Another Note on Civility – Legal Blogging Edition

We here at Abnormal Use have been doing this blogging thing for about two years now, and we still love it.  One thing we love in particular are comments from our dear readers.  Without you, we would not enjoy this enterprise nearly as much (and, without you, of course, there would be no reason to do it).  We also enjoy good-natured debates with those with whom we disagree.  One of our fondest memories from our college days is getting together with intelligent people with differing views and backgrounds and debating the issues of the day, whether they be political, legal, or social.  You can learn something when you engage in constructive debate with someone who disagrees with you.

Certainly, one of our frequent topics of discussion is the infamous and controversial Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee case.  Our posts on that topic have generated much debate.  Our review of Plaintiff’s attorney Susan Saladoff’s Hot Coffee documentary earned 30 comments, while our initial preview of the film and highlighting of Ms. Saladoff’s background as a trial lawyer received 25 comments.  Our objective FAQ file, which we assembled using the original pleadings, motions, and contemporary news coverage of the case, drew seven comments.  Even the post we authored calling for Ms. Liebeck’s attorney Reed Morgan produce the trial transcript of the case merited 11 comments.

And there’s more.  Even though some of these posts are months old, or even a year old, they continue to receive comments to this day.  Even our post commenting upon Ms. Saladoff’s appearance on “The Colbert Report” still gets a comment or two months later.  One such comment to that post, submitted by a Houston lawyer in late January, is as follows:

I’m amazed at the extent to which your law firm, years later, continues to cheer for a team that lost at the expense of public faith in a justice system that worked — whether you agree that it worked, or whether it serves you in particular, or not. There are salient facts on both sides of this issue. Yes, the coffee was very hot. Yes, she sat in it for 90 seconds. Yes, people should know coffee is hot. And yet, McDonald’s knew its coffee was dangerously hot and callously treated the risk to Ms. Liebeck as a mere cost of business. All of this evidence was heard by the factfinders, the jury. What matters now is that the factfinders heard the evidence — from both sides — and made a decision based on the evidence and the law it was charged to apply. As a member of the bar who has taken the same oath that (I presume) the attorneys in your firm have also taken, I think your continued biased commentary is irresponsible. I’m not saying that you don’t have a constitutional right to say it (questions regarding attorney ethics rules notwithstanding); you probably do. But I think you’re doing more harm than good to our legal system by doing so, and it’s ethically and morally irresponsible to continue to cry about how this jury was wrong and our system is broken simply because they dared to conclude differently than you would have them conclude. I would expect your biased editorialism from a college newspaper, not accomplished members of the bar.

Gee whiz.  For one, if every jury verdict is sacrosanct and immune from criticism of any kind, that’s going to put a lot of appellate lawyers out of business. Sure, we expect criticism and disagreement; that’s part of putting ourselves out there in the legal blogosphere. But our analysis and commentary on an infamous jury verdict is “irresponsible”?   Possibly unethical? Really? Can we no longer analyze and have some fun re-litigating a case which appears to have been misrepresented in the media by those from varying backgrounds, and before our acquisition of the pleadings and motions, discussed for years without reference to the original underlying documents? It’s harmful to our legal system to look back at reevaluate some of the decisions made by the lawyers, the trial court, and the jurors and gauge whether they were right or wrong? Must we consider those jurors infallible?

Sigh. I guess that’s what we get for engaging in this blogging thing. (And by the way, “biased editorialism”? Is there any other kind?)

Or, maybe we just hit a nerve and our making some points that those who have a vested financial interest in the jackpot justice system would prefer that we not make.