- More criticism of $671 million California nursing home verdict [Tracy Leach/Examiner, California Civil Justice, earlier]
- Community service as precondition for college tax credits? [Charlotte Allen/Minding the Campus, earlier]
- Casket-making monks vs. Louisiana funeral regulators [Ken at Popehat]
- Careful about repeating claims that bad stuff in the environment is causing children to go through puberty earlier [Sanghavi, Slate]
- Grilled chicken: “California Restaurants Lose Appeal On Cancer Warnings” [Dan Fisher/Forbes, earlier]
- Randy Maniloff on the uncertain foundations of insurance bad faith law [Mealey's, PDF]
- “Why Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Fashion” [Raustiala/Sprigman, NY Times, earlier on design "knockoff" legislation here, here, and here]
- On a personal note, this week I completed my relocation from the New York to the Washington, D.C. vicinity. I look forward to seeing more of my friends both at the Cato Institute’s offices and elsewhere around D.C.
Tagged as:
Design Piracy Prohibition Act,
insurance,
Louisiana,
national service,
nursing homes
His hometown newspaper, the Greenwich Time, profiles the Connecticut attorney general who’s now running for Senate against Republican nominee and televised wrestling impresario Linda McMahon. Jane Genova, previewing the race at Pajamas Media, quotes me on the competing forms of showmanship involved:
Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute… puts it this way: “So now Blumenthal, known for years of legal posturing and grandstanding against business opponents, will face off against someone known for building the World Wrestling Entertainment empire. I’d say the two operations actually resemble each other in many ways, except the spectacles Blumenthal puts on have been more stagy and less dignified, and the opponents getting beaten up aren’t there of their own free will.”
Tagged as:
Connecticut,
Richard Blumenthal
“There has been a growing effort over the past decade from groups such as Smoke Free Movies and SceneSmoking.org, which hosts the annual Hackademy Awards, to pressure Hollywood into cutting back the amount of smoking in films. Now those groups are getting government support for their cause from US Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) and Joseph Pitts (R-PA) and from a group of health organizations, including Legacy, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization.” [Washington Post] Legacy, incidentally, is a group created as a result of the $246-billion state-Medicaid tobacco settlement whose purposes include pushing for further “tobacco control” — one of many examples in this area in which government-driven funding is employed to further advocacy on one side of controversial issues.
Tagged as:
movies film and videos,
tobacco,
tobacco settlement
A Florida man was arrested for violating a protective order prohibiting contact with his estranged spouse after he attempted to “friend” her on Facebook [Slatest via Josh Blackman]
Tagged as:
domestic violence,
Facebook
- Judge bans $1.35 billion sugar beet crop for lack of environmental impact statement [NY Times]
- Brennan Center, Justice at Stake attracting attention with new report on money in state court judicial races [report in PDF, Kang/ConcurOp]
- Obama signs “libel tourism” bill into law [Levy, CL&P]
- “Zach Scruggs claims new evidence clears him” [Patsy Brumfield, NE Mississippi Daily Journal via YallPolitics]
- Second Circuit panel blasts 1980s abuse-accusation panic in ruling on Friedman case [opinion via NYT and Bernstein/Volokh]
- Famed Cincinnati lawyer Stanley Chesley may face disciplinary action before Kentucky bar over role in fen-phen scandal [Courier-Journal via Dan Fisher and PoL]
- Sexual harassment verdict against California casino “amounts to 2/3 of the company’s net worth” [Fox, Jottings]
- Every White House needs to hire some partisan brawlers. But with “ethics czar” duties? [Matt Welch, Reason]
Tagged as:
Barack Obama,
child abuse,
damages,
Dickie Scruggs,
environment,
ethics,
harassment law,
judicial elections,
Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud,
libel slander and defamation,
Stan Chesley
Terry Nichols, who did not seem notably concerned about the health of the Oklahoma City victims, has now developed an interest in healthy foodways, but a federal judge did not go along with his request to order that his diet be changed to include more whole grains and fruits. [Lowering the Bar]
Tagged as:
prisoners
In 2006, I wrote:
In May 2001, Cheryl Jane Hale was driving four children to a sleepover in her 1987 Ford Bronco. She didn’t bother to have the children wear their seat belts, so, when she took her eyes off the road to argue with the backseat passengers, and thus drove off the road and flipped the car, 12-year-old Jesse Branham was thrown from the car and suffered brain damage. A jury in Hampton County, South Carolina (the second jury to be impaneled—the first one was dismissed in a mistrial when it was discovered after two weeks of trial that five of the jurors were former clients of Branham’s lawyers) decided that this was only 45% Hale’s fault, held Ford 55% responsible, which puts Ford entirely on the hook for $31 million in damages.
On Monday, the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed because of prejudicial closing arguments that relied heavily on inadmissible evidence. More importantly for lawyers practicing in South Carolina, the Court adopted “the risk-utility test with its requirement of showing a feasible alternative design.”
How bad of a judicial hellhole is Hampton County? Though Hale was a co-defendant, she cooperated with the plaintiffs throughout the trial in their case against Ford, even sitting at the plaintiffs’ table; but because the judge classified Hale as a co-defendant, it meant that Hale got half of the peremptory challenges of the “defense.” More from Comer; no press coverage that I’ve seen yet. (cross-posted from Point of Law)
Tagged as:
autos,
closing arguments,
Ford Motor,
joint and several liability,
jury selection,
personal responsibility,
problem jurisdictions,
product liability,
seatbelts,
South Carolina,
SUVs
As we have seen in earlier coverage, automakers will get sued over some kinds of accident if they decide to use laminated glass, and sued over others if they decide to use nonlaminated glass. Now Ted at Point of Law has details of another case, this one against Ford, in which the South Carolina Supreme Court held that NHTSA regulations resolved the issue at hand and should not be second-guessed by tort litigation. Unfortunately, as Ted notes, the trial bar and its allies in the Obama administration are doing their best to weaken the preemption defense, which would open up maximum scope for sued-if-you-do, sued-if-you-don’t litigation of this sort.
Tagged as:
Ford,
preemption,
South Carolina,
sued if you do,
tempered glass
Title IX From Outer Space dept.: “A sports conference that always scheduled weekday basketball doubleheaders in which women’s teams played the first game — letting the men play in the later time slot — has altered the practice, after an anonymous sex discrimination complaint charged that this made the women’s games appear to be a ‘warm-up’ act for the men’s games.” [Inside Higher Ed via George Leef, NRO "Phi Beta Cons"] More: Coyote.
Tagged as:
Title IX
It’s the 2010 Ted Frank law-school-speaking tour!
September 9: Louisiana State
September 15: New York University
September 16: Columbia
October 6: Texas Wesleyan
October 7: St. Mary’s (San Antonio)
November 9: Ohio State
November 10: Toledo
It’s not too late to get on the calendar if your school’s Federalist Society is interested.
Tagged as:
Federalist Society,
law schools,
Ted Frank
“A San Diego lawyer has irritated business owners in the town of Redlands, Calif., by sending out letters on behalf of clients demanding $6,500 settlements for claimed violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and related state law.” [ABA Journal; attorney James Mason]
Tagged as:
ADA filing mills
Hoist on their own petard? “Are U.S. law firms losing international business opportunities because a surprising number of in-house lawyers prefer to seek counsel in other countries? That’s the conclusion of a survey that suggests global companies would rather be advised by British firms.” One of the apparent factors involved is that international firms often prefer dealmaking that specifies British or European rather than American jurisdiction in case of later dispute. [David Hechler, Corporate Counsel]
Tagged as:
lawyers,
United Kingdom
Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders, who won a moment of fame nationally for heckling then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey at a dinner, may conceive himself as a champion of the underdog, but if the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s coverage is accurate, he doesn’t always manage to convey that stance in the most felicitous way: “Sanders said his job as a Supreme Court justice is to make sure ‘the smallest dog can lift its leg against the largest tree.’”
Tagged as:
judges,
Washington state
