TO WIT: DOING UNTO OTHERS
“Can you believe this?”, my luncheon companion muttered over his breath. “Can you just believe this?” At first I thought his outrage was a direct and proximate result of his selection of the hash de jour, a temptless though visually startling dish that had just been delivered to the table.
“Things could be worse,” I said, and offered him a taste of my chicken salad to prove it. It was soon obvious, however, that it was not his lunch that offended him, though why I do not know, and it was not his stomach that was offended. It was his soul.
“If it takes me forever, I’ll get even,” he vowed, “I swear to God I will,” and he attacked his lunch as if that were the very hash he fully intended to settle.
Just another satisfied customer of the legal system, you say, and no doubt another one of mine. Well, in part you’re right, and for you, that’s pretty good. The outburst was in fact prompted by the system, but the outburstee was neither my client, nor a client at all, but rather a colleague of long standing whom that very morning had had a rather nasty setback at the hands of a panel of ARBITRATORS.
Once his own hash had begun to settle, he told me the story. It seems he had a small Plaintiff’s case, and as is the practice here, it was tried first by three lawyers appointed by the court to serve the combined functions of judge and jury. The panel was comprised of able-minded lawyers who had, each on their own, established a reputation for honesty, integrity and ability, and one of them was even making a very nice living. Unfortunately for my companion, though, the Chairman of the Panel was a lawyer who, not six months before, had had a small Plaintiff’s case of his own which had come up before a panel, the Chairman of which had been my lunch date. At the conclusion of that earlier case, the Chairman remained so unswayed by Plaintiff’s counsel’s presentation that he found for the Defendant, not only upon Plaintiff’s client, but also upon Defendant’s counterclaim, a counterclaim which Defendant’s counsel had not pleaded or proved and had not, at least until he read the award of the ARBITRATORS, even thought of. “Just because Defendant’s counsel failed to raise an obvious counterclaim,” said the Chairman, “why should his client suffer?”
It came as no surprise to me that the was angry at the result he had obtained that day. It also came as no surprise that he had obtained that result. It did surprise me that he was so flabbergasted by it all, and I told him so. “Well, then, why don’t you just write it down so we can all have a good laugh, you little twit,” he bellowed, and he stuck his fork into the back of my booth, not six inches from my ear. That surprised me too.
The problem here was one of misplaced expectations. You see, my colleague, presumably a man of intellect and reason, his recent attempt to fork me notwithstanding, had anticipated a decision from the ARBITRATORS based on justice, fairness, objectivity and logic, a dangerous enough posture in this profession under the best of circumstances. What he got instead was retribution from a colleague who, with an ax to grind, wielded his authoritate per diem with a vengeance.
Are you startled that lawyers, professionals who have been so thoroughly schooled in the art of dispassionate intellect, could stoop so low as to decide a case on the basis of who their friends or enemies are? I’m not either. One professional friend of mine has for many years served as an arbitrator and he has the decision-making process down to an applied science. “The first thing I do when I start to hear a case,” he told me recently, “is to look at the file to see who represents the parties. Then, if I haven’t already made up my mind, I read the pleadings.”
For some, the power of yea or nay really gets the creative venom flowing. Not long ago, one chairman found himself presiding over a case in which the Plaintiff was represented by his archest enemy. He awarded the Plaintiff the statutory limit of $15,000 on a case that was at best worth $500. “Don’t you see,” he chuckled to me over a beer, “the Defendant will have to appeal. If he does a great job, Plaintiff’s counsel may get $1,500 from a jury, and a client who, like me, thinks he’s an idiot.”
Oh, I know, some may criticize lawyers for playing fast and loose with justice, but what the hell. They’re only little cases anyway, and if someone has to lose, better it should be the lawyer who has it coming, or at least the subrogated insurance carrier who ought never to win anyway. It may not be justice in the strictest sense of the word, but what is?
© 1984 – S. Sponte, Esq.