Washington Post Article Questions Numbers of DC Lawyers
There was an article in the Washington Post recently which goes into some detail about how “litigious” the culture is in the District of Columbia. The upshot of the article is that from 2007 to 2009, the D.C. government paid out $50 million in legal settlements. There is a quote from D.C’s Attorney General in this piece that misses the mark in spectacular fashion:
"There are more lawyers per capita in this city than any other city in the world…and what do lawyers like to do?"
The premise here is that the reason there are so many lawsuits is because there are so many lawyers. Not because D.C. is a crowded city with a dodgy safety record in terms of transit, pedestrian safety, crumbling infrastructure and a bureaucracy that is slow to respond. Not because people are getting hurt. It’s because the lawyers here in Washington DC have nothing better to do with their time.
The cases mentioned in this story disprove the argument pretty thoroughly. There is the tourist from Arizona who tripped on a poorly maintained sidewalk and had to undergo surgery for his shoulder. There is the mental patient who gouged his own eyes out after being left unsupervised after his doctor specifically warned the staff to have him monitored. There is the family of a prisoner who were not informed that this man had died of lung cancer and had already been cremated until four months after the fact. There is the couple who had two children killed by a DC Police cruiser that was in a pursuit. There was the bicyclist who got hit by a trash can that was haphazardly thrown from a sanitation truck. Not to mention a whole group of World Bank protestors who were detained and hogtied for hours without having access to food, water or the bathroom.
The writer of the Post article compares the settlement costs in D.C. to those of Montgomery County, which pays considerably less for lawsuit costs despite having a bigger population (and, it has to be assumed, more lawyers residing there.) The easy assumption would be that somehow lawsuits are easier to file in D.C, and as a result lawyers are flocking there to sue the city.
These lawsuits are not a reflection on the lawyers, or the victims that the lawyers represent. They are a reflection on how Washington, D.C. is maintained and administered. If a sidewalk is left in a state of disrepair for months at a time, are private citizens expected to fix it themselves? They would probably be fined if they tried. If someone injures himself as the result of those not responsible fixing the sidewalk, should he be expected to pay his own medical bills?
If a patient is neglected by the staff at a facility and is severely injured as a result, should he just shrug his shoulders and move on with his life?
If a family member dies while under the care of the state and the family is not told about it (or even given a body to bury) should they just write it off as “one of those things that happens?”
If someone is injured when a public worker is careless when performing his assigned tasks, should the injury victim shoulder the costs of that injury by himself?
If a group of people have their civil liberties violated by the police and are treated in ways that go directly against the United States Constitution, should they just forget about it?
Lawsuits aren’t filed for fun. They are filed because sometimes people get hurt due to actions that were careless and unnecessary. Sometimes bad things happen to people that are the fault of someone else. And when someone is injured, a simple apology won’t be enough. An apology from the sanitation worker who hit the bicyclist with the garbage can is all well and good, but it won’t pay the medical bills that the bicyclist faced. An apology from the orderlies and nurses who ignored the advice of the doctor doesn’t help pay for the mentally ill person who is now blind. So the question is this: Are all of these lawsuits happening because there are too many lawyers in D.C.?
Greenberg and Bederman is apersonal injury law firm located in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, one mile from the Washington DC line. We offer legal assistance to people who have been injured due to car, truck and motorcycleaccidents, pedestrian and bicycle accidents, premises liability cases, cases of medical malpractice, and people who have been injured due to the use of defective pharmaceutical drugs. We can help anyone who has been injured in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. If you or a loved one has been injured due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free injury case legal consultation.
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