MY FAVORITE definition of "chutzpah" used to be the one where a man kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.
Now I can top it.
A little girl is allowed to die a horribly painful death, deprived of water, food, the most minimal level of care.
City agencies are blamed for the death, and rightly so. But the real killers are her parents, who kept her in a dark and filthy room so they wouldn't have to hear her cries for help.
The parents are charged in the death, treated as a homicide. Then they sue the city for not stopping them . . . from killing her! Throw in a few lawyers, and we have a new and improved version of "Philly chutzpah."
Like everyone else, I've been transfixed by the tragic case of Danieal Kelly. I didn't want to write about it, unable to find words that had more than four letters. I thought it better to let the grand jury report, an uncommonly eloquent legal document, speak for me.
But when Andrea and Daniel Kelly decided to desecrate their daughter's memory by filing a wrongful-death suit against the city, among others, silence was no longer possible.
So - I apologize . . .
To anyone who ever provoked me by telling a stupid-lawyer joke.
To anyone who ever misused Shakespeare's line "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
To anyone who ever said that my profession was filled with bloodsuckers and parasites.
I apologize because I no longer have the right to be offended when people ridicule my colleagues.
Brian Mildenberg and Eric Zajac are the reason for that.
These two men agreed to represent the Kelly family in the civil suit filed on behalf of Danieal's estate. (How tragic that a 14-year-old has an "estate.")
According to a report earlier this week in the Daily News, the attorneys contended that it would be wrong to paint Daniel and Andrea Kelly as "money-grubbers."
Frankly, that description is one of the kinder ones that come to mind.
Fortunately, the law boys realized how repulsive it was to have these parents suing the city, so they did some triage and tried to have them removed as administrators of the estate.
Of course, this doesn't mean they still won't be able to cash in at their child's grave. As grieving parents, they'll try to collect for the loss of their daughter's "companionship," or as we in the business call it, "consortium."
Pass the Pepto-Bismol.
