On Katrina related lawsuits....

Lawyers -- The Second-Oldest Profession Strikes Again

...the attorney’s name is Daniel Becnel, Jr. I’m just glad that my name isn’t Daniel Becnel, Sr. It seems that of the 489,000 claims that have been filed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he is responsible for 60,000 of them! Asked about measuring Katrina’s devastation in terms of dollars and cents, Mr. Becnel replied, “There’s no way on earth you can figure it out. The trauma these people have undergone is unlike anything that has occurred in the history of our country.”

Even allowing for a certain amount of legalistic hyperbole, that is one of the stupidest things I’ve heard in quite a while. I suppose in the heat of the moment, and perhaps distracted by the amount of loot he’s likely to see when those 60,000 cases are settled, he must have forgotten the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11, just to mention a few of the more notable traumas that spring to mind.

Of the 489,000 claims, 247 are for at least a billion dollars. But that’s nothing. One of them is for $3,014,170,389,176,410. Having been to New Orleans on a couple of occasions, I can only assume that the actual value of the dwelling was $410, and that the remaining $3,014,170,389,176,000 is just for the heck of it.

Speaking of John Edwards, I bet when he saw those kinds of numbers being bandied about, he regretted wasting his time running for president.

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