5 Comments on “Settlement Reached in Lawsuit of Long Branch BOE, Ferraina”

1. 
   Guys who loses everytime guy said at 1:07 pm on January 28th, 2014:

   $600,000K from taxpayers to an employee was paid with taxpayer money while one the highest paid taxpayer funded employees who is responsible for the *alleged* harassment wasn’t even tried and doesn’t pay a dime out of his pocket (or his pension)…. It seems like if this is the case, then every school employee should be claiming harassment from the guy, there will be no evidence or at least not enough to get anyone in any kind of real trouble, and then some judge will award a $600,000 bonus to each employee… what a scam.

2. 
   Bob English said at 3:40 pm on January 28th, 2014:

   @ Guys….I’m not taking sides here but the article noted that the settlement is being paid by the Board’s insurance carrier and not the taxpayers. Note that the fact that cases are settled out of court is not an admission of guilt or confirmation of innocence.

3. 
   StopitBob said at 6:31 pm on January 28th, 2014:

   So Bob, JoeyBalls pays the insurance for the BOE out of his personal savings account or do taxpayers pay the insurance premium? Or is it other, responsible, policy holders who pay a higher premium because JoeyBalls may or may not have assaulted some nice lady?

   Again, if no one committed a crime, why are we giving money away to the nice lady and why shouldn’t every single employee of the school district who has ever met JoeyBalls scream that they too were harassed or assaulted to get the $600,000 pay day? Maybe they’d be lying, but maybe nice lady, or JoeyBalls, is also lying, no one is checking in a court. JoeyBalls may or may not be guilty and nice lady may or may not be telling the truth, but she’s getting $600K, ultimately FROM TAXPAYERS.

   Also, I’m pretty sure that City of Long Branch is self-insured, I’m not sure if that includes the schools, because, you know, sometimes they just need to have their own expensive, redundant expensive things.

4. 
   Bob English said at 9:31 am on January 29th, 2014:

   @stopitbob: We are going to agree to disagree about where the 600k is coming from. The insurance company is writing a check for 600k. Note that insurance company’s settle for various reasons including what they may potentially be on the hook for and the cost of defending the insured. As the article noted, an arbitrator had previously recommended a settlement of $4.5 million so if I’m the insurance company I am probably looking at paying the 600k pretty seriously as a way to end this and avoid the chance of a much larger settlement. On a personal level in civil cases I have seen an insurance company defend against something they considered very frivolous and not offering a penny to settle (an ultimately winning without having to pay a dime.) I have also been involved in a case where it was thought a very strong position could be defended however with a jury trial and exposure to a possible large award, it was felt a smaller settlement was a better route to go for all concerned.

5. 
   NotAgreeable said at 10:09 am on January 29th, 2014:

   I don’t agree to agreeing to disagree, you are simply wrong, Bob.

   The Long Branch BOE used taxpayer money to fund an insurance policy. The Long Branch BOE also used taxpayer money to pay some lawyer to do defend itself from such accusations, in this case against itself via a former employee by a former employee.

   The lawyer hired, at taxpayer expense, by the Long Branch BOE did not defend or represent the taxpayers’ (who fund the BOE) interests. Worse, the lawyer has no incentive to defend or represent the taxpayers’ interests because IT’S NOT THE LAWYER’S MONEY, he’s going to be paid, by taxpayers, directly or indirectly by the BOE or their insurance provider.

   At the same time, the judge, who is paid with taxpayer money, has no incentive to not award any arbitrary amount to anyone, because IT’S NOT HIS MONEY. Taxpayers, not JoeyBalls, fund the court costs and fees.

   The insurance company is going to pay out the premium, and it’s NOT going to fight back, because IT’S NOT THEIR MONEY either. The insurance company will just raise the premiums on all of their policy holders, which includes raising premiums on policies held by taxpayers. Further, the insurance company has shareholders and lien holders, but regardless, IT’S NOT THEIR MONEY. In fact, the insurance company doesn’t even know whose money it might be, it could be taxpayers, shareholders, lienholders, individuals, corporations, who knows — they just know it’s not theirs, so who at the insurance company cares if they give OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY away.

   Just because you accurately describe “the way it is” doesn’t mean it’s a good system, doesn’t mean it’s a smart system, doesn’t mean that taxpayers should be forced to continue supporting this system. You talk about an arbitrator awarding $4.5 MILLION and then claim $600,000 is a good deal… well why didn’t the arbitrator award $500 million? Then $4.5 million would have been a good deal. Again, it’s NOT THE ARBITRATORs money, and none of these people( a term I use loosely here) have the taxpayers’ interests in mind when they give away taxpayers’ money.

   Worse yet is JoeyBalls continues to get paid, by taxpayers, and the poor lady, who may or may not be lying, is told that either:
   a) It’s ok to lie, there is a $600,000 reward FROM TAXAYERS for lying, and no punishment for lying.
   b) It’s ok to be assaulted, there is a $600,000 reward FROM TAXAYERS for being assaulted, but no punishment to the assaulter.

   Really, I’m just hoping BOEMemberBob doesn’t have something to hide here and wants there to be some precedent in case he either wants to lie to get a bonus or assaults someone and wants to get away with it, all on the backs of taxpayers.