PA laptop spying settlement: Student gets $175,000, lawyer gets $425,000
Well, this makes sense. Remember that case in Pennsylvania where a school district secretly took pictures of students in their homes via their Macs’ built-in iSights? Well, the Chicago Tribune is reporting that the Lower Merion School District has settled the suit for a whopping $610,000. Well deserved to be sure, given how creepy the prospect of the IT guy at a high school being able to check out the student body whenever he wanted. But what’s interesting here is how the payout breaks down… While the 16 year-old plaintiff (the one who actualy had 400 pictures taken of him, some while he slept) was awarded $175,000 in damages, which will be placed in a trust, the lawyer in the case walked away with $425,000 for all HIS pian and suffering (oh, and faxing, I know lawyers do a lot of faxing).
Another student has been awarded a paltry $10,000, presumably because he wasn’t as cute looking when he slept.
I thought it was funny that the white kid got $175k and the black kid got $10k.
http://kwtv.images.worldnow.com/images/12889282_BG1.jpg
Presumably, there was a better reason for the disparate distribution. But the appearance looks grim.
All the greedy, bastard-ass lawyers are belong to us. THATS why they got 4x what the boy got 🙂
Yeah, the greedy lawyers. The guys who worked six months, put in about 2,000 hours work (about 1 1/4 full time people) and got paid NOTHING for their work until they won. Instead of working on contingency, which would have taken money from their client not the plaintiff, they worked for what the court was willing to say they deserved.
If your boss asked you to work 6 months on a project, but wouldn’t pay you until it was complete AND he got the result he wanted, would you do it? Not a prayer. But lawyers like this put EVERYTHING on the line, finance the entire case, and you get mad when they get paid for winning?
If you’re ever unfortunate enough to get injured in a car accident, ask your lawyers if they’ll sue for damages plus their costs. Then ask how much it will cost you UP FRONT for him to take your case on an hourly basis. When they stop laughing and you sign the contingency agreement you’ll see just how “greedy” this lawyer WASN’T.