Good Job Nishi

Ms. Nishi Kothari recently joined our team, and she has been kicking butt and taking names!  I recently attended a mediation with Nishi where she got an astoundingly good settlement for the kind of case we had.  Due to confidentiality issues, we can only speak about some settlements in general terms.  But the mediation of this case in particular reminded of something that is hard for a lot of people to understand:  not every case is a winner.  Sometimes getting something on a case is the most you can expect or hope to achieve—it may not make you whole, but it helps.  Furthermore, some cases are really better off being settled early through mediation or informal negotiations.

This case is a particularly good example.  It involved a fire, an arsonist, and a hoarder.  Our client’s neighboring property was damaged by the fire, allegedly started by an arsonist, but which was made much, much worse by the hoarder—in essence, all the junk in the house made the fire much more intense than it otherwise would have been.

Without getting into too much legal technicalities, this type of case is very difficult.  Our client’s damages were not huge.  A jury would have apportioned responsibility between the hoarder and the unknown arsonist—thus, our client could never be made whole.  And, there were no bad faith or other statutes that allowed for the recovery of attorneys fees or punitive damages.  In such a case, even if we got the maximum amount of damages suffered by our client, that amount would be reduced by the percentage responsibility attributed to the unknown arsonist.  If we had not reached a settlement early in this suit, the case would not have been worth litigating because the amount of money that would have to be spent on experts, depositions, and other costs would have been greater than the amount we could recover, even from a jury.  To put it simply, it doesn’t make sense to spend $100,000.00 to recover $50,000.00.

So, Nishi did a great job in achieving an early settlement of this third party liability property damage case.  I was very proud of her performance, legal research, presentation, and debating skills.  Keep it up, Nishi!  Our clients deserve the kind of top-notch legal representation you provided in this case!