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<p>Since he was apparently at a restaurant with table service, I’ll defend him. If I eat at a restaurant where somebody comes to the table to take my order and bring me my food, I expect that person to take reasonable steps to secure any property I may accidentally leave behind.</p>
<p>There is a difference between courtsey and legal obigation.</p>
<p>Using the power of the state to require private business to compensate for your own carelessness is “over the line”.</p>
<p>Do we really need signs stating; “NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR PATRONS STUPIDITY AND CARELESSNESS”?</p>
<p>Useing threats of legal action, “the power of the state”, to bully another citizen is abominable. </p>
<p>The attorney should be disbarred.</p>
<p>For those of you who don’t travel much; AIRPORT FOOD COURT = NO TABLE SERVICE!!!</p>
<p>Do you really expect the underpaid, overworked staff of an airport food dispensary to continuously scan the tables outside their work area for the belongings of careless travellers? Who is responsible for which tables? Generally a food court has numerous common tables used by people who were served by various food establishments. I guess that is why the arrogant basturd sued everyone.</p>
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<p>Agreed, and I suspect the law imposes some kind of minimal obligation on businesses vis-a-vis the property of their customers.</p>
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<p>“Sorry sir, we have the coat you left here 10 minutes ago but the waiter decided to keep it for himself. It’s too bad you were so careless.”</p>
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<p>:shrug: The guy’s letter specifically refers to a waiter.</p>
<p>You need to use your life experience to read this situation, counselor. </p>
<p>He wrote about a “restaurant in a food court” of an airport terminal and “the person who waited on me”, IMO probably a counter person. The fact that he’s willing to go back to the airport and point her out says to me that he has way too much time on his hands. I suspect this jerk would readily settle the case for the depreciated value of the coat and the firing of the minimum wage person who he says treated him so poorly.</p>
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<p>If there was no actual waiter, then he’s basically a liar and he deserves to be scorned.</p>
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<p>I’ve haven’t flown in many years and I can’t recall ever eating in an airport food court. I will concede that if it’s like a mall, i.e. numerous food counters and shared seating, then the guy is probably a schmuck for not letting this go.</p>
<p>That said, even under those circumstances the guy is entitled to a straight explanation of how lost property is handled.</p>
<p>Hello; AIRPORT</p>
<p>He is entitled to nothing.</p>
<p>He abandoned his property in a very public area that is subject to strict security and almost certainly has signs stating that unattended property will be confiscated, examined, and discarded.</p>
<p>The coat was probably seized by security, checked for explosives and discarded.</p>
<p>Does Homeland Security have an obligation to secure abandoned property? I think not.</p>
<p>The idiot attorney who filed the suit may well be complaining because the airport authority and others didn’t interfere with a federal agency.</p>
<p>Did said attornety demand to see a warrent for the baggage search?</p>
<p>Talk about irrational expectations of entitlement. TSA will probably spend our tax dollars contesting the suit.</p>
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<p>Lol, actually what probably happened was the waiter distracted the guy so he would forget his coat, then grabbed it and hid it so when he came back 5 minutes later it was nowhere in sight. </p>
<p>[P.S. this is sarcasm]</p>
<p>If you a want a high probability of employment go to one of the nation’s top schools like Yale, Georgetown, Berkeley, U Chicago, Columbia or go to a top regional school in the area you wish to practice.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>Boston: if you cannot get into Harvard, BU and Boston College are fine alternatives
NYC: if you can’t get into Columbia/NYU, Fordham or Cardozo @ Yeshiva are fine alternatives
Atlanta: aim for Emory</p>
<p>For those bashing lawyers, I believe you should bash Congress and the lobbies for creating large and extremely difficult-to-read laws. Once the law seems too large for the average person to navigate (in strong contrast to the short and easy-to-read US Constitution in its original form) the services of lawyers will always be needed and lawyers will have an incentive to charge exorbitant prices.</p>
<p>So tell me…exactly HOW is Continental a proximate cause of his losing his coat?</p>
<p>Apparently the restaurant pointed the finger at Continental Facilities Dispatch. Assuming that’s true, you might ask the restaurant.</p>
<p>I would guess it’s like the situation in medical malpractice claims, where it’s not uncommon for the plaintiff’s attorney to sue pretty much everyone who was involved in his client’s medical treatment at the time of the incident. Although you may disapprove of this kind of shotgun approach, the problem is that defendants, including wrongdoing defendants, have a strong tendency to point the finger at the empty chair. That’s just human nature. If it develops during a medical malpractice case that the primary wrongdoer is (arguably) a missing defendant, it’s a big potential problem for the plaintiff, particularly if the statute of limitations has run already.</p>
<p>lskinner-I get that this is a litigation strategy. And I wholeheartedly understand that if he wants someone to pay up, suing everyone and hoping that the judge makes one or more of them pay is probably a good way to go about it. But he’s going to have to explain to the judge why Continental is/was/might have been a proximate cause or even a but-for cause of his losing his coat when Continental inhouse counsel moves to 12(b)(6) this complaint (or whatever the FRCP code is for suing the wrong defendant-wait, 12(b)(6) is failure to state a claim-nvm) :)</p>
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<p>Most lawyers never get near a law drafted in Congress. Much of what they do is based on common law of state law. </p>
<p>Surely you’re not suggesting that “short” equals “easy to interpret” or that the Constitution is not the poster child of vagary.</p>
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<p>Au contraire: He’s hoping that someone’s insurance company will cut a check because its a nuisance claim. It could easily cost $20k+ to defend, so it’s easier to give the rapacious guy $5k to go away. It’s just good business sense from the insurance carriers standpoint. Because everyone pays their own legal fees, there is no real reason for the defendents to defend. Sure, they could win but it would cost them a lot more in legal fees and time off of work.</p>
<p>Here’s a vote for the British system: loser pays legal fees.</p>
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<p>That’s not exactly the point I am making. The point is that for the time being, the Plaintiff doesn’t know who is responsible for the coat. Common sense says it’s the restaurant, but the restaurant is apparently saying it’s Continental’s responsibility. </p>
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<p>:shrug: All he has to do is allege that Continental operated the eating area in question; that therefore it had a duty to him to use minimal care to safeguard property left in the eating area; and that it failed in even that minimal duty.</p>
<p>Also, a bit of a nitpick, but it strikes me as unlikely that this case would be filed in a court where the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply. More likely he will file in small claims court. How do you get federal jurisdiction over this claim?</p>
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<p>Oh comon. The guy asked for 8 hundred dollars. Anyway, it doesn’t cost $20k to defend a case in small claims court. Usually you don’t even need to hire an attorney.</p>
<p>Oh, come-on is RIGHT! </p>
<p>He is threatening to sue: 1) The City of Houston; 2) Continental airlines; AND the managers of the food court. All three of them will collectively (and easily) burn $20k in staff time and legal fees. The three will burn a thousand in payroll just to show up on the appointed court date. Even if he files in small claims court, they’ll notify their insurance carriers – bcos they HAVE to. Add it all up…</p>
<p>But he’ll go away if one of them blinks and writes him check. This is no different than a shakedown in the street – ‘give me some money and be on your merry way and, have a nice day.’</p>
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<p>That’s completely ridiculous. But look, if you don’t believe me, it’s very easy to test your hypothesis. The next time you or a family member loses something in an airport food court and you have reason to believe that you have a claim, go ahead and file it in small claims court and see what happens. See if anyone rushes to write you a 5k nuisance check to save 20k in legal fees and staff costs.</p>
<p>^^strawman argument, since I am not a member of the bar with a huge PI staff at my disposal. But carry on.</p>
<p>But he has already indicated that he will go away if someone – anyone- writes him a $800 check. (Personally, I think it’s all for publicity for his PI firm.)</p>
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<p>No, what’s ridiculous is requiring the City, the airline, and the food court to all send representatives to court, unless you think that they have nothing better to do (and work for free). :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>I’m not sure what your point is. Your claim seems to be that it would cost $20,000 to defend a small claims court case brought against 3 large entities so there’s a pretty good chance the Plaintiff can extract $5,000 from the defendants.</p>
<p>What difference does it make if the Plaintiff is an attorney?</p>
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<p>What exactly is the alternative? Especially considering that the guy might actually have a legitimate claim.</p>
<p>There’s a pattern to these arguments. A gadfly claims that his view that a particular lawyer is a jerk, or is proferring weak arguments, based on an untested set of random facts assumed without evidence to be true by the gadfly, is a sign that the U.S. legal system is deeply flawed, and should be replaced forthwith with something the gadfly has spent a few minutes or maybe even a few hours thinking about. </p>
<p>The gadfly then has the temerity to suggest that his radical suggestions somehow reflect conservative principles, as reflected in the holy writ of the U.S. Constitution, as though that document said nothing about the right to petition the government, due process of law, the right to trial by jury, or the common law.</p>