This is so senseless, it makes my head hurt.

Guy gets $1k of $460k settlement, lawyers take the rest.

1). If the police injured him, then they owe him money.
2). If they didn't injure him, then they don't owe him any money.
3). If he is owed money, he should get the bulk of it, not his lawyers.

This is worse than usury, this is malpractice all around.

Personally, after what he did, I can understand officer's temptation to beat him, but as public officials, they should not have acted that way. During the trial, the judge decided that most of his injuries stemmed from the accident, determining that the city only owed him $1k in punitive damages. Why on earth should the city then turn over $459k in lawyer fees? If it were me, I'd have offered him $1k and told his lawyers to figure out their own expenses. Don't take on a case for a client who has no ability to pay. Maybe then we wouldn't have as many lawsuits. If his rights had been violated, this would have been better defended by an organization like the ACLU than a private law firm anyway. I hope defendants take note of this case. I know personally, I'd never hire a lawfirm to represent me that ever did this even one time to one of their clients.

Is it possible to train police officers in yoga or something so they aren't on such an adrenaline high when they apprehend a subject, that might prevent a lot of these beatings in the first place.

He shouldn't have chose to settle on an all inclusive payout he should have asked for his lawyers fee's to be claimed seperate to his personal damages or whatever he was even claiming, and should not have settled until he saw that his cut of it wasgoing to bemore than that, it probably cost him morein that from lost wages and petrol & parking for court an lawyer appointments etc..

a reply to: Nechash

Dude ran over a cop and crashed into a school bus during a 20 minute high-speed chase and then whines about getting roughed up a bit. Not feeling sorry for him.

a reply to: Nechash

Law and morality are different things, and while I am sure that the law supported this mans right to not be beaten to a pulp by police officers, morality suggests that allowing a man who would do the things he has done, to gain money over an incident which was instigated by his own malfeasance, regardless of how badly the beating affected him, is not appropriate.

We all hear these cases of random acts of police brutality, senseless shootings of unarmed suspects, homeless people being shot when they could have been taken down without lethality, and some counties and forces where the excessive use of force is the norm, rather than the exception, and those things are wrong, but this is not the same issue here at all.

There are few cases in which I believe that lawyers ought to be able to accrue as much wealth as they do for very little actual physical effort, but in this case, I would rather see the suits walk away with the cash, than the individual who attempted to kill a policeman by running them over, before leading further officers on a death defying, high speed chase, endangering the officers in pursuit, and countless other road users in the process.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Yeah, I agree he should get nothing, but then again, neither should the lawyers. They were the ones who decided to bet on a person who didn't have a leg to stand on.

a reply to: Nechash

damn what happened to the 60/40 split?

edit: ohhh thats why