Hat tip to the Turk, the New York Times reports that the Selbin lawsuit against neighbor Galila Huff has been resolved. This case provoked a massive outpouring of anger toward to Selbins generated by John Stossel’s report designed to inflame hatred of lawyers.
Mr. Selbin confirmed the settlement and said Ms. Huff had agreed to take steps to minimize the spread of her smoke. After news of the suit was reported in February, the manufacturer of an air-cleaning system came forward to offer free equipment to Ms. Huff and the Selbins.
“She agreed to use the donated air filters and a smokeless ashtray, which is all we ever asked her to do,” Mr. Selbin said in an e-mail message. “Period.”
Mr. Selbin indicated on Monday that the publicity surrounding the lawsuit had not been pleasant. “I am confident you will find a way to make us look like terrible people all over again for insisting on such an onerous thing,” he said in the e-mail message.
After the lawsuit was filed, a company called Aerus, formerly known as Electrolux, offered to install — at no charge — an air filtration system that, the company said, would remediate the smoke.
Now after all the one-sided sensationalism drummed up by Stossel’s facile report, it appears that the two neighbors managed to work out their differences. No doubt, some will invent assumptions to yet further the Stossel agenda, since the notion of using the law to resolve differences and ultimately resulting in a mutually agreed upon resolution would be wholly inconsistent with his simplistic vilification.
After all, if the Selbins and Huff worked their problems out, how then can Stossel pursue lawyers as the root of all that’s wrong in America?
I’m sure he’ll figure something out.
Update: For those readers who have come to SJ via the ABC.com link to support the hero of the great unwashed, John Stossel, in his war against thre vermin lawyers, please make an effort to have something minimally useful to add. “Stossel Rules!” is not a useful comment. Nor is “Lawyers suck!” Nor are any variations on these themes.
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Selbin rules! Just kidding.
The lawsuit generated a lot of heat, but little light. Interesting that Stossel didn’t discuss the plaintiff’s letter in the original broadcast. Melodramatizing stories is his forte and the letter would have alienated a lot of the target audience who would much rather simply have to look for either the black or white hat, and exclaim, Homer Simpson-like, “Damn right!” or “U.S.A!”
I used to work in P.R. and learned to see the press as a double edged sword: helpful if they wrote the story from your point of view but dangerous if they decided to cast you as Snidely Whiplash.
Stossel has been playing this game with lawyers for years, ever since he was sued and decided that lawyers were evil (except his). He has since engaged in a war of pandering to the ignorant and simplistic.
When I first decided to post about his WSJ Op-Ed piece, I have no particular concern for the Selbin lawsuit, other than the fact that Stossel’s having used it as an example of why class action lawsuits are an evil was bizarrea and irrational. In the discussion of the Selbin action, all the Stossel fans have ignored that his argument is fundamentally illogical. The Selbin case had nothing whatsoever to do with his thesis, except that Jon Selbin is a personal injury lawyer. He was villifying Selbin to prove that PI lawyers are evil. It was just nuts.
The other aspect, which seems to escape notice, is that Stossel’s position is that corporate American is the savior of the common man, attacked by trial lawyers bent on destroying all that’s good about America. Does the common man really want to place his trust in corporate America? Why does Stossel?
I said it earlier, and I’ll say it again, I’m a frequent critic of lawyers. But I’m an even more frequent critic of irrational people. Stossel is irrational.
I have a problem with one thing not discussed here. The line in the letter that read (paraphrasing) we are trial lawyers so we won’t have the barriers to litigation that you will. That sounds threatening. Justice for all (only if you have money for litigation!) At the least it doesn’t support the claim that Selbin is a poor innocent guy who’s been misportrayed by evil TV.
I am anxiously looking forward to your lawsuit against the fiends who . . .
[balance of comment deleted; Sorry Dr. Eric Blair, but stupid comment day was last Monday.]
There must be a way of stopping all of the frivolous lawsuits that are wasting the time of our courts. I have in the past thought of becoming a lawyer. If ever I did, I would never take on a case that seemed to be frivolous.
[balance of comment deleted; Sorry L.H. Correll, but stupid comment day was last Monday.]