A Lovely Newsroom Euphemism
A second look at Dave Helling's story on the latest ruling by a federal district judge in Mississippi about the misadventures of Trailer Lawyer Todd Graves yields some interesting phraseology. As we noted yesterday, Judge S.L. Senter booted Graves' law firm out of his court, but Helling writes the events up a bit differently...
A federal judge in Mississippi has removed two high-profile Missouri lawyers from a whistleblower lawsuit involving State Farm Insurance and Hurricane Katrina.
Helling goes on to write that the judge's order "bars further work on the case," by Graves. Both descriptions are true enough I suppose, though each sounds quite a bit better than what the judge actually did to Graves. Judge Senter disqualified Trailer Lawyer Todd Graves:
Thus, I find that the current attorneys [Graves, et al] knew or should have known that their co-counsel had entered an improper financial arrangement with their mutual clients, that the current attorneys took no action after learning of this improper arrangement, and that the
current counsel should therefore be disqualified from further participation in this case
Worth noting that the terms 'removed', 'removal' or 'remove' appear nowhere within the judge's five page written order.
I wonder why a reporter wouldn't just use the same word that the judge used?
- Howard Beale's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer friendly version










Recent Comments
1 day 14 hours ago
2 days 6 hours ago
2 days 12 hours ago
2 days 14 hours ago
3 days 3 hours ago
3 days 10 hours ago
3 days 14 hours ago
5 days 1 hour ago
5 days 5 hours ago
5 days 13 hours ago