jjgman21

well I covered every single issue in that article in my previous post, so maybe you should attempt a rebuttal, because you present no new argument as to why calling this suit frivolous isn't premature at best, or where my reasoning is flawed. my post involves some intricate topics regarding the practice of law and our judicial system. sorry I couldn't sumarize it more succinctly for you, and I'm more sorry you chose to ignore some insight as to how the system really words and instead rely on Bryan Burwell, whoever the hell he is.

dude, you have to give Hancock's Dad's lawyer a call since you are obviously a fact witness in this case. me thinks you should rethink your user name. The police released videotape of the crash, which showed a fair amount of traffic that night. http://www.aolsportsblog.com/2007/05/02/surveillance-video-of-josh-hancock-crash-released/ I didn't know that, and that's why I asked the other question. I haven't looked into this story extensive, but I understand there is evidence the tow truck was there because the stalled car was cutoff by another car. there is also a dispute as to how long the tow truck was there, but some evidence shows it was there for 15 minutes. I believe the video showed the tow truck driver was there less than 5 minutes before the accident. More like 3 minutes if I remember the video correctly. The tow truck driver had his flashing lights going. The tow truck driver saw the Hancock automobile approaching at a high rate of speed and out of desperation the tow truck driver was honking his horn trying to alert the oncoming vehicle. To me, if the tow truck driver could see the oncoming Hancock vehicle with no flashing lights I see no reason why Hancock should not have seen a huge tow truck with flashing lights. Unless he was distracted (cell phone), intoxicated, or both. The police had been called but according to the STL police chielf had not arrived on the scene yet. Those are the facts the STL PD have released. The only indisputable facts are that Hanckock was talking on the cell phone, was intoxicated, was in possession of illegal drugs, and was speeding. see what I say above regarding the discovery process. same applies for the tow truck driver. none of this stuff, including the video, is reliable until put through the discovery process. until the driver is questioned under cross examination, who's to say he didn't say whatever necessary to exculpate his liability. the video can be challenged in any of a number of ways as to it's reliability, starting with the driver who, according to the article I read, said he was there 5-7 minutes. the press convinced the American people that Iraq was a danger to us. the press is so unreliable in presenting accurate, reliable facts as to make the notion laughable.

dude, you have to give Hancock's Dad's lawyer a call since you are obviously a fact witness in this case. me thinks you should rethink your user name. Dude - The police released videotape of the crash, which showed a fair amount of traffic that night. http://www.aolsportsblog.com/2007/05/02/surveillance-video-of-josh-hancock-crash-released/ Now that I know my screen name bugs you, I'll never change it. then answer my other post.

dude, you have to give Hancock's Dad's lawyer a call since you are obviously a fact witness in this case. me thinks you should rethink your user name. The police released videotape of the crash, which showed a fair amount of traffic that night. http://www.aolsportsblog.com/2007/05/02/surveillance-video-of-josh-hancock-crash-released/ I didn't know that, and that's why I asked the other question. I haven't looked into this story extensive, but I understand there is evidence the tow truck was there because the stalled car was cutoff by another car. there is also a dispute as to how long the tow truck was there, but some evidence shows it was there for 15 minutes. so in those facts, what would a reasonable tow truck driver do? I think a pretty good argument could be made that a reasonable tow truck driver would call the police, put out flares and cones, etc. He did none of that. the element of negligence that is being debated here is duty. the law requires people to act reasonably in their various affairs, and if they fail to do so, they are held liable if their failure to act reasonably proximately and directly causes injury to another. if the tow truck driver acted in a way that other tow truck drivers would not, he very well may be liable. now people will always debate when a duty arises, but that's for people with a helluva lot more experience in evaluating the costs and benefits of applying a duty to various members of society. they are called appellate court judges and legislators. duty is a question of law, not fact. the second debate that is going on here is what conclusions can be drawn from the various facts that have come out in the press. but what people need to realize is that often times filing a lawsuit is the only way to get at reliable facts. as I alluded to before, you file against other potentially liable parties so you can get to the facts through the discovery process. to illustrate this, here's a hypothetical. there was recently a debate on here about AA. I didn't interject, but medical science is quite clear that alcoholics cannot resist alcohol when presented with it. let's say that the employees and management of Shannon's knew damn well that Hancock had severe substance abuse problems, including alcohol. let's also say there was a standing order by management at Shannon's to put a drink in every Cardinals players hands the second they enter the establishment and to make sure that glass is never empty. an argument could be made that Hancock's intoxication was not voluntary under those circumstances as his "disease" did not allow him to make any choice. it's a stretch, but it's a legal theory that is up to the courts to decide. you think it's frivolous, fine, but realize these tactics are employed a helluva lot more by powerful interests, like the insurance industry than they are by "ambulance chasers." but the point of this hypo is nobody would ever know these facts and the courts will never have the opportunity to decide, if a lawsuit is not filed and the discovery process not employed. same can be said about the other driver. he claims he stalled when he spun out after a car cut him off. what if he stalled after spinning out because he was high and fell asleep at the wheel? certainly his actions were not reasonable, and his actions were A direct cause of the Hancock's death under those circumstances. but how would anyone ever know without the ability to compel that driver and other potential witnesses to answer interrogatories, produce documents and other things, and give depositions? there is no other way but through the discovery process.

let me take this in a different direction. let's assume you are right and there were hundreds of cars who passed this tow truck as he sat in on a highway without a break down lane before Hancock hit him. what would a reasonable tow truck operator do in that situation?

dude, you have to give Hancock's Dad's lawyer a call since you are obviously a fact witness in this case. me thinks you should rethink your user name. :roll: hey man, sorry I just shattered the myths you believe in, but that's no excuse to sink into complete and utter lameness.

I don't think anything can be worse than the shaft that the Mavs got last year, but yeah, apparently Lebron wasn't going to draw a foul on that play unless someone actually stabbed or sodomized him. The NBA sucks. the shaft the Kings got vs the Lakers a few years back is probably only matched by the 1972 Olympics fiasco. and it wasn't just the non call on Detroit hacking Lebron, it was the blatant push off on the other end by Wallace that allowed the Pistons to take the lead. the Cavs should have been shooting lead extending free throws, not watching the Pistons hackathon on Labron continue.

dude, you have to give Hancock's Dad's lawyer a call since you are obviously a fact witness in this case. me thinks you should rethink your user name.

I think what is more unfair is breaking this comparison out after a series in which the Cubs faced both Peavy and Young in Grand Canyon Park, which also happens to coincide with the Cubs best hitter just getting back into the lineup after about 10 days with about 4 plate appearances. as for your statement regarding the pen, what difference does it make if they come into the game and it is 10-8 or 3-1? they only deserve criticism and blame in the latter? they have to close out the damn game with a vicotry. that is their job. that is why the stats of "hold" and "save" were invented. that's why we talk about how meaningless the three run save is compared to the one and two run save. again, if the pen is even 50% when they come into the game with a one or two run lead, the Cubs are maybe one game behind the Brewers. they are at maybe 18% right now, which is a helluva lot more to blame for the Cubs current record than the myth that their offense is siognificantly more feast or famine than other offenses in the league.

obviously without all the facts developed or any research into the Misery law, my reading of this Hancock case either - this lawyer is bringing suit to challenge the law in some way, perhaps to clarify the definition of 'voluntary' intoxication. he knows he will lose and is more looking forward to the appeal. or he has a legitimate claim against the tow truck driver for not acting reasonable when servicing the other vehicle, and counts against the bar and the driver of the other car are thrown in as alternate theories of recovery, something every lawyer worth his salt will do, and all the press is focusing in on the count(s) against Shannon's.

because lord knows bringing frivilous lawsuits is such an ease way to become rich....no, wait, upon further review, it's a quick way to go bankrupt and get disbarred. Right...there is no such thing as ambulance chasing lawyers. I actually dispute that there are many, but that's not what I am talking about anyway. there's smarmy lawyers out there, as there are smarms in any profession, but from my experience there are alot more smarms in the insurance defense end of things as opposed to personal injury lawyers. you implied that there are lawyers out there that will bring lawsuits when there is not a case. that statement in and of itself says to me that you don't have any actual knowledge of the legal profession, but instead base your assessment on what you've heard in popular culture. the vast majority of personal injury lawyers work on a contingency basis. in other words, they don't make a dime if they don't win. while the client is usually responsible for costs of the suit, most of those clients have injuries that impair their ability to earn a living and don't have the out of pocket money to cover these costs. so who puts up the money to pursue the case? their lawyer does. and if that lawyer loses, rare is the instance when they collect the costs of suit from their clients. so in summary, filing a frivolous lawsuit will generally lead to the lawyer paying out, and having nothing coming in. you do the math. what lawyers in Illinois must do when they file the lawsuits on behalf of their clients is sign a certification stating the case is has a legitimate basis in fact and law, in other words, they swear to the courts that the case is not frivolous. since most lawyers practice in limited venues, the judges and defense lawyers will get word when a lawyer is filing multiple frivolous claims. this will lead to their being reported to the bar for sanctions or disbarment. what also must be understood is the way the case law and statutes have changed over the years to favor defendants. it has become harder and harder over the past three decades for a plaintiff to get full recovery even when his case is sound. thus, insurance companies stopped settling "nuisance" lawsuits and claims long ago and fight just about every claim to the hilt. guys, their is no more truth to the alleged 'litigation crisis' as there is to 'Saddam Hussein was involved in 911.' it's PR, not truth, and if there is a shred of truth to this myth, it is more likely caused by those responsible for the myth, the insurance companies themselves. the dockets are absolutely clogged with cases where the insurance company has no legitimate defense (other than maybe whore doctors) but refuses to settle because they know these injured people will give up and get what they can get now simply because they have hungry children at home.

NBA officiating is a travesty to the sporting world.

I think what is disheartening most of all about this discussion is the affirmation of how well the relentless PR campaign by the insurance and medical industries has worked.

because lord knows bringing frivilous lawsuits is such an ease way to become rich....no, wait, upon further review, it's a quick way to go bankrupt and get disbarred.

I was never a big fan of Abreu, but I wanted Drew pretty bad. And Drew's power is nowhere to be found, but his OBP is still 100 points higher than his AVG (and that .350 OBP would be an improvement for our OF); Abreu's OBP is not good, but it's also 80 or so points higher than his AVG - these guys haven't lost their plate discipline, which is something our team sorely lacks. But Abreu and Drew also went from the NL to the ALE, which is a huge difference in terms of talent. Abreu got the short end of the stick b/c some of the worst pitchers in the ALE are on his team. But they're facing much better talent than Jones is. So to think Drew or Abreu wouldn't be much better facing the Cards, Pirates, Reds, etc than pitchers in the AL isn't really fair. They might be just as bad on the Cubs as they are in the ALE, but the difference in talent in the leagues is fairly widely accepted, so I think that's a variable you're overlooking. I'd love to trade for Drew (Abreu's a year and a half older, so I'm less interested in him). If he could play CF at all, that .391 career OBP would be a thing of beauty on this team. incidentally, I challenge the notion that Abreu has had to face tougher pitching than Jacque this year. the Cubs have had bad luck avoiding teams best starting pitching, the Yankees have had tremendous luck. admittedly, Boston has had bad luck.

I was never a big fan of Abreu, but I wanted Drew pretty bad. And Drew's power is nowhere to be found, but his OBP is still 100 points higher than his AVG (and that .350 OBP would be an improvement for our OF); Abreu's OBP is not good, but it's also 80 or so points higher than his AVG - these guys haven't lost their plate discipline, which is something our team sorely lacks. But Abreu and Drew also went from the NL to the ALE, which is a huge difference in terms of talent. Abreu got the short end of the stick b/c some of the worst pitchers in the ALE are on his team. But they're facing much better talent than Jones is. So to think Drew or Abreu wouldn't be much better facing the Cards, Pirates, Reds, etc than pitchers in the AL isn't really fair. They might be just as bad on the Cubs as they are in the ALE, but the difference in talent in the leagues is fairly widely accepted, so I think that's a variable you're overlooking. I'd love to trade for Drew (Abreu's a year and a half older, so I'm less interested in him). If he could play CF at all, that .391 career OBP would be a thing of beauty on this team. another conflation of the argument. if you are going to compare the pitching talent one faces, you must remain consistent. neither player was in the NL central, yet those are the teams you use to excuse these players poor performances. Abreu got a break, then what explains Drew? Abreu got a break, but the pitching in the NL East last year was a helluva lot better than the AL East pitching this year. and btw, 13-15M a year for a slightly better than league average OBP (if that) and little more is a terrible idea, which gets back to my original point, we'd be more screwed had the Cubs acquired some of the love children that were pined for on this board. I like how you trash everyone's arguments by throwing around words like "conflation", then use absolutely terrible logic to support your on arguments (pitching in the NL East is worse this year than last year...please), and then wrap it all up with a completely unsupportable statement that we'd be "more screwed", whatever the hell that is. All while calling a mod "disingenuous" for no particular reason. You win the 1st Annual Dingleberry Award for Alienating Everyone and Pissing Them Off. the other poster posited that the 2007 AL East is harder to hit in than the 2006 NL East. I argued it's not. it was an accurate statement. I believe having a $13-15M/year player would be a larger strain on the Cubs organization than a $5M, slightly less productive player . how that is unsupportable...no wait, completely unsupportable...is beyond me. what award do you win for your failure to read, failure to comprehend, ignorance of what logic is, and blatant attack topped off with sucking up to a mod?

well you're over exaggerating, but I think I have one explanation. think Mike Remilinger. when we are talking about soft tossing lefties, I think what we usually mean is a pitcher without a dominant fastball that primarily uses the change and/or the curve as his out pitch. quite often, these players have reverse splits, as we can see with Paul Maholm, Zach Duke and Tom Glavine. yet no matter what type of stuff a lefty throws, Lou (and Dusty before him) sends out an all right handed lineup each and every time, regardless of the splits. another problem with going all right handed against a lefty has been touched on by Brenly a couple times this year. the pitcher doesn't have to change anything to get hitters out. he sets into a groove of throwing darts to the outside corner, and lives there all game. left handed hitters generally feast on low, inside slow stuff, but the pitcher doesn't have to worry about it. he can throw the same pitch time after time and zero in his location in without interruption.

the Padres alleged worst hitter had a May OPS above 900 when the Cubs flight landed in SoCal.

I was never a big fan of Abreu, but I wanted Drew pretty bad. And Drew's power is nowhere to be found, but his OBP is still 100 points higher than his AVG (and that .350 OBP would be an improvement for our OF); Abreu's OBP is not good, but it's also 80 or so points higher than his AVG - these guys haven't lost their plate discipline, which is something our team sorely lacks. But Abreu and Drew also went from the NL to the ALE, which is a huge difference in terms of talent. Abreu got the short end of the stick b/c some of the worst pitchers in the ALE are on his team. But they're facing much better talent than Jones is. So to think Drew or Abreu wouldn't be much better facing the Cards, Pirates, Reds, etc than pitchers in the AL isn't really fair. They might be just as bad on the Cubs as they are in the ALE, but the difference in talent in the leagues is fairly widely accepted, so I think that's a variable you're overlooking. I'd love to trade for Drew (Abreu's a year and a half older, so I'm less interested in him). If he could play CF at all, that .391 career OBP would be a thing of beauty on this team. another conflation of the argument. if you are going to compare the pitching talent one faces, you must remain consistent. neither player was in the NL central, yet those are the teams you use to excuse these players poor performances. Abreu got a break, then what explains Drew? Abreu got a break, but the pitching in the NL East last year was a helluva lot better than the AL East pitching this year. and btw, 13-15M a year for a slightly better than league average OBP (if that) and little more is a terrible idea, which gets back to my original point, we'd be more screwed had the Cubs acquired some of the love children that were pined for on this board.

There's a difference though. Most of those flops you mentioned had done very well before they got their current contract. Jones was horrible. It's a surprise that Drew and Abreu are doing as bad as they are. It's not a surprise that our $15mil Jones is doing bad. I'd rather have a GM who went after players where there was a basis of reason for expecting them to do good, not a basis to think they're going to suck. You're going to score more often going after Drew and Abreu types than with Jones types. I'm still wishing we would have decided to open the pocket books a couple of years earlier and locked in Vlad or Beltran instead of Soriano. our 15M in three years of Jones purchases about 1.25 years of the other players mentioned. Jones was not as good as the others, and that is reflected in his salary.

what's so impressive about where the cubs are now? i don't understand why people want to give hendry credit for assembling a giant, expensive failure. do you really, honestly think it takes some special skill to field a $95 mil team that loses 90+ games? seriously, thousands upon thousands of people could have accomplished what hendry has accomplished over the past few seasons...and the cubs certainly wouldn't be any worse off than they are right now. strawman argument alert. as to your first comment, you're conflating the argument, as this discussion is primarily about Jones. with Drew, you may have a point, but most wanted Giles instead of Jones when both were signed and most wanted to make a play for Abreu to replace Jones, so with both of them, you're just simply wrong. both are far more expensive than Jones, which would have lead to considerably fewer resources to deal with.

I'm pretty sure no one's suggesting that they themselves replace Hendry. people constantly state that "some people on this board would make a better GM than Hendry." you know it's true, and your comment seems more than just a bit disingenuous.

He's making $650,000. I would have liked to have seen the Cubs sign Cruz and Floyd, FWIW. IMO we already have Jose Cruz in Angel Pagan. they are very similar, accept Cruz is much better at playing baseball. I got you all beat in the Cruz/Floyd 'I told you so' sweepstakes. when Maddux's trade to the Dodgers became inevitable, I lobbied for him to be the player the Cubs acquired, for the exact reasons stated above.

and here it is Rule 2.00 (Catch) Comment: A catch is legal if the ball is finally held by any fielder, even though juggled, or held by another fielder before it touches the ground. Runners may leave their bases the instant the first fielder touches the ball. which brings me back to my original question, how on earth do two runners both leave early. I have a hard time believing the events described above happened to anyone other than a Cubs team.

not that it mattered, but... few things P me off more than a hitter/pitcher who gets corner calls all night, out, in, up, down, then complains when the ump doesn't call an obvious pitch his way.