City Hall willing to settle.We came across some news today that made us want to stop typing and go throw our bodies in front of oncoming garbage trucks: The City of New York paid out $563 million to settle about 7,000 cases. That's a lot of accidental ways to get rich quick!

Of the thousands of lawsuits filed against the city, only 115 ever went to court, and all but 31 of the payments doled out were settlements. Turns out, the city hates going to court because juries might give out bigger rewards than people would take in a settlement. At the same time juries would also probably throw out a lot of the cases, but, thanks to a new streamlined policy for dealing with suits, the city would rather just settle and give residents a boatload of cash.

All this only strengthens that old motto "you can't fight City Hall," mostly because they hate fighting. But, apparently, they love rolling over and paying people to be quiet. Now that's how you run a happy city!