Justin Levine at CalBlog takes a pessimistic view (Jan. 27).
{ 1 comment }
From the monthly archives:
January 2005
…can encourage midnight teardowns, as Ted explains on Point of Law (Jan. 27). See also Feb. 15-17, 2002.
Australia: “A Supreme Court judge has called for the internet to be purged of any material likely to prejudice a trial, to prevent jurors conducting their own investigations into cases they are sitting on. Justice Virginia Bell, of the [New South Wales] Supreme Court, told a conference in Darwin of Supreme and Federal court judges from across the country yesterday that the ready availability of archived press reports on the internet could jeopardise the trial of an accused person.” She recommended that prosecutors “carry out searches on the internet and, in the event that prejudicial material is identified … request any Australian-based website to remove it until the trial is completed”. The secretary of a journalists’ organization called her proposal “silly and unworkable”. (Kevin Meade and Cath Hart, “Judge demands trial web blackout”, The Australian, Jan. 26).
London’s Observer quotes me today on the subject of litigation against schools and in particular the case of Peer Larson, the Wisconsin high school student who’s suing to challenge the right of his honors math teacher to assign homework over the summer (see Jan. 21). (Richard Luscombe, “Homework-hater takes his maths teacher to court”, Jan. 30). Follow the links for more on school litigation and on cheerleader suits (here and here and here.) (In case it isn’t clear from the context, by the way, my mention of large dollar settlements isn’t intended to refer to cheerleading-squad cases). And since overlegalization and the compensation culture are by no means limited to the U.S., we’ve also got a UK section.
“Prosecutors have dropped a disorderly conduct charge against legal reform advocate Carl Lanzisera, one of two men arrested for telling lawyer jokes outside District Court in Hempstead, N.Y. But his comedic and legal reform partner, Harvey Kash, must appear before a grand jury — and Lanzisera has been subpoenaed to testify in the case against him.” (Zachary R. Dowdy, Newsday/South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 27)(see Jan. 13, Jan. 14). Monica Bay (”Common Scold”) comments (Jan. 27).
{ 1 comment }
David Giacalone has some apposite things to say (Jan. 26) about a court’s recent decision to allow a mere $220 million in fees, rather than the more than $600 million sought, to lawyers who’d represented the plaintiff class of merchants in an antitrust suit against Visa and MasterCard (see Jan. 24). In particular, he notes the claim of the class counsel (on its website) that its billing rates “are typically significantly less than those charged by larger firms”; the willingness of big-name legal academics like Arthur Miller and Jack Coffee to hire themselves out to class counsel to bless the fees; and the dubious impact on consumers of some of the injunctive relief obtained by the class (he notes that he can’t use his debit card at Wal-Mart any more).
More on a subject we covered on Dec. 13, Sept. 14, and Jul. 16 of last year: in December British authorities rounded up and arrested the head and various officials of the British National Party, charging them with inciting racial hatred in political speeches (”Let the people of England speak”, The Spectator, Jan. 1). Also in December, the quasiofficial Press Complaints Commission announced a crackdown “on the use of the term ‘illegal asylum seeker’ by newspapers after research revealed its continued usage. Sir Christopher Meyer, the press watchdog’s chairman, has commissioned its cuttings agency to scan all British newspapers for use of the term after a study by the Liberal Democrats showed that the press has ignored the PCC’s guidance issued more than a year ago.” The culture spokesman of the bafflingly named LDP has written to Meyer “calling for harsher punishments for defiant newspapers”, and saying there is “a strong case for considering the imposition of fines on erring newspapers.” (Sarah Hall, “Newspapers flout ruling on asylum seekers”, The Guardian, Dec. 31).
What does an incumbent bus company do when faced with low-price competition? One solution is to raise the competition’s costs by suing. But even I’ll admit that lawsuits are more civil than the violence that characterizes recent competition amongst the smaller bus lines. (Barry Newman, “On the East Coast, Chinese Buses Give Greyhound a Run”, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 28).
More on the LA commuter rail crash (Jan. 27): the Los Angeles Times covers the legal aspects of the case, and suggests prospects of recovery are “slim,” because the accident is Alvarez’s doing. Ten paragraphs into the article, however, the Times acknowledges the principle of joint and several liability, whereby the railroad could be on the hook for the entirety of the economic damages if they’re found 1% responsible for the accident. (Tort reform in California has abolished joint-and-several liability for non-economic damages. Cal. Civ. Code Sec. 1431.2.) Overlawyered has covered numerous cases where the deep pocket was held responsible for the crime of another: for example, ankle monitor manufacturer 20% responsible for murder; apartment complex responsible for carjacking and shooting; beer vendor 50% responsible (plus punitives) for drunk driving accident; automaker jointly liable for drunk driving accident.
Also entertaining is the discussion of the five investigators the California Bar felt they had to send to the scene of the crime and local hospitals to shoo away potentially illegal solicitation by attorneys. (Henry Weinstein, “Victims’ Chances of Winning Big Money Are Slim”, Jan. 28).
{ 1 comment }
The latest installment of our free periodic newsletter went out this afternoon to its c. 2300 subscribers, covering the last three or four weeks’ worth of postings in cryptic, occasionally droll style. It’s a great way to keep up with items you may have missed; when you’re finished, pass on the email to let a friend know about the site. Sign up today, right here.
“Choosing safety over tradition, legal fears over downhill thrills, some local governments, including [New Jersey's] Camden and Gloucester Counties, have banned sledding in their parks.” Phillipsburg, N.J., in Warren County, has had a ban on its books for more than a decade but only began enforcing it recently following a $150,000 payout over a boy’s broken leg. “As a result, it was thought prudent by the insurance company to put signs up saying sleigh-riding is prohibited,” said town attorney Joel Kobert. “Nobody wants to deny a child the ability to play in the snow, but you sanction it in today’s world at substantial cost.” In Greenwich, Ct., which lost a $6 million lawsuit last year to a high-income resident injured while sledding, they haven’t banned the pastime, but that’s probably because the town is among the nation’s most affluent, and can afford to pay an insurance bill and deductible that nearly doubled after the sledding case and other courtroom losses. (Christine Schiavo, “Sledders are finding it tough to hit the slopes”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 26).
View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,
As guileful Fraud points out the erring way:
While subtle Litigation’s pliant tongue
The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong.
(”On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston, Late Lord President of the Court of Session”, reprinted in Harvard Classics, Bartleby.com). Matthew Arnold did not find the poem an impressive example of Burns’s art (scroll to #31).
“A man is being sued by a New Hampshire company for labeling it a spammer and reporting its actions to ISPs, after two years of allegedly receiving unsolicited emails from it. Atriks alleges that Jay Stuler caused financial damage to the firm, resulting in a number of lost contracts. The suit also says that Stuler made defamatory statements against the company, calling it ‘a notorious spam gang,’ and CEO Brian Haberstroh a ‘criminal,’ which the suit denies.” (”Company Sues over Spam Claims”, TheWhir/Article Central, Jan. 20; Jo Best, “Spammed man sued by alleged spammer wants cash”, Silicon.com/The Spam Report, Jan. 18)(via KipEsquire who got it from Privacy Spot).
At least eleven people were killed and over a hundred injured yesterday when a suicidal Juan Manuel Alvarez parked his Jeep on the train tracks, causing a collision that eventually derailed three trains. The lead train was being pushed, rather than pulled, by the locomotive, a common means to save time by permitting more trips to be taken. According to the LA Times, experts disagree whether this has safety implications. (Dan Weikel and Scott Glover. “Train’s Lineup May Have Added to Risk”, LA Times, Jan. 27). Realistically, at a minimum, this design probably makes some types of accidents worse, has no effect on some other types of accidents, and provides additional protection for still other kinds of accidents such as being rear-ended (as happened in a Long Island RR accident last year). But the conclusion that courts draw when reasonable people differ over the optimal train design is not that the commuter rail system acted reasonably, but that a jury of laypeople should resolve the debate by second-guessing whether they did so. So mark January 26, 2006, on your calendars, for you’ll surely see lawsuits seeking to hold Metrolink liable for the consequences of Alvarez’s deliberate actions, just as Santa Monica was sued one year after a driver plowed into the Farmers’ Market there (Jul. 14).
The infamous McDonald’s obesity case (Sep. 4, 2003) was reinstated yesterday on the highly technical grounds that the lower court applied the Federal Rule 9(b) “heightened pleading” standard to the New York consumer fraud statutes instead of the more lenient Rule 8. The court cites no relevant precedent for this assertion, which contradicts the language of the rule. As Jim Copland notes on our sister site, the Second Circuit effectively ruled that it was interpreting the Federal Rules so that it would be nearly impossible to dismiss a New York consumer fraud case before giving the plaintiffs an opportunity to conduct discovery. The decision seems wrong (compare, e.g., Tuttle v. Lorillard Tobacco Company, 118 F. Supp. 2d 954 (D. Minn. 2000)), and its main effect will be to raise the cost of defending against meritless claims–which will encourage nuisance settlements, which in turn will encourage more meritless claims in the hopes of extorting such nuisance settlements. (Pelman v. McDonald’s (2d Cir. 2005).).
{ 2 comments }
In 1989, London’s Hayward Gallery organized an exhibit of Indian and Pakistani artists. Somehow, they lost or damaged 300 of Iqbal Geoffrey’s works, and Geoffrey says he only found out in 1993. Now, sixteen years later, he’s bringing a lawsuit, claiming that the loss was due to racism, and seeking 65 million pounds in damages. This is presumably meant to be a punitive amount, since his works are generally priced at 786 euros, and were likely insured for the 65,000 pounds the museum offered in compensation. Geoffrey is demanding polygraph tests of museum employees. (Jamie Doward, “Artist accuses top gallery of racial prejudice”, The Observer, Jan. 16).
The previous claim to fame of Geoffrey, a lawyer with an LLM from Harvard, was asking Pakistani courts to halt the Virginia execution of admitted murderer Mir Amail Kasi, who assassinated two people in a terrorist attack outside CIA headquarters in 1993. Geoffrey, who calls himself the world’s greatest living artist, is also apparently known in the Pakistani community as a frequent litigant, including a lawsuit for $800 million or so in rupees for a different perceived slight in 1998. (Khalid Hasan, “Sir Geoffrey the Great”, Friday Times, Jul. 19, 2002). Update Feb. 13: letter to the editor with response from Geoffrey.
