On The Third Hand

Given the fact America is the most litigious society in the universe, and probably a parallel one as well, the news of another get rich scheme lawsuit isn’t newsworthy. But the headline searching radar gets tweaked when the lawsuit is instigated by a group calling itself the Tsunami Victims Group (TVG), the site is written in a foreign language and the suit is filed in New York City.

The front page contains an “Open letter to the Foreign Minister and the interior minister of the Republic of Austria.” The translated page can be read here courtesy of Bablefish. The basic gist of the letter are complaints about how the Austrian Government handled the Tsunami disaster and the repatriation of those living and dead. The letter is signed by two Austrian lawyers, Dr. Herwig Hasslacher and Dr. Gerhard Podovsovnik. Not much unusual, many countries that had citizens in the effected area had similar problems. The fact there is a link to a claim (pdf file) filed in NYC did catch my eye.

The civil claim has been filed on behalf of 50 unnamed persons (all German or Austian citizens) against ACCOR North America; The ACCOR Group; SOFITEL Magic Lagoon Resort & SPA; National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association A/K/A NOAA; The Kingdom of Thailand; and the Meteorological Agency of Thailand. I won’t waste my time or bandwidth quoting the brief but in summary it says all the respondents are culpable in some way and failed to act in a manner that afforded the best opportunity for those in the path of the tsunami to react and get to higher ground.

More specificly, it claims NOAA, who operates the Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, failed to issue a tsunami warning and that contributed to the disaster claiming more lives.

I’ve covered this ground before in fisking an anti-American hit piece by the Guardian newspaper. In point of fact, while no official warning was given by Hawaii, both Indonesia and Australia received notice of the threat 16 minutes after the quake. Thailand’s Earthquake Bureau was in receipt of an email from the Hawaii warning center 60 minutes before the first wave hit, according to the London Times. The report quoted a Bangkok newspaper, the Nation, as saying the Bureau staff were too busy sending faxes about earthquakes. The report quoted the officer on duty at the time the e-mail was sent as saying he did not think of the waves because he was an earthquake specialist.

So the question is, who is culpable? If these public reports are to be believed cetainly not the NOAA. All together now: Can you spell N. U. I. S. A. N. C. E. lawsuit - I thought you could.

There is one other thing of note, it’s heralded by a bright red “new” graphic that links to US lawyer Ed Fagan (pdf file) and a transcript of a Q & A session that is an “interesting” (scare quotes intentional) read. Although personally I had not recognized the name, it would appear he has a long history of similar lawsuits. He was part of the law team that filed a suit against 34 international companies accused of profiting from South African apartheid. He was also successful in obtaining $1.25 billion in reparation from Swiss banks for descendants of the victims of the Nazi death camps.

He came under fire by many that were part of the death camp suit, among others, with claims of neglecting his clients:

But it’s not the first time Fagan has been accused of neglecting his clients. Just five years ago, he was deeply in debt, placing ads in the New York yellow pages seeking clients for personal injury lawsuits. A search of courthouse records and interviews by Barry Meier of The New York Times found five different cases in which Fagan appeared to have abandoned or neglected existing clients as he went after the higher profile, higher-fee Holocaust clients. One of them left behind, a truck driver seriously injured in an accident in 1992. “He was unaware until I told him a few weeks ago that his $35 million lawsuit in federal court had been thrown out. He said that he had been trying to call Mr. Fagan for two and a half years and had not received a phone call back from him,” said Meier. Fagan disputes that. But at the same time Fagan was living the good life, traveling Europe, preparing to ask for millions of dollars in fees for handling the Holocaust cases. “I know for a fact that the majority of these cases wouldn’t have happened without me. That’s not, that’s not from bravado, it’s just a fact,” said Fagan.

Given all of the above I’m going to step out on a very large branch - and call “Mr.” Fagan an international ambulance chaser.

Cross posted within the Cranial Cavity