"The Beard Grows, But The Head Does Not Grow Wiser."
“A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.” - H. L. Mencken
"I tell you, I'll consult my lawyer. And if he advises me to do it, I'll get a new lawyer."-Groucho Marx 
"We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can."
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My posh corner office, also known as " Where the Magic Happens and/or the Sausage is Made", is a small shrine to Detroit history. The most recent additions are the 8 Chris Gorski Detroit Landmark prints featured above. Some of the prints are shown on the side bar of this site.
Chris' work can be purchased through his site: Detroit GT and at Art Is In Market, with several metro Detroit locations. Some great, high quality, unique items.
Since July of 2015, I have had the pleasure of working at Landry, Mazzeo, and Dembinski, in Farmington Hills.
When I was a plaintiff lawyer, I had many cases against the firm. Today’s story is about my first case with Rik, “Mr. Wonderful” Mazzeo.
At every given time, every attorney has a case which holds the title of “worst case on my docket”. At the time of this story, this motorcycle v auto accident case was mine. My client was the motorcycle operator.
A little note about how the Michigan No-Fault Law deals with motorcycles. Though they have a motor and operate on the roads, they are excluded from the definition of motor vehicles (being defined as vehicles with more than 2 wheels). Motorcycles are not required to have No-Fault coverage. The motorcyclist involved in an accident gets his PIP benefits from the carrier that covered the car involved in the accident.
At one time in the past, the motorcycle did not need to carry liability coverage either. That law changed on or about the exact date of the accident in my case. The change required that the motorcycle have liability coverage in place in order to get PIP benefits from the involved car’s insurance company. Simple, isn’t it. But stay with this, folks, because it’s brilliant.
Let’s say the new law went into effect on March 5 the year of the accident. If the accident happened on March 5 or later, the motorcycle had to have liability insurance in order to get PIP from the involved car’s insurance company. If the accident happened before March 5, the motorcycle did not need to have its own liability coverage.
As something of a warning of things to come, when I got the file, there were 2 accident reports, one saying the accident happened on March 1 and another saying the accident happened on March 7. My client, as you might guess, did not have liability coverage on his motorcycle, so the actual date of the accident became vitally important to his claim for PIP benefits. I think the second accident report was issued at the request of the client, who felt that, first time round, the police not only got the accident date wrong, but blamed him for the accident as well
My hero (client), was also self employed at the time of the accident, with no paperwork to support his wage loss claim. He also had treated for his injuries with one of the noted auto injury treaters of the day (the doctor is currently serving time in federal prison). And, of course, there were service claims unsupported by provider affidavits.
And, as you would expect, my client was a jerk. An "operator" who knew everything, and could not be prepared/warned for the questioning to come . A "real" man, this unmarried "hunk" of burning love would testify, repeatedly, that his injuries impeded his ability to "poke" (his words) women after the accident.
Enter into the mix that fine December 22nd afternoon, one Rik Mazzeo, who introduced himself to me and my client as "Mr. Wonderful". This was our first meeting, and I had not been forewarned. Rik was already a legend (it took me a little longer to become one).
Judge Michael A. Martone was a District Court Judge in Troy from 1992-2010. Sadly, he passed away in 2013. Good judge, good attorney, good man.
He was a friend of mine. Before being elected to the District Court bench, he was an insurance defense attorney, and a good man. We had a few cases together at the beginning of my plaintiff lawyer career. Today's story is about one of those cases, assigned to now retired, Wayne County Circuit Judge Susan Borman.
I had reason to retell that story recently, when I facilitated a case, wherein Mike's son, James A. Martone, an attorney with Dickinson Wright, represented the defendant.
While I don't remember the case facts that well, I think it involved a premises liability claim, back in the days before most premises liability cases became victims of the Open and Obvious Doctrine.
Judge Borman prided herself on her quick case turnover. The standard Wayne County scheduling order had 3 tracks. Most cases were assigned to Track 1, and attorneys do not need to personally appear at a scheduling conference. Judge Borman became the only judge to require personal attendance at a scheduling conference, and the pre-determined dates assigned could best be described as Track .6. I used to tell lawyers that Judge Borman wanted you to complete your discovery before the accident happened.
Judge Borman's trial procedure was to schedule a first settlement conference 35 days after case evaluation and schedule a second settlement conference the Friday after the first conference. Yes, that is correct, 2 settlement conferences in a single week, often with the second settlement conference the day after the first one. If the case was not settled, there was a firm trial date the following Monday. You had better schedule your medical deps as soon as you returned from the Case Evaluation hearing.
To save money (potentially), both Mike and I scheduled our medical deps between the first and second settlement conferences. However, the judge was sick that week and didn’t come in at all. But, it was conveyed to us that we were going to trial that Monday anyway and we were the only case scheduled. So, there would be a trial with not a single settlement conference, much less the standard two.
Because my client was a bit of a lunatic, he had rejected a Case Evaluation award he should have accepted. So, Mr. Martone and I did the following:
Back in the days before facilitation became the default settlement conference for most cases, there really was an effort to settle cases in court, rather than at somebody’s law office. Granted, some of those efforts were less than scientific. Judge Jim Montante’s “Putting for Dollars” and Judge Kaye Tertzag’s “Card Trick”, come immediately to mind. There were other systems as well.
I thought those magical days ended with the coming of the new Milenium.
July 18, 2013 was really a Throwback Thursday for me. That morning I appeared with my client for a settlement conference on city of Detroit residential sidewalk trip and fall case. The client, who I met for the first time that morning, had injured her left shoulder in the accident, but not too badly. No fracture, no surgery and no recent treatment. In fact, when I asked her how her shoulder was feeling, with a slightly quizzical look on her face, she touched her hand to her right shoulder. Reading my reaction like a book she smiled and said, “That’s the wrong one, isn’t it?” It was.
Let’s just say, we were very amenable to settlement that morning.
The case evaluated for $14.000, which we had accepted. That continued to be the demand when we went back into chambers. The city offered 7K. The judge (who is my favorite on the Wayne County Circuit bench, and not just for this case), came up with an interesting method to bridge the gap. He took a sheet of loose leaf paper and tore it into 7 pieces. On each he wrote a figure between 7K and 14K. The pieces were folded so the attorneys could not see them. The judge laid the pieces on his desk, in front of defense counsel. He proposed to have the city attorney pick up one of the slips of paper and the city would pay the figure written thereon. I nodded sagely indicating that the process was totally agreeable to me.
The city attorney’s reaction was a bit more animated. “I can’t do this”, she said, “I’ll lose my job. My supervisor will go crazy.”
“Well, let’s get him up here, the judge replied.” The city’s law department is in the CCB (abbreviation for the City County Building, the old name for the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, the “Cay-Mac”).
I suggested the attorneys and the pieces of paper go down to the law department where I could talk to the supervisor directly. We went down, and I met with the supervisor. The original city attorney left never to return.
I explained the case, and the judge’s recommendation regarding settlement. The supervisor laughed, and after exchanging some war stories and dickering, we settled the case, somewhere in the 7-14K range.
I left the courthouse well pleased with the settlement along with a great story to tell the folks back at my office.
I had another matter to take care of downtown that morning and did not start the drive back up the Lodge until about an hour after I left the CCB. I turned on WWJ to hear: “Minutes ago, the city of Detroit filed a Chapter 9 petition in the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history.”
I suspected that auto cases might survive the bankruptcy, as the city could not operate its vehicles, buses, police cars or fire trucks without the required coverage provided by Michigan’s Financial Responsibilty Act. So my auto clients would probably not have their claims discharged.
But, a sidewalk fall case was different. A straight injury claim against the city with nothing like the No-Fault Act to save it. My client would likely see no money, ever.
Now I know why the supervisor laughed.
"Lawyers work hard and, like us, they're human, many of them."-Dick Cavett
