You searched for:

concepcion

Class action roundup

by Walter Olson on January 28, 2013

  • Pursuing well-worn script following exposure of fib-laden memoirs, class action lawyers sue demanding reader refunds for Lance Armstrong autobiography [ABA Journal]
  • Adventures of Ted Frank’s CCAF: Easy Saver coupon settlement; Southwest Airlines drink voucher; Asus Computer dongle giveaway. Plus: “Citigroup Plaintiff Lawyers Fire Back At Fee Objectors” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
  • Wrongful termination complaint contains its share of juicy allegations regarding well-known plaintiff’s firm Hausfeld LLP [Andrew Trask]
  • Calif.: “Judges Accuse Class Lawyers of Misconduct” [The Recorder; The Complex Litigator (Clarke v. First Transit, PDF)]
  • Aiming to undermine Concepcion ruling, plaintiff lawyers seek to overwhelm system with arbitration demands [Reuters, earlier]
  • How to get your class action settlement disapproved by the judge [Andrew Trask]
  • “Papa John’s Facing $250 Million Text Message Spam Lawsuit” [PC Mag]

Torts roundup

by Walter Olson on July 19, 2012

  • Dixon v. Ford Motor Company: “The Best Causation Opinion of 2012″ [David Oliver] “Any exposure” causation: “Pennsylvania Supreme Court delivers significant asbestos ruling” [Point of Law]
  • Maryland high court may consider pro-plaintiff shift from contributory negligence to comparative fault [Sean Wajert]
  • In last-minute ploy, Albany lawmakers extend time limits for suing local governments [Torch via PoL, Times-Union]
  • Mental diagnoses: what to do when courtroom experts armed with DSM-5 shoot from the hip [Jim Dedman, Abnormal Use]
  • California appeals court, legislature decline to go along with trial lawyers’ crusade against Concepcion and class arbitration waivers [WLF, CL&P]
  • Critics challenge legality of Louisiana AG’s use of contingency lawyers [Melissa Landry, Hayride]
  • To curb client solicitation, NJ mulls withholding crash reports from noninterested parties for 90 days [NJLRA]

{ 1 comment }

May 29 roundup

by Walter Olson on May 29, 2012

  • Congress again debates bad idea of race-based government for native Hawaiians [Ramesh Ponnuru, Ilya Shapiro/Cato; earlier here, etc.]
  • “I could have been killed for blogging.” [Patterico, Scott Greenfield] Latest blogger “swatting” (bogus police call) hits RedState’s Erick Erickson [same] Incivility is a hazard for bloggers, but fear for families’ physical safety shouldn’t be [Jonathan Adler, Amy Alkon] Dear authorities in Montgomery County, Md. and elsewhere: you should know it’s not every day Radley Balko calls for tougher law enforcement. Earlier here and here.
  • More dying from guns than from car crashes? Eugene Volokh skewers some misleading arguments from the Detroit Free Press;
  • Mississippi: Judge dismisses Dickie Scruggs’s motion to vacate bribery conviction [AP; Tom Freeland and more]
  • Washington Times kindly cites coverage in this space on Maryland “structuring” prosecutions [editorial]. Maryland delayed foreclosures and is now paying the price in slower housing recovery [Hayley Peterson, Examiner]
  • Andrew Pincus defends arbitration and SCOTUS decision in Concepcion [NYTimes "DealBook"; NLJ] Effort in Florida to ease use of arbitration in med-mal disputes [Miami Herald]
  • Michigan Supreme Court judge Diane Hathaway, elected via 2008′s most unfair attack ad, is now in a spot of ethical bother [Ted Frank]

{ 3 comments }

November 8 roundup

by Walter Olson on November 8, 2011

SCOTUSblog, the eminent Supreme-Court-watching site, has been running a symposium on the future of class actions after such decisions as Wal-Mart v. Dukes, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, and Smith v. Bayer. Contributors include many names familiar from our columns, including Ted Frank, Andrew Trask, Russell Jackson, and Paul Karlsgodt.

And a reminder to those of you who can make it to the Washington, D.C. area next Thursday: Cato’s annual Constitution Day will feature three outstanding panels reviewing the work of the high court in the past term, including a panel moderated by me and featuring Roger Pilon (Cato) on pre-emption, Andrew Trask (McGuire Woods) on Wal-Mart, and Jonathan Adler (Case Western, Volokh Conspiracy) on climate change litigation. You can register here.

{ 1 comment }

June 10 roundup

by Walter Olson on June 10, 2011

{ 1 comment }

May 4 roundup

by Walter Olson on May 4, 2011

November 12 roundup

by Walter Olson on November 12, 2010

{ 1 comment }

November 9 roundup

by Walter Olson on November 9, 2010

  • White House panel’s counsel: no evidence corner-cutting caused Gulf spill [NYT, Reuters] Furor ensues [WaPo]
  • Report: grief counselors assigned to Democratic congressional staffers [Maggie Haberman, Politico]
  • “Lawyer Sues for Humiliation and Lost Business Due to Misspelled Yellowbook Ad” [ABA Journal, South Dakota]
  • Argument today in important Supreme Court case, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion: will courts respect freedom of contract in consumer arbitration context, or yield Litigation Lobby the monopoly it seeks over dispute resolution? [Ted at PoL]
  • No search warrant needed: armed deputies in Orlando storm unlicensed barbershops, handcuff barbers [Balko, Reason "Hit and Run"]
  • After Colorado hit-run, banker allowed to plead down to misdemeanors lest his job be at risk [Greenfield]
  • FDA to decide whether to ban menthol in cigarettes [CEI]
  • Reshuffling blackjack decks is not “racketeering” [ten years ago on Overlawyered]

{ 4 comments }

November 5 roundup

by Walter Olson on November 5, 2010

{ 3 comments }

September 20 roundup

by Walter Olson on September 20, 2010

  • “Family sues for $25 million over death of Virginia Beach homeless man” [Pilot Online]
  • New paper proposes voucherizing indigent criminal defense [Stephen Schulhofer and David Friedman, Cato Institute, more]
  • “Why the Employee Free Choice Act Has, and Should, Fail” [Richard Epstein, SSRN]
  • Free-market lawprofs file brief in class action arbitration case, Concepcion v. AT&T [PoL]
  • Enactment of Dodd-Frank law results in flood of whistleblower-suit leads for plaintiff’s bar [Corporate Counsel, ABA Journal] “Will Whistle-Blowing Be Millions Well Spent?” [Perlis/Chais, Forbes]
  • Sept. 28 in House: “Congressional Hearing on the Problems of Overcriminalization” [NACDL]
  • Abusive-litigation angle seen in NYC mosque controversy [Painter, Legal Ethics Forum]
  • Snark alert: Mr. Soros does something nice for Human Rights, and Human Rights does something nice for him [Stoll]

{ 8 comments }

The Center for Class Action Fairness filed an amicus brief yesterday on behalf of consumers in the Supreme Court case of AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion; Public Citizen brought a suit successfully striking an arbitration provision in a cell-phone contract as “unconscionable” because it did not provide for bringing class actions—even though consumers as a whole would be better off with the generous arbitration provision than with opportunity for the class action. Of course, then trial lawyers lose out. More at Point of Law; and Public Citizen’s page on the case has other briefs and links to (generally pro-trial-lawyer) blog commentary.

{ 2 comments }