I apologize for the source, even though sites like the Huffington Post reported on the filing of the lawsuit (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clock-kid-ahmed-mohamed-lawsuit_us_57e9ad3fe4b024a52d29e8af) I didn’t see any of them reporting on the results. From reading reports on other sites it looks like the Clock Boy’s family will be paying huge legal fees and court cost because they have to pay the legal fees for everyone they named in the suit in addition to their own. One article I read mentioned that the family will appeal the decision.
My question for those that are more familiar with the legal system, do they have to pay all the court cost and legal fees before they can appeal or will appealing allow them to put off paying all the lawyers until their appeal is heard? Do they have to have new evidence to appeal or can they appeal just because they didn’t like the judge’s ruling?
They do not have to pay the costs that have been assessed against them to appeal, but there are other costs associated with appealing, and filing an appeal will not stay the enforcement of a money judgement against them. In order to stay the enforcement of the costs and fees that have been assessed by the trial court, they would probably need to post a bond sufficient to cover the costs down the line.
Thank you @calmom I’m both glad that their current judgement won’t prevent them from filing an appeal and that the filing an appeal won’t prevent the enforcement of the judgement against them (lawyers want to get paid!)
Do you know what they need to file an appeal, other than money? New evidence, proof something was wrong with the original trial? Or can they file an appeal based on just disagreeing with the first ruling?
I was part of a suit and the judge (federal) did make paying all of the costs of the trial court a condition of appeal. There are timing issues so I think the appeal (or notice of appeal) was allowed to be filed, but they could not serve us until the lower court costs were paid. The fees for the trial court were substantial as there were 50 or more days of depositions, a 4 week trial, expert witnesses, even my salary (I was a paralegal hired just for this trial). I’m not sure who paid the fees as the plaintiff was a university professor, but someone did pay. He had been represented pro bono by a large Washington DC firm (that covered his costs of the pretrial and trial). I’m sure if the court hadn’t made the payment of the costs due before the appeal, those costs never would have been paid.
Note that there are two suits around this incident. This one was a defamation suit against right-leaning media and the mayor of the City of Irving; presumably such media are the first to notice anything that happens with this suit. Information from the court house can be gotten by putting DC-16-12579 into the document search at https://courtsportal.dallascounty.org/DALLASPROD/Home/Dashboard/29 .
Wow! They threw in everything including the proverbial kitchen sink in the school lawsuit! It will be very interesting to see how that works out. From their complaint it seems they are saying that Muslim = African American with what they are citing. I thought Muslim is a religion not a race I know many AA Christians.
The suit even complains that even though the father was fluent in English he had an issue that his son was provided with “Christian” reading volunteers to teach him English. I’m sure he could have opted out of free tutoring.
@3scoutsmom, I’m not sure why you are so defensive about asking the point of a post. There is always a point to be addressed in a post. Whether it’s to bring closure or to keep a debate on a particular perspective going, people always have reasons to bring up stuff.
Why else make a commentary about the father’s objection to Christian reading volunteers as “they threw everything into the proverbial kitchen sink”? It’s obvious that you wanted to bring something into the conversation. To deny this would be disingenuous.
@3scoutsmom -an appeal has to be based on an argument that there was something legally erroneous about the ruling. I’m not following this particular case, and I don’t know anything about Texas legal procedures, but it appears that the case was thrown out early on based on the pleadings – either on a motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment. So the basic argument on appeal would be that the trial judge was legally wrong to throw out the case.
The case that has been dismissed (defendant by defendant, not all at once) was brought in a state court, from what I can tell based mostly defamation type claims. The case against the school district and city is in federal court, and a civil rights claim. We can’t tell what the status of that case is as only the complaint was posted. It was filed last July so it is likely an answer has been filed or a motion to dismiss, or an answer with a motion for summary judgment.
I would think that her point was that this was a frivolous suit, and at least upon that particular point, I would agree. I don’t think there is anything wrong whatsoever illustrating complaints in the suit that were overreaching. Seems odd that after all that, they chose to move back to the US from Qatar.
What I don’t get is that the kid was born in the US and lived in Texas until he was 5 years old, he had older siblings in an English speaking school, his father is well educated and speaks fluent English, his mother speaks some English. They moved back to Sudan for two years and then return to Texas yet when he started third grade he “knew no English”
I really think the parents had some responsibility to teach their kid English instead of complaining about the religion of the VOLUNTEERS that donated their time to help their son learn English.
That seems odd that he would know “no English” after living here for five years, you’d think he would pick up something, kids usually do. Hard to believe.
I am born and raised in CA. When I entered kindergarten at the age of 5 I knew very, VERY little English. At home my parents spoke their native language and we tended to associate with a similar demographic. However, by the time my sister came along - 6 years later - English had definitely infiltrated our daily speech and she was much more proficient when she entered kindergarten.
CB’s family may have made a point of not speaking English in the home.
FWIW… I was proficient within a very short period of time. Total language immersion and the expectation of my teacher made it a fast transition.
A 5-year old really isn’t all that proficient in English to begin with. Then you take that 5 year old and immerse him completely in a different language for 1st and 2nd grade, so he hears no English anywhere, at school, home or in public. It doesn’t seem surprising that the resulting 7-year old would know practically no English, although I would expect them to pick it back up much faster than an actual non-English speaking kid.
Retention of a language learned in childhood requires continued exposure. It is very, very common for children to lose the language they spoke as toddlers or preschoolers if circumstances put them in situation where that language is no longer spoken.
That must have been very difficult, @dietz199. I can see how that could happen if the parents had recently relocated and were not fluent in English. Otherwise, I’m not sure why parents would not expose their children to the common language of the country as soon as possible, so they could benefit from that. Unless, of course, they weren’t planning on staying very long.
I would have thought that a public school system would have been required to provide professional ESL support, not depend on volunteers, and volunteers from a religious organization, to boot. Volunteers in addition to the pros would certainly be nice. As long as they kept their religious views to themselves.