Reps. Barney Frank and John Conyers, Jr. spend taxpayer dollars to file a late amicus brief on behalf of plaintiffs’ lawyers and against investors in Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta, taking issue with my Wall Street Journal op-ed on the case. (H/t L.R.) To wit, “A number of commentators have called for the Court to decide this case by reference to policy considerations nowhere found in the statute.” This is wrong: the op-ed explicitly noted that Congress had twice rejected precisely the sort of liability that petitioners were seeking in this case. It is also ironic: civil securities fraud liability was created by judicial fiat out of a statute that had no private right of action.
Archive for July, 2007
Sears wheel alignment class action, cont’d
More coverage of the Sears wheel-alignment case (see May 18) in which lawyers were slated to get $1 million and the client class $2,402 (not $2,402 apiece — $2,402 in the aggregate):
A North Carolina judge has harshly criticized the settlement of a class-action lawsuit in which a Wilmington lawyer and colleagues received $950,000 in fees while consumers who Sears overcharged across the country were reimbursed a total of $2,402.
Superior Court Judge Ben Tennille decried the excessive fees and the lack of effort made to reach customers who had paid too much for wheel alignments at Sears automotive centers. Tennille, who specializes in complex business cases, criticized Sears and the lawyers for trying to hide the settlement results from him.
“Their efforts to keep the results secret are understandable,” Tennille wrote in his May decision. “The shocking incongruity between class benefit and the fees … leave the appearance of collusion and cannot help but to tarnish the public perception of the legal profession.”…
“Doing the math in this case is easy,” the judge wrote. “For each class member who received a $10 check or $4 coupon, plaintiffs’ counsel received just shy of $3,000.”
(Joseph Neff, “Fleeced Sears patrons shorted again in settlement”, Raleigh News & Observer, Jul. 23; Ed Cone, Jul. 24). The settlement was initially brought to a wider audience’s attention by Nick Pace of the Rand Corporation at Consumer Law & Policy blog (May 17).
Update: restaurant dropped from Josh Hancock suit
St. Louis: “The family of late Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock dropped a wrongful-death lawsuit against Mike Shannon’s restaurant stemming from the player’s death in April.” The family and its lawyers had been widely criticized (May 24, May 29, etc.) for the breadth of the net they cast in their lawsuit, including the driver and owner of the tow truck into which Hancock smashed, and “the driver of a disabled car on the highway whom the tow truck driver had stopped to help”. (“Shannon’s restaurant dropped from wrongful-death lawsuit”, ESPN, Jun. 30).
July 31 roundup
- Can’t possibly be true: Tampa man sentenced to 25 years for possession of pills for which he had a legal prescription [Balko, Hit and Run]
- Plaintiff’s lawyers “viewed [Sen. Fred Thompson] as someone we could work with” and gave to his campaigns, but they can’t be pleased by his kind words for Texas malpractice-suit curbs [Washington Post, Lattman; disclaimer]
- Pace U. student arrested on hate crime charges after desecrating Koran stolen from college [Newsday; Volokh, more; Hitchens]
- Little-used Rhode Island law allows married person to act as spouse’s attorney, which certainly has brought complications to the divorce of Daniel and Denise Chaput from Pawtucket [Providence Journal]
- Lott v. Levitt defamation suit kinda-sorta settles, it looks like [Adler @ Volokh]
- Trial lawyer Mikal Watts not bowling ’em over yet in expected challenge to Texas Sen. Cornyn [Rothenberg, Roll Call, sub-only via Lopez @ NRO]
- Frankly collusive: after Minnesota car crash, parents arrange to have their injured son sue them for negligence [OnPoint News]
- Canadian bar hot and bothered over Maclean’s cover story slamming profession’s ethics [Macleans blog]
- Five Democratic candidates (Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Biden, Richardson) auditioned at the trial lawyers’ convention earlier this month in Chicago [NYSun]
- Donald Boudreaux’s theory as to why Prohibition ended when it did [Pittsburgh Trib-Rev via Murray @ NRO]
- Speaker of Alaska house discusses recent strengthening of that state’s longstanding loser-pays law [new at Point of Law]
Guestblogger thanks
Thanks to Skip Oliva for helping fill in here again over the past week. Skip’s posts drew notice from, among others, Prof. Bainbridge and Liberal Order. You can read more of his work at the Voluntary Trade Council blog and the Mises Economics blog.
iSue
I wonder what the quickest time between the introduction of a consumer product and the introduction of the consumer fraud class action lawsuit is. Apple’s new iPhone was released on June 29, 2007; last Thursday, the first — as far as I know — class action lawsuit was filed. (I’m sure that this doesn’t qualify as the fastest consumer lawsuit, but I am curious.)
A Chicago-area resident, Jose Trujillo, is suing Apple and AT&T under Illinois’s “consumer fraud” law; the typo-filled complaint claims that the defendants failed to disclose to consumers that the phone’s battery — like that of the iPod — could only be replaced by Apple, and not the user. The suit also alleges that the battery only lasts for 300 charges and will have to be changed annually; given that Mr. Trujillo has had the phone for a maximum of a month, and that each charge lasts for several days, it is unclear how he could possibly know this or have a good faith basis for alleging it.
The suit contains the usual features of bogus consumer fraud litigation, such as claiming “fraud” without identifying any false statements, but instead by alleging a failure to disclose information that was widely known; attempting to represent consumers who are perfectly happy with the product; suing based on hypothetical damages that may or may not be incurred in the future; and claiming to be an unhappy consumer, but failing to act as an ordinary consumer would — e.g., by returning the product for a refund.
Incidentally, I just got a new cell phone (not an iPhone) last week. I checked the box; nowhere does it disclose that the battery won’t last for an infinitely long time, or that I will have to pay for a new one when it does die. Also, I’m pretty sure the car dealership that sold me my SUV never mentioned that it required a substance called “gasoline” to run, and that I would need to keep buying this substance. I wonder if I’ve got a case.
As an addendum, the trial lawyer in this case, Larry Drury, is no stranger to ludicrous “consumer” litigation; he played a leading role in the bogus Million Little Pieces class action suits. (Covered on Overlawyered in many posts). And he once sued Arista Records over the Milli Vanilli “scandal.”
BlawgWorld 2007
The folks at TechnoLawyer have just released a free eBook that serves as an engaging introduction to the world of law blogs. BlawgWorld 2007 (PDF download) pulls together posts or other excerpts from 77 legally oriented blogs, including this one. There are embedded links, so you can quickly follow up on the ones you like. It’s all free, as mentioned, and intended as a way to draw attention to TechnoLawyer’s services. (Their press kit mentions us at about the 2:50 mark.) Blawg Review has more.
“Felony sexual abuse”
In McMinnville, Ore., it may consist of fanny-patting in school hallways by seventh graders. Following a public outcry, Yamhill County D.A. Bradley Berry has now dropped the felony counts — the resulting status as registered sex offenders might have followed the youngsters through life — but he still wants to have Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison at least given probation on misdemeanor counts. (Scott Michels, “Boys Face Sex Trial for Slapping Girls’ Posteriors”, ABCNews.com, Jul. 24; Mark Steyn, “Swat somebody’s butt, and yours belongs to the D.A.”, Orange County Register, Jul. 28; Jeanine Stice, “Gene’s right about The McMinnville Two”, Salem Statesman-Journal, Jul. 24). Update Aug. 22: charges dropped.
William Shatner lawyer ads
Could Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, more recently a success in “Boston Legal”, actually be in enough need of work to do low-budget ads like this? Apparently so.
See You Some Other Time!
It’s time to end my week of guest-blogging here. Thanks again to Walter Olson and Ted Frank for indulging my ramblings. Since I’ve used most of my posts to dwell on the evils of antitrust regulation, I’d like to try and go out on a more positive note.