Lawsuit of the Day: Robert Bork Hearts Plaintiffs?
Who says that conservative judicial icon Robert Bork, of the famously ill-fated Supreme Court nomination, is anti-plaintiff?
Judge Bork is all in favor of punitive damages -- when, for example, he's demanding them in his Complaint (PDF). The distinguished law professor and former judge has filed a slip-and-fall lawsuit against the Yale Club of New York City.
Bork's fellow traveler in conservative circles, Ted Frank -- who's currently a fellow at AEI, where Bork used to be a fellow -- "sympathize[s] with Judge Bork's serious injuries." But even Frank deems Bork's claim for punitives a bit dubious.
P.S. Bork groupies, mark your calendars: On June 26, the Federalist Society is holding Borkapalooza in Washington, DC. More details here.
Note to Fed Soc folks: Do not place Judge Bork's dais at an "unreasonable" height, and be sure to have handrails on the stairs leading up to it. You're welcome.
Bork Sues the Yale Club [Overlawyered]
Robert Bork Files Slip-and-Fall Lawsuit Against Yale Club [WSJ Law Blog]
Bork v. Yale Club of New York City [Wall Street Journal (PDF)]
A Conference Discussing the Contributions of Judge Robert H. Bork [Federalist Society]
(29) Comments
The best part is Gibson Dunn is representing him!
hypocrite republican scoundrel
GDC - law firm to the right wing cabal, no matter how undignified the claim...
Who is representing the Yale Club? Does anybody know?
He assumed the risk; it was open and obvious; he's an 80 yr. old man with extensive experience getting up on a dais to give a spech, yadda yadda yadda.
GDC obviously knew that a local NYC jury wouldn't cotton to this arrogant, white 80 yr. old geezer, so they tried to get into federal court, but federal juries are notoriously hostile to these sorts of claims. They're desperate and this is a PR move to put the shake down on the Yale Club.
I take it he is not a member there, nor likely to be invited anytime soon for lunch.
I must admit I have never seen a dais with a handrail. Maybe this case will establish a new standard of care for club-invited-speakers. (Or more likely inspire the appropriate waiver in the engagement agreement.)
Bob Bork is hung like a rhino.
I hope the Yale Club gets some pit-bull from Jersey in a cheap suit to destroy him on the witness stand. Oh, the ironies!
Sandra!
Is Gibson so hard up for cash that they had to take on a baseless slip and fall case?
Is this the net effect of all those salary raises?
Pay my associates market!
Wouldn't it be hilarious if GDC took the case on contingency!
Another trademark hair style in the tradition of Trump and Don King.
The Bork combover.
Drawback: If you fall over, this style has a tendency to flop to the other side. Pride becomes wounded and punis get sought.
Khhhaaannnnnn!
Who looks more ridiculous, GDC or the Borker? This is a joke, right? The two GDC attys whose names appear on the Complaint may as well start looking for advertising space on a bus near you...Forevermore it'll be "Weren't you the doucheback that represented Borker in that undignified and laughable personal unjury claim?"
The RNC's handlers can get people to do ANYTHING. I swear...
And of course now the liberals happen to suddenly be against high punitive damages since the plaintiff happens to be a conservative. No surprise there from the party of hypocrisy.
There is some truth to what 8:22 says. As a young lawyer I got ropped into filing a PI case for relitive of a friend who got walloped by a AC belt in an office cealing (don't ask); His primary item of damage was his toupe that got wacked in half.
A clasmate of mine with an SF defense firm was on the other side.
I think it took me three years to live it down.
OK. Let’s say Bork (granted, not the best surname to have in public life) is not at the Yale Club. Let’s say he’s at, oh, I don’t know, the Chelsea Piers. And (being the clumsy bork that he is) he takes a header. In the drink. Goes all the way in the frick’in Hudson River. Tide takes him out a ways.
Is he going to be GRACIOUS abut it, like say, our Aquagirl? NOT BLOODY LIKELY. That SOB is goanna file a hellacious lawsuit. An his bride goanna sue too, for loss of what they call “companionship”. (Which is of course bullshit, because everyone knows them penal implants work, wet or dry.)
Face it: Bork is what my parents generation euphemistically referred to as SUE HAPPY.
Borker to 190!
@Fed Soc: Who are "the liberals," and where do you get the idea that they're "against high punitive damages" now?
Wouldn't it be simpler--and less embarrassing--to take these comments for the bemused annotations of Bork's hypocrisy that they are, instead of robotically mis-characterizing them to take a cheap shot at "the liberals?"
words escape me. this has to be one of the most amusing legal things I've read this year, next to Charney v. S&C and MC 900-Pound Nevada Judge.
Borker? I hardly know her!
She apparently has herpes--see Hilton post, ante.
The view that Bork is being hypocritical on this is absurd. For one thing, I have read The Tempting of America before law school (which, by the way, is arguably the best vaccine against ideological indoctrination that any prospective law student can get) and I do not remember him arguing that high punitive damages are a major problem. He is primarily concerned about the moral decline brought by the far-left, with leftist judges making up dangerous constitutional rights based on their policy preferences, as well as with the hypocritical and selective incorporation of foreign law by the left in interpreting the U.S. Constitution.
More importantly, even if Bork had been consistently arguing against punitive damages, I see no reason why he should not take advantage of the law as it currently is. Liberals don't volunteer to pay 65% (or whatever) in taxes even though they would in their ideal world. It would be absurd to live in a society where liberals can make all silly lawsuits they want while moderates and conservatives do not -- this would mean that in effect the law would disadvantage moderates and conservatives.
Fed Soc is flame bait...way tooooo obvious!
To add to my earlier comment, if someone can point to me where Bork wrote that punitive damages are bad, I would appreciate it. I am no expert on Bork; I have just read one of his books.
Dear 11:45:
The closest Bork comment I could find using Google for 5 minutes is:
In a February 27, 1995 letter to then speaker Newt Gingrich Bork expressed the view that “abusive litigation” and “excessive damage awards” are “national problems” that are “having a profoundly adverse impact on interstate commerce”. (February 27, 1995 letter from the Hon. Robert H. Bork to the Hon. Newt Gingrich, p. 2, reproduced at http://books.google.com/books?id=4PoM0vNxVVwC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=robert+bork+punitive+damages&source=web&ots=fJcMDkE8sa&sig=LDy75Cvy_TUfehoe8KHzuImAIJs#PPA43,M1, PDF page 43-44.)
Of course, that was before the Hon. Bob Bork decided “if you can’t beatum, join’um.” And maybe Bob’s lawsuit is not in the “abusive” category, because he really is entitled to $1 Million in punitive damages for a garden variety slip and fall from the “deep pocketed” Yale Club”. Yea, sure. (Was that a flying pig?)
@Fed Soc: You miss the point. Whether or not the comments about Bork's hypocrisy are correct, that is how they seem to be intended, not as hypocritical denunciations of high punitives.
There has been nothing in this thread to form a basis for your dragging "liberals" who are suddenly "against high punitive damages" into the discussion. That creates an obvious irony, in that your line of argument since my first post has consisted of demands for evidence of Bork's anti-plaintiff bias (which evidence is unnecessary to my point), even as you manufacture phantom "liberals," along with their purported unwillingness to pay 65% taxes (apparently a measure originally proposed in Congress as the Straw Man Assistance Act of 1995).
Dear 11:10 a.m.:
Responding to your point: “even if Bork had been consistently arguing against punitive damages, I see no reason why he should not take advantage of the law as it currently is”, the law does not allow for the recovery of punitive damages in a tort action premises on negligence. Exemplary damages are to “punish” and intended to address “despicable conduct” either intended to cause injury or committed in wanton disregard of the high probability of same. Falling down on the way to a dais to speak at the Yale Club does not even arguably fall into that category. The punitive damage prayer will never survive a motion to strike.
1:16:
Us “liberals” are not “suddenly ‘against high punitive damages’”. Some of us are merely pointing out that the Bork suit seeking punitive damages for falling down is 1) stupid and 2) hypocritical.