I'm Developing A Distaste For Lawyers

[breakwall]

Lawsuit a threat to trails

CYCLISTS FEAR FOR SPORT

A MOUNTAIN biker who launched a million-dollar lawsuit after falling off his bike has lit a fire under Collingwood area bike enthusiasts who fear the suit will close their trails. James Leone is suing the Toronto Outing Club and its Kolapore Uplands Wilderness Ski Trails Committee as well as the Town of The Blue Mountains, the Grey-Bruce Trails Network and the province for an accident he had while mountain biking last August.

The 31-year-old personal injury lawyer from Toronto claims he suffered fractured vertebrae and several soft-tissue injuries when his bicycle came to an abrupt stop after hitting a hole in the trail, sending him over the handlebars.

"It's a crying shame," said "die-hard" mountain biker Mark Derrick, who helped organize a meeting of concerned bikers in Collingwood yesterday.

"We have hundreds of miles of amazing trails in this area and most of us realize that if you take on this sport, you take on a challenge and a risk." He said his wife, Lynn, has dislocated her shoulder by falling on the trails twice but never considered a lawsuit.

"This suit does cause a concern that the trails will be threatened," said trail specialist with the International Mountain Bike Association, Laura Woolner. "The case could set a precedent for other cases in Ontario and that could have an enormous impact on non-profit clubs who will have to purchase huge amounts of insurance to keep trails open. Essentially it could shut them down," she said.

What we have here is a Personal Injury lawyer who goes out on a trail, injures himself due to his own personal ineptitude, and completely discards any personal responsibility for his actions.

It's lawsuits like this that give the entire legal community a terrible name...er...even moreso.

 

[breakwall]

I love how he's covering all the bases by suing "the Toronto Outing Club and its Kolapore Uplands Wilderness Ski Trails Committee as well as the Town of The Blue Mountains, the Grey-Bruce Trails Network and the province."

He forgot the bicycle manufacturer, the store that sold it to him and Isaac Newton for discovering gravity.

 

[Guest]

because of a whole! thats it! Someone should just shoot him.

 

[brokenbrainwave]

Until all the facts are out I'll reserve judgement about this case other than I wished he'd broken his damn neck...

 

[gravyrug]

They should take away his bike and tell him if he can't play nice, he can't play at all.

 

[luxey313]

Too much Law & Order??

 

[breakwall]

Until all the facts are out I'll reserve judgement about this case other than I wished he'd broken his damn neck...

This is lengthy but it has more details:

Since the volunteers' interest is solely skiing, in seasons when there is no snow the trails are left to fend for themselves. But in the 1990s the mountain bike appeared, and with it the mountain bikers who discovered in Kolapore the hellishly beautiful terrain that makes their testosterone-charged adrenalin bubble and boil. The best (that is, the worst) of the trails earn the highest mountain-biking accolade: radical.

Presumably "totally radical'' would be prying open elevator doors at the CN Tower and biking down the empty shaft.

It's unlikely that the lack of maintenance for cycling is considered a drawback.

Then along came James Leone, 31, a Torontonian who, last Aug. 1, was on a trail that bikers grade as "easiest" when, according to documents filed in court, "suddenly and without warning his bicycle came to an abrupt stop" and he was thrown forward, "striking the ground with sudden and violent force."

Plunging into a "hole in the ground, the depth, size and location of which constituted an unusual danger" might sound like something that's all in a day's (or five minutes') adventure for a mountain biker, except for one thing: Leone is a lawyer. As one of the country's foremost legal experts explained to me, the first thing first-year law students learn the first day of civil procedure is, when you sue, "sue everything in sight."

Leone is suing the outing club, the ski trails committee, the regional trails network, the local municipality and the province (which owns the land where he encountered the alleged hole) everything but the sky above and the Earth itself. He wants $1,150,000 in damages for expenses and lost income as a result of a fractured vertebra he says he suffered, while his co-plaintiff his wife, Ashley, who wasn't biking "sustained a loss of guidance, care and companionship" she might reasonably have expected if he hadn't run into said hole.

Leone's stated position is that, whether they like it or not, the volunteer organizations and the province, by permitting the trails to exist on its land, are responsible for creating "a situation of danger from which the plaintiff, despite all reasonable efforts and precautions was unable to extricate himself," and that they "failed to take reasonable care to protect the plaintiff from the unusual danger, of which they knew or ought to have known."

Leone and his lawyer declined several requests for an interview, so we don't know the answers to three questions I left on his voice mail. Was he alone? Given the seriousness of his injuries, how did he make his way from the site of the wreck? And how much mountain-biking experience did he have, or was this his first time?

These lead to other questions. If a hole in the ground was such a surprise, would he have been better off mountain biking on a sidewalk in Toronto (although holes abound in them)? If the hole was big enough to crack up in, how did he fail to see it if he was "exercising reasonable care for his own safety" as his statement of claim attests?

And how come nobody else crashed into such a big hole, or did they and just figured that's the way it goes?

Certainly skiers have gotten hurt on the trails, some of them local experts, some severely, but nobody has ever sued before. Mountain biking ain't kiddie car.

By suing, James Leone might make it so that nobody can do either. Even if he loses, chances are that the limited insurance the volunteer organizations carry will become so expensive they can't afford it, or it won't be available at all. This would force them to stop the work they've done for years. The trails would disappear.

It is a curious thing, and it seems to be verging on epidemic people refusing to accept responsibility for their own actions. If something bad happens to you, even if it happened because you did something beyond your abilities or plain foolish, blame somebody else. Nothing is your fault.

 

[Guest]

Leone's stated position is that, whether they like it or not, the volunteer organizations and the province, by permitting the trails to exist on its land, are responsible for creating "a situation of danger from which the plaintiff, despite all reasonable efforts and precautions was unable to extricate himself," and that they "failed to take reasonable care to protect the plaintiff from the unusual danger, of which they knew or ought to have known."

wholes in the ground are uncommon? what is this guy smoking?

 

[shyly curious]

Several years ago a lawyer went rock climbing, other climbers there told him he hadn't put his safety harness properly, lawyer got snotty and said he knew what he was doing, he climbed and part way up he slipped and fell, and fell right out of his harness and hit the ground, and died, his buddy lawyers sued the maker of the harness ...

 

[brokenbrainwave]

He wants $1,150,000 in damages for expenses and lost income as a result of a fractured vertebra he says he suffered, while his co-plaintiff â€" his wife, Ashley, who wasn't biking â€" "sustained a loss of guidance, care and companionship" she might reasonably have expected if he hadn't run into said hole.

so Ashley had to hire some young stud for sex while James was laid up and wants a return on her investment?


Fuckin bitch!

 

[breakwall]

wholes in the ground are uncommon? what is this guy smoking?

As an avid mountain biker, I can tell you, holes in the ground are not "unusual" and anyone who comes across one "... the depth, size and location of which constituted an unusual danger" with any kind of skill, could navigate around it.

 

[shyly curious]

Maine has a law to protect landowners who let people use the land for recreation, and Maine has an insurance policy and a defense fund to deal with lawsuits to protect bike clubs, snowmobile clubs, outdoor clubs etc.

 

[Guest]

As an avid mountain biker, I can tell you, holes in the ground are not "unusual" and anyone who comes across one "... the depth, size and location of which constituted an unusual danger" with any kind of skill, could navigate around it.

No shit lol......I guess this guess motor skills are lacking

 

[WhiteCheech]

wholes in the ground are uncommon? what is this guy smoking?

what are you smoking? the word is holes, not wholes

 

[Avery_Chisholm]

I love how he's covering all the bases by suing "the Toronto Outing Club and its Kolapore Uplands Wilderness Ski Trails Committee as well as the Town of The Blue Mountains, the Grey-Bruce Trails Network and the province."

He forgot the bicycle manufacturer, the store that sold it to him and Isaac Newton for discovering gravity.

Lmao

 

[gravyrug]

He forgot the bicycle manufacturer, the store that sold it to him and Isaac Newton for discovering gravity.

He should definitely include the maker of the safety equipment he was wearing. He was wearing safety equipment, right?

 

[Guest]

He forgot the bicycle manufacturer, the store that sold it to him and Isaac Newton for discovering gravity.

Sucks to be him, we can't even exhume Newton.

 

[breakwall]

He should definitely include the maker of the safety equipment he was wearing. He was wearing safety equipment, right?

Now there's a good question.
In Ontario, the law only requires that people under the age of 18 wear helmets. But if this guy wasn't wearing a helmet, then the defense could say he was negligent in ensuring his own safety.


Isn't Mischka a lawyer?
I'd like to hear her imput on this.

 

[Guest]

what are you smoking? the word is holes, not wholes

whatever

 

[gravyrug]

Now there's a good question.
In Ontario, the law only requires that people under the age of 18 wear helmets. But if this guy wasn't wearing a helmet, then the defense could say he was negligent in ensuring his own safety.


Isn't Mischka a lawyer?
I'd like to hear her imput on this.

I know that when a friend of mine had a lumber truck lose its load on top of her car, she had to sue everyone from the driver to the maker of the straps, just to insure that they couldn't just pass the buck. It's a crappy system, any way you look at it. (She did end up with a decent settlement, nothing outrageous, but enough to pay her hospital bills have some starting-over money.)

 

[breakwall]

I know that when a friend of mine had a lumber truck lose its load on top of her car, she had to sue everyone from the driver to the maker of the straps, just to insure that they couldn't just pass the buck. It's a crappy system, any way you look at it. (She did end up with a decent settlement, nothing outrageous, but enough to pay her hospital bills have some starting-over money.)

what worries me is shit (and apparently this loser cyclist) rolls downhill, so where the Province, the Region and the City all have decent lawyers, the cycling club and the trail management association most likely don't. It's going to cost them just to go to court and if they lose, which is a real possibility, it's going to make their insurance sky rocket.

And of course, the fiscally logical thing to do would be to cancel the insurance and fence off the trail.

 

[dagdag]

First off; there are good lawyers and bad lawyers. Some of them see $$$ when they look at their client, and some of them actually want to solve client's issues at hand.

There are so many frivilous law suits without merit but it takes your time, money, energy and concentration to make these go away. In the same token, there are so many law suits just to negotiate a better business deal.

Either side of the suit may be very dumb, and if your counsel is not good either, you are screwed. For ex: I filed a small claims suit against a customer who were refusing to pay for the merchandise and not giving it back to us either!!! Hello!!! since the defendant is in another state and we are in Texas, we had to go through lots of hoops with the small claims court to show that the court in Texas has jurisdiction in the matter. Once we have that done, and win the judgment, we ended up filing with the sister state and at the end of several years defendant end up paying us the price of the merchandise, court fees, associated costs and interest, and his own attorney fees as well.

I am not an attorney, but his attorney's arguments were so dumb that I did not even have counsel on the case.

So be aware!!! It is business as usual but you don't have to complicate matters. Resolve the conflict as quickly as possible and move on... You may even loose in a case, you may be 100% right due to an error on your counsel's part. Filing an answer not in a timely fashion or not noticing a detail may cause you a bunch.

 

[landslider]

Yep, and bear in mind that it'll be another lawyer who points out the absurdity of the complaint.

And the judge who pitches the case will be a lawyer.

 

[breakwall]

the fact that the plaintiff is a personal injuries lawyer and is suing for compensation for personal injuries just makes me sick...

 

[TRA]

Greetings Folks,

The Kolapore vs. James V. Leone lawsuit is still ongoing. There have
been new developments since you posted up about it in April 2005.

I've attached some links that go to updated information (and active
threads) on mtbr.com addressing this issue. Some gents have obtained
some of the legal documentation which gives some interesting details.

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=274784
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=74213
http://www.nsmb.com/shore_news/beardwinter_04_05.php

So if you can, give those a read. The most interesting snippet I've
taken in part from
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?p=2936127#poststop :

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First of all I have the notes filled as Leone v. University of Toronto,
Barrie Court File No. 04-B8059, heard before the Ontario Superior Court
of Justice on August 3 and September 6, 2006, with judgment on September
25, 2006.

There are some important items that are mentioned in the “Findings”
section of the document, that are useful for the public and land owners
alike to know about to provide ever increasing wisdom in the world we
live in.

- Always put up signage indicating users of trail must do so at own
risk, and that trails are not regularly maintained, inspected, and may
contain hazards. Otherwise you could be held responsible for accidents
if you own the land or had a hand in building the trails.

- Signage must be at all points of trail entry, not just the head of
trails. Mr. Leone apparently entered the trails system on a side road
and therefore saw no signs.

- Even though you may only allow trails to be used for cross country
skiing during the winter months, the fact you may be doing trail
maintenance during other months of the year means that the trails are
your responsibility all year round (unless you put up signage mentioned
in first point, or clearly put up signage prohibiting other specific
activities).

- If you know that other types of users are using your trails for other
activities than intended, like mountain biking, ATV’s, camping, or
horseback riding, then you have a duty of care (ie. responsibility) for
these people. Unless, of course, you put up signage as mentioned in
first point.

- If someone has an accident on your property, always make sure you act
by doing something to prevent it from happening next time. Otherwise you
will be accused of negligence if you do nothing.

- Even though a hole may be created by an ATV on your trails, causing
someone to trip over it and break their spine, you are responsible for
this hazard and fixing it (unless you have clear signs indicating that
ATV’s are not allowed, or again, if you have signage as mentioned in
first point).

From the statements of the court mentioned in this document, it appears
that Mr. Leone has a good case to win so far.
----------------------------------------------------------------------