Joel Jacobsen

My computer and I have taken turns being sick recently.  The computer, though, was under warranty, because it was a replacement for the one that ran afoul of the Death Panel.  How well I remember sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair, too intimidated to shift my weight in case my thighs squeaked.

Then, with the tread of doom, a phalanx of gray-suited bureaucrats wearing surgical masks came down the hallway.  They stopped immediately before me.  "Mr. Jacobsen," the one at point said, but not as a question.  Holding up a card, similar to a cop's Miranda card, he read without emotion: "We understand and deeply empathize with your attachment to your grandmotherboard.  But the Panel has determined that the social utility of continued existence is outweighed by inconvenience and cost of computer-store over-utilization."

I must have looked confused in the ensuing silence, because one of the junior 'crats near the back made a slicing motion across his neck: "Qcrchchchch!"

The new computer did great guns for a good month.  Well, actually fairly-good guns.  Kind of okay-guns, really.  The front USB ports couldn't be counted on to gun at all, and they were ruthlessly replaced.

But when I tried to get a USB-board replacement for myself, guess what?  "Elective surgery."  I was invited to initiate the 2-stage appeal process.  My "Patient's Bill of Rights" guaranteed that the second ruling upholding the denial would be by a genuine human being who would actually look at the file.  But it all sounded too much like my day job and I bagged it. 

Meanwhile, in Cleveland, life is interesting for Judge Bridget McCafferty, and not just because she's still (apparently) using her high school graduation photo as her official portrait.  Here's an online version of her ego wall.  Interesting how the faint whiff of the Tammany tiger exhibit carries through the Net.

She practiced law for four years, from '01 to '05, before taking the water-carrying political jobs that got her where she is today.  The result is, it would seem, a judge about as bad as you would expect.  Her website repeats at tedious length her wish to have every case before her settle. Twice she requires counsel to have "settlement authority."  It doesn't matter if the client wants to go to trial.  Counsel's first duty of loyalty is to the judge and she enjoys her free time.

And, according to a recently-filed civil suit, she takes her role as mediator quite seriously:

Letter Perfect Group Inc., which had sued D-A-S Construction over nonpayment of $237,000 worth of subcontract work at Cleveland Browns Stadium, settled for an undisclosed amount in 2008.

But in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, the company cited information uncovered by federal investigators suggesting that McCafferty and Dimora each spoke privately with D-A-S's then-owner Steven Pumper and promised a favorable resolution to the suit.

Pumper has resigned from the company and pleaded guilty in July to nine corruption-related crimes, including bribery, obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.

Pleading guilty to nine charges - my, my.  That's guiltier than the average contrite federal defendant.  But who's Dimora?  (That one's easy.)  And what's it have to do with Judge McCafferty? 

Among the information contained in the federal charges against Pumper were transcripts of secretly recorded phone conversations in which a voice believed to be Dimora's promised Pumper he will talk to McCafferty's staff attorney and "try to get things worked out" in the case.

In conversations after the settlement hearing, McCafferty apologized to Pumper for not helping the case settle at a lower cost to him.

"I know it's more than you wanted to pay but I hope you can live with it," McCafferty said. "I was trying to get it out at $175,000, but I just couldn't get it done."

Later in the call, McCafferty told Pumper she would see him soon, to which he replied, "Next fund raiser." 

One thing about those blue-collar Cleveland pols.  None of this effete beating around the bush. 

Having shaken the dustiness of civil practice from my shoes years ago, I admit it hadn't actually occurred to me that settlement conferences provide ideal settings for shakedowns and bribe-solicitations.  The judge tells the tightwad or otherwise-disfavored that the odds of success are small, and since the judge is in a position to fulfill the prophecy with summary judgment or eccentric evdientiary rulings (you're welcome to spend $100,000 on an appeal), the suggestion gets results.

Perhaps we'll see if there's any truth to the wiretaps, and just how badly the judge's words have been taken out of context.  But don't count on it.  You know who makes the rules about immunity from suit.