Overlawyered http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:04:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en “I am sorry….” http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/i-am-sorry/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/i-am-sorry/#comments Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:04:10 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=7640 Houston lawyer Jeff Murphrey apologizes (or doesn’t really) in a deposition scheduling dispute with a Dallas lawyer (Nicole Black, Legal Antics, Oct. 6).

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/i-am-sorry/feed/ October 6 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/october-6-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/october-6-roundup/#comments Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:41:25 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=7636 All-blog edition:

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/october-6-roundup/feed/ Ontario forensic pathologist scandal http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/ontario-forensic-pathologist-scandal/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/ontario-forensic-pathologist-scandal/#comments Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:39:43 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=7639 “Ontario vowed to overhaul its pediatric forensic pathology system yesterday following a highly critical report citing the ‘woefully inadequate’ training of pathologist Dr. Charles Smith and the inaction of his supervisors in the coroner’s office who ‘actively protected’ him despite ‘warning signs’ about errors he made that led to wrongful prosecutions.” A 1,000-page report by Justice Stephen Goudge found that Smith’s testimony blaming child deaths on family members resulted in numerous wrongful prosecutions and erroneous convictions, including that of William Mullins-Johnson of Sault Ste. Marie, who “spent 12 years in prison after he was convicted of murdering his four-year-old niece. The conviction was quashed last year after the expert evidence was dismissed as unreliable.” (Jordana Huber, “Inquiry blasts Ontario pathologist”, Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 2; CBC; ABA Journal; Goudge inquiry website and report).

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/ontario-forensic-pathologist-scandal/feed/ Microblog 2008-10-05 http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/microblog-2008-10-05-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/microblog-2008-10-05-2/#comments Mon, 06 Oct 2008 03:59:59 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/microblog-2008-10-05-2/
  • Are Citi-Wachovia-Wells Fargo doomed to relive Texaco-Getty-Pennzoil in court? [Ethan Leib, Prawfsblawg; more here, here] #
  • GOP petrified at prospect of filibuster-proof Democratic Senate [Politico] #
  • Iceland’s once high-flying banks: will bailout needs overwhelm small nation’s govt? [Salmon] #
  • Splog rips off Blawg Review #175 in its entirety from rightful author J. Spencer. Will Blogspot do anything? [don't give 'em a direct link] #
  • A peek at a revamped Amazon Kindle due out for Xmas? [Carnoy, CNet "Crave"] #
  • Courtesy Kevin O’Keefe, “Beer for Bloggers” event in Manhattan Monday evening [see you there?] #
  • Good article on pressures on Fannie Mae to plunge into risky lending 2005-08 [Kudos to NYT] #
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/microblog-2008-10-05-2/feed/     Mental health “parity” insurance mandate http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/mental-health-parity-insurance-mandate/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/mental-health-parity-insurance-mandate/#comments Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:01:46 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=7635 This was the week that Congress passed and the President signed a new law requiring that most health insurers (if they cover mental health treatment at all) pay for lots and lots of talk therapy and addiction rehab the same way they pay for lots of angioplasties or appendectomies, in the name of “parity” and “nondiscrimination”. Very optimistically — it won’t be Congress writing the checks — the ten-year cost is projected at only $3.4 billion. (Judith Graham, “Triage”/Chicago Tribune, Oct. 3). Next week lawmakers will go back to complaining that health insurance has become prohibitively expensive and that much of the population is priced out of buying it altogether. Mickey Kaus remembers where we’ve seen this sort of feel-good short-circuiting of underwriting standards before (Oct. 2).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/mental-health-parity-insurance-mandate/feed/     Annals of traffic-cams http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/annals-of-traffic-cams/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/annals-of-traffic-cams/#comments Sun, 05 Oct 2008 04:10:18 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=7634 The traffic camera automatically recorded the license plate of the vehicle going too fast, so the owner (in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa) was automatically mailed a ticket. The only problem: the vehicle was being towed by a tow truck at the time. (Stumblng Tumblr, Aug. 5).

    More from commenter Cathy Gellis: “I know someone who canceled her Fastrak/EZ Pass automatic toll account and was charged when the device passed through a toll while being mailed back.”

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/annals-of-traffic-cams/feed/     “…His penchant for litigation as a form of costless entertainment” http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/his-penchant-for-litigation-as-a-form-of-costless-entertainment/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/his-penchant-for-litigation-as-a-form-of-costless-entertainment/#comments Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:29:29 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=7632 In the past two years Tyrone Hurt has filed more than seventy appeals with the D.C. Circuit, whose judges observe (PDF):

    In just the last couple of years, Hurt has sued the Declaration of Independence, Black’s Law Dictionary, the United Nations, agencies of the District of Columbia and the Federal Government, and various courts and their officers. Hurt has . . . demanded the deportation of a Spanish-speaking government employee.

    Finding that Hurt has abused the privilege of having filing fees waived for indigence (”in forma pauperis”) the court dismissed his forty-four pending cases and decreed that he will have to pay ordinary filing fees if he wishes to bring any more pro se actions in that court. Hurt’s various failed lawsuits have demanded “sums of money dwarfing the size of the Federal Government’s annual budget”. (WSJ law blog, Oct. 3).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/his-penchant-for-litigation-as-a-form-of-costless-entertainment/feed/     Microblog 2008-10-03 http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/microblog-2008-10-03-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/microblog-2008-10-03-2/#comments Sat, 04 Oct 2008 03:59:59 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/microblog-2008-10-03-2/
  • Game-geek nostalgia: the “Play Generated Map and Document Archive” [Feral Child] #
  • “A lawyer charging extra for stamps and copies is like a car wash charging extra for water.” [Matt Homann, The (Non)-Billable Hour] #
  • Aside to attorney Stephen Otto, who asked about a mail- and copy-intensive bankruptcy case: I guess that might be the exception, like the desert car wash that you can understand might for water use by the gallon #
  • Some reasons why Washington Mutual failure and rescue was a big deal [Kevin LaCroix, D&O Diary] #
  • Analysis of bailout’s “excessive executive compensation” provisions [Hodak Value] #
  • Roundup of credit crisis links [Point of Law] #
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/microblog-2008-10-03-2/feed/     Scooping up police crash reports, cont’d http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/scooping-up-police-crash-reports-contd/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/scooping-up-police-crash-reports-contd/#comments Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:56:13 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=7620 Two Milwaukee-based law firms, Hupy & Abraham and the McNally Law Offices, have been gathering up vehicle-crash police reports in the famously litigation-friendly Illinois counties east of St. Louis, and then soliciting persons named in the reports to file injury claims. “Some local police departments, including Belleville, Edwardsville, O’Fallon and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department,” have resisted the demands, based on worries about citizen privacy and identity theft, or have sought to charge for per-report access, which would discourage mass scooping up of names. The McNally firm, however, “sends a copy of a letter from Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office, which states the police have to allow viewing of the reports, at no charge.” (Brian Bruegemann, “Ambulance chasing? Lawyers zero in on metro-east clients”, Belleville News-Democrat, Sept. 28). Ron Miller at Maryland Injury Lawyer says the practice contributes toward giving the plaintiff’s bar a bad name, and corresponds with attorney Michael Hupy whose firm figures in the story. We covered the phenomenon earlier here and here.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/scooping-up-police-crash-reports-contd/feed/     Medicare adopts “never event” policy http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/medicare-adopts-never-event-policy/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/10/medicare-adopts-never-event-policy/#comments Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:50:01 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=7629 We’ve already aired much dissent from the medical profession about whether or not top-notch hospital care can in fact prevent all instances of patient falls, decubitus pressure ulcers (bedsores), hypoglycemia, deep vein thrombosis, delirium, suicide attempts, c. difficile infection, or iatrogenic pneumothorax. Nonetheless, Medicare has adopted its proposal to deny hospitals reimbursement for the cost of treating such events and complications, with likely consequences both for hospital behavior (refusal to admit some patients at high risk of never events), for private insurer behavior and for the climate of medical malpractice litigation. (Kevin Sack, “Medicare Won’t Pay for Medical Errors”, New York Times, Sept. 30). White Coat Rants, who has blogged extensively on the issue in past months, has some predictions (Oct. 1) of things we can now expect to see more of: more patient transfers between hospitals (since Medicare will not punish the second hospital for the first’s “never event”; underdiagnosis of certain conditions and overdiagnosis of others; and, more remotely but no less alarmingly, pressure on some families to serve as ultimate bearers of risk for supposed never events affecting the frailest and most elderly:
    Say hello to the Advance Beneficiary Notices. Medicare won’t cover preventative care, so you are going to have to pay for it out of your pocket. If you’re prone to falls or bedsores, you’ll have to pay for a personal nurse to wait on you hand and foot so you don’t develop these never events. If you don’t pay for a personal nurse 24 hours around the clock to keep a never event from happening, you’re personally responsible for paying the costs of treatment if the “never events” occur. You had the opportunity to prevent the events but you were just too cheap to pay for it. I think that ABNs are less likely to catch on, but eventually I think they will become commonplace.

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