Date: November 3rd, 2009 9:03 AM Author: charismatic salmon market
Jones v. Minkin
In September 2007, Prof. Jones was arrested and charged with solicitation of prostitution, after Miami police said that he offered $20 in exchange for sex to a woman who turned out to be an undercover cop. Of course, the story was irresistible to Above the Law, which delights in highlighting lawyers' most unlawyerly behavior. And so the blog ran numerous posts on Jones, dubbing him "The Nutty Professor" and posting the "incident report" on his arrest, on which it commented, "Note the tension between (1) Professor Jones’s pimpin’ ride, a Mercedes SL500, and (2) his alleged offer of a mere $20 to the 'undercover officer possing [sic] as a prostitute.'" It also ran a photocollage forwarded by a reader, which depicted Jones' face on a $20 bill and imagined him conversing with prostitutes. The charges were later dropped, and his record "expunged," reports the National Law Journal, and Jones remains on the Miami faculty.
But, of course, that is not the end of the story. Last week Jones, acting pro se, filed a complaint in federal court in Miami against ATL Founding Editor David Lat, as well as ATL's parent company and David Minkin, the parent's co-founder and publisher. The complaint includes three causes of action based on ATL's alleged insinuation that Jones had committed a crime, and on its posting of the photocollage: 1) false light; 2) invasion of privacy; 3) and copyright infringement, based on ATL's display of a photo of Jones.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 11:54 AM Author: disgusting rehab love of her life
The problem is to be a litigator you need to know both the civ pro and the evidence rules and civ pro professors tend to have only half of that knowledge. Most havent practiced in decades and forgot all the evidence stuff. You lose it if you dont use it.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 10:30 AM Author: Flesh stead half-breed
The ATL posts disclaimed all sorts of shit. The plaintiff dude is all like "my professional name by which I'm known to all is X and THEY USED MY PROFESSIONAL NAME!"
Date: November 3rd, 2009 9:46 AM Author: Carmine stubborn halford
This. A black law professor mispelling the (black) President's name in an opening paragraph of a Complaint filed in federal court... should be grounds for instant termination.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 11:36 AM Author: electric temple
holy shit, did you read that complaint? by a *tenured* professor of law? learn how to use a comma, don't misplace your modifiers, clarify what the pronoun means. learn to spell the president's name in the first fucking paragraph.
what a god damn embarrassment. miami people, what do we know about this guy?
Date: November 3rd, 2009 11:45 AM Author: disgusting rehab love of her life
You must go to a TTT. I bet the average UM law student would miss half the mistakes in this pleading if not more. This says all that needs to be said about the state of our profession today.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 11:41 AM Author: electric temple
what would be the reaction of a true Ph.D in the humanities at Miami, who's fighting for tenure at a fraction of Professor Jones's salary? Jones publishes a raft of absolute crap "crit" papers that have added nothing to the intellectual world. I presume that he cannot teach a real subject worth a damn. Any students from Miami out there?
if that complaint were handed in by a summer associate, it would damage the law student's career. it might cost her a permanent offer. but i guess it's good enough for tenure at Miami.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 11:39 AM Author: Laughsome Mediation Menage
This complaint is truly a disgrace, and I am not even talking about fucking typos. Apparently, he really believes that statements such as "Or Donald Marvin Jones." are sentences. This complaint is truly truly terrible. I hope he wrote it while completely intoxicated and then put it in a mailbox to the court for fling, forgetting that he had done so and leaving him no opportunity for sober reflection. It is the only excuse.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 11:42 AM Author: electric temple
OK, I will go that far. If he steps forward and says that over a weekend of heavy drinking he wrote this just to vent his anger and can't even remember filing it, I would forgive him and buy him another drink. Otherwise, he needs to turn in his tenure and get a real job.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 12:05 PM Author: electric temple
So, you're saying that Rule 11 is in play? I think it is, because one site showed that the tort was emphatically rejected by the Florida Supreme Court within the last year.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 2:22 PM Author: disgusting rehab love of her life
You can amend pleadings basically as of right once in virtually every jurisdiction. A mistake in a pleading like that typically doesnt get you sanctions unless you really piss off the judge or cost the other side a lot of money. Usually the lawyer gets a chance to amend if its early in the case and there has been no real prejudice. Opposing counsel should just call him on the phone and send a letter saying "ammend your pleading or I will file for sanctions" and cite that case. Courts dont like using Rule 11. And the court will question how a motion under Rule 11 is more cost effective than a one paragraph letter to the other side.
Since you keep going on about the profession being broken and the ineptitude of students that are clearly beneath you, perhaps I should point out that not only "should" he send a letter, he is required to send a draft motion to counsel before filing. Therefore, your post is, at best, misleading, and at worst, a demonstration of your lack of knowledge about common rules of civil procedure.
FYI: A motion for sanctions must be made separately from any other motion and must describe the specific conduct that allegedly violates Rule 11(b). The motion must be served under Rule 5, but it must not be filed or be presented to the court if the challenged paper, claim, defense, contention, or denial is withdrawn or appropriately corrected within 21 days after service or within another time the court sets. If warranted, the court may award to the prevailing party the reasonable expenses, including attorney's fees, incurred for the motion.
Date: November 4th, 2009 1:41 PM Author: galvanic geriatric abode
Exactly why go through the trouble of creating a draft motion when a letter can remedy the defect? All he is saying is you probably dont need a motion and the goal is not to waste several thousand of your clients dollars when a one page letter will likely suffice. You give opposing counsel like 5 days to remedy the defect and you put together you motion if you dont hear back from them.
Being that aggressive early on in litigation can backfire on you in more ways than one.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 11:51 AM Author: electric temple
After the number of the paragraph and the start of the sentence, he uses no space, one space, and two spaces, seemingly whimsically.
At other times, he goes straight from the number to the first word, or uses a mother fucking comma -- seriously, I am not making this up -- after the number.
But, I wonder, is my criticism just a white man's failure to credit crit-punctuation?
Date: November 3rd, 2009 12:11 PM Author: electric temple
paragraph 26: random capitalization of the word "Criminal." but do you think that he's just going with mid-1700s style on that? if so, i deeply apologize.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 12:28 PM Author: electric temple
"Because we conclude that false light is largely duplicative of existing torts, but without the attendant protections of the First Amendment, we decline to recognize the tort...."
Jews for Jesus, Inc. v. Rapp, 997 So.2d 1098 (Fla. 2008)
absolutely. At least if the complaint is in an area (or areas) of law where you lack even rudimentary knowledge.
Or, if you insist on drafting it yourself, running it by at least one person who has local expertise in that area. I bet that any plaintiff's attorney in the state who even remotely deals with tort law knew of the case and could tell the prof to at least drop that claim.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 12:29 PM Author: costumed cruel-hearted school cafeteria
Dear Prof. Jones,
I hope you read this thread. After reading your complaint, I can see how this would survive an MTD, but you need to ask yourself where this is likely to end up.
Have you thought about what's going to happen when Lat takes the depositions of the arresting officers? Do you think they're gonna confirm your story, or are they gonna say you offered a female cop $20 for a CBJ? All of those transcripts are public documents, and if Lat wants to screw you, he can freely post them to ATL for everyone's perusal. You should count yourself lucky that the cops didn't pursue charges, and just lay low for a few years until this blows over.
P.S. Were you really forced to take the exit to the red light district by someone cutting you off? I can't imagine how that would happen. Please DESCRIBE the circumstances.
It looks like the cops themselves described it as an "arrest." They say DMJ "engaged in conversation with undercover . . . during the conversation defendant attempted to offer $20.00 for sex from undercover officer possing as a prostitute."
See Professor, those depos are NOT going to be fun for you, whether your record was expunged or not.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 12:55 PM Author: Balding walnut field
actually, on the 836 it's very easy to hit the ghetto because the right lanes all turn to exit off ramps as you get near downtown and if you forget to exit the highway it dead ends in overtown. that's the one believable part, even though clearly he wanted some head.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 1:58 PM Author: wine sick tank forum
the problem here is not that his complaint was terrible; almost all law professors would write bad complaints. the problem is the temerity to not realize that he's not an actual lawyer and can't do this type of work.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 2:20 PM Author: Maniacal Autistic Nowag
the latter problem is only worse in the abstract. i would expect most prof's to write poor complaints, but the degree of suckitude in that complaint is unthinkable. this guy shouldn't even be a high school teacher for christ sake.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 2:30 PM Author: Diverse generalized bond legend
no, the problem is the guy apparently cannot type or proofread basic written english. also, the problem is he's a race-obsessed moron of the worst type. elie mystal levels of race-obsession with this dude.
Date: November 3rd, 2009 3:50 PM Author: Rusted Range Telephone
This is what I've been hoping for.
Lat should let Elie write on this topic and go out in a supernova. Elie trying to support this guy's legal arguments while simultaneously accusing the police of being racist would possibly lead to the best comments in ATL history.
I've seen much worse, but they are usually only present in small stakes state court cases where some soft-tissue solo guy has his secretary format previous negligence complaints. Never something like this in a high-profile federal filing by a lawyer.