Lowering the Bar

Cyclist Sued for Damaging Front of Driver's Car

A Spanish newspaper reports that businessman Tomas Delgado is suing for damage that 17-year-old Enaitz Iriondo caused to Delgado's car during an accident in 2004.  Delgado alleges that Iriondo thoughtlessly caused 20,000 Euros worth of damage to the Audi A8 by allowing his body and bicycle to be impacted by the front end of it while Delgado was trying to speed.

Delgado is sorry that Iriondo was killed in the accident, but he also wants his car fixed.

Delgado has not been criminally charged in Iriondo's death, apparently because Iriondo was riding his bike alone at night without wearing reflective clothing, and was not wearing a helmet.  Iriondo's family was paid 33,000 Euros by Delgado's insurer based on the acknowledgement that Delgado was speeding, but Delgado still maintains that the family should have to pay for the damage (plus another 6,000 Euros for the cost of renting a car while the Audi is fixed).

"I'm also a victim in all of this," Delgado said, still weeping over the broken corpse of his beautiful young A8, which had barely begun to live.  "You can't fix the lad's problems, but you can fix mine."  I'm not so sure about that last part.

Delgado may have earlier expressed remorse for killing the lad, since Iriondo's family said they had previously felt sorry for him "for the guilt he must feel" at killing their son.  But the family said their feelings now are more in the neighborhood of disgust.

Iriondo's mother described the lawsuit as "a kick in the teeth."

Link: London Daily Mail

Candidate's Platform: "I Don't Plan to Do the Job"

Evidently a strong believer in smaller government, Ed Hamilton says that if elected he will shrink the size of the government in Kerr County, Texas, by at least one job -- his own.

Hamilton, a 77-year-old Republican, says that the position of treasurer is an unnecessary one that costs the county $46,000 a year, and ought to be eliminated.  As it stands, however, the state constitution requires the legislature to provide for county treasurers (and county surveyors), whether anybody needs one or not.  Tex. Const. Art. 16, sec. 44.  Short of a constitutional amendment (which Hamilton advocates), the strategy appears to be to have a treasurer who won't do anything, including cash his own checks.  And Hamilton is running for that position.

If elected, he said, "I don't plan to do the job, [and] I won't accept a paycheck."  His plan is to "hand the duties to someone else" -- he didn't say who that would be -- refuse pay, and in the meantime petition for a referendum that would allow counties to wipe out treasurers wherever they may be found.

The incumbent Hamilton is challenging feels differently.  Mindy Williams, who was appointed to the job last year after the previous occupant resigned, and who is also a Republican, said she was "shocked" by Hamilton's proposal.  She said her position was "essential to county government" because it provides accountability.

Hamilton continues to argue that it is redundant.  He says that if he is elected, he will start not doing the job immediately.

Link: AP via Yahoo! News
Link: San Antonio Express-News

Robber Awarded $1 Million for Violating Probation

A judge in Massachusetts has ruled that a convicted two-time bank robber can keep a $1 million lottery prize he won recently, even though playing the lottery violated the terms of his probation.

Timothy Elliott pleaded guilty to unarmed robbery in 2006 (he had previously spent two years in jail for the armed kind), and was given five years of probation, which among other things required him not to "gamble, purchase lottery tickets or visit an establishment where gaming is conducted . . . ."  Nonetheless, in November 2007 Elliott bought a $10 ticket for the Massachusetts lottery, and won.  Two days after he picked up his first check, he was invited to court to discuss what should happen to the money.

The lottery commission and probation department both recommended that Elliott be allowed to keep the money, and on Friday, January 18,  Superior Court Judge Richard Connon agreed.  Elliott will be required, however, to pay $65 a month for the costs of his probation, a fee that had previously been waived because Elliott had no money.  He will now have to pay that amount out of the $50,000 check he will receive from the state each year for the next 20 years.

I've provided a picture of Mr. Elliott here in case you are putting together a ZZ Top tribute band and need someone who can buy his own instruments.  I had to get this one from the Boston Globe because, while the Massachusetts State Lottery publishes pictures and press releases about big winners on its website, oddly enough Mr. Elliott is not mentioned there at all.

Link: Boston Globe
Link: AP via SF Gate.com

Car's Owner Receives Multiple Parking Tickets For Car That Had Been Stolen

San Francisco is a notoriously difficult place to park, not so much because of the hills but because of the relatively small size of the city and its downtown.  Adding to the fun is the zeal of its parking control officers.

This one may not be their fault, but it's somebody's fault.

Last September, Michelle Vuckovich's car was stolen from her home in South San Francisco.  She called police and someone was there to take her report within 30 minutes.  As you might expect, California has a system for listing stolen cars statewide, and Vuckovich's car was listed there right away.

Then she started to get parking tickets.

As SF Chronicle columnists Philip Matier and Andrew Ross reported in December, Vuckovich got a parking citation in the mail a few weeks later.  She noticed that her car had been ticketed just a few hours after it was stolen, so it was possible that the car had not been listed yet.  But then she got another ticket the next day, by which time the theft list had been updated.

Then she got another one.  Then six more.

Vuckovich got a total of 29 parking tickets from the San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic after she had reported her car stolen.  Police were unsure why the parking officers had never run the plate to see whether the car was stolen, especially since at least seven of the tickets were issued in less than a week while the car was parked on the same block of Grant Avenue in the North Beach neighborhood.  (It was near Grant and Filbert, if you live in SF and want to know where at least one car thief lives and/or works.)

DPT officials said that the officers involved should not necessarily be blamed because their hand-held devices store theft information only from the San Francisco database.  (Vuckovich lived in South San Francisco, which is actually a different city and county.)   But they also did not have a good explanation for why no one ever ran the plate in the course of writing any of the 29 tickets Vuckovich got.  Nor do they seem to have investigated any of the locations where the car was parked (sometimes repeatedly), although it would be hard to link a parking spot to any particular address.

Still, Vuckovich thought she would give that a try.  She and a friend drove around the city scouting out the locations that appeared on the tickets.  It took them about three hours to find the car.  It was parked near Folsom and Sixth Streets, two blocks from a police station.  When police arrived (an hour later), they got the car unlocked and turned it back over to Vuckovich.

They lost her driver's license in the course of doing the paperwork, but at least she has her car back.

Link: SF Chronicle

Plaintiff Who Visited "Pissed Off Pete's" Alleges Beating by Pete

[Lowering the] Bar Exam Question One: if you go to a bar called "Pissed Off Pete's" and then get beaten up by Pete himself, do you have a claim?

This is not a hypothetical.  Here's the case report from last week:

Patricia [Plaintiff] v. Pissed Off Pete's et al.
1/16/2008 CGC-08-471147 (San Francisco Superior Court)

Complaint for personal injury and assault. Defendant [Pete] became enraged during an argument at his bar, defendant Pissed Off Pete's. He dragged the plaintiff to the door, pushed her to the street, threw her against the wall, up into the air, and then slammed her to the cement ground, causing bruises all over her body and intense pain.

Answer: I don't think assumption of the risk is a defense to an intentional tort, but even if it were the sign only warns (accurately, based on the comments found at the link below) that Pete will be "pissed off."  Plaintiff would not necessarily have anticipated being physically assaulted.

Give yourself full credit for any answer you gave unless you are representing one of the parties to this case.  If so, no points.

Link: Yelp.com (info about bar) (case report from Courthouse News Service)