Thanks for providing your experienced perspective. I understand and perhaps I'm a bit jaded because my experience with the legal system has taught me that common sense is always thrown out in favor of an interpretation of the law biased to whoever had the most money.JALLEN wrote:When I was a "talented lawyer" for 40 years, I found that when I could show facts and law to weave a common sense argument, it was easier to persuade the judge that I was right and accept my views.SoConfused wrote:
I think you guys are using too much common sense. Unfortunately, the law is often counterintuitive an void of common sense. I'm this case, "control" and "premises" we're not specifically defined, leaving a talented lawyer the freedom to use case law and his imagination to create a definition.
The only variable here is the quality of defense and ability to pay for it. A waiter may not have enough money to buy his verdict, but that doesn't change the fact that it is legal until proven otherwise.
It would be relatively easy, I think, to show with the examples I gave, and others that would occur to me in an actual situation, that the waiter had no control of the premises as that concept is used in the law.
I agree that sometimes the results are counterintuitive, mostly because a great many people have such novel and imaginative ideas about the laws and their interpretations, and little real knowledge, that their intuition often misses the mark.
You may be thinking of this waiter as working at some cafe for low wages and miserly tips. I don't know about the Little Red Barn. I've been there once. I wouldn't assume he can't afford proper competent representation. I have been astonished to find out what some waiters can make, sometimes more than "talented lawyers."
I'm going to try to convey my experience here, while being careful of wording so please bear with me. Sadly, I'll spend the rest of my life making up for the person I used to be, but I was always at fault and never held accountable.
I was always the one with the money, which seemed to buy an infinite number of chances and allow my representation to interpret things as creatively as they wanted. I usually ended up relieved, while simultaneously being disgusted with the system. I always pictured myself in the other party's place having to deal with such an injustice and it made me sick about who I was.
If he throws good money into his defense and is still held accountable, which I hope he is, I may start to feel better about the courts. However, I'm not holding my breath.
