Friday, June 24, 2005

Here Comes the Judge, and He's Coming for Your House

By Rosemarie Jackowski

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Posted 06/24 | Add a Comment

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  1. Welcome to the club.  Have you ever been ordered to vacate your home by the court?  I know many divorced fathers who have been.  How bout those community of color who have been uprooted via gentification and highways built through their neighborhood so whites can commute from the suburb.

    Yes welcome to the world of niggerfication.  Now you too can be one without needing a tan.  Just step inside a court room.

    Posted by Wilson Barber from  on  06/28  at  08:22 AM

  2. Wilson, the point that you make about gentrification is an important one. There was not much of an outcry from the public when that happened. It is only now, when the middle class is the target of eminent domain, that anyone is noticing. We live in a racist and classist country.  Court rooms rarely render Justice. The entire judicial system needs to be changed. It is a system set up to serve those who hold power. I expect that things will get a lot worse before the people start to react in numbers sufficient to bring about the necessary changes.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  06/28  at  08:51 AM

  3. So what’s wrong with sovereign immunity?  Can you name a SINGLE government with a court system that does not have sovereign immunity?  Any government anywhere at any time in history?  I’ll bet you can’t.  If there was one, it undoubtedly ceased to exist very rapidly.

    Next suggestion:  Try asking your mayor (or ANY mayor or police chief or ANY legislator or judge) whether they would serve in office without sovereign immunity.  Most of them probably would not.

    Sovereign immunity says that if the mayor proposes a budget you don’t like, you can’t sue him for it.  If the police chief doesn’t assign a full time police officer to your kid’s school, you can’t sue him for it.  If the judge made a mistake when presiding over a case, you can’t sue him for it. 

    Without sovereign immunity, government would grind to a halt and lawyers would control everything.  Organizations with money for lawyers would beat into submission those without money.  No one would voluntarily serve in office.  No one would voluntarily serve jury duty.  Decide against the rich guy and he might sue you.

    I have defended a number of state and local governments on sovereign immunity charges, and I’m proud of that.  You appoint government officials to make judgment calls, and you can’t sue them simply because you don’t like their judgment sometimes.  (In your case, this seems to be ALL the time.)

    Of course, if a garbage truck rear ends your car in traffic, you can still sue.  There’s no immunity for that.  However, if the mayor announces that garbage pickup is switching from twice a week to once a week, your only remedy is the political process. 

    You have a lot of passion for what you do, which is good.  However I think you need to put more careful consideration into what you say and do.  Some people say the glass is half full.  Others say it’s half empty.  You always seem to think the glass is completely empty.

    Posted by me from my office  on  07/04  at  08:50 AM

  4. To Commenter #3...Thanks for the comment but I think that you got some of your information wrong. The problem with Sovereign Immunity is that it sometimes is all encompassing. In the situations where it is LIMITED and based on justice for the citizens, I might support it. However that is often NOT the case. In some areas of the country, if a group of children in a crosswalk or on school bus was hit by a government truck being operated by a drunk or reckless driver, the families of the dead and/or injured children would have an almost impossible battle to be fairly compensated. Basically the victims would have to get permission to sue the government and then be limited by an ARBITRARY and sometimes hostile cap on liability.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  07/05  at  03:38 PM

  5. Back to Commenter #3 again...Actually the Sovereign Immunity problem in the U.S. is much worse than I describe...and I have not even mentioned the nightmare of the Court System. Please talk to some victims. Sometimes the glass really is empty!

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  07/05  at  03:48 PM

  6. This is what you are outraged about?  Limits on tort liability when suing municipalities?  This keeps you up at night?

    Tort liability limits are rare and usually very high.  See Tennessee’s rule for example, TCA 29-20-202:  no maximum liability in auto accident cases.

    Tort liability limits for governments make good sense.  Governments have limited amounts of money.  If they spend all their money on multi-million dollar tort verdicts, it means they have less money for other worthwhile things.  There’s no free money out there.  Also, tort limits allow governments to buy liability insurance at lower rates, which means they are better able to pay for the claims against them.

    Sovereign immunity is a policy, a difficult balancing act between the needs of the community and the needs of the injured individual.  The laws on the books in every state represent the best judgment of thousands of policy makers in hundreds of jurisdictions over several centuries, stretching all the way back to English common law.  But maybe you know better than them.

    Screaming in outrage at the world is easy.  Getting informed and doing something practical that might actually help someone is hard.

    Don’t call me misinformed.

    Posted by me from at home  on  07/07  at  01:46 AM

  7. To Commenter #6...You have made several more errors. You say, “...Tort liability limits are rare and usually very high....” WRONG!!! The limits are almost universal and exist in most States. Each State has the power to set its own limit. In some States the cap on liability is so low that an injured party cannot be fairly compensated for injuries......Most people, you might be an exception, believe in fairness and restitution for victims. ..........The cap on liability can be compared to putting a cap on compensation for a “Taking” by the government. That would be obviously unfair. Think about the possibility of the government taking a house worth $200,000 and then compensting the owner-citizen only a small portion of that because of a cap on compensation for a “Taking”. A cap on liability violates the same principle of fairness. ......The government should be held responsible for 100% of the damage to any citizen. It is only then, that justice can be served.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  07/07  at  10:43 AM

  8. You keep telling my I’m misinformed, making errors, haven’t talked to victims, etc.  This is my job you’re talking about:  something I have dealt with most every day for more than 30 years.  I’ve read the statutes, studied the caselaw, met with people who are injured.  I’ve represented both injured people and governments.  I know what I’m talking about. 

    Without meaning to belabor the point, there are probably some cities, maybe even a state out there with tort limits that are much too low, but it’s relatively rare.  Furthermore, tort limits are a policy decision.  If you want the government to pay more for torts, then it must pay less for other worthwhile things.  You’re basically saying “Cancel the Meals on Wheels program so we can pay more to people hit by trash trucks.” What you want is not necessarily in society’s best interest. 

    Again, I have to say that YOU are the one who’s misinformed, the one with some of the facts wrong. 
    Maybe we can just drop the matter.  I think your heart is in the right place, and I don’t want to argue further.  It wouldn’t serve any purpose anyhow. 

    On another point, my city is now considering a bill that would prevent it from taking property by eminent domain for private development.  That is, no seizing property to build a shopping mall unless approved in the next local election.  I am helping push this through.  Do you see?  Despite all your screaming that there was a coup and our government has been taken over by evil corporate thugs, it’s still quite possible to get worthwhile things done.  You can do it too.

    Have a nice life.

    Posted by me from my home  on  07/10  at  09:32 PM
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