Get ready to ring them bells, blow those whistles, and sound the hypocrisy alarms—cause this next item, courtesy of Legal Pad, (a blog by the editors of The Recorder), is a real doozy!
Fred Hiestand, the general counsel for the ironically-named, fiercely anti-civil justice group, Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) and an enthusiastic backer of consumer rights crusher, Proposition 64, has joined the ThePopTort’s Hypocrite Hall of Shame!
Freddy boy has filed a lawsuit. But not just any lawsuit—the kind that generally makes the anti-civil justice crowd break into hives—a class action!!! Why? Because his car was towed after he illegally parked it while slipping into a fast food joint.
According to Hiestand, he saw the “no parking” sign and knew he was risking a ticket by parking there. But there were no signs indicating that illegally parked vehicles might be towed—which Hiestand said was tantamount to the city of Sacramento “thumbing [its] nose at the law.”
So Hiesatnd is doing what any self-respecting, anti-civil justice hypocrite would do. He’s suing “the city of Sacramento, the city’s police chief, city police officers,” and in an especially audacious bit of hypocritical jujitsu, the company that towed him—i.e., the very sort of “small business” Prop. 64 was supposedly going to “protect.”
Presumably, to establish that he’s not completely defected to the other side, Hiestand has promised to donate any money he might be awarded (sans legal costs) to “fighting frivolous class action lawsuits.”
Meanwhile, Hiestand’s boss, CJAC President John Sullivan, characterized his colleague’s actions as a kind of occupational hazard. “I was concerned this might happen,” said Sullivan. “Fred has been fighting against frivolous lawsuits for decades, and like a doctor fighting malaria, he’s become infected himself—and with the worst strain of the disease—class actions.”
To our knowledge, Sullivan has yet to alert OSHA or the CDC to Hiestand’s malaria-like, job-related affliction—but we’ll definitely keep you posted!
Any word on how that class action is working out? I haven't been able to find details.
Posted by: Mike Butler | February 04, 2010 at 07:07 AM