Lawyers are probably younger on average. Probably doing a little better.
I'd bet the bailiffs got the worst of it.
I dunno, there's a lot of guys in their sixties at calendar calls. I always felt on the junior side, even well into my forties.
I'm just still boggling at two dead out of under fifty.
Maybe they all share the same hammer?
Is this related to how judges don't retire until age 85? Or was Morgenthau an exception?
Because my brain holds too much bad TV from the 80s, this lead to a Wikipedia search and the surprising knowledge that Harry Anderson has been dead for to years.
Dear was 66, and Baynes was only 64. Not young, but not old-old.
A week or two back, I was talking to my Brooklyn-based co-counsel on a case (venued in Idaho) who told me that his largely orthodox/ultra neighborhood is basically losing a generation. Constant sirens.
5. Weinstein apparently retired only 2 months ago. He'll be 100 next summer.
There's a case file in my old bureau that we couldn't close until he retired because we were afraid he was going to do something implausible in it. The man was a legend.
That's awful. The sense of grief and loss in New York must be just staggering.
I mean, I think there's been others besides these two judges, too.
Dear was 66, and Baynes was only 64. Not young, but not old-old.
Kind of on the cusp, but the study I've seen out of your state with 4000+ sample size had the top two risk factors for hospitalization as over 65 or a BMI over 40.
Sure, but even in high risk groups most people live. With two deaths out of fifty, it seems like a good chance they were all infected. At which point I'm just horrified by the thought of everyone else in the courthouse.
Statistically speaking, two isn't a very big cluster to go working backward from.
14: I'm a bit horrified by the NYC situation in general. Your population density, the packed mass transit, and a mayor telling everyone to relax and go to the movies. Gah.
16: To be fair, Utah County is hitting "New York is SO unlike here because Chinatown so we have nothing to worry about" pretty hard right now, three days before reopening. I mean, I don't doubt that a generally younger and fitter population helps but so does slamming the door shut very early, i.e., that social distancing everyone's bitching about.
I thought I recalled the name, and turns out yes there was explicit concern per this article (originally from the NYDN so NYers probably know the caveats better than I). Since it is precisely relevant here is a long snippet from the beginning of the article (it appears to be from April 9th).
NEW YORK -- Dozens of lawyers, court officers and clerks crowded onto the wooden benches in Judge Johnny Lee Baynes' courtroom March 12 as they waited for the judge to hear cases at his calendar call, the busiest day of his week.
It was business as usual -- which unnerved some lawyers. Before court began, they chatted among themselves about the coronavirus pandemic spreading across the city.
When one lawyer complained social distancing guidelines weren't being followed in the jam-packed Brooklyn Supreme Court courtroom, Baynes fired back.
"If you don't like it, you can leave," the lawyer recalled Baynes telling her.
The courtroom session continued, and Baynes -- well-liked and highly regarded by courthouse regulars -- handled the day's business with his usual lively vigor.
It was his last appearance on the bench. Two weeks later, the judge was dead of complications related to coronavirus.
Other judges in the always-bustling courthouse are also sickened by the disease.
Later in the article Dear is mentioned as being diagnosed along with another judge, Wayne Saitta. And Rumors even circulated of Dear's death.
18: That was ironic, but it seemed a little unfair to Baynes to imply that he got sick because he was a jerk about social distancing. It was March 12, courts weren't shut yet, and staying 6 feet apart in a packed courtroom isn't possible, so a lawyer complaining about social distancing wasn't asking the judge to do anything practical. A judge telling a lawyer who's taking up time asking for something that isn't going to happen to be quiet about it isn't weird at all.
In retrospect, sure, he should have cancelled all appearances in his part before the court system as a whole did. It would have been a bizarre thing to do, but he would have been vindicated pretty fast. But if he didn't do that, which it was unreasonable to expect him to do, there wasn't a viable social-distancing option.
I actually had a completely stupid in-person court appearance a week later, after the courts were shut except for emergencies, but not in Brooklyn. The judge in my case was just being stupid about what was a real emergency that couldn't be handled by conference call. But at least the general shutdown meant that the Islip courthouse was mostly empty and everyone could stay away from each other.
So what is the current situation with courts in New York? Over here (civil) things are being done remotely via Skype mostly and after a week when most stuff was adjourned, they seem to be operating at close to normal capacity. Mortgage repossessions and tenant evictions have been suspended, so that reduces the caseload a bit, even if it wasn't the intention. In the criminal courts, jury trials have been suspended, but they were increasingly rare anyway. I'm not entirely sure what level of magistrates court cases are being heard now, as I don't really follow criminal law, but it seems like only "urgent" cases.
New York State courts, judges are working clearing their backlogs, but submission of papers in non-emergency cases is still on pause. The federal courts are working pretty normally except for trials and in-person court appearances.
One thing the pandemic has revealed about Virginia courts is how much power individual judges have. My office serves five courts, and each one is operating on different rules. Some judges have been great about trying to figure out video appearances; other judges have been like, "What, it's only a ten-minute hearing, so everyone should be present in court." Because everyone knows the virus can't get you until the eleventh minute
My dad had courtroom rules forbidding bolo ties. I always wonder if he put that in himself or if it was from the last judge or a template.
He also forbid cowboy hats in court, because what the fuck are you wearing a cowboy hat in court for you poser.
De Blasio fucked up again big time.
What specifically? I mean, there are plenty of options.
27 Everything about how Rabbi Chaim Mertz's funeral was handled, including that awful tweet.
20: but it seemed a little unfair to Baynes to imply that he got sick because he was a jerk about social distancing
Agree with you on that. I didn't really link it for that aspect of it, but rather that I vaguely recalled reading about it, and it was consistent with your crowded Brooklyn court concern
Yeah, I just saw the article when it came out and remembered thinking it was unfairly dunking on the dead judge.
In an Idaho state court case, the scheduling conference set for April 1 was held April 21 by zoom. We ended up scheduling trial for January 2022 -- some of this delay is attributable to the pandemic. In a Montana state court case, the oral argument on summary judgment set to be argued March 25 was postponed indefinitely. In a USVI territorial court case, the March 20 deadline for one of the parties to get new counsel has been indefinitely postponed. In a DC federal case, I got a cryptic electronic order Monday telling me to refile the joint appendix, within the next day, and when I called to check on what exactly the flaw was, no one was around at all. (I had to go downtown to get this done because I don't have acrobat pro on my home computer.)
None of my other pending cases have had deadlines falling within these months.
Oh wait no, in a Montana water court case, the April 21 deadline for submitting a joint scheduling proposal was continued to the end of July. I suppose the DNJ case I'm working on has been affected, but my part of the case was on hold anyway, and I haven't appeared, so it's not on my radar.
We ended up scheduling trial for January 2022
I'm boggled. How is it possible that a system working on this kind of timescale (even minus a couple of pandemic months) is worthwhile to any entity smaller than, IDK, $1bn?
That's why alternatives like arbitration, vandalism, and assassination are growing in popularity.
34: I don't know the specifics of Charley's case, but if that's the conference at the beginning of the case, six months or more for fact discovery (exchanging documents and doing depositions) is conventional, could be as much again for experts who can't finish up until the facts are all out, some time for dispositive motions... eighteen months isn't a long time to get a big case done.
Legal types might enjoy this decision from a few days ago relating precisely how the small exclusive Silicon Valley town of Los Altos relentlessly tried to block a legal 15-unit apartment building in contravention of several state laws as well as its own city code.
(The state law really gave the city no outs acceptable to it, so they just bumbled around doing faux-clever maneuvers like lying to the developer that they had to use the administrative appeal before suing and later arguing that because the developer tried to administratively appeal they had missed the statute of limitations to sue.)
34 Ha!
I worked in the Montana statewide water rights adjudication from 1983-1988, before going to law school. The water rights claims that are being disputed in my current matter were filed as part of that proceeding in 1982, and have been waiting for adjudication from then until now. To be fair, the water court didn't come around to this river until late 2015 and I filed my objections (and the other folks filed theirs to my client's claims) soon after that.
The Montana state court case arises from a 2011 mishap of the cooling system is a data center. Case was filed in 2013. They didn't serve the manufacturer until 2018, though.
The DC federal court case is a dispute over whether federal affordable housing grant money was properly spent in 2013 for one tranche and 2015 for the other. Actually, it's over who gets to decide whether the money was properly spent. Case filed in 2019, so we're moving pretty quickly (not surprising, given xmotions for sj on the agency record).
The USVI case is over the boundaries of a plantation the client bought in the 1730s. Case was filed in 2016.
DNJ case arises from an (enjoined) agency action in 2015.
The Idaho case arises from a 2017 accident involving a machine the stacks cartons of potatoes on pallets. Case was filed in 2019.
I have a case pending in a court that shall not be named arising from a series of 2011 terminations where motions to dismiss have been pending, fully briefed, since March 2012. I represent the defendant, so I'm not calling to pester.
I'm glad to have amused y'all, but really, what?
Is RoC much faster in processing court cases? I'm sure you could run a court system much faster than US courts, but it still takes time.
To be fair, I'm doing artisanally hand-crafted law. The guys doing collections are getting from filing to judgment way way faster.
Oh, sure. Specific categories of case can go fast.
41: No idea. It's just boggling.
I just can't picture how places can do business with these legal processes taking so long. Do the parties that might be held responsible keep a ton of money in escrow for 5-10 years in case they have to pay out, and then forget about it, and then if they don't pay out they see it as a windfall? What if they need that money? Do they buy insurance policies and then the insurance company is the one that pays out if and when they have to pay out?
I would not consider the one in 39 to be a functional court system, on the civil side anyway. After initial motions to dismiss were filed in the USVI case, they had 2 category 5 hurricanes, and the court system was completely shut down for a long time. Criminal cases take priority, and the court system down there is not a model of efficiency anyway. Once the party whose lawyer retired gets a new one, and the pending motions get decided, we'll have a scheduling conference. I think the original documents are in the royal Danish archives, so discovery will be interesting.
But people come to me with a story and the desire to file a lawsuit, and find themselves getting an unexpectedly cold shower.
ISTR in Japan civil trials are super-long as a matter of routine but it's a norm that you shouldn't have to resort to court at all, and the judge can hold it against you if you had an opportunity to settle and didn't.
Hey Charley, you are a perfect person to ask. I should have thought of it sooner.
I want to make the case on my blog that if the reason we can't have nice things is that the threat of litigation is, for real, a threat to lock up an issue for 20-30 years, then we should focus on accelerating that. Courts are human constructs, we could ... do what? Spend all the money and train a million new judges and lawyers? Build 700 new courtrooms and assignn every court a hydrologist and a water engineer and an archivist?
If you were spouting off an a blog and wanted apply imaginary resources to bring the time to settle water disputes down to, say, less than five years, what would you do? (It only has to be cheaper than the $8B we spent on CALFED.)
(One of my readers made the accurate point that if we're fixing the courts, he wouldn't start with water courts. Sure, but I only care about one thing.)
Please and thank you.
Any other lawyers, I'd be happy for your insight as well.
45 Well, insurance is a pretty good answer. People don't always get the right coverage, though, and so, yes, they have to do a reserve of some kind. Or, if they're not publicly traded, they can close their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears.
47 I've never been involved in one of the cases, so I don't know the fine details, but we have a body of law requiring insurance companies to be reasonable with respect to offers to settle, and if they aren't, an independent claim against them can arise. It's not exactly the same as federal Rule 68, I don't think; the obligation operates differently here than in a bunch of big states, and carriers constantly find themselves in trouble. I know a couple of lawyers who make a good living suing out-of-state carriers . . .
18 months would be positively spritely for some of the cases I've covered. Hell, there was one case where the judgment wasn't handed down until six months after the trial. And that was entirely contractual construction, no factual disputes at all. It's very rare for a substantive commercial dispute to come to trial here in less than 12 months unless it's expedited. If there's a lot of factual evidence, it can be several years. The HP/Autonomy claim was filed in 2015 and the (93-day!) trial only just ended this January.
GY saying he covered Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
I have a case pending in a court that shall not be named arising from a series of 2011 terminations where motions to dismiss have been pending, fully briefed, since March 2012.
This is pending on the judge/legal system doing something, not due to the plaintiff losing interest or whatever? Add me to the list of astounded laymen.
48 I know that the chief water judge has strong opinions about this stuff. When we started in the early 80s, everyone thought it would go quickly. Then it didn't.
It's completely a funding issue here in Montana, at this point. We're adjudicating water rights as of July 1, 1973. The claim filing deadline, on pain of forfeiture, was April 30, 1982. The administrative agency reviewed claims, basin by basin, beginning in 1983, flagging claims that had issues. Then the water court issues a preliminary decree, people file objections, and they get heard. That was the theory, and it might worked. We were whipping through basins in 1984 and 1985, but then in 1986 we had a very significant change in the administrative review procedure, and in 1987 the legislature whacked the funding, hard. Things limped along for the next decade, really two -- the legislature re-opened filing for a window in the 90s, fundamental issues of water law continue to be decided by the Supreme Court, so even this last year, we've gotten rulings that change how one would argue the cases. An early cause for delay was getting compacts with the federal agencies and the tribes. The last tribal compact was approved by the legislature in 2015, and is awaiting congressional approval. You can't finalize the basins -- and the compact covers waters far off the current reservation -- until then.
We adopted the mixed court/admin system in 1979, after it was felt that the purely administrative system, tried on the Powder River in the 1970s, took too long and cost too much. They didn't really explain that what was going to happen is that the costs of getting that last 20% of accuracy in the thing, which is what really costs the money and takes the time, would now be borne by the small ranchers and farmers, as litigants, rather than by the taxpayers as a whole. (My boss 1983-88 was a veteran of the Powder).
My client in the current matter is a small (1500 acres, at most) irrigation district, and my fees, if we end up having to go to trial, could be between 1 and 2x annual gross revenues for the district. The downside of this having been delayed isn't all that awful compared to the downside of getting it resolved.
And I guess the statewide delays aren't that awful either. In the 1970s, we started down this road not because the then existing system of district court decrees and enforcement on a stream by stream basis was completely untenable -- it wasn't great, though -- but because we were afraid of what downstream states were going to demand. The worst fears haven't come true, yet. If we were upstream from Denver, rather than St. Louis, maybe life would be different. Internally, our Supreme Court is drifting towards a growing cities position -- not all the way there yet -- so we'll end up not throttling infill municipal development too much. If you wanted to do a new water intensive industrial thing, though, you're going to have a bunch of hurdles, and some are going to be really really tough to get over.
Further to 51, many of the early basins are getting re-examined using the post-1986 procedures. Also, and I don't know who the dope was that thought this would be ok, but in the 90s, the water court left claims with issues tagged by the admin agency unresolved, if there wasn't an objection. (Back when I was there, every claim with an issue tag got an objection). The law was eventually changed mandating adjudication of those issue tags, some dating to the 80s, and so the water court is going back, basis by basin, to revisit these.
Some basins, then, are being redone, some are in the objection stage for the first go round, and the ones on the CSKT haven't even seen a preliminary decree yet.
47 And doesn't Japan have some of the longest running business concerns ever? Like or well over a millennium even. I wonder if any of them have ongoing court cases that were filed way back when.
55 is further to 54.
51,52 -- I had a case in Alaska that was finally settled in 2013, having been filed in 1996. Complicated matter, lots of drama, and some long periods of inaction.
53 -- Yeah, we're waiting for rulings.
The downside of this having been delayed isn't all that awful compared to the downside of getting it resolved.
Huh. That's...something. Thinking over it some more, I guess that sort of thing could occur in the best possible system, too. And any sort of switch from a traditional system of claims to a well-established register of known rights (if that's even correctly describing what you're doing) is going to be hard and piecemeal.
56: Here's the list, but I can say that the ones I've been to in the UK and Ireland are kind of nonsensey. Mostly "there was a business here a long time ago, and we're doing approximately the same thing, without any continuity of owners/management." Possibly excepting The Angel and Royal.
That being said, some Asuka or Nara era legal drama could be fun. (Actually, I wonder if there's an ancient Japanese Phoenix Wright spin off...)
I should add that the UK is considered relatively speedy by European standards, especially when it comes to insolvency/enforcement type actions. The typical length of a civil claim in Italy until recent reforms (which may or may not have actually speeded things up) was four years, or seven in the south.
Actually, I wonder if there's an ancient Japanese Phoenix Wright spin off...
59.1 Yes. The pre-1973 system was a county by county recording of paper filings, which would end up being litigated in district court if there were disputes. (And there were lots of disputes). Our 1972 constitution re-affirmed the validity of existing water rights, and mandated state administration, control, and the creation of a centralized records system. I know a couple of convention delegates, and should probably ask what they were thinking. They might have thought this just meant some bureaucrats would spend the summer visiting county courthouses. As it turned out, though, the filed records are full of junk. Junk from the 1890s, 1910s, etc. And lots of water rights were not recorded anywhere: up to 1973, you could establish a water right just by using water. But when you have a file-it-or-lose-it system, you get a lot of decades-old, or century-old, junk in your system. And remember, it's a priority system: you could be on a stream where the difference between having an 1880 water right and an 1890 water right makes the difference between having one or two hay cuttings in a bad year -- or an eight- or ten-fold difference in the value of your property when you go to sell. So people filed the junk. And now, 40 years later, their successors in interest get to litigate it. Good luck finding witnesses!
Japan may have longstanding corporate bodies, but its governmental history has certain key discontinuities.
Hey, who can blame them if from time to time the situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage.
|| 0 new cases today, on 337 tests, down to 5 active hospitalizations, statewide. Flat-ish curve. |>
Does somebody want the water rights to the spring in my basement?
Denver. Or Nebraska west of Lincoln.
Obama paid farmers out there to install more efficient irrigation. Probably helped.
Realistically, lots of that land is going back to pasture in the next generation. I think my mom's land will be fine over that period because it's in a river valley.
Lots of it will go back to pasture sooner if corn stays at $3.
I think your mom should get people to plant restored prairie vegetation, and then acquire some bison for majestic roaming purposes.
Have I mentioned that I'm city people in the last three or four comments?
I still want to know about the piles of rotting cows.
It's too good of farm land for buffalo and not nearly large enough for majestic roaming. If you put the whole family holdings together it's not enough for anything more majestic than strolling.
Eventually hippos will colonize the whole basin. They can lounge majestically in a quite small area.
It's got to be too cold for them even with global warming.
My college roommate who is a lawyer now works for his state on a specific river in the west. Got to learn all sorts of weird law/river stuff when i saw him a few months ago, what a crazy world.
They are majestic, Moby. They can wait. And go south for the winter. The whole system is N-S.
They have bison in the Bronx Zoo. They don't need much space to roam a little.
And go south for the winter.
Not without going in to Kansas.
The Hippo does not fear Kansans. Kansans fear the hippo.
Kansas would be a good place to put a bunch of buffalo. There's nothing there except Kansas City suburbs.
Badass African buffalo. Not the wussy American kind that run off cliffs when you sneeze at them.
There's a growing population of hippos in Colombia , they used to be in a private zoo of Pablo Escobar's, now they're free and reproducing.
But I'm given to understand does have numerous assholes deserving of irritable gorings.
87 Read that as hippies instead of hippos and did momentarily take affright.
Islip courthouse
As you've mentioned, you're a city person. I didn't think you have a car. How did you get out there? Did NY pay for a rental or it has a vehicle pool? I guess the LIRR might work.
Legends say that a drunk Billy Joel will appear to drive you where you need to go on Long Island.
91: Normally, we'd take the train to Islip, but given the situation I got approval for the guy in my section whose case it was to rent a car. And then he unexpectedly rented a bitchin' Camaro, which was odd.
bitchin' Camaro
bitchin' Camaro
Here's some lizard-ish trivia...
"Bitchin' Camaro" is a song by American rock band The Dead Milkmen, released on their debut album Big Lizard in My Backyard (1985).
Is there any other kind of Cameron?
I do refer to all Camaros as bitchin'. At this point it's a tic.
Speaking of Brooklyn courtrooms, I just got a notice to appear in person for a routine scheduling conference in EDNY, Brooklyn, on May 29. Federal court is more spacious than state court but I'm not looking forward to it. My California based colleague is also displeased. Most federal judges handled these by telephone even in the before times.
Speaking of Brooklyn courtrooms, I just got a notice to appear in person for a routine scheduling conference in EDNY, Brooklyn, on May 29. Federal court is more spacious than state court but I'm not looking forward to it. My California based colleague is also displeased. Most federal judges handled these by telephone even in the before times.
Which courthouse? Brooklyn or Long Island? Because the LI courthouse is dead empty normally.
Oh; you said Brooklyn. Yeah, that can be crowded.
It's a Brooklyn thread. Everybody is talking about Brooklyn.
One of our neighbors at the large, disorganized household two doors down had a bitchin' Camaro where the alarm would start bitchin', day or night, every time someone opened the door or, indeed, stepped close to it. This was really starting to get me down, but luckily one morning the Camaro owner, who was an aggressive shouty sort of guy, finally blew his top, got behind the wheel, rammed the gas and went cruising onto the sidewalk, where he managed to take out a couple of trash cans before blowing out a tire (and maybe doing worse, there seemed to be a huge rip in one of the front panels after the fact). The cops came by, but the cops come to that house a lot and I don't think any judicial action was taken. For a week or so the Camaro continued to do its beeping act from a hundred yards down the road, which was better for us, and then it was somehow taken away.
Camero Protective Services springs into action.
Doughnuts on the lawn! Bitchin' Camaro...
It's a Brooklyn thread. Everybody is talking about Brooklyn.
Except when Islip.
A newer NYPost article on judges and courtroom workers and COVID.