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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On July 24 2016 01:18 Doodsmack wrote:
"Circuit Court Judge Jorge Cueto, presiding over a lawsuit related to unpaid bills brought by a local paint store against the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, ordered the billionaire politician’s company to pay the Doral-based mom-and-pop shop nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees."
This judge is Mexican. Trump is building a wall. Therefore, this judge is biased. Trump's explicit reasoning, not mine. Ya can't make it up.
If the judgement is perceived to be unfair then that is a perfectly reasonable explanation instead of assuming the judge is incompetent.
Edit: I'll say both conclusions that judge is incompetent or biased are equally valid given they both make assumptions. The real question is if the so called "unfair" ruling itself is accurate or not.
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I don't know much about the case, but $300,000 is an absurd amount of attorney fees to award over a $32,000 debt.
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Gary Johnson could care less if his quixotic run for the presidency costs Republicans the Senate.
“I’ve always believed that Republicans are mostly about smaller government. But of late? Not at all,” the Libertarian candidate says matter-of-factly about the party he once championed as GOP governor of New Mexico. “What’s to crash? What’s to ruin? What’s to spoil?”
With Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump making history as the least liked candidates in the modern era — both sport unfavorable ratings topping 50 percent — Johnson and his Green Party counterpart Jill Stein are getting a fresh look from disaffected voters. Whether they draw enough support to swing the general election remains to be seen, but their presence on the ballot could play an outsized and unpredictable role in the undercard: The battle for the Senate.
According to the latest poll data, they're already getting some traction. The latest rolling averages from RealClearPolitics give Johnson about 8 percent and Stein 4 percent nationally, with Johnson also drawing statistically significant support in battle ground states like Florida and Pennsylvania.
Top strategists in both parties openly admit they’re perplexed about how third-party and independent voters will cast their ballots in Senate contests and battleground House races. Disgruntled Ted Cruz or Bernie Sanders supporters may toss out protest votes for third-party presidential candidates, while sticking with their party in the battle for control of the Senate. Or Libertarian and Green Party voters might decline to vote for Democratic or GOP Senate candidates — some might not even cast a downballot vote at all — moves that would have negligible effect on the battle for the upper chamber.
“I just don’t know how they swing. It could absolutely have an impact, it’s totally unpredictable,” said Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman.
And Cruz himself tossed a little fuel on the fire when he refused to explicitly direct voters to back GOP candidates during the national convention, instead imploring Republicans to vote their "conscience" up and down the ballot.
Most ominously for the two major parties, a handful of disenchanted voters in just one state could determine Senate control and which party will oversee the confirmation process and priorities of the Senate under a new president, particularly in places like Nevada and New Hampshire. In Nevada, there’s the infamous “none of the above” option that could drain support from Rep. Joe Heck (R) or former Democratic Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, and in New Hampshire a third-party conservative is openly running as a spoiler that could hurt the chances of Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R).
Source
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On July 24 2016 01:54 xDaunt wrote:
I don't know much about the case, but $300,000 is an absurd amount of attorney fees to award over a $32,000 debt.
Between the mom and pop shop and Trump, which do you think engaged in the borderline frivolous motion practice that no doubt inflated those fees?
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On July 24 2016 01:58 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2016 01:54 xDaunt wrote:
I don't know much about the case, but $300,000 is an absurd amount of attorney fees to award over a $32,000 debt. Between the mom and pop shop and Trump, which do you think engaged in the borderline frivolous motion practice that no doubt inflated those fees?
Circuit Court Judge Jorge Cueto, presiding over a lawsuit related to unpaid bills brought by a local paint store against the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, ordered the billionaire politician’s company to pay the Doral-based mom-and-pop shop nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees.
All because, according to the lawsuit, Trump allegedly tried to stiff The Paint Spot on its last payment of $34,863 on a $200,000 contract for paint used in the renovation of the home of golf’s famed Blue Monster two years ago.
Trump National’s insistence that it had “paid enough” for the paint despite a contract, according to the lawsuit, caused The Paint Spot to slap a lien on the property and Cueto to order the foreclosure sale of the resort.
In time, Donald Trump’s company got the judge to cancel the June 28 courthouse auction after it placed the $34,000 in escrow, and the case was put on hold while Trump National’s owner, Trump Endeavor, considered an appeal.
But the lien remained.
And Cueto was asked to rule on the fees for The Paint Spot’s three $500-an-hour attorneys and two $150-an-hour paralegals that lawsuit loser Trump Endeavor will have to pay.
The golf company, according to the court file, objected to the hourly rates because it paid its lawyers $400 an hour, according to court records.
This week, Cueto ruled that the fees were reasonable, and then some.
First, he ruled Trump should pay for nearly 500 hours of legal work, since the store’s legal team had to prepare for a trial that never took place.
Then, Cueto tacked on a 75 percent “risk” fee, partly because the store’s lawyers took the risk that they would never be paid if they lost.
Total: $282,949 and 91 cents, including copying and expert testimony.
“I’m happy I have a judgment,” said Juan Carlos Enriquez, owner of The Paint Spot. “But he [Trump] hasn’t paid yet.
“You know how he says he’ll surround himself with the greatest people if he is president? In this case, he might not be surrounded by the right people.”
Trump bought the property in 2012 for $150 million then launched into a major renovation.
Alan Garten, Trump’s in-house lawyer, didn’t return a call for comment.
either may, maybe trump should have just, yknow, actually paid the store.
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It does seem like a high amount of attorney's fees; but then for an attorney fee award, the amounts are generally quite well documented iirc?
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im more curious about the 75% risk fee - i get the risk fee part, but idk if 75% is reasonable?
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On July 24 2016 01:58 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2016 01:54 xDaunt wrote:
I don't know much about the case, but $300,000 is an absurd amount of attorney fees to award over a $32,000 debt. Between the mom and pop shop and Trump, which do you think engaged in the borderline frivolous motion practice that no doubt inflated those fees?
Judges don't typically buy that argument when considering awards of attorney fees. They're more concerned with whether the attorney fees incurred are proportional to the value of the underlying claims.
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On July 24 2016 02:05 ticklishmusic wrote:
im more curious about the 75% risk fee - i get the risk fee part, but idk if 75% is reasonable?
I've never heard of a risk multiple being applied when determining the amount of fees that should be awarded to an opposing party. Not all jurisdictions even allow for risk multiples in all circumstances. Typically, the risk multiple is awarded by the court to the attorney against his own client when the client is challenging the reasonableness of the fees to be paid to the attorney, and when the fee to be paid is contingent (and therefore, bears risk). It doesn't make sense for the opposing party to assume the attorney's risk of nonpayment on the fees. That's something to be considered between the attorney and his client.
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On July 24 2016 02:09 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2016 01:58 farvacola wrote:On July 24 2016 01:54 xDaunt wrote:
I don't know much about the case, but $300,000 is an absurd amount of attorney fees to award over a $32,000 debt. Between the mom and pop shop and Trump, which do you think engaged in the borderline frivolous motion practice that no doubt inflated those fees? Judges don't typically buy that argument when considering awards of attorney fees. They're more concerned with whether the attorney fees incurred are proportional to the value of the underlying claims.
Without looking at Florida's specific rules, it's not really accurate to generalize that way.
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On July 24 2016 02:14 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2016 02:09 xDaunt wrote:On July 24 2016 01:58 farvacola wrote:On July 24 2016 01:54 xDaunt wrote:
I don't know much about the case, but $300,000 is an absurd amount of attorney fees to award over a $32,000 debt. Between the mom and pop shop and Trump, which do you think engaged in the borderline frivolous motion practice that no doubt inflated those fees? Judges don't typically buy that argument when considering awards of attorney fees. They're more concerned with whether the attorney fees incurred are proportional to the value of the underlying claims. Without looking at Florida's specific rules, it's not really accurate to generalize that way.
I'm just saying how judges operate from personal experience. The rules regarding these types of issues are generally the same across all jurisdictions, where judges are afforded ample discretion to do whatever they want. And looking at the description of what was done from ticklishmusic's post, it doesn't seem like the billing came from frivolous motions practice. It came from trial prep and some serious over-lawyering of the case on the part of the paint shop's attorneys.
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Fair enough, all I was saying is that some jurisdictions don't pay all that much attention to the value of the underlying claim so much as they consider the scope and voluntariness of the entire process of litigation.
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i mean if someone is dumb enough to go to court when attorney's fees and litigation costs exceed the claim...
as i said, maybe trump should have just paid up. hes got a record of trying to stiff contractors, this time the contractors didnt take it lying down
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I want to know how you get $300,000 in fees what appears to be a simple debt collection case. Even if we assume the attorneys bill out at $300 per hour, no debt collect case should involve that much work.
Need more info. And being awarded legal fees is pretty uncommon unless they are guaranteed by statute. At least around here.
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I think the better Gary Johnson does, the worse it is for Trump. He's much more likely to take Trump votes than Hillary votes.
Jill Stein is the reverse, but looks like she'll have a significantly smaller impact on the election than Gary Johnson.
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Anyone watching Kaine give his address? Both of the people on this ticket aren't talented speakers. Also lol Hillary raised her hand when he asked people to raise hand if they were naturalized citizens
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you must be watching someone else.
kaine is very good. i can see why hes never lost an election. hes a fucking ball of sunshine.
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United States44439 Posts
On July 24 2016 00:53 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +A rape survivor is suing Texas' Harris County after she was jailed for more than a month and subjected to beatings and "psychological torture."
According to court documents, she had suffered a mental breakdown while testifying against her rapist, and authorities checked her into the general population at Houston's Harris County Jail because they feared she would flee before finishing her testimony.
"Jane Doe found herself hopelessly trapped in a bizarre plot pulled from a Kafka novel," the court documents read. She "was imprisoned in the hellhole of the Harris County Jail for no reason other than being a rape victim who struggles with a mental disability."
The anonymous woman was raped in Houston in 2013, according to court documents, and was cooperating with prosecutors when she suffered a breakdown while testifying in December 2015.
She has bipolar disorder and was admitted to a local hospital for mental health treatment when the judge ordered a recess for the holiday break until January 2016.
According to the documents, authorities were scheduled to be on vacation and "did not want the responsibility of having to monitor Jane Doe's well being or provide victim services to her during the holiday recess."
The complaint alleges that the district attorney's office obtained an order from the Harris County sheriff to take the woman into custody so she would not flee before completing her testimony. Source
I read that case and it's not as crazy as it sounds. A key witness had a manic episode in the middle of a trial which would have allowed her rapist to walk free. They tried to release her to family or friends but nobody would take her. Rather than just let her walk out with a "good luck" they detained her against her will until the end of the month. Which isn't ideal but at the same time isn't hellish.
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On July 24 2016 02:58 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
I think the better Gary Johnson does, the worse it is for Trump. He's much more likely to take Trump votes than Hillary votes.
Jill Stein is the reverse, but looks like she'll have a significantly smaller impact on the election than Gary Johnson.
Why is Gary Johnson more likely to take votes away from Trump than Clinton? I don't know much about him.
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EPT
