On Sep 2, 7:08 am, se...@panix.com (Seth) wrote:
> In article <q3vfd3t3b5atnf0aha4ee21t2fe3tfr...@4ax.com>,
> Mike Jacobs <mjacobs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I have never heard of being required
> >to take a poll of the neighbors, asking "what do you think of Joe's
> >new home improvement project?" as though zoning were some kind of
> >popularity contest.
>
> I have. In the town my parents live in, somebody applied for
> permission to build a fence, which required polling his neighbors.
> Nobody objected, so he got permission. Then fence was hideously ugly
> (or at least, very brightly-colored) (which is why I heard about it).
> The neighbors objected, and were told they were too late.
Around here, the law takes care of the same function by a "posting" requirement, where the landowner who applies for a zoning variance has to put up a sign at a designated location to inform the neighbors of that fact, and to announce the deadline for filing protests and provide contact information for those who wish to do so. Those neighbors who care enough about it to make a fuss will do so; the others may well not even bother to read the sign, and will remain clueless.
I suppose one could argue which method better balances the competing interests at stake -- those of the landowner, and those of his neighbors who may be affected by his proposed new use of his land -- but IMO a requirement to poll each of the adjacent owners to see what they think about the project is both unduly onerous in terms of cost and time, and will also skew the results against the project by bringing out protests from people who really don't care much -- the ones who may not like it, but don't care enough to take steps on their own to read the posting, and file a protest.
What if at every marriage ceremony, instead of the "speak now or forever hold your peace" cliche, the minister individually asked each of those assembled to witness the event, "what do you REALLY think about Jack and Suzie?"
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Find a good, competent, experienced civil lawyer
On Aug 30, 7:30 am, "jacks...@hotmail.com" <jacks...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I am from Monmouth County New Jersey and I am looking for a good,
> competent and experienced civil attorney. How does one go about
> finding such an attorney?
The best way is the old fashioned way, by word of mouth recommendation from someone you know and trust. If you have a family or company lawyer already, e.g. one who wrote your wills or handled some other business task for you, ask him or her who the "go to" guy or gal in your area is for the type of court case you're thinking about. If you don't have a relationship with a lawyer already, ask friends who their lawyer is, and then call that lawyer and ask the same questions you would if he were your own lawyer -- "who would you go to for X?" When you start getting the same name crop up several times, you've found your local guru on the subject. Then call the guru and make an appointment.
> I know there are legal referral services
They generally list anyone who _says_ their practice includes a certain field, and/or who paid for a listing; and the person at the other end of the phone is more than likely just reading you the next name on the rotating list, of all the local attorneys who want business in that field. There's usually no grading system or threshold of experience or competence to become a part of such a rotating referral list (other than that imposed by bar ethics on the lawyers themselves to meet at least the minimum standards of the profession). Keep in mind that 50% of the lawyers (doctors, bridge engineers, whatever) who hang out a diploma, graduated in the bottom half of their class. Not that grades alone are proof of anything in the real world: your case may need someone with tough "street smarts" even more than some law-review editor who analyzes everything in excruciating detail and never makes an impact with a jury. You can't put a gauge on charisma and persuasiveness.
> and the usual advertisements
> in the yellow pages and newspapers.
Paid for by the firms they are touting, and limited only by a very broadly-interpreted ethical requirement not to affirmatively misrepresent or mislead (exact regulations vary from state to state but the field of lawyer advertising was blown wide open after the Supreme Court decided Bates v. Arizona Bar a few decades ago). It's a good thing that as a result of advertising, more ordinary people now know they can afford a lawyer on a contingent fee when they're injured, and know that they may have legal rights that are worth money in certain commonly recurring situations when they didn't know that before. But IMO it's not a good thing when lawyers come across as blatant pitchmen and peddlers tooting their own horns of how many jillions they've won over the years for their clients, rather than as respected members of a learned helping profession.
> My concern is I don't know how
> experienced and competent they really are.
That's why you need to ask people you trust and not rely on some overall "seal of approval" to tell you.
> Is there an on-line (or off-line) reference that I can research a
> lawyer's "WIN / LOSE" stats?
Useless, even if you could find one. Want to know why? All it would show is the outcome of cases that lawyer actually filed in court, which are a tiny fraction of the ones that originally walk in the door or call on the telephone to see if they have a case. The bigger the firm's practice (not necessarily in terms of number of lawyers, but in terms of number of client intakes they do daily), the more they probably have a "volume cookie-cutter" rather than "custom made" approach, and the more cases they are going to reject up front, so the better their "won-lost" record is going to appear.
The big phonebook and TV advertisers are telling the truth -- they _have_ won jillions for their clients -- but they do it by spending jillions on TV time, and on junior staffers to screen incoming calls, taking only the cream of the crop, and leaving the rest for the "low volume" smaller firms. And the jillions are often composed of lots of smaller settlements because the volume merchandisers would much rather be bringing in new cases to keep the cash flowing than taking up their precious time with an actual trial of just one client's case -- so they often "fire" their clients (telling them to seek new counsel) if the client is not willing to accept an insurer's original lowball offer after an initial workup of the facts and settlement demand, rather than filing suit. Thus, most of the cases they actually take in and keep, they "win" in the sense of accomplishing a settlement, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
On the other hand, the lawyers who rely mainly on referrals from their colleagues, as used to be the primary way of getting new business, and who are viewed as "troubleshooters" capable of sometimes working miracles with difficult cases, are the kind you want to look for. And those guys and gals often have a much spottier win-lose record, especially if they are willing to take on more than a few so called "unwinnable" cases on principle because they don't want anyone with a legitimate claim to be unable to find representation and have their day in court.
At trial, I hate to tell you, most of what a lawyer does (as long as he's not blaringly incompetent) doesn't usually matter very much except in the most closely divided cases. Most cases turn on their broad and plain facts, not the lawyer's fine arguments, and nothing the lawyer can do is going to change your case's underlying facts -- that would be the crime of falsifying evidence. You've got to live with what already actually happened -- no one can change that.
> Or, a listing of their opposing
> attorneys?
I'm not aware of any database that would compile such a list. You could get a few names yourself by browsing through the files at your court clerk's office but that would be markedly inefficient for what your intended purpose seems to be, which I assume is finding some shortcut to identifying the best lawyer in the area to bring your case to.
Big dirty secret: there is no "best" lawyer for a given client and case, just like there is no "best" match when you're on the lookout for a Significant Other to share your life with. You probably have an untold number of people who would be a good match in either case if you were to meet under the right circumstances. What matters, in finding a lawyer as in finding a spouse, is that you find someone you can relate to, that you trust and respect, that seems to speak your language, and that other people you trust seem to find trustworthy. Then let nature take its course, and treat each other fairly, and you can build something together.
It diminishes what you're looking for if you think of success only in terms of batting averages -- you want to know if the one you pick has the heart and the commitment it takes to get a fair result in _your_ case, not just someone who "always gets a hit" because he brushes off every pitch except the fat, soft, juicy ones right down the middle of the plate or because he's a big mean pro who only lets Little Leaguers pitch to him.
Keep in mind that even the best hitters facing real competition only connect about a third of the time against an average major league pitcher, and less than that if they're up against an ace. Likewise, if most of the cases that actually go to trial are so evenly balanced that they could go either way -- and they are, because most of the ones that are clearly going one way or the other are going to settle before trial, or be rejected by the attorney and never brought to light -- then even the best attorney, facing moderately competent opposition, is only going to win about 50% of the time.
Some kinds of cases, statistically, do much worse for the plaintiff (I assume that's what you propose to be, since most civil defendants don't go looking for a lawyer until _after_ they get sued, or let their insurer pick one for them). Car crashes and routine business disputes are the norm, splitting about 50/50. Slip and fall trials, in some jurisdictions run about 75/25 in favor of the defense. Civil rights and police brutality cases are getting much harder for a plaintiff to win at ALL in the current conservative judicial climate in some areas (e.g. the states within the 4th US Circuit).
And as always has been true, even in a relatively liberal era, creative new theories of the law (the kind the _truly_ best lawyers come up with) usually have to go through a long period of repeated losses before even a single court will recognize and adopt the new theory as valid. Suits against tobacco companies for causing cancer deaths, for example, have been brought for literally decades, and up until fairly recently every single case that came to trial was won by the tobacco industry. Does that make the pioneers who brought the first few dozens or hundreds of tobacco suits "bad" lawyers or "incompetent"? No, it makes them heroes who were willing to repeatedly battle an evil and powerful giant industry despite heavy initial losses, to eventually get justice for some (unfortunately not all) of their clients.
> I assume most civil cases are a matter of public record; as such, I
> thought they may be available as a reference source?
The individual cases, yes. Rarely are the kind of summary statistics you seek compiled into any kind of "box score". That's because law is not baseball.
> Even if the
> outcome of the case is be sealed, I assume the fact an action took
> place would be available.
Generally yes. But what would that tell you if you don't know the outcome? Hopefully the above comments will help you refocus your efforts in ways that will actually be useful to finding a good lawyer to help you with your case. Good luck,
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
> I am from Monmouth County New Jersey and I am looking for a good,
> competent and experienced civil attorney. How does one go about
> finding such an attorney?
The best way is the old fashioned way, by word of mouth recommendation from someone you know and trust. If you have a family or company lawyer already, e.g. one who wrote your wills or handled some other business task for you, ask him or her who the "go to" guy or gal in your area is for the type of court case you're thinking about. If you don't have a relationship with a lawyer already, ask friends who their lawyer is, and then call that lawyer and ask the same questions you would if he were your own lawyer -- "who would you go to for X?" When you start getting the same name crop up several times, you've found your local guru on the subject. Then call the guru and make an appointment.
> I know there are legal referral services
They generally list anyone who _says_ their practice includes a certain field, and/or who paid for a listing; and the person at the other end of the phone is more than likely just reading you the next name on the rotating list, of all the local attorneys who want business in that field. There's usually no grading system or threshold of experience or competence to become a part of such a rotating referral list (other than that imposed by bar ethics on the lawyers themselves to meet at least the minimum standards of the profession). Keep in mind that 50% of the lawyers (doctors, bridge engineers, whatever) who hang out a diploma, graduated in the bottom half of their class. Not that grades alone are proof of anything in the real world: your case may need someone with tough "street smarts" even more than some law-review editor who analyzes everything in excruciating detail and never makes an impact with a jury. You can't put a gauge on charisma and persuasiveness.
> and the usual advertisements
> in the yellow pages and newspapers.
Paid for by the firms they are touting, and limited only by a very broadly-interpreted ethical requirement not to affirmatively misrepresent or mislead (exact regulations vary from state to state but the field of lawyer advertising was blown wide open after the Supreme Court decided Bates v. Arizona Bar a few decades ago). It's a good thing that as a result of advertising, more ordinary people now know they can afford a lawyer on a contingent fee when they're injured, and know that they may have legal rights that are worth money in certain commonly recurring situations when they didn't know that before. But IMO it's not a good thing when lawyers come across as blatant pitchmen and peddlers tooting their own horns of how many jillions they've won over the years for their clients, rather than as respected members of a learned helping profession.
> My concern is I don't know how
> experienced and competent they really are.
That's why you need to ask people you trust and not rely on some overall "seal of approval" to tell you.
> Is there an on-line (or off-line) reference that I can research a
> lawyer's "WIN / LOSE" stats?
Useless, even if you could find one. Want to know why? All it would show is the outcome of cases that lawyer actually filed in court, which are a tiny fraction of the ones that originally walk in the door or call on the telephone to see if they have a case. The bigger the firm's practice (not necessarily in terms of number of lawyers, but in terms of number of client intakes they do daily), the more they probably have a "volume cookie-cutter" rather than "custom made" approach, and the more cases they are going to reject up front, so the better their "won-lost" record is going to appear.
The big phonebook and TV advertisers are telling the truth -- they _have_ won jillions for their clients -- but they do it by spending jillions on TV time, and on junior staffers to screen incoming calls, taking only the cream of the crop, and leaving the rest for the "low volume" smaller firms. And the jillions are often composed of lots of smaller settlements because the volume merchandisers would much rather be bringing in new cases to keep the cash flowing than taking up their precious time with an actual trial of just one client's case -- so they often "fire" their clients (telling them to seek new counsel) if the client is not willing to accept an insurer's original lowball offer after an initial workup of the facts and settlement demand, rather than filing suit. Thus, most of the cases they actually take in and keep, they "win" in the sense of accomplishing a settlement, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
On the other hand, the lawyers who rely mainly on referrals from their colleagues, as used to be the primary way of getting new business, and who are viewed as "troubleshooters" capable of sometimes working miracles with difficult cases, are the kind you want to look for. And those guys and gals often have a much spottier win-lose record, especially if they are willing to take on more than a few so called "unwinnable" cases on principle because they don't want anyone with a legitimate claim to be unable to find representation and have their day in court.
At trial, I hate to tell you, most of what a lawyer does (as long as he's not blaringly incompetent) doesn't usually matter very much except in the most closely divided cases. Most cases turn on their broad and plain facts, not the lawyer's fine arguments, and nothing the lawyer can do is going to change your case's underlying facts -- that would be the crime of falsifying evidence. You've got to live with what already actually happened -- no one can change that.
> Or, a listing of their opposing
> attorneys?
I'm not aware of any database that would compile such a list. You could get a few names yourself by browsing through the files at your court clerk's office but that would be markedly inefficient for what your intended purpose seems to be, which I assume is finding some shortcut to identifying the best lawyer in the area to bring your case to.
Big dirty secret: there is no "best" lawyer for a given client and case, just like there is no "best" match when you're on the lookout for a Significant Other to share your life with. You probably have an untold number of people who would be a good match in either case if you were to meet under the right circumstances. What matters, in finding a lawyer as in finding a spouse, is that you find someone you can relate to, that you trust and respect, that seems to speak your language, and that other people you trust seem to find trustworthy. Then let nature take its course, and treat each other fairly, and you can build something together.
It diminishes what you're looking for if you think of success only in terms of batting averages -- you want to know if the one you pick has the heart and the commitment it takes to get a fair result in _your_ case, not just someone who "always gets a hit" because he brushes off every pitch except the fat, soft, juicy ones right down the middle of the plate or because he's a big mean pro who only lets Little Leaguers pitch to him.
Keep in mind that even the best hitters facing real competition only connect about a third of the time against an average major league pitcher, and less than that if they're up against an ace. Likewise, if most of the cases that actually go to trial are so evenly balanced that they could go either way -- and they are, because most of the ones that are clearly going one way or the other are going to settle before trial, or be rejected by the attorney and never brought to light -- then even the best attorney, facing moderately competent opposition, is only going to win about 50% of the time.
Some kinds of cases, statistically, do much worse for the plaintiff (I assume that's what you propose to be, since most civil defendants don't go looking for a lawyer until _after_ they get sued, or let their insurer pick one for them). Car crashes and routine business disputes are the norm, splitting about 50/50. Slip and fall trials, in some jurisdictions run about 75/25 in favor of the defense. Civil rights and police brutality cases are getting much harder for a plaintiff to win at ALL in the current conservative judicial climate in some areas (e.g. the states within the 4th US Circuit).
And as always has been true, even in a relatively liberal era, creative new theories of the law (the kind the _truly_ best lawyers come up with) usually have to go through a long period of repeated losses before even a single court will recognize and adopt the new theory as valid. Suits against tobacco companies for causing cancer deaths, for example, have been brought for literally decades, and up until fairly recently every single case that came to trial was won by the tobacco industry. Does that make the pioneers who brought the first few dozens or hundreds of tobacco suits "bad" lawyers or "incompetent"? No, it makes them heroes who were willing to repeatedly battle an evil and powerful giant industry despite heavy initial losses, to eventually get justice for some (unfortunately not all) of their clients.
> I assume most civil cases are a matter of public record; as such, I
> thought they may be available as a reference source?
The individual cases, yes. Rarely are the kind of summary statistics you seek compiled into any kind of "box score". That's because law is not baseball.
> Even if the
> outcome of the case is be sealed, I assume the fact an action took
> place would be available.
Generally yes. But what would that tell you if you don't know the outcome? Hopefully the above comments will help you refocus your efforts in ways that will actually be useful to finding a good lawyer to help you with your case. Good luck,
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Zoning survey used in court case: copyrighted?
On Aug 30, 7:30 am, se...@panix.com (Seth) wrote:
> In article <2nu7d3dg0os8m73ufv3ptn1tk4u6l9j...@4ax.com>,
> <wcsny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I sponsored a survey that was required by the City for my zoning
> >appeal. Under the state equivalent of the FOIA, can another party
> >request a copy of the survey, and use it to fulfill the same need in
> >an opposing action without permission from me?
>
> They can certainly request it. You don't specify the state, so we
> have no way of knowing if the state has to supply it,
Agreed. But even without an applicable state FOIA, if the survey is going to be used in a contested zoning hearing as evidence, all the affected parties will be able to get copies of it from the zoning office for use in the adversary proceeding. It does not matter whether they want to argue that it supports their side, or whether they just want to know in advance the evidence favoring OP's side so they can find a way to address it more effectively in cross examination and argument.
That's just a requirement of Constitutional due process and basic fairness -- we don't generally allow "trial by surprise" anymore (except that a criminal defendant still doesn't have to reveal his case to the prosecution in advance -- but that's due to a different Constitutional provision, the one against compelled self-incrimination). There's generally no "prove you have a need to know" requirement as a prerequisite to a FOIA request -- after all, the whole idea of such a statute is to make most government information freely available to the general public on request -- but an opposing party in an adversarial proceeding _does_ have a "need to know" and is not relying on FOIA as the reason they should be provided the info.
> If you paid someone (as a work for hire) to write the questions on the
> survey, then you could own the copyright on it. You don't own the
> copyright on anybody's answers, since you didn't hire them to write
> the answers for you. If the state specified the questions on the
> survey, there's nothing copyrightable.
Am I the only one reading this thread who thought OP was talking about a _land_ survey, you know, the kind with measuring tapes and compasses and border marking stakes with colored ribbons and the funny telescope thingies? Not the kind with poll questionnaires.
Zoning decisions frequently require a recent survey of the land to be provided to the authorities but I have never heard of being required to take a poll of the neighbors, asking "what do you think of Joe's new home improvement project?" as though zoning were some kind of popularity contest. Other kinds of surveys that may be required include a traffic-density survey (conducted by a traffic engineer) if a public use facility is being planned, to make sure existing infrastructure will not be overburdened by the proposed development, or a percolation survey (conducted by a hydraulic engineer or hydrologist) if the property doesn't have city water and sewer and may need to rely on a well-and-septic system for its plumbing, to make sure the soil under the lot percolates properly at various locations. But in all those examples the word "survey" refers to some standard data collection protocol which is used in that profession or field, not to a written questionnaire asked of a random group of people.
If it is the latter kind, and a survey is "required" by the zoning authority as a prerequisite to OP's case, I strongly suspect the city specified the questions that needed to be asked, perhaps setting them out in the words of the statute itself, in which case I agree with Seth that nobody has exclusive right to prevent anyone else from using the same questions, or even the same answers, to try to prove something else.
But the bottom line of what I assume OP's real question is, even without regard to FOIA and copyright, a party to a contested proceeding of any kind is not going to be able to prevent an opposing party from getting access to his evidence and using it in the same proceeding or in a related proceeding however the opponent and the law of evidence sees fit, by saying in effect, "it's mine; you can't have it."
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
> In article <2nu7d3dg0os8m73ufv3ptn1tk4u6l9j...@4ax.com>,
> <wcsny...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I sponsored a survey that was required by the City for my zoning
> >appeal. Under the state equivalent of the FOIA, can another party
> >request a copy of the survey, and use it to fulfill the same need in
> >an opposing action without permission from me?
>
> They can certainly request it. You don't specify the state, so we
> have no way of knowing if the state has to supply it,
Agreed. But even without an applicable state FOIA, if the survey is going to be used in a contested zoning hearing as evidence, all the affected parties will be able to get copies of it from the zoning office for use in the adversary proceeding. It does not matter whether they want to argue that it supports their side, or whether they just want to know in advance the evidence favoring OP's side so they can find a way to address it more effectively in cross examination and argument.
That's just a requirement of Constitutional due process and basic fairness -- we don't generally allow "trial by surprise" anymore (except that a criminal defendant still doesn't have to reveal his case to the prosecution in advance -- but that's due to a different Constitutional provision, the one against compelled self-incrimination). There's generally no "prove you have a need to know" requirement as a prerequisite to a FOIA request -- after all, the whole idea of such a statute is to make most government information freely available to the general public on request -- but an opposing party in an adversarial proceeding _does_ have a "need to know" and is not relying on FOIA as the reason they should be provided the info.
> If you paid someone (as a work for hire) to write the questions on the
> survey, then you could own the copyright on it. You don't own the
> copyright on anybody's answers, since you didn't hire them to write
> the answers for you. If the state specified the questions on the
> survey, there's nothing copyrightable.
Am I the only one reading this thread who thought OP was talking about a _land_ survey, you know, the kind with measuring tapes and compasses and border marking stakes with colored ribbons and the funny telescope thingies? Not the kind with poll questionnaires.
Zoning decisions frequently require a recent survey of the land to be provided to the authorities but I have never heard of being required to take a poll of the neighbors, asking "what do you think of Joe's new home improvement project?" as though zoning were some kind of popularity contest. Other kinds of surveys that may be required include a traffic-density survey (conducted by a traffic engineer) if a public use facility is being planned, to make sure existing infrastructure will not be overburdened by the proposed development, or a percolation survey (conducted by a hydraulic engineer or hydrologist) if the property doesn't have city water and sewer and may need to rely on a well-and-septic system for its plumbing, to make sure the soil under the lot percolates properly at various locations. But in all those examples the word "survey" refers to some standard data collection protocol which is used in that profession or field, not to a written questionnaire asked of a random group of people.
If it is the latter kind, and a survey is "required" by the zoning authority as a prerequisite to OP's case, I strongly suspect the city specified the questions that needed to be asked, perhaps setting them out in the words of the statute itself, in which case I agree with Seth that nobody has exclusive right to prevent anyone else from using the same questions, or even the same answers, to try to prove something else.
But the bottom line of what I assume OP's real question is, even without regard to FOIA and copyright, a party to a contested proceeding of any kind is not going to be able to prevent an opposing party from getting access to his evidence and using it in the same proceeding or in a related proceeding however the opponent and the law of evidence sees fit, by saying in effect, "it's mine; you can't have it."
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Property tax rate value, part 2
On Aug 14, 6:54 am, se...@panix.com (Seth) wrote:
> There's land with a single-family house on it. If the house were torn
> down and an apartment building constructed (total cost $3 million),
> the apartment building would be worth $4 million. I believe that
> indicates the property should be assessed at $1 million, not $4
Maybe, but not necessarily. The _land_ is almost always being taxed at its highest, "best" use. If it is zoned for multi-family apartments, that is the rate per sq. foot/acre the owner will be paying. The improvements (buildings) OTOH are more typically going to be incremental to the value of the raw land rather than a large multiple of that value as in Seth's example. Different states use various formulas, but yes, I would expect the tax rate to go up when the owner actually does build an apartment building on the lot instead of a single family house. Still, the tax rate is not likely to go down when he tears down the house in the first place, creating a vacant lot.
Of course, as usual YMMV and state laws differ. Check with a local lawyer before you tear your house down to save a few bucks.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
> There's land with a single-family house on it. If the house were torn
> down and an apartment building constructed (total cost $3 million),
> the apartment building would be worth $4 million. I believe that
> indicates the property should be assessed at $1 million, not $4
Maybe, but not necessarily. The _land_ is almost always being taxed at its highest, "best" use. If it is zoned for multi-family apartments, that is the rate per sq. foot/acre the owner will be paying. The improvements (buildings) OTOH are more typically going to be incremental to the value of the raw land rather than a large multiple of that value as in Seth's example. Different states use various formulas, but yes, I would expect the tax rate to go up when the owner actually does build an apartment building on the lot instead of a single family house. Still, the tax rate is not likely to go down when he tears down the house in the first place, creating a vacant lot.
Of course, as usual YMMV and state laws differ. Check with a local lawyer before you tear your house down to save a few bucks.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Property tax rate value
On Aug 12, 9:29 am, mm <NOPSAMmm2...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> a buyer [of a property he intends to demolish and rebuild]
> would be in a hurry to demolish, to save on property
> taxes. But if he is going to tear it down before he uses it, doesn't
> that prove it's worth nothing?
No. Tax authorities generally appraise real property at its _best_, or highest, usage value, and send tax bills accordingly, whether or not there are actually any "improvements" (buildings) on it, and whether or not the owner intends to tear down any existing improvements and/or renovate or replace them with other structures. That's why e.g. farmland that is located close-in to a growing city or suburb may be appraised so highly that the farmer has no economical choice but to sell out to developers who will throw up condos and strip malls, unless your locality offers some sort of preservation tax credit to farm owners who "sell" the development rights to the state in return for lower tax bills. The latter is actually an illustration, not an exception, to the rule of taxing at the highest available usage, since by selling the development rights to the state, the owner is precluded from using the land for anything but growing crops and will only be taxed at the rate for farmland.
> A second, modified question might be that since the congregation is
> now using it and paying him rent, I guess he is using the building
> too.,
You answered both you own questions with that one. Buyer _is_ using it, as a rental property. It is generating income for him. If the tenant is paying market rates, its value as a business investment asset is pretty easily determined by calculating the amount of money that would give that same rate of return locally in a typical investment of similar kind. E.g. (I don't know the actual figures and am rounding off for ease of example) if other commercial real estate ventures in your area return 5% of their value as rental income each year, then a property that generates $5,000 in annual rentals would be worth $100,000 on the realty sales market and would be assessed on that basis.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
> a buyer [of a property he intends to demolish and rebuild]
> would be in a hurry to demolish, to save on property
> taxes. But if he is going to tear it down before he uses it, doesn't
> that prove it's worth nothing?
No. Tax authorities generally appraise real property at its _best_, or highest, usage value, and send tax bills accordingly, whether or not there are actually any "improvements" (buildings) on it, and whether or not the owner intends to tear down any existing improvements and/or renovate or replace them with other structures. That's why e.g. farmland that is located close-in to a growing city or suburb may be appraised so highly that the farmer has no economical choice but to sell out to developers who will throw up condos and strip malls, unless your locality offers some sort of preservation tax credit to farm owners who "sell" the development rights to the state in return for lower tax bills. The latter is actually an illustration, not an exception, to the rule of taxing at the highest available usage, since by selling the development rights to the state, the owner is precluded from using the land for anything but growing crops and will only be taxed at the rate for farmland.
> A second, modified question might be that since the congregation is
> now using it and paying him rent, I guess he is using the building
> too.,
You answered both you own questions with that one. Buyer _is_ using it, as a rental property. It is generating income for him. If the tenant is paying market rates, its value as a business investment asset is pretty easily determined by calculating the amount of money that would give that same rate of return locally in a typical investment of similar kind. E.g. (I don't know the actual figures and am rounding off for ease of example) if other commercial real estate ventures in your area return 5% of their value as rental income each year, then a property that generates $5,000 in annual rentals would be worth $100,000 on the realty sales market and would be assessed on that basis.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
School coach sexually harrassed a female student
On Aug 10, 7:27 am, CY <168....@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am a student-athlete at a university and I recently filed a sexual
> harassment complaint against my sports team coach with my school.
> However, the school only took a little bit of time to investigate my
> case and then returned to me with an answer stating that there is not
> enough evidence for my allegations. But how am I suppose to have
> evidence for something that the coach did behind closed doors?!
Firstly, sorry to hear about your situation. Please don't take any of the following to infer that I disbelieve your claim that you suffered an event you found traumatic and your gut feeling that the coach acted inappropriately and should somehow be called to task for it. The question is, what and how.
You don't say what exactly the coach did, and anyone trying to analyze your situation would need to know those facts, not just the conclusions ("he harassed me") you are trying to draw from those underlying facts (and which conclusions may or may not be correct, depending on your understanding of the law or lack thereof).
You also don't say on what legal basis you filed a complaint with the school administrators. Since you chose to use an internal process of the school rather than the legal system I am assuming you were relying only on the school's internal rules about sexually inappropriate conduct between staff and students, using whatever procedural tools (and standards of evidence) the school had set up to deal with this type of claim. So I have no idea what those rules of behavior were, or what the procedures to challenge them were, or what evidence the school's procedural rules would consider sufficient.
You do have other options, and your single-minded focus on trying to force the school to do something about this directly through their internal procedures may be counter-productive. The school and its administration are not a completely disinterested party in this matter, after all, and even if they are acting in good faith, their procedures may be inadequate. Why haven't you also consulted a lawyer about your rights in this situation? Why haven't you also tried pursuing other kinds of claims, directly against the coach, through the legal system? Or if you already have, and failed, doesn't that answer your question?
Depending on what the coach actually did, his actions could possibly land the coach, and/or the school, in trouble for violation of Title 9 (the section of the Civil Rights Act mandating equal treatment for women's athletics in schools receiving federal funding) or you could have a basis to either sue the coach for an intentional tort or to bring a criminal complaint and have him prosecuted for a sex offense. The fact that it is a "he said - she said" incident that occurred behind closed doors does not necessarily mean the defendant always wins: it depends on credibility of the witnesses, and whether there is any sort of corroborating evidence. Think of Bill and Monica and the protein-stained blue dress, frex, that proved he "had sex with that woman" contrary to his protestations.
It would not be very useful to speculate on what that tort might be, or what the criminal charges might be, without knowing all the facts. Depending on what the coach actually did, it might not even rise to the level that the law could do anything about -- if he simply hurled insults of a sexual nature at you, for example, that may be considered a "de minimis" (trifling) violation in the eyes of the law, too minor to do anything about -- and among coaches such insults are not uncommon (my HS football coach used to call us guys "pussies" if we weren't running wind sprints hard enough for him -- but that was before Title 9). You just need to develop a thick skin for that sort of thing and realize that the coach, not you, is the one being a jerk.
But if he touched you inappropriately, intentionally exposed himself to you, or otherwise forced himself on you sexually, you could have both a civil and criminal remedy in the legal system. You won't know until you make an appointment and consult a lawyer in a confidential setting where you can reveal all the pertinent facts. Most personal injury lawyers do not charge for an initial consultation, and will await the successful outcome of a tort suit before they get paid a percentage of your recovery as their fee for representing you if you do decide to hire them. You have nothing to lose by asking. Good luck,
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
> I am a student-athlete at a university and I recently filed a sexual
> harassment complaint against my sports team coach with my school.
> However, the school only took a little bit of time to investigate my
> case and then returned to me with an answer stating that there is not
> enough evidence for my allegations. But how am I suppose to have
> evidence for something that the coach did behind closed doors?!
Firstly, sorry to hear about your situation. Please don't take any of the following to infer that I disbelieve your claim that you suffered an event you found traumatic and your gut feeling that the coach acted inappropriately and should somehow be called to task for it. The question is, what and how.
You don't say what exactly the coach did, and anyone trying to analyze your situation would need to know those facts, not just the conclusions ("he harassed me") you are trying to draw from those underlying facts (and which conclusions may or may not be correct, depending on your understanding of the law or lack thereof).
You also don't say on what legal basis you filed a complaint with the school administrators. Since you chose to use an internal process of the school rather than the legal system I am assuming you were relying only on the school's internal rules about sexually inappropriate conduct between staff and students, using whatever procedural tools (and standards of evidence) the school had set up to deal with this type of claim. So I have no idea what those rules of behavior were, or what the procedures to challenge them were, or what evidence the school's procedural rules would consider sufficient.
You do have other options, and your single-minded focus on trying to force the school to do something about this directly through their internal procedures may be counter-productive. The school and its administration are not a completely disinterested party in this matter, after all, and even if they are acting in good faith, their procedures may be inadequate. Why haven't you also consulted a lawyer about your rights in this situation? Why haven't you also tried pursuing other kinds of claims, directly against the coach, through the legal system? Or if you already have, and failed, doesn't that answer your question?
Depending on what the coach actually did, his actions could possibly land the coach, and/or the school, in trouble for violation of Title 9 (the section of the Civil Rights Act mandating equal treatment for women's athletics in schools receiving federal funding) or you could have a basis to either sue the coach for an intentional tort or to bring a criminal complaint and have him prosecuted for a sex offense. The fact that it is a "he said - she said" incident that occurred behind closed doors does not necessarily mean the defendant always wins: it depends on credibility of the witnesses, and whether there is any sort of corroborating evidence. Think of Bill and Monica and the protein-stained blue dress, frex, that proved he "had sex with that woman" contrary to his protestations.
It would not be very useful to speculate on what that tort might be, or what the criminal charges might be, without knowing all the facts. Depending on what the coach actually did, it might not even rise to the level that the law could do anything about -- if he simply hurled insults of a sexual nature at you, for example, that may be considered a "de minimis" (trifling) violation in the eyes of the law, too minor to do anything about -- and among coaches such insults are not uncommon (my HS football coach used to call us guys "pussies" if we weren't running wind sprints hard enough for him -- but that was before Title 9). You just need to develop a thick skin for that sort of thing and realize that the coach, not you, is the one being a jerk.
But if he touched you inappropriately, intentionally exposed himself to you, or otherwise forced himself on you sexually, you could have both a civil and criminal remedy in the legal system. You won't know until you make an appointment and consult a lawyer in a confidential setting where you can reveal all the pertinent facts. Most personal injury lawyers do not charge for an initial consultation, and will await the successful outcome of a tort suit before they get paid a percentage of your recovery as their fee for representing you if you do decide to hire them. You have nothing to lose by asking. Good luck,
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Car insurance claim reporting obligation
On Aug 9, 7:47 am, A Michigan Attorney <miattor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How is the insurer's ox being gored by an unreported collision?
If the insurer sets its rates based on the policyholder's actual accident experience and moving-violation experience, failure to report an accident (by not making a claim) deprives the insurer of information they are entitled to have when it comes time to set the renewal premium for that policyholder.
Depending on the insurer and the language of their policy and the law of the state where it was written, they may only care about "claims" experience and not "accident" experience per se, and in that case, I would agree there is "no harm, no foul" by failing to report an accident to one's own insurer if one does not intend to make a claim.
But I suspect most insurers, in assessing the risk and setting their rates to match, _do_ care not only about actual past losses claimed by their customer which an insurer may have had to pay, but also about the customer's risk-taking behavior, his actual accident experience, and his risk exposure relative to the environment where he usually keeps the car, the uses to which it is put, and so on, all of which are factors that reasonably could make it more likely he will have a payable claim in the future (which is why they care about things like moving violations that don't result in any accident or claim but nevertheless enhance the risk that the driver may have an accident during the policy period).
Failing to timely report a minor accident during a particular policy period is not insurance fraud, and will generally not get your policy cancelled before it naturally expires in any state I'm familiar with; but it may affect whether the insurer is obligated to cover you for _that_ accident, if that fender-bender later turns out to be more serious than you had originally thought when you swept it under the rug (frex, if the other guy makes a personal injury claim, months or years later, and your insurer is unable to do a complete investigation because the evidence has already been lost or changed and memories have faded).
But failing to reveal the existence of a prior accident at the inception of a policy period, one that occurred previous to the time when the applicant is specifically asked about his accident experience on a renewal questionnaire or when the agent interviews him to rate a new policy, could well rise to the level of insurance fraud and give the insurer grounds to rescind _ab_initio_ the policy that it wrote based on those false representations, and that in turn could leave the putative policyholder without any coverage for a subsequent accident he _did_ promptly report and make a claim for, under the fraudulently-obtained, therefore rescinded policy. That's the difference.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
> How is the insurer's ox being gored by an unreported collision?
If the insurer sets its rates based on the policyholder's actual accident experience and moving-violation experience, failure to report an accident (by not making a claim) deprives the insurer of information they are entitled to have when it comes time to set the renewal premium for that policyholder.
Depending on the insurer and the language of their policy and the law of the state where it was written, they may only care about "claims" experience and not "accident" experience per se, and in that case, I would agree there is "no harm, no foul" by failing to report an accident to one's own insurer if one does not intend to make a claim.
But I suspect most insurers, in assessing the risk and setting their rates to match, _do_ care not only about actual past losses claimed by their customer which an insurer may have had to pay, but also about the customer's risk-taking behavior, his actual accident experience, and his risk exposure relative to the environment where he usually keeps the car, the uses to which it is put, and so on, all of which are factors that reasonably could make it more likely he will have a payable claim in the future (which is why they care about things like moving violations that don't result in any accident or claim but nevertheless enhance the risk that the driver may have an accident during the policy period).
Failing to timely report a minor accident during a particular policy period is not insurance fraud, and will generally not get your policy cancelled before it naturally expires in any state I'm familiar with; but it may affect whether the insurer is obligated to cover you for _that_ accident, if that fender-bender later turns out to be more serious than you had originally thought when you swept it under the rug (frex, if the other guy makes a personal injury claim, months or years later, and your insurer is unable to do a complete investigation because the evidence has already been lost or changed and memories have faded).
But failing to reveal the existence of a prior accident at the inception of a policy period, one that occurred previous to the time when the applicant is specifically asked about his accident experience on a renewal questionnaire or when the agent interviews him to rate a new policy, could well rise to the level of insurance fraud and give the insurer grounds to rescind _ab_initio_ the policy that it wrote based on those false representations, and that in turn could leave the putative policyholder without any coverage for a subsequent accident he _did_ promptly report and make a claim for, under the fraudulently-obtained, therefore rescinded policy. That's the difference.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Will drafting vs. Will review - cost difference?
On Aug 9, 7:47 am, Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> If you can follow directions meticulously, you can
> write your own will. I would still have a lawyer look at it, but
> having a lawyer review a will will probably cost you considerably
> less than having her draft one.
Maybe, but not necessarily. I suspect the client will usually get a better deal with a simple will by going with whatever language the lawyer already has prepared for such cases.
If as you say a lawyer is willing to prepare a simple will as a loss leader, frex for $50 or less, that will be because he or she has already drafted and researched the effect and validity of the language that the lawyer uses, and is amortizing that R&D cost (and eventually making a small profit) by spreading it over volume instead of charging it to just one client. Frex, if it took 10 hours of work by the lawyer at a nominal $100 per hour to get just the right language researched and drafted, each of the many clients who come in and ask for a simple will (where the only thing that needs to be changed is the names of the beneficiaries, and perhaps there are some optional clauses that the lawyer has already drafted and can just plug in by selecting them from his archive with his document assembly software) is basically getting what would otherwise be a $1000 custom-drafted will for $50, because all they need is an "off-the-rack, ready-to-wear" product so to speak. In fact, that $50 barely covers the half-hour or so the lawyer will usually spend meeting with the client to ascertain her needs and make sure the client has thought through other legal implications (e.g. whether the client wants distribution to remote descendants to be per capita or per stirpes, whether or not to waive bond for the executor, whether to also set up some kind of probate-avoidance method such as a living trust or joint account, and so forth). The client is basically getting the previously-done will-drafting effort itself, for free along with all this discussion time.
Now, if a client comes in and wants the lawyer to review someone _else's_ language to see if it does what the client wants it to, and is otherwise valid and enforceable, the lawyer can't just check off and select her own pre-researched language that she has already vetted for its meaning and validity to easily assemble a will tailored to the client's needs. The lawyer will instead have to at least spend enough time actually reading the "outsourced" will to make sure she knows all the nuances of what it says, and may have to hit the books to check out whether any court has ever ruled on the meaning of a turn of phrase she is not familiar with. That time and effort will of course be less than is needed to actually draft a custom-made will, but is very likely to be more than it would take the lawyer to just offer one of her own ready-made choices. If it takes more than half an hour to do all that additional review and research, in the above hypothetical example, the lawyer ought to charge more for document review than for a standard will already drafted by that lawyer. And if it turns out there _is_ something deficient about the language the client selected to use, the lawyer will then have to take the time to draft an alternative clause _and_ take the time to explain to the client why the old language was bad and the new language was needed.
There are shortcuts, and there are do-it-yourself projects, but let's be sensible. Much of what we lawyers wind up having to do for our daily bread is cleaning up the messes that other people have already made for themselves by trying to do something "the easy way" after that didn't work. IMO it's much better and quite often cheaper to get a professional involved at an early stage to do it right the first time, whether we're talking about plumbing, car repair, or will drafting. Unless you really enjoy the process as a hobby and _want_ to spend a lot of time doing it (the original meaning of "amateur" of course being someone who pursues some activity for the pure love of the game), the pro can generally do it faster and with better results.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
>
> If you can follow directions meticulously, you can
> write your own will. I would still have a lawyer look at it, but
> having a lawyer review a will will probably cost you considerably
> less than having her draft one.
Maybe, but not necessarily. I suspect the client will usually get a better deal with a simple will by going with whatever language the lawyer already has prepared for such cases.
If as you say a lawyer is willing to prepare a simple will as a loss leader, frex for $50 or less, that will be because he or she has already drafted and researched the effect and validity of the language that the lawyer uses, and is amortizing that R&D cost (and eventually making a small profit) by spreading it over volume instead of charging it to just one client. Frex, if it took 10 hours of work by the lawyer at a nominal $100 per hour to get just the right language researched and drafted, each of the many clients who come in and ask for a simple will (where the only thing that needs to be changed is the names of the beneficiaries, and perhaps there are some optional clauses that the lawyer has already drafted and can just plug in by selecting them from his archive with his document assembly software) is basically getting what would otherwise be a $1000 custom-drafted will for $50, because all they need is an "off-the-rack, ready-to-wear" product so to speak. In fact, that $50 barely covers the half-hour or so the lawyer will usually spend meeting with the client to ascertain her needs and make sure the client has thought through other legal implications (e.g. whether the client wants distribution to remote descendants to be per capita or per stirpes, whether or not to waive bond for the executor, whether to also set up some kind of probate-avoidance method such as a living trust or joint account, and so forth). The client is basically getting the previously-done will-drafting effort itself, for free along with all this discussion time.
Now, if a client comes in and wants the lawyer to review someone _else's_ language to see if it does what the client wants it to, and is otherwise valid and enforceable, the lawyer can't just check off and select her own pre-researched language that she has already vetted for its meaning and validity to easily assemble a will tailored to the client's needs. The lawyer will instead have to at least spend enough time actually reading the "outsourced" will to make sure she knows all the nuances of what it says, and may have to hit the books to check out whether any court has ever ruled on the meaning of a turn of phrase she is not familiar with. That time and effort will of course be less than is needed to actually draft a custom-made will, but is very likely to be more than it would take the lawyer to just offer one of her own ready-made choices. If it takes more than half an hour to do all that additional review and research, in the above hypothetical example, the lawyer ought to charge more for document review than for a standard will already drafted by that lawyer. And if it turns out there _is_ something deficient about the language the client selected to use, the lawyer will then have to take the time to draft an alternative clause _and_ take the time to explain to the client why the old language was bad and the new language was needed.
There are shortcuts, and there are do-it-yourself projects, but let's be sensible. Much of what we lawyers wind up having to do for our daily bread is cleaning up the messes that other people have already made for themselves by trying to do something "the easy way" after that didn't work. IMO it's much better and quite often cheaper to get a professional involved at an early stage to do it right the first time, whether we're talking about plumbing, car repair, or will drafting. Unless you really enjoy the process as a hobby and _want_ to spend a lot of time doing it (the original meaning of "amateur" of course being someone who pursues some activity for the pure love of the game), the pro can generally do it faster and with better results.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Truck stop won't accept bills over $20 for gas?
On Aug 3, 7:13 am, "NotMe" <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> Just drove my neighbor's RV to the tuck stop to full up. Bill was $295+. I
> handed the clerk three $100 bills and was informed that they did not accept
> anything bigger than $20.
After you've already pumped the gas it's a bit too late for them to tell you what kind of payment they will accept. What, are they going to ask you to give it back?.
Also, it's a pretty stupid policy if they are a truck stop catering to large vehicles that almost always will take more than $100 to fill up. Maybe both you, and the clerk, misunderstood the policy which the boss intended to mean, they wouldn't make change in any amount larger than a $20 because they wouldn't keep more than that in the change drawer at any one time. There's no sensible business reason the clerk couldn't have accepted your 3 C-bills, stuck them directly in the safe (which often has a slot on top for that purpose, allowing deposits but not withdrawals by the low-level clerks) and given you $5 change.
Assuming hypothetically that you wouldn't have had any other acceptable way to pay on hand, you were lucky that the tab came to just under exact change for your 3 large. If I were you (this is NOT legal advice, just a curmudgeonly, ornery self-serv customer shooting from the hip) I would have laid my $300 on the counter (making sure the clerk knew it was there), picked up slightly less than $5 worth of Slim Jims or Slurpees or whatever to make up the difference, showed those to the clerk, said "this makes it an even $300" and walked out. Or just give up the change and walk out, but I think my way makes for a better movie scene.
On a more sober note, was this one of those pay-at-the-pump and then pump-it-yourself places? If so, how did you start the pump without getting prior authorization by going inside and talking to the clerk, if you intended to pay by cash? Virtually every self-service place these days requires you to pay first (one way or another, inside or outside) before you can start pumping. And if you were able to start the pump without going inside, how did it manage to pump in $295 worth of gas? I thought those things were set to shut themselves off when they reached their pre-set automatic $50 (or whatever) pay-outside limit and there was nothing you could do about it unless you went inside and paid in advance and got authorization first. I'm not asking you to explain, just pointing out that some of the facts in your scenario don't seem to make sense when taken together.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
> Just drove my neighbor's RV to the tuck stop to full up. Bill was $295+. I
> handed the clerk three $100 bills and was informed that they did not accept
> anything bigger than $20.
After you've already pumped the gas it's a bit too late for them to tell you what kind of payment they will accept. What, are they going to ask you to give it back?.
Also, it's a pretty stupid policy if they are a truck stop catering to large vehicles that almost always will take more than $100 to fill up. Maybe both you, and the clerk, misunderstood the policy which the boss intended to mean, they wouldn't make change in any amount larger than a $20 because they wouldn't keep more than that in the change drawer at any one time. There's no sensible business reason the clerk couldn't have accepted your 3 C-bills, stuck them directly in the safe (which often has a slot on top for that purpose, allowing deposits but not withdrawals by the low-level clerks) and given you $5 change.
Assuming hypothetically that you wouldn't have had any other acceptable way to pay on hand, you were lucky that the tab came to just under exact change for your 3 large. If I were you (this is NOT legal advice, just a curmudgeonly, ornery self-serv customer shooting from the hip) I would have laid my $300 on the counter (making sure the clerk knew it was there), picked up slightly less than $5 worth of Slim Jims or Slurpees or whatever to make up the difference, showed those to the clerk, said "this makes it an even $300" and walked out. Or just give up the change and walk out, but I think my way makes for a better movie scene.
On a more sober note, was this one of those pay-at-the-pump and then pump-it-yourself places? If so, how did you start the pump without getting prior authorization by going inside and talking to the clerk, if you intended to pay by cash? Virtually every self-service place these days requires you to pay first (one way or another, inside or outside) before you can start pumping. And if you were able to start the pump without going inside, how did it manage to pump in $295 worth of gas? I thought those things were set to shut themselves off when they reached their pre-set automatic $50 (or whatever) pay-outside limit and there was nothing you could do about it unless you went inside and paid in advance and got authorization first. I'm not asking you to explain, just pointing out that some of the facts in your scenario don't seem to make sense when taken together.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
Which cop can ticket you for what traffic violation?
On Aug 7, 8:25 am, "johnmoli...@yahoo.com" <johnmoli...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Apparentley any cop can write a citation for any court.
Almost right. Any cop can arrest you and/or briefly detain you to issue a citation ("ticket") if he observes you performing an illegal act in his presence that occurs within his jurisdiction (as to both geographic area, and nature of offense). A zoning inspector, frex, is a kind of cop (they issue tickets too, for zoning violations) but he can't ticket you for speeding. And a California cop can't write you a ticket for speeding in Connecticut. However, various police agencies (city, county, state, federal) often have overlapping jurisdictions, both geographically and as to the kinds of offenses they can pursue. Any cop working traffic patrol on a particular beat can cite you for any kind of traffic violation that occurs on his beat. At any given moment, either a state trooper, county sheriff, or a city cop may patrol a particular stretch of road if the same roadway is on multiple beats. And picking the court where the case gets heard depends on the geographical jurisdiction where the alleged offense occurred, and the type of offense, not on which agency employs the cop who stopped you.
> Can someone explain? Can small town "ABC" tell the state cops they
> need renenue and ask them to do a speed trap and write citations under
> state law that are heard in local court?
That's not how it works. A state cop cannot ticket you for a local violation, but that mostly applies to parking. Either a state cop, a county sheriff or a city cop can ticket you for violating a State-wide traffic law, which includes most moving violations, equipment offenses and alcohol/drugs. The ticket clerk or assignment commissioner simply assigns cases for trial depending on where the violation occurred, and the nature of the violation. Smaller offenses are typically heard in a municipal court, justice of the peace court, or other "people's court" of limited jurisdiction; these are the most widespread kind of courts and they deal with the most common minor offenses and minor civil claims. Typically each substantial town in populous areas, or at least each county in sparsely settled areas, has one or more such courts. More serious offenses are heard in a superior court, circuit court, or whatever your state calls their main courts of general jurisdiction. Usually each county has just one of those, located in the county seat. Federal offenses (frex if you get ticketed in a National Park or on other Federal property such as a military base) are heard in US District Court, of which there are typically one or two for an entire state.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
> Apparentley any cop can write a citation for any court.
Almost right. Any cop can arrest you and/or briefly detain you to issue a citation ("ticket") if he observes you performing an illegal act in his presence that occurs within his jurisdiction (as to both geographic area, and nature of offense). A zoning inspector, frex, is a kind of cop (they issue tickets too, for zoning violations) but he can't ticket you for speeding. And a California cop can't write you a ticket for speeding in Connecticut. However, various police agencies (city, county, state, federal) often have overlapping jurisdictions, both geographically and as to the kinds of offenses they can pursue. Any cop working traffic patrol on a particular beat can cite you for any kind of traffic violation that occurs on his beat. At any given moment, either a state trooper, county sheriff, or a city cop may patrol a particular stretch of road if the same roadway is on multiple beats. And picking the court where the case gets heard depends on the geographical jurisdiction where the alleged offense occurred, and the type of offense, not on which agency employs the cop who stopped you.
> Can someone explain? Can small town "ABC" tell the state cops they
> need renenue and ask them to do a speed trap and write citations under
> state law that are heard in local court?
That's not how it works. A state cop cannot ticket you for a local violation, but that mostly applies to parking. Either a state cop, a county sheriff or a city cop can ticket you for violating a State-wide traffic law, which includes most moving violations, equipment offenses and alcohol/drugs. The ticket clerk or assignment commissioner simply assigns cases for trial depending on where the violation occurred, and the nature of the violation. Smaller offenses are typically heard in a municipal court, justice of the peace court, or other "people's court" of limited jurisdiction; these are the most widespread kind of courts and they deal with the most common minor offenses and minor civil claims. Typically each substantial town in populous areas, or at least each county in sparsely settled areas, has one or more such courts. More serious offenses are heard in a superior court, circuit court, or whatever your state calls their main courts of general jurisdiction. Usually each county has just one of those, located in the county seat. Federal offenses (frex if you get ticketed in a National Park or on other Federal property such as a military base) are heard in US District Court, of which there are typically one or two for an entire state.
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
Anything you post on this Newsgroup is public information.
I am not your lawyer, and you are not my client in any specific legal matter.
For confidential professional advice, consult your own lawyer in a private communication.
Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
10440 Little Patuxent Pkwy #300
Columbia, MD 21044
(tel) 410-740-5685 (fax) 410-740-4300
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