Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
From the monthly archives:
Another round of coverage [BBC] for a health peril we’ve covered a number of times in the past. Gawker: “How many more people must die before Michael Bloomberg does something about candles? Children can buy them and everything! We must sue Big Candle.”
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The judge will definitely not be happy. [Daniel Schwartz, Connecticut Employment Law; Above the Law]
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“School board members in Mount Vernon agreed Wednesday night to resolve a federal lawsuit by paying $5,500 to the boy and his family and $115,500 to their lawyers.” [AP/NBC4i] We covered the case, in which a teacher is alleged to have branded a cross onto a pupil’s arm, in July; the teacher, John Freshwater, has himself filed a civil rights action against the school district charging religious discrimination, and a suit by the parents against Freshwater remains ongoing.
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Ruth Zafrin of Brooklyn is tired of being the subject of one-liners and humor delivered on stage by her daughter-in-law, comedian Sunda Croonquist, and has sued her for defamation, joined as plaintiffs in the suit by a daughter and son-in-law who also figure in the comedy routines. Croomquist’s husband Mark Zafrin is an attorney and his law firm is defending his wife against the suit, perhaps making for tense conversation at family dinners. [New York Post, New Jersey Law Journal, WSJ Law Blog.]
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The Wikipedia entry on that topic makes one list of the ten best Wikipedia entries. We covered the Ernie Chambers lawsuit here, here, and here. Law Is Cool points out that the entry for “Lawsuits Against the Devil” deserves a look as well. More: Advocates’ Studio (noting that “no pocket is deeper” than the Almighty’s).
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Perhaps the most buzzed-about story while I was on vacation (I’m back now) was the frank acknowledgment by former Democratic Party chairman (and former physician) Howard Dean when asked why liability reform was omitted from the health care redesign. 
From the New York Times “Prescriptions” blog:
The man then asked why tort reform was not part of any health overhaul.
Dr. Dean replied that the more items in a big bill, the more enemies it will have. “The people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else,” Dr. Dean said.
Dr. Dean also said he believed that patients should be able to bring actions against health care professionals, but they should go to arbitration. Then the case could go to trial, he said, but the arbitration verdict should be submitted as evidence. Not much reaction to that either way.
Mr. Moran [Northern Virginia Congressman Jim Moran] then apologized to the man whose identity he had questioned and added his 2 cents about why tort reform was not part of any bill. He said if it were, such a bill would have to go through the judiciary committee, which he said was one of the most partisan in Congress and would never have reported it out.
Commentary: Mark Tapscott/Examiner, Washington Times, Darrin McKinney/ATRA, Dan Pero linking Tiger Joyce/Investors Business Daily, Charles Krauthammer/FoxNews.com via Carter Wood/PoL and NRO “Corner”, Fred Barnes/Weekly Standard.
Relatedly, Philip K. Howard writes on “Stonewalling Legal Reform“, citing a Jon R. Gabel piece in the Times that rebuts a much-touted-by-trial-lawyers Congressional Budget Office report minimizing the likely cost reductions from malpractice reform. From the American Spectator Blog, “Conservative Leaders on Costly Lawsuits and Health Care Reform“. And Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO reiterates his argument that while malpractice reform is a good idea, it shouldn’t be imposed on the national level by the federal government.
More: Jim Lindgren at Volokh Conspiracy skewers an appalling report on health care “myths” which received, but did not deserve, the imprimatur of Indiana University.
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Eugene Volokh recalls (with a followup) a groundbreaking 1973 case in which the Tenth Circuit ruled that it could be found negligent for a supermarket to have installed a silent alarm that summoned the police when a holdup was in practice; a hostage was killed in the resulting shootout. The case is consistent with others in which lawyers have advanced theories summed up in the phrase “negligent provocation”.
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Lowering the Bar has the curious details.
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A Canadian plaintiff’s lawyer credits them with reducing defendants’ propensity to file obstructive motions [AmLaw Daily, interviewing class action attorney Andrew Morganti -- last paragraph]
Matt Blumberg of Return Path, Inc. struck a nerve with a business readership with this recent post on hassles with the legal department, and this followup.
The South Carolina blog-libel case we covered in April, which resulted in a $1.8 million verdict, has now concluded in a settlement between the parties, per Citizen Media Law.
At least that’s the advice one lawyer gave in a speech to the annual convention of SHRM, the human resources managers’ group. [HR Daily Advisor citing Jonathan Segal of Duane Morris, via Hyman]
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Calm down, it’s just a satire [Scott Ott/Scrappleface in D.C. Examiner]
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“In Minnesota legal circles, a newspaper once wrote of him, David Moskal was ‘known for several remarkable achievements, including the fastest disbarment in the state’s history.’” Not content with making more than $1 million a year through his injury practice, Moskal also stole millions from clients. Even after his disgrace, he passed himself off as an attorney while working as a client liaison at a spine-injury center. [Legal Blog Watch, MinnLawyer, WestWord (which also has an interesting background article on the relations between lawyers and injury-treatment clinics in Denver)]
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And did a small defendant wind up being added to the list of those sued in an intellectual-property suit just in order to secure venue in the plaintiff-beloved Eastern District of Texas? [Ars Technica]
Commentaries from various quarters on the dreadful child-safety law:
PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGES from Leslie Brooke, illustrator, Oranges and Lemons: A Nursery Rhyme Picture Book (1913), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.
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I expect to take this week off from editing the blog. I’ve prepared some posts to auto-post through the week, but comments will either be turned off or held automatically in the moderation queue (where they may not be reviewed for several days). If you’ve got something you want to say and find that comments are closed, hold the thought and check back next week.
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