3d DCA Watch -- "I Am Sure the Trial Judge Meant Well"!

 
Judge Shepherd assumes the best in Judge Cardonne Ely's order granting a nominal amount of maintenance and cure to an injured seaman, but dissents from Judge Salter's affirmance:

I am sure the trial judge meant well. One also could not be faulted for detecting a tinge of sympathy for the seaman in the opinion of the majority. However, our legal system requires more than heartfelt sympathy.

Agreed, but what?

What is that missing ingredient?

(Readers, feel free to offer helpful suggestions!)

Maybe it's a sense of proportionality and reason when it comes to resolving disputes -- can you believe the State of Florida is still paying beau coup bucks to quality outside lawyers and still badly losing defending citrus canker cases?

OY VEH, has the State won anything out of this program, other than bad will and a string of legal defeats?

Just reading the Order, citing losses by the State in cases already tried in the 4th DCA, you come away with a sense that this thing is locked on autopilot, not unlike the old Soviet Union's nuclear Dead Hand.

Finally, a case about "mending the hold" -- one of my favorite obscure legal doctrines!