Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
From the monthly archives:
Leading birthers Joseph Farah and Jerome Corsi are suing Esquire for $120 million because the magazine published a satirical article headlined, ‘BREAKING! Jerome Corsi’s Birther Book Pulled From Shelves!,’ Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici reports.” [Atlantic Wire, Daily Caller]
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Follow the bouncing blame: “Pleasantville police officer Aaron Hess, who shot and killed Pace University football player Danroy Henry, Jr., is suing a local liquor store for allegedly providing Henry with alcohol. … Hess has been cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury but the U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing the case and Henry’s family has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Hess and the police department.” [News12, NY]
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I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on New York’s vote last Friday to legally recognize same-sex marriage. I also applaud the inclusion of protections for religious institutions (and would have favored strengthening the protections beyond the current level). The WSJ frames the discussion as “Two Views from the Right,” and they’ve got Maggie Gallagher giving the opposite side.
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“In the first fall at 6pm on August 21, 2006, Ms Hargreaves was going to get cough medicine from the fridge in her sock-clad feet…. The tribunal found both falls ‘arose out of Ms Hargreaves’ employment with Telstra’ which made them workplace injuries. Legal experts said the ruling could force employers to conduct workplace health and safety audits in the homes of the one-in-four Queenslanders who regularly work from their private residence for lifestyle reasons.” A law professor said employers “should not enter lightly into home work arrangements” because homes are “inherently dangerous places,” while a labor union spokeswomen said employers should not be able to “contract out” of safety and health obligations. [Courier-Mail; my related take a while back]
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Attorney, for intimidation purposes only, no followup required [Elie Mystal, Above the Law]
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From Jim Copland and Ted Frank of the Manhattan Institute.
“Sleepwalker not responsible for brutal attack” [Calgary Sun via Lowering the Bar, who also contributes the headline above]
Why does Europe generate so few star high-tech firms? Bad labor law is one reason [Brian Palmer, Slate]
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The L.A. Times misses the boat when it acts as if biology — and not known judicial philosophy as expressed in earlier cases — were the factor that best explains Justices’ alignments in cases like Wal-Mart v. Dukes [Eugene Volokh]
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Around the country today, CPSC regulations are forcing retailers to throw out new, unused baby cribs — estimates of the number range higher than 100,000 — that the federal government itself considers safe enough to be used in day cares. I explain the latest Nanny State snafu in a new post at Cato at Liberty.
More: Quin Hillyer, CFIF; Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason. And CPSC commissioner Anne Northup corrects a misimpression in some parts of the press:
The new standards ban drop-side cribs. But the standards also prohibit the sale, new or used, of all cribs – both drop-side and fixed-side – that are not tested to the new standards by a private laboratory. Because very few cribs that were not originally manufactured to the new standards will ever be tested, the new standards essentially ban all such cribs – drop-side and fixed side. As reported in today’s press, millions of drop-side cribs have been recalled. On the other hand, tens of millions of fixed side cribs manufactured to previous standards have never been recalled, never been found to be unsafe, and now also cannot be sold new or resold used.
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The San Francisco board of supervisors will consider a measure that would ban the sale of all pets in the city [L.A. Times, Outdoor Life, Telegraph (U.K.)] (& welcome Above the Law readers)
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Alex Beam at the Boston Globe and Ian Crouch at the New Yorker write about the rise of lawsuits over unsatisfactory book contents, as with class actions filed over Greg Mortenson’s challenged memoirs and, before that, those of James Frey. Beam also brings up the outrageous lawsuit against former President Jimmy Carter and his publisher by someone who disagrees with the views Carter expressed in a book on the Mideast conflict. I’m quoted in both pieces (and at especially generous length in Beam’s). [Boston Globe, New Yorker; earlier here, here, etc.] (& WSJ Law Blog)
Great review by Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin casting a skeptical eye on the trial-lawyer film project (”done in by its essential dishonesty… like any good lawyer — and unlike any good documentarian — [director Susan Saladoff is] intent on concealing the weakness in her case).” Read it here. Meanwhile, from the “How does this sort of thing get past the editors of the Washington Post?” files, there’s this from Hank Stuever:
For to really embrace tort reform, you have to be willing to treat all potential plaintiffs as no-good grifters. … To support tort reform, you have to believe all lawsuits against businesses are a threat to the free market.
Stuever does not, for some reason, name any proponent of reform who has actually asserted either of the propositions. Do you think that might be because he’s trafficking in absurd caricatures? (earlier on “Hot Coffee” here, here, here, etc.)
P.S. More: Cory Andrews, WLF. And if lawyers are really eager to have the facts of the Liebeck v. McDonald’s case come out, it’s curious they don’t take steps to release the trial transcript, in the absence of which critics of the case are obliged to speculate on key points. And as I just wrote in a comment at Abnormal Use:
I believe organized tort reform groups were caught flat-footed by the McDonald’s case and didn’t get around to doing much with it until it had already become the talk of the nation through talk shows, late night TV and so forth. As often happens, plaintiff’s-side advocacy groups were more aggressive in seeking coverage for their side in the media. Thus Public Citizen and allies gave a press conference on Capitol Hill and were rewarded with a big Newsweek story summarizing their talking points (as well as, earlier, coverage in the news-side WSJ). I’m pretty sure no groups critical of the Liebeck award ever did a comparable press push; and the McDonald’s company itself, so far as I know, never chose to cooperate with commentators who might be sympathetic to its legal case.
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Groupon and other novel discount-voucher services have been enjoying much attention lately. But state consumer law has long imposed substantial regulation on the practice of coupon discounting: some states bar the use of coupons for the purchase of alcoholic drinks, others require that coupons carry a maturity at least as long as five years or some other time span, and so forth. Are the new social-discount services at risk for significant legal exposure? [Benjamin Edelman and Paul Kominers via Felix Salmon]
Lawyers expect major benefits from the settlement of a suit against the satellite-radio service, though class members won’t be getting cash [Blessing v. Sirius XM Radio Settlement Site]
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