In Elektra v. Schwartz, where the defendant is a Queens woman suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, Magistrate Robert M. Levy has granted Ms. Schwartz's motion for appointment of a Guardian Ad Litem. The Magistrate further ruled that the guardian would not be paid for by any of the litigants, but by a special fund, up to a maximum of $3000.
The Magistrate stayed discovery pending the appointment of the Guardian Ad Litem.
April 12, 20067, Order of Magistrate Robert M. Levy Granting Defendant's Motion for Appointment of Guardian Ad Litem*
A guardian ad litem is a person -- usually an attorney -- appointed by a court, for the purposes of a specific litigation, to protect the interests of a person who is not in a position to protect him or her own interests, such as a minor, or a person who has a disability that might affect his or her decisionmaking or ability to assist his or her lawyer. Sometimes, in specialized types of litigation, the guardian ad litem may hire special counsel to assist the guardian.
A guardian ad litem was determined by the Court to be needed in Priority v. Brittany Chan, in Michigan, where the defendant was under 18 years of age.
* Document published online at Internet Law & Regulation
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9 comments:
Ray, this link is broken too. Could the RIAA have a mole out there who's doing whatever possible to obstruct access to this information by the general public and other lawyers?
damn, this one is a bit tougher to guess what the error could be...
Nothing exciting like that. Just me screwing up again. Sorry about that.
It's fixed now.
Thanks, amd & alter, for bringing it to my attention.
a, its case sensitive! not "GAL", but "Gal"
http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDF.asp?filename=elektra_schwartz_070412OrderGrantMotGal
or it isn't case sensitive after all, but Ray was faster in fixing while i tested :-P
back on topic:
the order reads as : "The Eastern District Civil Litigation Fund has agreed, on a trial basis, to compensate the guardian ad
litem up to $3,000 for work performed on this case."
(Serious questions!)
Does this part in "," on a trial basis means this fund has imposed a condition that there must be an actual trial against her or they will not take the costs?
Since we have learned from prior behaviour of Plaintiffs that they fear actual trials on the merits even more then the devil fears holy water, could this tiny "trial" restriction be a problem?
Or is this just standard lawyerese without having any real life limitiationing effect fro teh proceeding of the case now?
alter_fritz, if I remember correctly you're not a native English speaker, so let me try to explain the phrase...
"on a trial basis" actually has nothing to do with a trial as defined in the legal sense. In fact, the phrase is in common use in non-legal conversations as well. If someone says they'll do something "on a trial basis", it just means they're testing it out. It's not something they normally do or have done in the past, but they're trying it now without guarantee that they'll continue to do so.
In the current context, I take it to mean that the Eastern District Civil Litigation Fund doesn't usually pay for GALs. They're doing it this time, to see how it goes. There's no guarantee that another person in similar circumstances would receive funding from the group for a similar purpose.
I hope that made sense...
ja Megan, makes sense at least for me now to understand it.
what I found about this not-for-profit Inc. is that they on their own responsibility can decide over expenses up to $200 for telefoncosts and stamps and such stuff.
Eastern District Civil Litigation Fund, Inc., a nonprofit corporation(PDF)
Thank you Megan for this little private english tutoring. :-)
Megan is right.... that's what he meant... it's an experiment.
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