- Quickdraw McLaw
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- The Nevada Supreme Court issued a decision ending efforts to recall two state senators. [TNI]
- The US Supreme Court will take up LGBT rights in the workplace next term. [SCOTUS blog]
- A jury awarded a man $500,000 for fat shaming. [JD Supra]
go get a new job, fatty. 1/2 Million? I think judge Gordon got it right from the beginning.
I'm far more surprised by the jury verdict than I am by either Gordon granting SJ or the 9th's reversal/remand. Who were the trial attorneys?
That must have been one hell of a funny trial.
Although I agree it may well not rise to the extremely rigorous level of intentional infliction of emotional distress, it could possibly rise to the level of negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The waiter apparently, consistently complained about the sign that referred to him as "Fat Andy", but it was never removed.
It appears it was a restaurant within a casino. If stupidity was a valid civil course of action, the Defendant should definitely be liable. How cruel or insensitive all this was for the jury to decide, and it's possible the Plaintiff may in fact be too thin-skinned and sensitive, but it sure is incredibly stupid not to remove something like that, particularly after receiving letters form attorneys threatening action if the sign was not removed.
And although it seemed Plaintiff's attorneys set themselves for an uphill battle by pursuing "intentional" infliction, rather than "negligent" infliction, obviously the "intentional" cause of action pays off a lot better, than the "negligent" cause of action, if successful.
And in this case it turned out to be successful. Yet to me it still seems more negligent than anything else. But, still, I wonder. Perhaps the "intentional" verdict was justified. If someone keeps complaining over and over(and that does appear to have occurred), and all the person in authority needs to do is walk over to the area and remove the sign, the consistent and dogged refusal to do so may well suggest more than just negligence, and suggests they wanted this guy to suffer and be shamed.
The fact that it was left up after a complaint would be determinative for me. Even if originally intended as a joke, why would you leave it up for months following a complaint? I can easily infer intent from that.
Can we not please talk about how CWNevada is trying to file for bk? What is the bk court going to do with that? But more importantly – how in holy hell does that business go under? I smell something stinky and it's not pot.
You make the assumptions that the plaintiff was telling the truth and this sign actually existed, that plaintiff did in fact complain over and over, and that a person in authority didn’t go check (or did check, it was there, and didn’t do anything about it. In which case, ask yourself why? Is that really the case? What motivation would the employer have to do that?). Even so, the law presumes people have to maintain some level of thick skin. To call a sign that says you’re fat extreme and outrageous beyond all bounds of a civilized society, or whatever the legal definition is of an IIED claim, stretches the limits of such a claim beyond what, in my opinion, it’s intend to protect against. Gordon got it right on summary judgment, the 9th did what the 9th does, and a jury felt bad for the small guy and figured a big company could take a hit. The law is an afterthought in cases like these.
If one's spouse misgenders the family dog and deadnames it, that would rise to the level of animal abuse under the municipal statutes and thus provide a basis for the non-abusing spouse to be awarded what is property in Nevada, correct? In the case at hand, the husband argues the dog's penis and biological birth state make it correct to continue with the name Fighty but the wife swears the dog identifies with being a female and should be renamed. The Judge has simply suggested that perhaps the dog is gay and none of this is an issue. Before thinking this is all made up, Google and see this is a real issue.
This sounds like something I would like to learn more about, but I tried a quick Google and came up dry. Please give some more context so I can find it, if you're for real.
11:34 here
google "animal misgendering"
https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/55oem7/just_a_remindermisgendering_your_pet_is_animal/?depth=1
http://the-toast.net/2014/01/06/predicting-human-behavior-100-accuracy-misgender-cat/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQBWhsCHFCQ
3rd one is satire – I think
To:11:19. True that some of the posters may be assuming too much when filling in some of the blanks, but the article about the case, if accurate, either provides, or otherwise strongly suggests, certain critical factual matters.
So(again, with the important qualifier that we don't know how accurate he article is) the sign existed, was posted for a significant period of time, and Fat Andy was complaining abut it and wanted it removed.
Now if the situation was consistent with a possibility that 11:19 alludes to–that it may not even have been proven that a sign existed or that anyone complained–then this verdict would speak highly to the skills of Plaintiff's attorneys to snow a jury, and also would indicate there was a
comically inept jury assembled for this matter(which, if that be the case, is admittedly far from an unheard of occurrence in Clark County).
But all in all, it appears the jury was satisfied that there was a sign posted for quite some time, that Fat Andy complained, and it was not removed.
So, if those basic facts are accurate, I agree with 9:59 that the Defendants may have been incredibly stupid with how they handled(read: mishandled)the matter, and I also agree with 10:45 that it is not unreasonable for a jury to infer malicious intent from those actions.
Don't really disagree with anything 11:55 says, except that the last thing said by the poster("…it is not unreasonable for a jury to infer malicious intent from those actions.")does invite qualification.
So, even if the sign was there and the heavy-set waiter kept complaining, I'm not certain how reasonable it is to infer malicious intent. It may well establish they were on notice and were negligent in removing the sign, but 11:19 is right on point by arguing that negligent infliction of emotional distress is a very, very rigorous test to meet.
True that, if on notice, they were negligent about the matter and didn't really give a shit about the waiter's feelings. But ignoring his requests, and being unconcerned about the waiter's feelings, might make the supervisor an insensitive jerk, but that's not the same as the supervisor intentionally insisting on always keeping the sign up so that he can torture the waiter emotionally.
My faith in the blog is restored. Posters are discussing this interesting, unusual case(Fat Andy) and when they don't necessarily agree with another poster, rather than attacking the other poster's intellect and reasoning, they show real respect for such opinion and respectfully explain the areas where they differ.
Silly me to think that this respectful, interesting level of discourse can be maintained. But I can dream, can't I?
11:55, 12:07, and 12:11 are the same person. They all have the same unique grammatical error in each post. So I guess it's easy to have respectful discourse when you're arguing with yourself for some reason.
Post the grammatical error. I'm too dumb to find it (and I tried).
not 12:48 here – I see that there are no spaces before any paren – not sure if that counts but it does seem unique to me as most of us hit the space bar before hitting (
12:48 here. Bingo.
I think some are the same, and some are different. I do think more than one person is here discussing the case, but I noticed some of the same similarities you did.
But if my post has the same grammatical errors that the others do, that is purely coincidental, as the movie disclaimer says, as this is my first post on Fat Andy.
BTW, from what's been reported, half a million,or a major judgment of any sort, seems excessive.
Are we getting to a point where people tolerate nothing, and everything that hurts our feelings is actionable?
"Are we getting to a point where people tolerate nothing, and everything that hurts our feelings is actionable?"
Only as long as there are mediocre attorneys waiting and willing to accept such cases!
I applaud the attorneys that got this verdict, whether you agree with it or not, what the jury thinks is what matters at the end of the day. And for someone who has been harassed in the workplace, I applaud the attorneys-workplace cases are hard to win for plaintiffs as most of these casinos will fight to the death. So kudos to the intelligent attorneys who won this verdict.
Where's the criminal case where Hardesty severely rebukes the trial judge? Is it on line yet?
Sitton v State 73014 filed 4/19
ouch. Smack down. well-deserved. We are much better off without him sitting as judge
Is Hardesty unaware that Smith just retired or does he not care and want to scratch that itch for a gratuitous smack-down anyway?
Doug Smith does not give a shit. He will collect his pension until it runs out of money then take rations from the Mormons.
After the 90 day cooling period he will also become eligible to return as a senior judge, collecting both his pension and the per diem for days that he sits.
When does the circus begin for Doug Smith's seat?
Just read Justice Hardesty's concurring opinion. It is short, yet withering and brutal(and seemingly for good cause).
I've been licensed for over 30 years, and regularly read all NST opinions upon issuance, and I have never seen anything quite like this.
I've seen opinions which were harshly critical of the trial court, but they tend not to name the judge in question, but merely use terms like "the trial court", "the District Court". or something similar. Also, they tend to limit their criticism to the case at hand, and I don't recall any other opinion which identifies a particular judge and accuses him of often showing the same flagrant disregard of the law in other, totally unrelated cases.
So, this seems unique in that: (1)It identifies Judge Smith by name,when dressing down the trial court;and(2) It accuses him of flagrantly refusing to follow the law in this, and other cases, even after the NSC has reversed and rebuked him for not following the law.
4:06–In other words, this time it was made to sound personal–which, admittedly, is not common.
But the Justice may simply be good and sick of it. After all, we are not talking about some relatively inexperienced trial judge. He has, collectively between Justice and District, been on the bench in excess of two decades. prior to that his career positons were deputy d.a., deputy p.d., and private criminal defense practitioner.
Based on all that, he should be far more well versed in Criminal Law, at least experience-wise, than anyone on the court (including Herndon, Kephart, or whoever),Add to that the fact that they are saying he is repeatedly smacked down and yet still keeps repeating the same errors, it suggest that the Justice believes that Smith's conduct, at least to an extent, rather than being ignorance-based, is based on willful defiance by someone who does have(or, by all means, should have) substantive criminal law knowledge to match his criminal law experience.
I believe all of these things EXCEPT Hardesty was guilty of the same hubris when he was on the bench and does the same crap at the NSC level. Smith is only guilty of doing what Hardesty himself did and does, which is follow the law according to Hardesty.
But what matters, at least in my view, is the message, not the messenger.
So, I think that the Justice is right and that is what is important here. The Justice's view is not invalidated based on negative observations made about how the Justice handled other cases.
The message is important. Smith trampled on tons of peoples' rights. With that said, the fact is that the Messenger (Hardesty) is a horrible hypocrite who deserves to have his heavy-handed actions likewise taken to task.
Fascinating case that has a Decision that is only 1.5 pages and has frightening consequences for attorneys. In Errico v. Stahl (Case 74663), the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the State Bar of Nevada is not a governmental agency subject to any due process protections when a private party tries to subpoena your bank records through the State Bar. Oral argument 4/1; Decision filed 4/19. You have to read the briefs to get the real feel for the case but YIKES!
According to Bar Counsel, all records they have on an attorney are public, subject to disclosure upon request. So you don't even have to subpoena, just send a written request.
I would observe that it was unspoken in that decision, but a fine distinction… The Court correctly observed that the State Bar is not a government agency. The simple explanation for that finding is that it is rather an arm of the Supreme Court itself. Thus, not a government agency but rather one of the co-equal branches of the government.
As part of a co-equal branch, separation of powers issues are raised.
That's correct. The State Bar is a wholly owned subsidiary of the State Democratic Party. Due process does not apply.
We are in helter shelter right now.
Skelter
Read more about Errico in Case No. C-15-307611-1 State of Nevada vs William Errico. The case has been delayed for years. In the post Rob Graham world that delay won't work to Tubby Errico's advantage.
Think about the repercussions of this. Your trust account records get reached by the State Bar. They are now subject to review by anyone who decides to send a Subpoena to the State Bar (which are the facts in this case). It is a HORRIBLE decision and goes to the reasons that attorney governance and discipline needs to come under the Court (and protections afforded therein) and away from the State Bar of Nevada,