from happening. That means that commissioners have a duty to act in good faith even if they think the contract is wrong for the city.If you don't act in good faith you expose this city to millions of dollars in damages. Unfortunately all those in house lawyers did nothing to stop Jennings or Mulvehill. Without proper legal advice they acted in such a way that 4 juries believed the city was never acting in good faith. Don't blame our present commission for this. But do demand that they find out what happened and what caused this so no one does it again.
Greg Rice--thanks for your comment that I did not post. I had the heights twisted around...changed it and it is now correct...need a proofreader. The essence of the comment is still correct.
It was a lousy contract. It was about as lousy as the water contract with PB County and it cost as a little bit more. People get out of lousy contracts every day and it always costs money. The idea is that it will save us money in the end. When you have a lawyer who does not believe in the case, then what can you expect? A lawyer needs to sell the argument, not roll over and play dead, take our money for 3 years and then tell us oh gee, 4 mock juries said we would lose. Why would they say that? What arguments were presented to these mock juries? What were all the circumstances? Was this all done to justify settling the case, something this commission wanted to do. I doubt if we will ever hear the truth here.
Mock juries don't represent one damn thing in the real world. These people get their money and want to get the hell out of the room.The people are pissed off because two con men were given 1.6 million dollars of other peoples money. You know-us dumb $hit taxpaying weenies!Jocelyn originally told the city that this case was going to be a slam dunk-that Greater Bay had nothing.800,000 dollars later,this ass of an incompetent attorney ran off with almost as much of the taxpayers money as the two con men. Lake Worth should sue jocelyn and his law firm for non performance!!!Gee maybe they will be as gutless as City manager Bornstein and the Mayor and we can get some of our money back!!!Oh sorry, only lake Worth is afraid to go to court !!!
This is citizens' money that you F(*&^ just gave away. There was plenty of reason to end the cont with Willard, the con of all cons.
I met Peter Willard a few years ago. He seemed like a very nice man.
Lynn,do you think the city had any other choice but to settle?
When you have a commission that wants to settle--
When you have an attorney that says we could possibly lose--
When you have Torcivia that says our odds were not even 50/50--
I GUESS NOT.
But we will never know will we.
We pay staff to give us accurate advice. We don't always get it. It would have been prudent, based on the fact that most all (97%) of civil cases are settled, to do this in the very beginning, not 3 years later. But we will never know about that either.
When you have a blogger who to this day takes the side of GB, at the expense of the city, let's blame him. He planted the seed that GB had some sort of a case. BCHIT. It is totally the fault of the WCE and the blogger.
When you have a case that does not go to trial, how can anyone put blame on citizens? Really stupid logic. Let's put the blame where it belongs. The Commission that allowed GB to get its hands on our property to begin with.
We can go on and on with this but the fact remains big mistakes were made from inception and Willard is a winner because we allowed him to have $1.6 million.
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