Where is it all going?
This little blog will have, I think, a grim, gray tint to it. It happens.
Over the past few weeks, it has slowly occurred to me that all sorts of things and staples in my life are fading away, growing dimmer and disappearing. This is a disconcerting thing.
And I and so many others are powerless to stop or slow it down. We don’t even attempt to exert the powers of King Canute and command the waters to go back. We know that many dams are breaking and there are many more to come. The Floodtides are here.
We are cheapening and depersonalizing at an uncomfortable clip.
The notorious and noxious Murdaugh case goes on and on and seems daily to blossom like a nuclear cloud, smearing it’s toxins all over the justice system and the courts in South Carolina and in doing so, the public’s trust in one of our core pillar institutions is weakened and thinned. The scope of the disaster, all manmade by sentient human beings, expands seemingly daily and as if on cue a la Old Faithful in Yellowstone, spews its deceit and nastiness as if on a schedule compiled by Lucifer and Damian. Brutal murder, theft, trickery, embezzlement, mystery, bribery, seeming judicial shenanigans and a depth of amoral behavior covers it all. And there will be more. You can go to the bank on it.
Interestingly, for recalcitrant voyeurs like me, there has been so little publicized about the grotesque murders over recent weeks and yet, the authorities (if indeed there are any such folks left…) have never alerted the public at large to be careful, there are bad folks out there. And the double murder is what kicked this enormous ant hill over. Curious. I have a theory and I plan on sticking with it until I am called to task and set straight.
I think the root cause of all this is drug trafficking and money laundering. The sums are too big to ‘just’ pay for Big Daddy Red’s opioid habit. This far revealed is a sum of approximately 14 million dollars. That’s wildly incongruous considering the known facts. We will see.
And let me touch on this last thought briefly before I move on.
What was the timeline on the settlement and embezzlement of the wrongful death proceeds ultimately ‘gained’ for the family of the fallen? Pushed housekeeper?
It is supposed to go pretty much like this and each of these phases take time, not just a few days but many more:
The incident, the death occurs. Sometime thereafter a communication of claim/usually a letter is presented or sent by a lawyer to the allegedly offending party (Big Daddy). That claim is turned over to the insurance company or companies that provide homeowner’s or other applicable coverages.
The insurance company investigates; this is not a short-shrift process. Usually, the claimant must provide all sorts of information, documentation and prospective evidence.
If the claim is accepted, then arrangements are made to negotiate a settlement resolution. That apparently wasn’t the case here. A suit was filed.
The recipient of the suit has 30, sometimes 60 days to answer. Defense counsel is assigned. Was there an answer filed? Usually written discovery in the form of Motions to Produce, written Interrogatories and Requests to Admit ensue.
Insurance companies such a Lloyd’s of London (involved here) do not just meekly fold and pour out millions of dollars willy-nilly. That’s a Hard Fact. Where are the insurance adjusters-and these would be senior people used to dealing with high dollar amounts and claims such as this…where are there evaluative reports-these are always extensive and thorough…where are their superiors who signed off on these settlements?
How much time elapsed from the initial making of the wrongful death claim to the entry of settlement approving the totals paid and its ensuing court order?
To me, these are critical facts to be meticulously tracked out. This thing-all of it-stinks to high Hell. It is all a horrid infection of great size within our profession.
More on Murdaugh in another two weeks or so.
And, still in the vineyard of the law, the amount of lawyer advertising, both on television and on billboards, at least in the greater Charleston area has become a repugnant tsunami of imploring, begging greed and screed. Most of it is tasteless and blaring (not all but most) with almost all proclaiming that they will get you ‘what you deserve’; Ummm, how do they know what that is? It is the tacky beatdown (protected by the First Amendment) of a once pretty reasoned and dare I say it, dignified, well-mannered profession.
This is a big turn off for the general public. It’s too loud, too unseemly. So much of it is in bad taste.
And I have heard that these assaults on our ears and our logic will continue and grow because Covid has lessened the number of potential cases ‘out there’ and the courts are still pretty much shut down and there is little impetus for insurance carriers to negotiate settlements; there is no pressure on them. So lawyers are trying to harvest more and more to set aside to work on when they can.
Does it work? Yes for smaller stuff for the most part. They are bottom fishing, hoping to, from time to time, grab up a whale in their nets. Sometimes it does happen. Notice how they all are out there hunting big truck and 18 wheeler wrecks. The bigger the wreck, the bigger the check. Pretty Tawdry.
And hint, hint…most (again not all but most) of these in-person, on-screen lawyer spokespersons would have trouble finding the courthouse if the map to the place was safety pinned to their britches. Effective trial experience, not talk, is what liability insurance carrier fear and respect.
And it’s not going to stop. It is as Thomas Jefferson described slavery. “We have climbed up on the back of a bucking panther. And we do not know how to get off.”
All in all, another creeping, insidious assault on our system.
And a last thought or two for now. The Wall Street Journal over the past few weeks has run a series of lengthy, in depth articles describing how many federal judges have presided over cases in trial where the Judges own stocks and financial interests in one side or the other. Incredible. Does the phrase ‘Conflict of Interest’ come quickly to mind? How sloppy, how stupid.
And let me finish with the politicization of the Supreme Court. There are those out there, a la the days of President Roosevelt’s Court Packing scheme who want to expand the number of sitting Justices so one side cannot be stronger than the other. You know, let’s not have our standard nine. Let’s get twelve or fourteen. Talk about moving the goalposts because you don’t like the rules. More arbitrary. More Discord. More conscious disrespect for an effective and vital institution. I don’t think these kinds of efforts will be successful but that they are even out there floating in the political wind is disturbing.
My beloved profession is being chipped away from all directions. I despair. I worry that, sooner rather than later, I will not recognize her. And that’s a damn shame.
So, hold your heads up and don’t let the bastards get you down! And keep writing and thinking!
All the best,
Vernon