story<\/a> apparently touched the heart of Dallas lawyer Tyler Milton. He wrote me: \u201cI\u2019m a condemnation lawyer and have litigated against the city quite a bit. Have her call me. I\u2019m happy to help her pro bono and see if we can get some compensation for her door. No promises though. The law is murky and usually in favor of the municipalities.\u201d<\/p>\nI did my part: \u201cDeborah,\u201d I said. \u201cMeet Tyler Milton.\u201d<\/p>\n
Legal strategy<\/p>\n
Milton and his legal partner Christopher Norris of the Dawson &\u00a0Sodd law firm got to work. At first, their request for $4,100 was denied. No surprise there.<\/p>\n
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Pro\u00a0bono\u00a0\u2014 doing the case for free\u00a0\u2014 is no small thing. Milton told me these lawsuits are extremely rare because \u201cthey\u2019re really hard, challenging and expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
They realized that they needed to apply \u201ca little pressure\u201d to City Hall and what he called \u201cgovernment resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
They put on the pressure two ways. They found two similar court cases that could be applied. And they told city lawyers they were ready to file a lawsuit. \u201cI was hoping that logic and reason would prevail,\u201d Milton said.<\/p>\n
The city attorneys looked at it again.<\/p>\n
The city likely realized, the lawyers said, that legal costs would exceed $4,100.<\/p>\n
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I certainly didn\u2019t have hope. As I wrote last year, \u201cSadly, she\u2019s likely to be left holding the bill \u2014 another Texan caught in a system designed to protect the government, not the governed.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A]()
<\/p>\n
A Dallas Fire Rescue officer tries to repair Deborah Kane’s door after officers knock it down to gain entry. But it was the wrong house.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Deborah Kane<\/p>\n
A rare case<\/p>\n
I \u00a0underestimated the skills of two determined Dallas lawyers, and, to its credit, the unexpected compassion shown by the Dallas city attorney\u2019s office. The city attorney’s office did not return my call.<\/p>\n
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The other day Kane went to her mailbox and found a check from the city of Dallas for $4,100, the full cost to repair her door.<\/p>\n
Kane told The Watchdog, \u201cI can\u2019t thank you enough. This never would have happened without you, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a letter to Kane, Milton wrote, \u201cIt\u2019s not often that big cities back down, but I\u2019m so glad they did in this instance for you. I\u2019ve worked on hundreds of cases over my career, and I can honestly say this is one of my very favorite results in the last 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Government immunity remains a formidable barrier for people seeking compensation. That\u2019s why this outcome matters. It shows that persistence, good\u00a0lawyering and a willingness to reconsider can sometimes overcome even the toughest odds.<\/p>\n
Note: If you\u2019re looking for a lawyer who may work pro\u00a0bono for you, a good place to start is your local county bar association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deborah Kane poses at her home in Dallas. Kane was shocked when Dallas Fire-Rescue broke down her door,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,87998,88952,131829],"class_list":["post-372203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-dallas","tag-tp-dallas-city-hall","tag-tp-watchdog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}