Orin Kerr explains.
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From the monthly archives:
April 2010
Is the Japanese company super-extra-resistant to discovery demands, or is it just behaving the way other automakers would, backed up by a Japanese legal environment that is less oriented than ours toward compulsory disclosure-on-demand managed by hostile lawyers? Michael Fumento: “it’s clear from the article that the ‘experts’ upon whom the journalists relied aren’t just lawyers, aren’t just trial lawyers, but are trial lawyers suing Toyota.”
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I’ve got a few thoughts at Point of Law on the continuing uproar over prosecutions of international human rights violations against the will of the home countries of the alleged perpetrators.
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Assemblywoman Barbara Clark (D-Queens) has proposed ousting thousands of commonly encountered food products from New York’s grocery shelves. [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason "Hit and Run"]
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A leading Japanese newspaper revives the old, curious claim that by posting web content one acquires the right to order others not to link to it. [NY Times via Sullivan] Earlier here, here, etc.
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“Knowing why and how startups can be sued into oblivion will give you a new appreciation for the problems in the patent system.” [Sawyer at Feld Thoughts via Pete Warden]
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…Defensive medicine costs you more than money. When was the last time you asked for telephone advice? Doctors are very, very leery of giving meaningful advice over the phone, because we can’t take the risk of this kind of conversation in front of a jury…
Everything we say and do is supposed to be documented, too – to defend ourselves. Every wonder why the doc spends so much time scribbling in the chart, instead of talking to you? It’s not because we like writing. It’s because every single day we’re reminded that the chart is our only defense.
Do you think this hasn’t increased health care costs? Do you think it hasn’t affected the relationships doctors have with patients?
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San Francisco warns against infused bitters, the New York City health department cracks down on raw egg whites, and Virginia’s ABC state commission keeps many exotic spirits out of reach (Reason.tv via Reason “Hit and Run”).
Cory Doctorow describes what sounds like a heavily lawyered-up recommendation process. [Flickr]
“In a new move against the online gambling industry, Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration is attempting to use an obscure state law to recover losses incurred by Kentuckians who placed bets through Web sites.” Three times the losses, in fact. [Stephanie Steitzer, Louisville Courier-Journal]
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Ohio: “A state court judge demands $50 million from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, claiming it wrongfully exposed her and her daughter as the source of online comments about the judge’s cases, including a criminal prosecution over the murder of 11 women. Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold and her daughter, Sydney, seek damages for fraud, defamation, tortious interference, breach of contract, and invasion of privacy. ” [Courthouse News, Solove/Concur Op] Earlier here.
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“An 86-year-old Vancouver fraud victim has taken a stand against Canada’s biggest bank, saying her Royal Bank branch shouldn’t have allowed her to withdraw $10,000 on her Visa card to give to a scam artist with no questions asked.” [CBC]
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A Canadian biotechnology company has filed a $250 million lawsuit against a well-known Wall Street commentary site over coverage by reporter Adam Feuerstein. “To put that number in context, it’s roughly twice Generex’s market cap.” [Felix Salmon, Reuters]
Commenter “Anonymous Attorney” writes:
Part of the litigation explosion includes every other person with a back injury claim being sent for invasive “fusion” or other drastic spinal surgery. Of course, defendants, often through insurance, foot the bill for these very expensive procedures. In my time I saw dozens of cases involving, say, a 5-mph fender bender that resulted in these surgeries. It was almost as if plaintiff attorneys and doctors worked together to push them through because they would multiply damages 5-fold for the lawyer, and of course the doctor gets paid handsomely, too. The cost of some surgeries can approach $100,000. A few doctors were known for never seeing a patient who didn’t “need” these surgeries. Courts and juries, of course, take anything a doctor says on its face, and so they’d go along.
A study in JAMA now confirms these are grossly overprescribed and often a really bad idea, medically. Note that this particular study excluded patients admitted as a result of vehicle crashes or with vertebral fractures or dislocations, which nonetheless leaves many other injuries that can fit the pattern: slip-falls, workers comp back strains and so on. I think it’s safe to say that if the JAMA authors ever do a study looking at car crash plaintiffs, they’ll make similar findings.
By the way, the New York Times actually beat JAMA to the punch on some of this, like the doctors owning financial stakes in the surgical equipment companies.
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The [officers'] widows believe that if someone had been listening to [Maurice] Clemmons’ jailhouse phone calls, their husbands could still be alive today. …
While they were recorded, the calls from the Pierce County Jail were never monitored. No one heard them. …
[Pierce County sheriff spokesman Ed] Troyer said it was “preposterous” to think that the county could have listened to every phone call made from the jail.
“It would take over 40 people and $50 million a year to do,” he said. “Plus, we don’t even believe that it’s legal just to randomly listen to people’s phone calls on a full-time basis.”
Washington has gone farther than other states in exposing its state and local governments to exposure in lawsuits alleging failure to prevent crime.
Update: Families drop claims the next day after highly adverse public reaction [Seattle Times]
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They can make it sound, notes WhiteCoat, as if the law firm itself rather than its client was awarded the verdict.
Funny warnings from Antenna Direct of Missouri [Consumerist] And Australian prawns (shrimp) are sold with a reassurance that the accompanying promotional material is “not implicitly or explicitly directed at minors, excluded persons, or vulnerable or disadvantaged groups.” [Hey, What Did I Miss? (Institute for Public Affairs)]
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