Legal Briefs

Will Boston lawyers also seek grand fee?

With news that big-time attorneys in New York are now charging their clients $1,000 an hour, are Boston lawyers ratcheting up their fees as well?

“I have not yet encountered a Boston lawyer visibly charging $1,000 an hour,” reported Michael B. Keating of Foley Hoag, one of Boston’s biggest firms. “But I’ve seen people charging in the $700+ per hour. Historically, we’ve been behind New York City and Washington, D.C., on hourly rates.”

But Boston Bar Association President Anthony M. Doniger predicted that Beantown lawyers will catch up.

“It’s around the corner,” he said. “I know lawyers who are charging $800, $850 an hour. Boston is not far behind.”

Increasingly, Doniger said, Boston wants to be seen as a national base. “There’s no reason to expect that what happens in New York won’t happen in Boston. If a big New York firm with a Boston office is charging $1,000 an hour, there’s no reason to expect that the Boston office won’t charge $1,000 an hour for the same or a similarly situated client.”

Keating agreed that increased nationalization and regionalization at firms means that local attorneys want to keep up with their out-of-state colleagues.

“When it comes time to divvy up profits at the end of year, the folks in the satellite offices can be facing a little economic discrimination on the basis that their hourly rates are 25 percent or so lower than those in the hallowed home office,” said Keating.

While the market forces that result in such hefty fees don’t surprise Doniger, he called the $1,000-an-hour fee “insane.”

There are lawyers who charge less than half that “who are just as good,” he noted. “I’ve never met a lawyer who was the only person in the world who could do something.”

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‘Grave’ decision kills walker’s suit

To many mere mortals, a graveyard would hardly seem to be a place of recreation. But a decision by a Berkshire Superior Court judge suggests that a cemetery may be as much about living life as honoring the dead.

In the case, a woman sued the city of North Adams after claiming she was injured while walking through a city-owned cemetery. But Judge Daniel A. Ford dismissed the case under a state law that makes government entities immune from liability where the accident occurred on public property used for “recreational use.”

“It’s a pretty unusual decision, since the city wouldn’t really want to encourage” residents to revel in a cemetery, said the woman’s lawyer, Patrick C. Gable of Pittsfield.

Indeed, Judge Ford, in a note attached to the order in his decision, said that he agrees “with the plaintiff that the notion that a cemetery can be put to a recreational use is somewhat counterintuitive.”

But Ford pointed out that the woman’s, who was injured after falling into a pothole, said in a deposition that she was in the cemetery to take a walk and exercise.

Referring to caselaw about the state law known as the Recreational Use Statute, Ford opined that “if strolling in a park to see flowers is recreational, I see no reason why walking in a cemetery to get exercise and view grave sites should not be considered recreational as well.”

Gable had argued that the city had taken “no action … to make the sacred ground of [the cemetery] available to the public for ‘recreational purposes without imposing a charge or fee.’ … Most likely such a decision would not go over well with the relatives of the deceased who paid for their loved ones to use the property.”

Springfield attorney Nancy Frankel Pelletier, who represented the city of North Adams, could not be reached for comment. There was no word from the losing party on whether there will be an appeal or Ford’s decision will rest in peace.

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Lawsuits on the bus go ’round and ’round

After hearing about two unusual personal-injury lawsuits, bus riders might want to take extra care in choosing the right seat.

In one case, a 48-year-old woman’s ride through Rhode Island on a bus, which was owned and operated by G&W Transportation, Inc., came to a screeching halt when she was thrown from her seat in the back row after the driver was forced to make an emergency stop to avoid a collision.

As the driver put on the brakes, the woman, who was sitting in the middle seat and not wearing a seatbelt, fell forward into the aisle in front of her. The bus was equipped with a seatbelt specifically for the seat she occupied; however the seatbelt was located underneath the seat and out of her view.

While she claimed to suffer various injuries from the accident, her own doctors — as well as an out-of-court arbitrator hearing her cases — claimed that her injuries had not been caused by the sudden stop.

However, the arbitrator did find sufficient evidence to conclude that the defendant was negligent in failing to tell the woman about the seatbelt designed for her seat, but found no evidence to support the woman’s contention that the driver was negligent with respect to the emergency braking.

In a separate case, a woman on a Fox Bus Lines trip to Atlantic City claimed that her thumbnail, foot and knee were crushed by a fellow passenger when the seat in front of her — occupied by a large individual — reclined suddenly.

Despite her allegations, however, the woman finished the bus trip and did not seek medical attention until she reached a casino’s medical clinic, but she declined treatment at the time, as the clinic required patients to pay for services up front.

The woman claimed $30,000 in medical expenses relating to the incident, but a review of past medical records showed that she had previously suffered similar injuries.

Additionally, the woman claimed she was unable to drive for a year after the mishap, yet at trial she acknowledged that surveillance conducted by the defendants showed her driving 11 weeks after the incident.

While the women in both cases were eventually compensated for their injuries — $9,500 and $15,000 respectively — defense lawyer Brian K. Walsh of Boston, who represented both bus companies in the lawsuits, said each got significantly less than she was were looking for.

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Smooth ride gets rough for driver

What started as a routine ride home to the South Shore literally turned into a federal case after a driver drove into a building with his car and ended up in an apparent tussle with a police officer.

While heading home, the driver claimed that he became ill, disoriented and ultimately lost. He ended up in an industrial park in the town of Weymouth, where he struck the front of a building and a tree with his vehicle, activating the building’s fire alarms.

The responding fire personnel found the driver some 50 yards away from the building, still in his car, attempting to start it. The driver refused instructions from the fire personnel to get out of his vehicle, which began to emit smoke.

A responding police officer, the defendant in the case, gave the driver multiple verbal commands to exit the car, but the driver allegedly refused to comply. The officer then reached into the vehicle and attempted to pull the driver out, but to no avail. As a result, according to a witness from the fire department, the officer struck the driver several times with his departmental-issued baton.

At that time the driver came out of his vehicle and the two fell to the ground, where the witness observed the officer struggling with the driver in an attempt to handcuff him. A firefighter then intervened to assist the officer in handcuffing the driver, who was transported to the police station. Once at the station, it became apparent that the driver was suffering a seizure.

EMS personnel transported him to the hospital where his seizure was ultimately diagnosed.

At trial, the driver testified that he could not remember why or how he came to strike the building, but said he did remember the officer spraying him with pepper spray and hitting him. He denied refusing the officer’s commands.

Despite multiple bruises and the loss of a front tooth resulting from the alleged assault, a jury returned a verdict in favor of the officer, awarding no money to the driver, according to Douglas I. Louison of Boston, attorney for the officer.

In items in which out-of-court settlements have been reported, names and locations may not be available due to the confidential nature of the agreements.