http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php Copyright 2012, Steve Duhl Steve Duhl en-US SPHPBLOG 0.5.1 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120522-102428
So, steveduhl.com will expire. After a while, it will go back up for sale. Then, I could buy it.

Or, YOU could buy it. ...if you buy it, I hope you will use it to peddle something socially useful----renewable engergy or a cover for the hole in the ozone layer-----or, twizzlers.

In the meantime, you can find me at steveduhl.net Or, better yet, just visit steveduh.com or stevedahl.com Yes, there is a steve duh and a stevedahl. And, they are probably smart enough to have made sure that they own their names. Actually, Dahl will probably buy mine.]]> http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120522-102428 Steve Duhl Tue, 22 May 2012 14:24:28 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=05&entry=entry120522-102428 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120511-220555 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120511-220555 Steve Duhl Sat, 12 May 2012 02:05:55 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=05&entry=entry120511-220555 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120505-152641
PayPal notified us of the order but said the address couldn't be confirmed so they weren't necessarily going to pay us back if the credit card was bogus. I googled the address and saw that it belonged to a Maine customs company on the other side of the river from Canada. I emailed the customer...who turned out to be from New Brunswick... and told him that we weren't going to ship there. He offered to wire me the money.

I emailed the ebike supplier, ejoe. They said "We won't ship to Canada." The buyer asked me why they won't sell to Canada. I said "Maybe lawsuits." but, really I did not know. (Later, the company told me "We don't even have the bike.")

I offered up a used bike and the buyer's response, more or less, was this:

'I looked at Canadian electric bike import regulations and it seems that the bike will make it through customs,but, if it does't, will you give me my money back.'

Suddenly, I saw it!........Oh..so,that's why they don't sell to Canada.


Note: iScootPalmBeach's ecommerce website came down, today, at its attorney's insistence.]]> http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120505-152641 Steve Duhl Sat, 05 May 2012 19:26:41 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=05&entry=entry120505-152641 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120424-101857
But, the trial court judge threw the case out because the client had signed that Release and the Release operated to absolve the dive boat operator of liability for her injuries...whether or not the injuries were his...his company's...or the boat's fault. I had thought...because of what my father (the boy's clothing buyer) had told me before I skated at Hall's pond...that Releases had no effect. "Of course you couldn't have someone sign away their right to sue obvious negligence...that would just encourage uncaring, bad behavior", I thought.

I did research.... Nothing. I called a lawyer I know who was doing a lot of admiralty (maritime) law to see if the fact that the accident took place in navigable waters...on the high seas...would make a different. "No.", he said. "You're screwed."

So, after we were thrown out by the trial court, I filed an appeal with the local Court of Appeals. I did not yet know exactly the grounds for the appeal...but there had to be somegrounds...right?


The Appeals Court...was making litigants go to mediation at the beginning of their appal to try to settle so that the Appeals Judges would have less work to do. The Defendants offered $10,000.

We took it.
]]> http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120424-101857 Steve Duhl Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:18:57 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=04&entry=entry120424-101857 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120420-141924
-2:22PM, Thursday, April 20, 2012. A's Jeep running poorly. Told B @ X repair shop that Advanced Auto's computer showed a bad distributor and reminded B that they had just replaced the distributor. Left car w/B @8:30AM. @1:32, B called and said it was fuel pump. Part cost $450 but w/labor would be under $500. B said couldn't cut part cost 'cause markup only 10-15% but wld "work w/me" on labor. Went to Advanced Auto. Told pump cost approx. $210. Went to mechanic OC, told his part cost was $193. OC & I agreed pump cld explain hard start but not rough idle. Really, OC had tested codes on 4/19 and said showed distributor....(I lied to B about who ran test so he wldn't think I was mechanic shopping. Had called B @ 1:46 and said I'd texted A who said she had no $ and would live w/Jeep as it is....also lie...had told B that we wld pick up car.) When I told B that A's friends had replaced pump, he said probably only pump and no "pump assembly". I confirmed with both Advanced and OC that pump price included everything usually installed w/pump replacement. Returned to office from OC @ 2:19.-

Get dates of phone calls from your phone. Write them down. Judges are impresed when someone knows the time that something happened. Remember exactly what was said? Write it down. Be upfront about white lies you told to spare feelings...or to avoid being unduly confrontational.

And make your notes as soon as you can because your memory will fade quickly

B's memory about his plan to make more money from A's car may fade ... Mine won't.

Note: Here's another example...

At 5:17, B called and left a message on my cellphone voicemail..."I found a cheaper pump.".......5:27PM 4-20
]]> http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120420-141924 Steve Duhl Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:19:24 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=04&entry=entry120420-141924 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120419-135129
The platform was made of strips of wood about 2" in width staggered in a grid so that the wood alternated with open space. The openings let water flood the platform as the boat's stern came down in the water and let water drain quickly when a swell pick the stern up in the air. A moment before my (future) client took her final step into the water, her swim fin caught in the space between two strips of wood and, as her body continued forward, her ankle snapped...a victim of that law of physics that says "A body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force." For my client, the body in motion was.....her body....while the body at rest was...for the moment before her ankel snapped... her foot.

Before my client had stepped onto the boat (and, after a car trip across the state from Tampa), the boat operator asked her to sign a Release that said, more or less...."You can't sue us for damages if you are injured, even if the injury was the result of our negligence."

Of course, we did the obvious: we filed suit.

To be continued.


]]> http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120419-135129 Steve Duhl Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:51:29 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=04&entry=entry120419-135129 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120414-111320
Near the pond was a sign that said "SKATE AT YOUR OWN RISK" and, anticipating my future profession---I guess, I remember asking my father at a very young age (for both of us, looking back) "What does the sign mean?" And my father said, more or less, "They want you to think that if you fall through the ice and hurt yourself or die, that you can't sue the county but, really, you can." And so based upon my father's legal analysis (he was a buyer of boy's clothing for department stores), I concluded that Releases were of no effect.

So, I thought, if I signed a piece of paper relieving the go-kart guy from liability for injuries caused to me while I was careening his go-kart wildly across his go-kart track...I could sue him anyway if I were injured. And, if I walked past a sign marking the edge of a ski trail that said "SKI AT YOUR OWN RISK"...and I busted a leg because there was a stump the ski area operator should have discovered...I could dump a lawsuit on the ski area like it was nobody's business.


Later in life, I went to law school-----where Releases were not mentioned while I was paying attention (I did very well in law school, so that was most of the time). Later than that, I started lawyering...which is when you beign to actually learn stuff.


One day, I got a call from a woman who broke her ankle stepping off of a dive boat out of the Riviera Beach Marina.

To be coninued.......NOTE: As I was writing this, two men came in with copies of a tourist magazine iScootPalmBeach is advertising in . One of them told me that he was the marketing director for an Orlando "indoor skydiving" attraction (you "fly" in a plexiglass vacumne tube). He began telling me the states and countries that visitors to the vacume tube came from. I was asked him how he knew. He said "Everyone has to sign a release and we get their zip code when they do." I showed him this blog entry and said "I was writing this when you walked in."]]> http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120414-111320 Steve Duhl Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:13:20 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=04&entry=entry120414-111320 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120331-135135
And, with this in mind, I took a walk last night over to CityPlace to pick up a tandem bike that I had left outside of the Mexican place. It was around 9:30PM. As I approached Quadrille, the railroad crossing gates at Hibiscus...two blocks South...were starting to go down. I saw the headlights of the train, headed North. I decided to make a run for it across the four lanes of Quadrille and across the tracks before the gates on Fern went down. I didn't consider whether I would be unlucky enough to stumble on the tracks or get my foot caught between the rails...running for it and beating the train seemed like the best thing to do.

But, just as I was about to take off, someone in a car to my left yelled "Steve". I didn't recognize the voice...or the car...and couldn't really see who it was. So, I walked towards the car and realized...because it was the new, black Volvo that Chris from upstairs had bought...that it was Chris-from-upstair's wife who was calling my name. She offered me a ride but I said "no" and headed West across Quadrille.

The train, by now, was thundering past and the noise was deafening and disorientating. I reached the concrete median and dropped my phone into the street. I bent down and picked up the phone. It was intact...the back cover was on and the battery hand't gone skittering away. As I continued towards the West side of Quadrill, I opened the phone to make sure it worked. It did.

I took one more step towards the West side of Quadrille...I was almost past the median... and, as I did, I finall looked up JUST IN TIME to see a black van headings South in the left lane at around 45mph at just about the spot where I would have been had I taken one more step.

Was the van driver an idiot for driving at 45mph within a few feet of a pedestrian who obviously wasn't looking where he was walking? What was wrong with the other lane...10 feet away from me? Didn't his horn work?

Of course, the only person stupider than the van driver was me.]]> http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120331-135135 Steve Duhl Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:51:35 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=03&entry=entry120331-135135 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120327-121652
I will continue with things I can do with a smile on my face:
-Criminal Defense
-Bankruptcy Chapter 7s(really, you probably don't want to do a Chapter 13)
-General civil litigation including injury.......

I am too old to sit while nice people drive themselves insane with th animosity that most divorces engender. I hereby leave divorces to lawyers who possess at least 3 of the following 5 character traits:
1) "Youth" (not calendar age)along with energy and optimism
2) A desire to engender animosity
3) Obsession for detail
4) Greed for a big fee
5) Hunger to do a good job

.....and, if you are looking for a divorce lawyer, try to find one who combines youth with obsession for detail and hunger. Try to avoid those few who combine animosity with greed.

]]> http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120327-121652 Steve Duhl Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:16:52 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=03&entry=entry120327-121652 http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120320-230305
-Those business-people who tell you that if you link to their website, they'll link to your website are ....how you say?...."disingenuous".

-Those business-people who tell you that they won't do what your business does it you don't do what they do----start competing with you about 3 weeks later.

-Suppliers/Distributors/Manufacturers will sell to you at wholesale prices if you have a website, a location, and a Sales Tax Resale Number.

-Most customers are nice, intelligent and a pleasure to deal with. A few are idiots.

-There is one supplier which requires ...as part of it's requirements to become a dealer.... that you be pleasant in your dealings with them during the "application process". (We never applied because we believed this requirement was either a) condescending or b) an indication that the supplier's people had behavior issues.)

-Suppliers/Manufacturers/Distributors believe it is good to compete with their dealers by offering customers the opportunity to buy direct from them on the internet...at reduced prices.

-The stuff you didn't think was made in China----it's made in China.

-A lot of stuff made in China is good. (But, a lot is crap.)

-The City wants money, the State wants money. (...and we're going to charge sales tax whether or not you pay in cash....do I ask you to do illegal stuff? ....and, after making the suggestion and getting rejected, the cash goes back in the pocket and we get paid with a credit card and have to pay the credit card fees.....oh well.)

-The City is less obnoxious than we thought it would be in enforcing petty rules and regulations.

Having now started a business, I know more about the legal aspects of starting a business than I did before. Also, in five years, iScootPalmBeach will be for sale.

Start saving now.

]]> http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120320-230305 Steve Duhl Wed, 21 Mar 2012 03:03:05 GMT http://www.steveduhl.com/blog/comments.php?y=12&m=03&entry=entry120320-230305