What makes a good judge a good JDR judge? We know training and temperament are important. The ability to handle complexity is also essential and can include reading stacks of material, sorting through challenging facts and maneuvering between difficult attorneys. We begin with The Falling Rocks Case to illustrate how a seasoned judge settled an unusually complicated, decades-old lawsuit. We then review several other cases to pinpoint how good JDR judges handle the complexity of the JDR process.

The Falling Rocks Case

This case study involves a large city building with elegantly designed glass panels, wind, blowing rocks and allegations of nuisance and multiple defenses, such as the claim that an act of God explains the situation. The litigants include the city, the building's owners, the consulting engineers, and eventually the architects who designed a beautiful glass-heavy building. The lawsuits included an allegation that lawyers never want to see: limitations of action. The parties and their attorneys represented the city, the insurers, the building owners, the consulting engineer and the architect.

A storm passed through the city and allegedly blew rocks off the roof of a private building onto the city hall, damaging several expensive class pyramids. A year and a half later, the city advised the building owners to take immediate action to keep it from happening again. A few years after that, another storm blew more rocks onto the city's glass pyramids, breaking over one hundred panels. The city more or less looked the other way, but ten months later, still another storm broke more glass panels. That triggered the first lawsuit.

After hiring an expert to investigate, the city charged negligence in the design, inspection and replacement of the roof. It also charged nuisance for allowing the rocks to accumulate and sought an injunction requiring the building owners to remove the blowing rocks or make repairs to avoid any damage to the city hall again.

The building owners were angry, asserting that the lawsuit was “embarrassing and vexatious.” They denied all responsibility, claiming they had acted properly and alleged that the city either had purchased inferior glass panels or that the panels were installed improperly. Finally, claiming an act of God caused the damage, the owners asked the city to repair the owner's building if an injunction was issued.