Insurance Claim1

Remember the OJ Simpson trial?  I do.  I was in law school at the time and it was such a big deal that the law library set up a television for students to watch the proceedings. I remember watching the 15 m.p.h. police chase down the 405 freeway as OJ led the police on the SLOWEST get-away chases in the history of get-away chases.   I remember the subsequent circus/criminal trial in which the prosecution regularly got handed their heads for screwing up simple procedural matters (like not Shepardizing key cases).   I remember the infamous "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit"  quote (that really was the stupidest line in the whole case).   I remember the day the verdict was handed down and OJ hugged his attorneys.  The persons OJ should have hugged was the prosecution.  They couldn't have bungled the case any worse than they did. Heck, I also remember thinking whether the prosecution had been bought off having just thrown...

Do you know how much it costs to have a case be appealed in a federal court of appeal?   In accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 1913, that cost is $500.  Not a lot but when you don't have it, it's a whole lot of what you don't have. Now, with all that it costs to take a case to appeal, imagine, if you will, you are sitting in your house, door closed, and the police knock on your front door.  Little, piggie, little piggie, let me come in they shout.   You say, "No dice, go away."  Your roommate, who is outside the house, tells the police that they can go in.   You, again, insist that no, the police can't come in.  Police ignore you, they break a window to reach the inside lock, open the door, taser you to the floor and start to search for contraband inside your house. Sound like fun?  Well, Ryan Bonivert didn't and after the police did all that to him, he filed a case against the City of Clarkston , the County of Asotin and t...

Years ago, I worked as a law clerk.  One day I interviewed a client who had, for the last 10 years, been residing in prison for a double homicide.   What was interesting is that when I had parked my car and started walking toward the front gate, I met a number of parents of incarcerated people.   Every parent swore that their kid was innocent and had been set-up. Inside the prison, every single prisoner claimed they were innocent and had been set-up.  Our client had the same story.  Innocent and set-up.  Really? You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and you are innocent?  Smoking gun found two feet away with your fingerprints and gun powder residue on your hands!?  Still innocent?!?  Sad that everyone has the same story.  I didn't do it - it was the other guy (that they never found or caught).  The police set me up.  It couldn't be that they actually did the crime. Maybe the nature of the crime was so ...

If there is one thing that most everyone can agree, mistakes really slow things down.  In law and legal stuff, mistakes can really damage a person's calm.  Take court forms like the Petition for Divorce package.  It has about 967 boxes, lines, and places to screw it up (and yes, I counted them all).   Soooooo, if you mess up and either check a box that shouldn't be checked or fail to check a box that should have been checked, the court clerk will mark the mistake and send it back to you.  Of course, what they won't tell you is that if you made any more mistakes in the form - just that you made that one.  Now, if there is another mistake, and you don't have an attorney to help tell you what you did wrong, you will probably correct the mistake, send the form back only to have the form sent back to you with the next mistake identified so that you can re-submit that form over and over and over.  It's maddening, I tell you! This brings us t...

Today's news brings us the story of deceit and skulduggery. Seems Assemblyman Jim Frazier (a democrat representing the area of Oakley ) is proposing a bill ( AB 2353 ) in the California Assembly that would cut the limitation of actions for construction defect claims from 10 years to 5 years. See, there's this building called the Millennium Tower which is located in San Francisco. It is a 58-story luxury residential building (i.e. condos ) and it is sinking . Not only has it sunk 17 inches since its completion in 2008, but it's now leaning 14 inches towards a nearby skyscraper. The kicker is that the leaning and sinking weren't realized until year 7 (which, under Politician Frazier's bill, would have precluded any lawsuits against the developers). So, how might this apply to Joe Consumer (you know, people not living in the Millennium Tower)?  Say you bought a new home in California.  Let's say that 5 years and 1 day after you bought your house, you...

The duduk kasus with being an omnipotent law Librarian is that after a while of hitting on all 16 cylinders, pulling answers out of the sky like they were cotton candy, you start to feel all powerful, thinking you know everything - until you skip a beat and you can't find anything.  Then you start to question the sanity of the universe. Such was my life the other day.  Seems this Guy came into my law library.  Seems Guy had just been in family court where his ex-wife had filed a motion to legally change his son's name to her new flame's name.  Judge told Guy she'd deny the motion if he could find something to prevent the change.  Guy was under the gun and came to me - the omnipotent Librarian - to help him in his hour of need.  I looked everywhere and couldn't find anything for him.  I mean, EVERYWHERE!  Guy flips out claiming that everyone told him that I was THE go to Librarian when you can't find something and that I failed him. Hu...

Do you remember the civil war?  Sure you do.  It was a battle between the northern and southern states that ran from 1861-1865.  The primary reason the Civil War broke out was because the southern states wanted to secede from the union because, I suspect, the Federal government was trying to ram its ideologies down the southern states throats.  Abraham Lincoln thought differently and by sending troops to prevent succession, the Civil War began. Fast forward 140 years to the year 2005.  The year after George W. Bush was elected POTUS, Congress passed what is known as The Real ID Act of 2005 .  California was, initially, one of the states that refused to bow to the requirements of this Act.  Fact is, there were a number of hold-out states that refused to adopt this federal mandate. It has recently come to my attention, however, that this is no longer the case and after only two weeks since I (a California resident) got my new Driver's License...