NEW YORK CITY BUCKS

THE TREND;SETTLES FOR HALF A BILLION RATHER THAN LITIGATE. 

 According to an article in The New York Post by Brad Hamilton, the City that Never Sleeps, is also the City that never, well rarely goes to court. And, if you're worried that you have a serious criminal record, and that might seriously effect whether the City will settle with you, well, have no fear.

  The city shelled out a near-record $563 million in 2009 to settle thousands of lawsuits ranging from car crashes to employee discrimination -- and even made a six-figure payout to a criminal who sued the cops.
Alleged Queens drug dealer Roger Bissoon pocketed $150,000, the result of a nine-year-old police-brutality case in which he claimed cops broke his jaw while he was handcuffed.
Bissoon sued for $1 million in 2001 and got his check on April 16 this year -- four months after he was busted for threatening to "shoot and kill" his girlfriend and carrying three bags of crack. He pleaded guilty to drug possession after menacing and harassment charges were dropped.
"In light of his two jaw surgeries and the evidence, we believed that there was a substantial likelihood a jury could have awarded substantially more than $150,000 and that a subsequent offense, nine years later, would not have made a difference," said Fay Leoussis, who heads the Law Department's tort division.
The $563 million total involved about 7,000 cases, all but 31 of them settlements, as opposed to jury verdicts. The city almost never goes to trial -- just 115 of the 2009 cases ever got to court.

 I have to seriously consider opening an office in the Bronx.