From the you-can't-make-up-this-crap file, county officials are paying Lynberg & Watkins, a private Southern California law firm specializing in defending cops in excessive force lawsuits, untold sums to claim the social workers couldn't have "clearly" known that dishonesty wasn't acceptable in court and, as a back up, even if they did know, they should enjoy immunity for their misdeeds because they were government employees.Click on the link and you can read them.
A panel at the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this week ruled on Orange County's appeal of federal judge Josephine L. Staton's refusal last year to grant immunity to the bureaucrats in Preslie Hardwick v. County of Orange, a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in damages. In short, judges Stephen S. Trott, John B. Owens and Michelle T. Friedland were not amused. They affirmed Staton's decision.
But to grasp the ridiculousness of the [county] government's stance, read key, Oct. 7, 2016 exchanges between the panel and Pancy Lin, a partner at Lynberg & Watkins.
This, from the opinion itself, is telling:
No official with an IQ greater than room temperature in Alaska could claim that he or she did not know that the conduct at the center of this case violated both state and federal law.That's just judicial gold, even though I don't know if houses in Alaska are poorly-heated. But I'll defer to the court on that point.
There are plenty city/ county/ state workers here who do not pass the "room temperature IQ" test.
ReplyDeleteBut this is being wilfully stupid.
The only thing I find surprising (about the fuller account of this exchange that you linked to), is that the judges didn't issue a contempt citation against Attorney Lin and the law firm of Lynberg & Watkins for frivolously wasting the court's time.
ReplyDelete"I hope you brought your check book, because one more deliberately ridiculous utterance of this kind and I will hold you in contempt and fine you," tends to shut up lawyers who ought to be disbarred for lack of legal knowledge if they are serious about taking up the court's time with this crap. How does Parry Lin keep his law license?
Yours with extreme crankiness,
The New York Crank
Satisfying as a contempt ruling would have been, ift seems unlikely. Attorney Lin really didn't seem that enthralled with the case either. He was arguing a legal point that the judges clearly disagreed with, and I suspect he was just playing out the string once that became clear. Seems like they tried a Hail Mary on the State vs Federal point and got swatted down. After 16 years of litigation, it seems likely this was their last bullet, and the retainer had been paid, so like any good paid actor, they hustled out to devise an argument.
ReplyDeleteIn California, it's not that uncommon for attorneys to take a case they feel has no chance of winning, as my grandfather used to observe. One such fellow drained some relatives of 70K in a futile attempt to overturn his will, which left bupkis to the kids.
ReplyDeleteTheir father's will.
ReplyDelete