“A criminal who escapes officers by climbing on the roof of his house has been banned from every rooftop in his borough — in case he falls and sues police.” [Telegraph]
{ 2 comments }
From the monthly archives:
April 2010
A nasty fall on a train platform puts Larry Mendte face to face with some widely held attitudes that seem to treat litigiousness as a given [Philadelphia Magazine via Common Good].
{ 4 comments }
- Liquor commissioner of New Hampshire nabbed on DWI rap, refuses breathalyzer test [WMUR]
- Slumber party liability waivers are something we’ve reported on before. But home trampoline disclaimers? [Free-Range Kids]
- Website’s terms and conditions include giving up your immortal soul [Popehat]
- Scottish jury says charges “not proven” against lawyers in case of monetary demand for return of stolen Leonardo da Vinci painting [Guardian, earlier]
- If you’re going to shake down food makers with false claims of contaminants in their wares, it’s best to vary your story patterns [Tacoma News-Tribune, Seattle Times]
- “My task is simple: spew foundationless tripe that turns itself into a pre-trial settlement demand.” [The Namby Pamby, a lawyer blog I really should have linked before now] More: Daniel Fisher, Forbes.
- Why plaintiffs lawyers aren’t so thrilled about recent Toyota revelations: most are invested in blaming electronics, not stuck pedals or mats [WSJ Law Blog]
- Duck hunters sue guide over disappointing trip [Fred Hartman, Fort Bend, Texas, Herald]
{ 4 comments }
Arizona Sen. John McCain is under fire for asserting on the Bill O’Reilly show that “the drivers of cars with illegals in it … are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway.” It would be natural to assume he was referring to the well-established “swoop-and-squat” racket described repeatedly in these columns — here, for instance. You might think illegal aliens would avoid these scams for fear of deportation, but you would be wrong: they are well represented among the participants.
I hold no brief for McCain, and I doubt very much that the workings of this particular criminal subculture should figure among the top twenty policy considerations in deciding how best to handle illegal immigration. And if a Senate spokeswoman is to be credited, McCain may actually had in mind the phenomenon of high-speed police chases — though it is far from clear why those crashes would ordinarily count as intentional. But blogger incredulity about the idea that car crashes can ever be intentional seems misplaced.
{ 7 comments }
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is chipping away at one of universities’ few defenses by limiting the use of student surveys intended to measure interest in athletic offerings. “This reform rollback by the Obama Administration is a gift to the trial lawyers’ lobby and will mean that more sports teams will be eliminated [as] at Duquesne University where 4 men’s teams were recently terminated, said CSC President, Leo Kocher. ” [College Sports Council; Neal McCluskey, Cato at Liberty; earlier; background; more at CSC's Saving Sports]
{ 2 comments }
“A substantial number of heart doctors — about one in four — say they order medical tests that might not be needed out of fear of getting sued, according to a new study,” reports the Associated Press. The study appeared in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. More: WSJ Health Blog.
{ 21 comments }
Discussion: 
Ken at Popehat, Ilya Shapiro at Cato at Liberty, and Eugene Volokh in several posts. Our earlier coverage is here. More: Writing for the Capital Research Center, Neil Maghami finds the Humane Society of the U.S. not so warm and fuzzy, policy-wise.
(For the Gadsden flag as illustration idea, h/t Above the Law.)
Several recent investigations of large companies under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) have resulted in large fines as punishment for bribery payouts totaling hundreds of millions. Now a FCPA prosecution of an individual, Charles Paul Edward Jumet, for improperly paying $200,000 to obtain lighthouse and buoy contracts in Panama, has resulted in a 7.25 year prison sentence. While Jumet’s conviction is based on other charges as well (making false statements to federal agents), Mike Koehler at FCPA Professor wonders whether justice is being served equally.
It’s rather…ambitious. [Esguerra/EFF, BoingBoing, h/t reader Keith D.]
{ 5 comments }
The Food and Drug Administration is planning a crackdown meant to lead to “the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products,” reports the Washington Post. We’ve been warning of such developments for a while, and they come as little surprise given President Obama’s pick of hyper-regulator Margaret Hamburg as FDA commissioner.
P.S. Perhaps we should invite comment from the New York Times journalist who sternly admonished an interview subject recently: “You shouldn’t trivialize issues of health and safety by calling them nanny issues.”
{ 15 comments }
Amid wall-to-wall reporting on the SEC’s action against Goldman Sachs over an aromatic mortgage-securities deal, this bit of NYT coverage of one of the central figures in the investigation, hedge funder John Paulson, should not pass without notice:
Amid criticism of investment strategies that profited from mortgage defaults, home foreclosures and other miseries, Mr. Paulson has also given $15 million to the Center for Responsible Lending for a center devoted to providing foreclosure assistance to troubled borrowers.
At the time of the donation, Mr. Paulson said of the center and its work, “We are pleased to help them provide legal services to distressed homeowners, many of whom have been victimized by predatory lenders.”
More on Paulson and the CRL in a March paper by Sean Higgins for the Capital Research Center. Background: Eric Gerding, The Conglomerate.
P.S. Pattern here? Ira Stoll at Future of Capitalism notes later news developments involving the contributor of a Financial Times op-ed piece that ran under the headline, “Obama Must Act to Curb Executive Greed.”
P.P.S.: And more: At Pajamas Media, Stoll takes a closer look at Paulson’s public policy involvements. And yet more. To summarize the modus operandi: Place huge bets that mortgage portfolios will suffer losses in value. Then plow millions into advocacy efforts whose effect is to worsen those losses. Maybe this is business as usual in some sense, but it’s curious to imagine lauding Paulson for his public-spiritedness.
- Tossed: “Zulu coconut lawsuit thrown out on appeal” [NOLA.com; earlier on this Mardi Gras tradition and the law Louisiana passed to protect it]
- Maryland: “Felony Charges for Recording a Plainclothes Officer” [Rittgers, Cato at Liberty]
- More on decline of local slaughterhouses under federal regulation [Zachary Adam Cohen, NYT "Room for Debate"; earlier]
- “Now Brussels has declared that tourism is a human right” [Times Online via Coyote]
- Three taxes that are a more immediate danger than a VAT [David Frum; my take, at National Journal blogger poll]
- “WorldNetDaily Sues White House Correspondents Association Over Dinner Tables” [MediaBistro, more]
- Department of Labor vs. internship programs: one target’s view [Terry Michael, Reason; earlier]
- Allegedly easy way bloggers can comply with FTC endorsement regs [Chris Pirillo]
{ 1 comment }
They’re dropping the case rather than pursuing an appeal, so aside from having dragged him through a miserable and expensive process, it’s a happy ending. [Respectful Insolence, Popehat; earlier here, etc.]
{ 1 comment }
AmLaw Daily has the story. Although we’ve covered Heller before, it’s never been entirely clear why the coveted title should have been conferred on this one guy against so many rivals, at least absent some American Idol-like competition of obnoxious NYC lawyers.
{ 1 comment }
Concerns are raised about a provision in the Dodd financial services reform bill. [Robert Litan, HuffPo via Timothy Lee, Cato at Liberty and Mike Masnick/TechDirt; John Mauldin, Frontlinethoughts.com/ Business Insider]
{ 3 comments }
Things you’re missing if you’re not keeping up with my other site:
- Despite New Yorkers’ outrage over railroad retirement disability abuses, Cuomo probe accomplishes little;
- Founded by America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® RFK Jr., the Waterkeeper Alliance is with reason a highly controversial group. Should the University of Maryland be enlisting students regularly in its litigation campaigns?
- NYT relies on plaintiff lawyer source in accusatory story about Pope, then has to walk the story back;
- Louisiana judge: “gradual”, “environmental” insurance exclusions don’t apply to bad-drywall claims;
- New CPSC product complaint database could invite erroneous or even malicious submissions, critics say;
- CBS “60 Minutes” stonewalls Columbia Journalism Review critique of its Chevron-Ecuador segment.
{ 1 comment }
Jacob Brochtrup jumped into the water to retrieve a tow rope, and was gravely injured when the boat’s driver, who didn’t know he was there, backed the boat up. A Texas federal jury has now found the Brunswick Corp. partly to blame and told it to pay $3.8 million. His attorney argued that “manufacturers could make boats and motors safer by installing guards on propellers and placing a shield over the back,” something that current boat designs do not do. [Austin American-Statesman via Continuous Wave] Related: March 19 (tablesaw design not adopted by industry). More: Abnormal Use.
{ 6 comments }
The ten-second commercial for Anthony “Tony the Tiger” Lopez Jr. on Spanish-language radio told listeners: “If you have had an auto accident, by law you have the right to receive at least $15,000 for your case.” The Nevada Supreme Court reprimanded Lopez, upholding the findings of a bar disciplinary panel that said his marketing had “harmed the public by fostering unnecessary and unwarranted litigation by people who were not necessarily entitled to any recovery.” [Las Vegas Review Journal via ABA Journal]
{ 1 comment }
