The Hindu Business Line : Punished for bad English

TYPOGRAPHICAL errors are usually pardoned as lesser evils. There are, however, instances of silly mistakes of grammar and spelling, punctuation and such, leading to disastrous consequences. On the need to avoid typos, one lawyer in the US got his lessons, not from his English teacher, but from a federal magistrate judge who made a deduction in the lawyer's fees because his written work was "careless".

As reported in www.law.com, the case was about John Devore, a former Philadelphia police officer, who claimed that he was harassed and ultimately fired in retaliation for reporting that his partner had stolen a cell phone. The judge, Jacob P. Hart, put it this way: The case, Devore v. City of Philadelphia, "revolved around `the blue wall of silence,' an allegedly unwritten policy in the police department that an officer does not `rat out' another officer." The verdict went in favour of Devore, with an award for back-pay, front pay, compensatory damages and punitive damages.

More than the facts of the `complicated' case, what could interest one are the observations about Brian Puricelli, the attorney of Devore. The judge said that some of Puricelli's writing was "nearly unintelligible" though his courtroom work was "smooth" and "artful". As a result, the judge ruled that the lawyer be paid at two rates, "$300 per hour for courtroom work, but $150 per hour for work on the pleadings". This worked out to more than $172,000 in fees - "for 209 hours at $150 per hour and 470 hours at $300".

This steep cut to half was "in fact, generous", opined the judge in the light of "Puricelli's complete lack of care in his written product". That amounted to "disrespect for the court", he added, because the errors "caused the court a considerable amount of work".

Defence lawyers, too, were not too happy with the typos and they had complained that the errors were "epidemic." But "Puricelli's response included several more typos", though he had accepted his fault: "As for there being typos, yes there have been typos, but these errors have not detracted from the arguments or results." One such slip-up was Puricelli misspelling the judge's name, as "Honorable Jacon Hart."

"I appreciate the elevation to what sounds like a character in The Lord of the Rings," Hart wrote, "but alas, I am but a judge."

On the positive side, however, the judge had words of praise for the lawyer's courtroom work: "As for the time Mr. Puricelli spent in court, considering the quality of his written work, the court was impressed with the transformation. Mr. Puricelli was well prepared, his witnesses were prepped, and his case proceeded quite artfully and smoothly."

The law, therefore, about grammar is that you don't take either in your own hands.

ExParte@thehindu.co.in