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TagsWashington's House of Representatives has responded to a Senate bill making cell phone use a primary offense (that is, you could be ticketed just for that) by reassuring teens that their status as second-class citizens is secure. The Seattle Times summarizes the House bill, saying it:
...makes texting a primary offense, but use of a handheld phone by a driver 18 or over would remain a secondary offense. Teens would be barred from any phone use.
Now, it's true, teens are in general terrible drivers. For one thing, they're sleepy all the time. On NurtureShock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman write that "young adults are involved in 55% of the 100,000 fall-asleep crashes annually, even though they aren't even close to being half of the driving population."
But one thing you don't see in legislators' quotes is a reference to data showing teens are any worse at driving while on the phone than terrible adult drivers. (They may use the phone more often.) What you get is Rep. Dan Roach proclaiming, "The libertarian in me comes out with these types of issues." That's the adult libertarian, I guess. Because creating a law that applies only to a minority would give strict libertarians pause.
Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt said, "I don't like the government being in all aspects of our business." Just teens' business. That is fine. Now the House and Senate have to come together on either the Senate's "That's it, no one gets to hold the cell phone!" ban or the House's "Meddling teenagers!" version.
It's tough out there for a teen. They're sleep-deprived, and they're broke. As Jon Talton points out, teenage unemployment has risen to a "scary 25 percent." Now they might have to sit in the car and watch mom and dad yap away on the cell phone, knowing if they did the same thing, it'd be one more thing that they could get busted for.
After writing about the progress of the Washington state Senate bill that would make cell phone use while driving a primary offense (and a $124 ticket), I got an email from the people behind PhonEnforcer, an app that simply turns your phone off when you're driving. When you've stopped, you can turn it back on.
The bill passed in the Senate (33-15), by the way, and is now in front of the House transportation committee. But Chris Morgan with PhonEnforcer makes a good point about whether a law alone will get the job done. Down in Torrance, CA, a "cell phone sting" brought in 41 distracted drivers in just over an hour. So that's a significant amount of behavior to change by writing tickets. People, after all, still speed.
PhonEnforcer ($14.99) is one of a growing number of cell phone applications that respond to customer demand for safer driving--many aimed at parents who want to make sure teens don't multitask their way through the windshield. PhonEnforcer notifies the app's "manager" if someone tries to change the settings. There's also ZoomSafer ($2.99/mo.), TXTBlocker ($9.99/mo.), cellcontrol (price n/a), and DriveSafe.ly (Pro: $13.95), to name just a few....
Trees at risk: each year, 200,000 trees just like the ones in this grove, go to the blade for junk mail.
When the U.S. Congress passed the National-Do-Not-Call-Registry into law in 2003, and improved it in 2007, it became one of the most popular government programs in our nation's history. Almost overnight, the Registry stopped millions of obnoxious calls from interrupting the average American's dinner or Saturday morning sleep-ins. It wiped out the most intrusive, unwanted, and annoying communications development since Alexander Graham Bell implored Watson to "Come here, I want to see you."
I say nearly, because the DNCR left a few loopholes that continue to annoy us all. Exemptions for non-profit organizations and political calls continue to be allowed. This is a problem, but make no mistake: The Registry has been a stunning success that's allowed many of us the chance to eat our meals in peace.
Now the Seattle City Council has the chance to right a litany of wrongs when they vote on a resolution to petition the state legislature to ban junk mail. The council will vote for the resolution to create a Do-Not-Mail-Registry on January 11.
I could reel off a massive list of environmental reasons it's a good idea. The appropriately, and somewhat humorously-named group ForestEthics sent around a blast email to local media chock full of the "environmental impacts" of the local junk mail trade. For the ultimate guilt trip, consider these factoids:
- Almost 200,000 trees are cut for Seattle's junk mail every year
- Junk mail sent to Seatteites causes global warming gases equal to almost 6,000 cars, due to logging and industrial emissions
- It costs more than $400,000 a year to dispose of Seattle's junk mail.
That cleanup total, by the way, is paid by us through taxes. So every day my wife pulls the junk mail out of the mailbox and throws it into the recycle bin in one deft move, it's costing us money....
When former Seattle Sonics owner Clay Bennett first announced the he intended to move the team to his home state of Oklahoma, he and his co-owners were met with a slew of lawsuits.
The City of Seattle sued to enforce a lease that would have held the team here until 2010. Howard Schultz sued claiming that the new owners he'd sold to had lied about their intentions for the team.
From the outside, it looked like a sound strategy: hold the team here for two years and bleed the new owners hard enough to force a sale to local owners.
But the plan fell apart when Bennett’s skillful attorney Brad Keller dismantled the Mayor, the City’s experts and, seemingly, the entire case on the witness stand. The City settled with Bennett for a few breadcrumbs and Schultz dropped his suit.
Bennett was gone and so were the Sonics.
But under the radar, off the front pages, three Sonics season ticketholders launched a lawsuit against Bennett and the Professional Basketball Club (PBC) claiming that they had been lied to. And now, just over a year after the Sonics left town, that little lawsuit is working its way to trial and is the last, best hope to finally get some satisfaction and legal leverage against an arrogant ownership group that many feel lied, cheated, and stole from Seattle.
This week, all 2007-08 Sonic season ticketholders received notice about their participation in a class action lawsuit against the Professional Basketball Club LLC. The documents contained in the notice outlined the history of the case and asked ticketholders if they would like to be represented in the class or decline participation.
Behind the legal talk, the documents bear witness to a remarkable case. Robert Brotherson, Patrick Sheehy, and Carolyn Bechtel, the three ticketholders named in the suit, had a compelling complaint.
In early 2007, the Sonics sent out a renewal package to all season ticketholders. In the brochure, which featured a letter signed by Clay Bennett, the Sonics offered all ticketholders a commitment that if they bought tickets for the 2007-08 season, they could buy tickets for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 season at the same price. They called the program the Emerald Club.
It was clear that the club was hoping to salvage at least some business for the season. Some might say they were desperate.
The three plaintiffs took the offer at face value and bought the tickets. They might also have believed that the offer meant the team was staying for the final two years of the lease.
(Disclaimer: The author is a former Sonic season ticketholder and a member of the Emerald Club; as such, he is a member of the class in the lawsuit)
One year later, while the lease fight was heading for court, the Sonics emailed all Emerald Club members and said that, with the lease up in the air, they would not send out renewal packages, but would notify them when the case was settled. The Sonics never called back.
The plaintiffs believe that failure to offer them the right to buy season tickets at the 2007-08 price, even if the team was in Oklahoma, is a breach of contract.
“When we first started on the lawsuit, the Professional Basketball Club owners basically laughed at us,” said Mark Griffin, an attorney at Keller Rohrback who was appointed by the court as class council. “They said it was ludicrous to hold them to a contract promise to let the plaintiffs buy tickets at the 2007-08 prices. They asked the court for a summary judgment and probably thought the whole mess would be swept away.”
It didn’t work out that way. The case landed in the court of the Honorable Richard A. Jones in the United States District Court. Jones is a Seattle native, the brother of Quincy Jones and, no doubt, someone who attended Sonics games in the past. Probably a lot of games.
Jones is known as an excellent judge, a keen legal mind and an even keeled jurist who decides cases based on facts. He made a summary judgment in February 2009. The judgment, which can be read online at www.sonicsclassaction.com, dismissed most of the PBC’s claims and threw out the plaintiffs claim that the brochure and subsequent action constituted a violation of the state’s consumer protection act.
But Jones left intact the plaintiffs claim that the Sonics entered into a contract with ticketholders and then broke that contract. He ruled that all season ticketholders in the Emerald Club were a class for the purposes of the suit. He further ruled that the plaintiffs had suffered damages, though he could not rule on what the amount of the damages could be.
He wrote: “These, however, are not issues that the court can resolve as a matter of law. A jury must decide what damages are, and whether those damages were within the reasonable expectation of the parties when they entered the Emerald Club Contract.”
And those words no doubt sent a chill down the backs of the Professional Basketball Club LLC.
“He did a very smart thing,” said Seattle attorney Michael A. Maxwell. “The case appears to be unique, and where there is no precedent to rule on, you turn it over to a jury. In effect, the judge ruled that a Seattle jury would decide the amount of the damages. I doubt that was what Bennett wanted to hear.”
Maxwell believes that Bennett does not want to take the stand on the record in Seattle and does not want to face a jury.
Griffin agrees. “Anything can happen with a jury, and anything is a scary place to be for them.”
Both point to language in the summary judgment that calls out the PBC for “deceptive practices.” Judge Jones clearly spelled out a pattern of deception. If the case goes to jury in January as planned, the jury is going to hear one hell of a lot of information that, frankly, Bennett doesn’t want out. You know, like emails from the NBA telling Bennett that the Emerald Club brochure was a bad idea.
I say ‘if’ because it’s likely Bennett will want to settle.
“I’d bet he’s dialing his phone like crazy right now trying to get a deal done,” said Maxwell.
Cheering the case on from the bleachers is former season ticketholder Eric Tirnauer, a former Emerald Club member.
“It’s great,” said Tirnauer, a rehabilitation therapist in Seattle. “When I got the Emerald Club brochure in 2007, I definitely thought it meant they would ride out the lease. My wife and I purchased the tickets in the belief we could buy the same seats at the same price for the following two years. This lawsuit is proof that we were misled.”
Tirnauer is understandably bitter about the loss of the Sonics. A long time fan who moved to Seattle in part to be closer to the team, he has tried to put the hard feelings behind him, but some pain still bleeds through.
“I still haven’t been back to a Starbucks and never will,” he said.
But is money enough to heal the wounds? “No,” he said. “There isn’t enough money to replace the pain of losing the team. But it is a chance to flip Bennett off one last time. I really hope they win the case.”
Tirnauer probably isn’t alone in thinking that every little hurt helps. Nickels lost his job, the Oklahoma Thunder is a pathetic excuse for a team, and Bennett and co-owner Aubrey McClendon have been hurt by the economy (McClendon had to sell his prized wine collection to raise capital, poor fellow). On the other hand, we don’t have the Sonics.
But we have this lawsuit. For now, it’ll do. It’ll do.
You can buy that Sonics pin for $35 at Gasoline Alley Antiques.
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