I'm not an attorney, but I have seen about a bazillion episodes of Law & Order, so maybe she can be countersued for wrongful death, libel, and abuse of process?

Yay! For at least a day or two, the U.S. is no longer the most fucked-up litigious country on the planet. Thank you, Canada.

An arrogant asshole Canadian? I'm shocked! (Wait, there's also Mayor Ford.)

you'd be surprised what a jury might award her. i was hit from behind by a car while bicycling near the white line in north carolina and the jury said the driver was not negligent at all and her insurance company didn't owe for my injuries.

An early nominee for "Worst Person of the Year"?

I hope they disbar her lawyer for this.

Surrender pronto, or we'll level Toronto!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayOlQ9If_…

@5 Well...North Carolina...yeah...don't go there. Noted.

This linked article doesn't mention it, but I think she's already being sued by the family, so her suit might be a countersuit. And I guess she's going for the deep pockets by suing all the families and the city.

Her husband is a police officer who was driving behind her. He spirited her from the scene without any breathalyzer being administered. She's a mother of three, and it sounds like her kids are going to be getting beaten up at school.

In Florida, killing bicyclists is justified under the state's notorious Stand Your Road laws.

@11 - Pretty sure the suit against the driver is the countersuit.

@5, luckily in Canada most civil trials are by judge only - no jury. If one of the parties wants a jury, they have to pay for it.

If anything, this is a counter lawsuit. Parents already filed last year, claiming she was drunk, even though the police found that she wasn't impaired. What contributed heavily to the death was the fact that it was 1:30am, poor visibility, raining, no reflectors or helmet and the kids were riding in the middle of the road with a posted speed limit of 50 mph.

While more than a tragedy for this family, it might have been avoided with better parenting.

Did not apply their brakes properly? If they were hit from behind sounds like she didn't apply her brakes properly.

@10: Agreed. People who attack lawyers are generally people who have not thought their argument through. A lawyer simply represents a person, they aren't some malicious force that starts litigation.

@10 + @20, you are making an oversimplified argument.

The idea that "we should not block off access to attorneys to those with unpopular causes" is only ethically defensible to the extent that her civil rights are at stake. This is not criminal defense - so her *right* to access an attorney to launch a civil suit against these people is pretty suspect. More to the point, the idea that the lawyer (who was NOT OBLIGATED to take this case on the way lawyers sometimes are in public criminal defense) has no ethical obligation here? To not support reprehensible people? Is bullshit.

Criminal defense is very, very different than civil litigation in terms of the ethics of defending possibly reprehensible people. In particular, because in criminal defense one is defending not just the client, but the entire system of criminal justice and the constitutional guarantees of due process for everyone.

@16, that's a relief! Jury trials are pure crazy, glad Canada doesn't subject people to them as much. We're appealing the verdict in NC, but I hear its nearly impossible to get it overturned. @9, the crash was just outside of Chapel Hill, part of the super liberal triangle area, just to clarify.

@23: In any adversarial legal system (like Canada and the US), you have the right to a lawyer. They simply represent your side and give the best argument from your perspective. It doesn't matter if it is a civil case or a criminal case. A lawyer is simply a professional who represents his or her client's side.

I don't really understand what you are proposing. Are you saying that a lawyer should only take a stake if they think their client is ethical, even before all the facts are clear? Or do you think it is somehow unethical for a professional to provide legal representation to someone you think is acting unethically even while the lawyer follows all the laws and ethical guidelines of his or her profession?

I think what you are trying to argue is that giving people access to expert legal information is dangerous and you think it should be restricted to only good people.

Years ago I was riding my bicycle as close to the right-hand curb as I could safely get, and I was hit by a woman making a right-hand turn in front of me. Since I was a car, I didn't count.

As I lay on the ground trying to figure out whether I had been harmed, she rolled down the passenger-side window and asked if I had scratched her car.

@25, you have no constitutional right (the "right" I was discussing - the only right worth discussing in this context, in my opinion) to a lawyer in the US system for a generic civil suit - only for quasi-criminal civil cases. Or: show me the US constitutional law decisions entitling me to a court-appointed lawyer in order to sue someone for damages? It may be different in Canada - good point! - but since you appear to have gotten the US wrong, I'll wait for you to provide cited evidence on the Canadian system before taking your word for it. (But are you really arguing that the state is obligated to provide me a lawyer to sue whoever I want to, at any time, for any reason?)

As for this - "A lawyer is simply a professional who represents his or her client's side." - this is only true if the lawyer is court-appointed. Which I very much doubt that this horrible person's lawyer was, in this case, and is essentially never true in the US.

So if the work is voluntary, then yeah - you get ethically judged for the clients you take on. To be perfectly clear, by "ethically suspect" I do not mean to imply that they should be hauled before their state bars and chastised. I agree that would be a problem, and I can see where I was not clear. What I'm saying is the lawyers who choose to work with scumbags are, absent any constitutional necessity or benefit to that work (as in a criminal proceeding), themselves scumbags.

@17 Yeah...there's more to this story than the knee-jerk pitchfork "reporting" (more like a textual version of the Telephone game) would lead a reader to believe.

If anything, this kind of coverage only serves to bolster her counter suit, what, with people gleefully calling for her children to get beaten up and whatnot.

Thank fuck juries aren't internet comments sections.

This is a countersuit by the driver.

@26: You were a car? Are you still a car? How the hell does a car ride a bike? That's hott.

I'm stealing this from another site that covered the same news story (the Reddit thread is here: http://www.reddit.com/r/rage/comments/23…). It's crazy long, I know, but it's completely changed the way I look at this kind of story:

Before this lady is crucified here in the "court of Reddit opinion," let's consider all sides. Playing devil's advocate, put yourself in her shoes.

You're driving home one evening on a dark road. You're sober, you're paying attention to the road, you're not texting or even adjusting the radio. You might have edged a bit above the speed limit hurrying home, but doesn't everyone? The road is clear and you're the only one around.

Suddenly you see a flash of bicycles immediately in front of your headlights and slam on brakes a split second before feeling the horrible bump and crunch. Someone is screaming. You're stunned for a moment in complete disbelief - where could they have come from? You never took your eyes off the road! How could you not see them?

You push it from your mind and jump from the car to help. One kid is running up from a ditch, screaming his friends' names as he runs to the nearest. That boy is howling in agony, severely injured but alive. As you approach, both start swearing at you, calling you names and telling you to get away, to call the cops. You saw another bike go flying over your car, so you run back to a shadowy figure on the road behind, dialing 911 as you go.

Dear god. That kid is torn to pieces. You've never seen a human being in that shape before and you have no idea what to do. How do you aid him? Do you touch him? You try talking to him while you look for an uninjured place to lay a hand for comfort. Maybe you try to hold his hand and keep it together even as you want to panic, retch, run, scream. How the fuck did this happen?

You're pretty traumatized during the questioning, but sometime the next day you're allowed to go home. Nothing in the world looks the same though. The boy you tried to talk to is dead, another might not make it. It's weird to see the sun shining and cars driving by like nothing happened as your spouse drives you home. He calls a psychiatrist as soon as you've settled into a chair, staring out a window, replaying everything that happened. Your mind relentlessly questioning why didn't you see the boys. Telling you this was your fault. If only you hadn't left so late. If only you'd had your high beams on. If only...something.

Your story makes the local news and you see the memorial, the grieving family. You wish you could do something for them. Go to the funeral, send flowers, tell them you're sorry. But they don't want to hear from you. To them, you're their son's killer. You understand, so you sit home, unable to eat or even talk. In fact, by the time the police return to talk about the investigation, you're suffering from PTSD as surely as any war veteran.

The cops tell you that the two survivors and evidence have painted a clear picture. The boys were wearing dark clothing on bikes with hardly any reflectors. They road three abreast and did not move to the shoulder even though they surely saw and heard you coming long before you could have seen them. It was a tragedy, but it wasn't your fault. It could have been anyone. Nobody would have been able to see them and stop in time. There will be no charges.

It's little comfort to you, though. Survivor guilt eats at your mind as you go through the motions of daily life. Nothing will ever be the same after seeing what you saw that night. You haven't driven since and never want to again. Just riding in a car makes you panicky and distraught. You can't go back to work. You can't resume your normal activities. Happiness ended that night, and you're just going through the motions now, no matter who was at fault.

But for the sake of your sanity and your family, you try. The psychiatrist is helping a bit. You're holding up as best you can. Your attorney tells you that the families aren't happy with the investigation results; their child is gone and they want someone to be held responsible. You try to be understanding. They're grieving and want more answers. You cooperate and wait for the second investigation to be finalized.

Then your friend or your son or someone else says, hey...I gotta tell you something before you hear it elsewhere. That's when you learn that the parents are spreading rumors. They say you were drunk or texting. They're telling everyone and it's spreading like wildfire. People stare and whisper at the grocery store. Maybe someone even yelled "murderer!" as you picked up your mail. Prank calls start, maybe some anonymous mail or ugly posts online show up. You tell the police and shut down the avenues people have to harass you, alienating yourself from your extended family and friends as you do.

Then it hits: you're being served with a massive lawsuit, formalizing those allegations. They want to take everything from you and from your family, to leave you bankrupt if they can. The panic attack hits like a freight train as you digest the news. You break down completely and terrifyingly. Maybe it is your fault. You deserve this. Why weren't you the one who died? You've killed a child, you've ruined your family.

Those around you are outraged. They know you didn't text and weren't drunk. You don't deserve this. They want you to heal and move on. You're so emotionally wrecked, you can barely even speak with your own attorney. But your husband is standing strong and tells him to fight it. You've already lost thousands in missed work, paying doctors and psychiatrists and lawyers for something that wasn't even your fault. It's not right, and someone is going to fight for you in this.

The attorney tells you that the best course is to offset their demands with a counter-suit for all the suffering the accident has caused you. You are also a victim here, but instead of letting you heal, these people have dragged matters out, ruined your reputation, unraveled your mental and emotional progress and now threaten you with financial ruin, all for an accident that the police already determined wasn't your fault.
But even this gets taken out of context by the family's lawyers who want to torture you further. They feed a story about how you're suing the victims you killed, as if that's all anyone needs to know. On Reddit, they've rushed to judge you a psychopath, a worthless piece of garbage.

But really, you just wish it had been you who died that night. You don't want this lawsuit, but you do want this nightmare to end. It won't though. The nightmare of running over three kids will replay in your mind for the rest of your life.

@31- He was a car. He got better, but there are some residual effects.

@28:

you have no constitutional right (the "right" I was discussing - the only right worth discussing in this context, in my opinion) to a lawyer in the US system for a generic civil suit - only for quasi-criminal civil cases.

Sure you do. You don't have a right to a publicly paid lawyer, but you have a right to hire a lawyer, which is the point of my argument. The rest of your argument is an obvious strawman (based on the idea that I somehow think that civil suits should be publicly paid lawyers), so I won't discuss it.

@34,

You have a right to hire a lawyer if you can find one willing to work for you. "Right" implies that some lawyer, somewhere, is obligated to work for you. That only is the case in criminal law, which is what a bunch of people have been patiently trying to explain to you.

@32 yes, I think that we don't know enough about this case to condemn the driver. In my town some kids were killed in a car accident when they swerved into oncoming traffic. The adult driver of the other vehicle was not at fault, and yet has to live with what happened every day. His name was not released and there was no lawsuit, but if the families had gone after him aggressively, I could understand a counter suit. Again, don't know what the story is in this case.

@32 and 36

I'm glad I read your comments (#32, I know yours was a repost, but it was a worthwhile read). Why? Because I was that kid— or would have been, if it weren't for inexplicable luck. Crossed a three-lane highway at dusk, no lights, no helmet, and then, BAM— a car hits me and my bike, sending me flying towards the curb on the other side.

My injuries? A sprained ankle. To this day, I still don't know how I made it out of that alive and neither does anyone else. But I'd bet anything that the driver was on his knees that night giving thanks that I was OK.

@32 Thank you Outsider, for a much-needed breath of sanity. I'm a little disappointed that Dan would pre-judge a story like this without considering the obvious fact that in a car-bicycle accident, it's possible the cyclist(s) could be to blame.

@17, it sounds like the reason she was not found impaired was because her cop husband "spirited her away" from the scene. And better parenting? That's kind of rough. They were 16. Parents probably thought they were at each other's houses (if they're anything like I was at 16).

@23 and @25. Canadian lawyer here. You both might find it interesting to note that the Canadian oath taken on admission to the bar includes a vow not to "promote suits on frivolous pretenses" or variations on that theme depending on jurisdiction. There is in fact an ethical duty on lawyers not to advance lawsuits that have no basis in reality, lawyers in Canada are not free to advance any case simply because the client is willing to hire them and pay for it. I am a civil litigator and have turned away would-be clients, telling them their proposed lawsuit was bound to fail and I was not willing to be part of it. Of course, there is much grey area about what is a frivolous lawsuit, and I don't know enough about the facts of this one to make any comment on the lawyer's decision to take on and advance the case.

@32 there are several influential points of fact that I don't think are totally settled yet, at least not in my mind. Were the bikes equipped with reflectors? Because you can see those things, unless you're cresting a hill, from as far as 500 feet. Easily. And what about her "not even adjusting the radio" or whatever. Not texting. Not drunk or high. Are these things in fact true? And you (redditor) even admit that she might have been speeding (ohh but we all do? what?). Fault is fault. If the boys were 100% at fault, as you are saying, I don't really see how. She didn't see them? There's THREE of them! Did ALL THREE cyclists remove the reflectors from their bikes? Something isn't right in your emotional recounting of what sounds like an impossible hypothetical situation. I know being an accidental killer of a teenager is tough, but what the fuck? What.The. Fuck. She wants to be paid for her suffering? Why should they have to pay, please tell me. Do they need punishment for something? Do they owe her because they're at fault?

So, uh, it says the kid was with two friends, right? So, the chick is suing the dead kid, the other kids, the dead kid's parent, and the dead kid's brother, who has since died? Did the dead kid's brother just die of a completely unrelated incident? Because that's what it sounds like.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/04/25/dri…
@43, The brother of the killed boy OD'd in his bed six months after the accident.
"A South Simcoe Police report shows Simon admitted that she was driving at 90 km/h in an 80 km/h zone on the two-lane road. She claims she didn't see the boys or any of the orange-red pedal reflectors.
The report also states: “No breathalyzer was performed. Although police say no alcohol was suspected and no charges were laid.
Simon’s husband, Jules Simon, a York Regional Police officer, was driving behind his wife that night, but little is mentioned about him as a witness in the police report. He pulled over when Brandon was struck and shortly after drove his wife home in his vehicle."

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/04/25/wit…

@42 "Lachance remembers pulling over and seeing the red glint of bicycle reflectors from the busted bicycles in the ditch. "

@32 In this particular case, she was allowed to go home before the other witnesses. From the article linked above: "One thing continues to trouble her, she said, is why she and other witnesses were forced to remain at the scene for hours, until 5:30 a.m., as police conducted their investigation, while the driver of the vehicle and her husband were allowed to go home."

@32: Thank you for that soothing balm of moral relativity in this sea of snap judgment and baseless accusation.

@43: The brother died of an overdose of alcohol and pills about six months after the incident.