| Other resources: Websites “Freedom of Speech vs. Workplace Harassment Law” (highly informative site maintained by Prof. Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School) Organizations Books The shelf of books critical of the overreach of harassment law got at least three important additions in 1999. Daphne Patai of the University of Massachusetts, known already as a co-author of Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales From the Strange World of Women’s Studies, published Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism. Cathy Young, columnist for the Detroit News, published Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality. And Joan Kennedy Taylor, associated with the Cato Institute, published What to Do When You Don’t Want to Call the Cops: Or a Non-Adversarial Approach to Sexual Harassment. (Also see our editor’s 1997 contribution, The Excuse Factory.)
Tagged as:
ACLU,
Alaska,
Chrysler,
Connecticut,
Detroit,
Europe,
free speech,
harassment law,
Illinois,
Massachusetts,
Philadelphia,
The Excuse Factory,
Title IX,
zero tolerance
“New Orleans cleanup continues“, Jun. 10-11, 2003. “Mississippi investigation heats up“, May 7, 2003; “‘Oxy Morons’“, May 30, 2002; “Trial lawyers vs. OxyContin“, Aug. 7-8, 2001; “Target: Alka-Seltzer” (phenylpropanolamine, PPA), April 6-8, 2001 (& Dec. 18, 2001). “‘Streets strewn with glass, gold’“, May 4-5, 2003. “Thrill of the chase“, Mar. 4, 2003. “Client-chasing: we interrupt your grief“, Feb. 21-23, 2003. “Client-chasing: tantrum-enablers“, Feb. 21-23, 2003. “Politico’s law associate suspended over ‘runner’ use” (Louisiana), Feb. 14-16, 2003. “Targeting Wall Street“, Jan. 30, 2003. “Lawyers’ advertising, 25 years later“, Dec. 23, 2002. Websites, 2003: “Slip, fall, learn who to blame“, Feb. 4-5. 2002: “Trial lawyers vs. Thimerosal“, Dec. 20-22; “Sic ‘em on Segway“, Aug. 1; “Jury nails ‘The Hammer’” (MillionDollarLungs.com, CPalsy.com), Jun. 17-18. 2001: “Trial lawyers vs. OxyContin“, Aug. 7-8; “Letter to the editor” (fallingmerchandise.com), May 18. 2000: “Down, attorney! Down!” (dogbitelaw.com), Feb. 1. 1999: “‘Some lawyers try to make nice’” (Egypt Air 990), Nov. 29; “Click here to sue!” (AOL volunteers), Sept. 7; “Click here to sue!” (“employee misclassification”), Aug. 19. “After our own heart” (coach attacked by fans solicited to sue baseball club), Sept. 27-29, 2002. “Patriotic, or promotional?” (billboard), Sept. 13-15, 2002. “Jury nails ‘The Hammer’” (jury finds lawyer’s ads false and misleading in legal-malpractice case), Jun. 17-18, 2002. “‘Friends don’t let friends plead guilty’” (lawyer’s slogan), May 13, 2002. “The lawyers who invented spam“, Mar. 29-31, 2002. “Texas docs plan walkout”, Mar. 15-17, 2002; “A ‘Jenny Jones Show’ question“, Mar. 12, 2002; “For client-chasers, daytime TV gets results“, Dec. 18, 2001.
“‘Halliburton shares plunge on verdict’” (“million dollar lungs”), Dec. 10, 2001. “Profiling perfectly OK after all” (ACLU billboard solicits racial profiling plaintiffs), Nov. 16-18, 2001. “U.S. Muslims told: don’t talk to law enforcement” (by lawyer promoting his services), Oct. 29, 2001. “‘Company tried to capitalize on Sept. 11′“, Oct. 15, 2001. “Meet the ‘wrongful-birth’ bar“, Aug. 22-23, 2001. “‘Lawyer says Yellow Book ad makes him look bad, sues for damages’“, July 3-4, 2001; “Let your fingers do the suing” (Michigan’s “AAAA Legal Center“), Feb. 17, 2000; “The Yellow Pages indicator“, Oct. 9-10, 1999. “‘Insect lawyer ad creates buzz’” (Canadian law firm’s recruitment ad), May 23, 2001. “From dinner party to court” (U.K.), May 22, 2001. “Letter to the editor” (law firm “consumer columns”), May 18, 2001. “Behind the subway ads” (1-800-DIVORCE, etc.), Dec. 18-19, 2000.
“Scarier than they bargained for” (“grenades” sent as promotion), Oct. 5, 2000. “Press releases, or ‘strike suit’ ads?” (announcements of securities lawsuits), March 6, 2000. “‘Ambulance chaser’ label ruled defamatory” (appeals court says lawyer can sue), Jan. 24, 2000. “Free expression, with truth in advertising thrown in?” (injury lawyer flies Jolly Roger pirate flag), Dec. 31, 1999-Jan. 2, 2000. “Pack your toothbrush, son” (Alabama: charges of paying hospital, police employees for leads on cases), Dec. 20, 1999. “‘Some lawyers try to make nice’” (Ohio Bar ads), Nov. 29, 1999. “State of legal ethics” (ad stirring up will-contest litigation), Oct. 5-6, 1999. “Mass. high court opens lawyer-ad floodgates“, Sept. 17-19, 1999. “Like calling the Orkin man to talk about bugs” (Johnnie Cochran 18-page promotional bio at A.B.A. convention), August 10, 1999. “Honey, you’ve got mail” (Florida divorce-lawyer solicitations arrive before clients know they’re being divorced), July 15, 1999. “What a recommendation” (O.J. Simpson to cut TV ads for 1-800 lawyer referral service), July 6, 1999; see also Dec. 8-10, 2000 (Fla. battle over lawyer TV ads). “This time, bombing the taxpayer” (controversy over American attorney John Burris’ recruitment of embassy-bombing victims), Jul. 5, 1999. (More resources on same episode: Mike Kelly, Bergen Record, Apr. 18, 1999; Newsweek International, Apr. 12, 1999, links now dead.)
The annotated external links formerly present on this page are now here.
Tagged as:
ACLU,
Alabama,
baseball,
Canada,
chasing clients,
divorce,
hospitals,
Louisiana,
Michigan,
Mississippi,
Ohio
September 9-10 – Mississippi doctors win a round. “[L]egislators passed new restrictions today [Friday] on lawsuits against doctors in Mississippi, the latest spasm in a national convulsion over sharply increasing medical malpractice insurance rates.” (Adam Nossiter, “Miss. Lawmakers Set Limits on Medical Lawsuits”, Washington Post, Sept. 7). “Mississippi’s legislature is the third in less than a year to be called into special session over the issue, an ‘extraordinary trend,’ said Cheye Calvo, an insurance specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures.” The fate of the legislation remains uncertain, however. (Patrice Sawyer, “Plenty of talk, but no action”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Sept. 8).
It’s far too early for doctors to jubilate, anyway: if the measure makes it to into law, the trial lawyers will predictably commence efforts to convince the Mississippi Supreme Court to strike it down as unconstitutional, as they have gotten other state courts to do with many liability reforms of the past. (e.g. Ohio: Aug. 18, 1999). Some expect the re-election bid this fall of state supreme court justice Charles McRae, to serve as a kind of referendum on whether the court’s pro-plaintiff tilt has gone too far. McRae, a past president of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association, is the author of some of the court’s decisions most hostile to defendants. (Bobby Harrison, “McRae a lightning rod for business groups”, Daily Journal, Jul. 23; Jimmie E. Gates, Clarion-Ledger, Jul.29, Ben Bryant, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Aug. 15). (DURABLE LINK)
September 9-10 – Hiring apple pickers = racketeering. “A federal appellate court has revived a racketeering lawsuit filed by Washington state farm workers who claim apple growers and packers intentionally hired undocumented workers to depress wages. The suit says that Zirkle Fruit Co. and Matson Fruit Co., both based in Washington state, created an employment agency to recruit illegal immigrants, mainly from Mexico, knowing that many of the workers were providing false documentation. At the same time, the suit says, the companies rejected job candidates known to be legal aliens or U.S. residents.” Which naturally leads to the question: should those who knowingly hire undocumented gardeners, nannies and house painters be deemed racketeers as well? The pending suit demands monetary damages from the apple growers and packers, and is being pressed by superrich Seattle attorney Steve Berman, well known to readers of this column (Aug. 21, 1999; Oct. 16, 1999; Jan. 19, 2000; May 11, 2001). (“Racketeering suit vs. apple growers, packers is revived”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sept. 6). (DURABLE LINK)
September 9-10 – Free legal services! (except when they aren’t). The Association of Trial Lawyers of America has derived great publicity mileage by saying it will help victims of last year’s terrorist attacks obtain legal representation for free, but it and its members have also worked quietly behind the scenes to defeat legislation that would in any way curb the amounts that lawyers could keep for themselves from 9/11 awards. “Senator [Charles] Schumer [D-N.Y.] is drafting legislation that would let attorneys collect between 8 and 12% of a family’s payout from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a victims’ advocate said. The Schumer plan is a compromise between Senator [Don] Nickles [R-Okla.], who did not want lawyers to take any money from the fund, and the trial lawyers themselves, who want no limit on their contingency fees.” (Timothy Starks, “Schumer Pushes Fees”, New York Sun, Aug. 5). (DURABLE LINK)
September 9-10 – Ignominious wind-down to Norplant campaign. At one time, trial lawyers must have had high hopes that their campaign against the contraceptive Norplant, which is administered in the form of under-the-skin silicone arm implants, would bring down drugmaker Wyeth the way their breast implant campaign bankrupted silicone maker Dow Corning. The litigation dragged on for years and cannot have been encouraging to firms pursuing contraceptive research, but it now appears to be winding down with a whimper, reports Texas Lawyer. In an August 14 ruling, “a federal judge in Texas granted partial summary judgment to the makers of Norplant and dismissed the claims of most of the remaining 3,000 women, leaving only 10 plaintiffs to pursue their cases.” Earlier, a large class of plaintiffs “settled out of court for a payment of $1,500 each”, a paltry sum by the standards of what must originally have been expected. “Notably,” wrote U.S. District Judge Richard Schell, “in the three years since Defendants filed this motion for partial summary judgment, Plaintiffs have not produced a shred of evidence or expert testimony that supports an association between Norplant and” such conditions as polyarthralgia, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. (Pamela Manson, “Federal Judge Dismisses Norplant Damage Claims”, Texas Lawyer, Aug. 27)(see Aug. 11 and Aug. 27, 1999). (DURABLE LINK)
September 6-8 – “Doctors hope fines will curb frivolous lawsuits”. Lawyers are seldom made to pay any tangible price when they wrongly accuse a doctor, but South Texas doctors are hoping District Judge Ronald M. Yeager of Corpus Christi will set a precedent by granting a motion for $50,000 sanctions against local attorney Thomas J. Henry for filing false claims against Dr. Steven Smith and Dr. Robert Low. “The case Henry originally brought to court alleged that the doctors had prescribed the drug Propulsid to Henry White, a patient at Northbay who eventually died of complications from a stroke. Propulsid is an acid reflux medicine that has been taken off the market. According to court documents, neither of the doctors had issued the prescription. Henry, who declined comment on the fines, filed a notice of appeal Friday. … Low said he will never forget the embarrassment the case caused and hopes the fines will deter similar suits in the future. … ‘It takes time away from your practice and these things can be emotionally devastating to a physician,” Low said. Attorney Henry is a high-profile local advertiser: “Many in the community know him by the prominent ad on the back of the local phonebook”. (Jesse Bogan, San Antonio Express-News, Aug. 5). (DURABLE LINK)
September 6-8 – Slippery slope on terrorism compensation. Just as skeptics predicted would happen, survivors of earlier terrorist attacks and outrages are looking at the generous payments forthcoming from the taxpayer-staked 9/11 compensation fund and asking: why shouldn’t we get retroactive compensation for our losses too? And so legislators are busily introducing bills to compensate victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, the first World Trade Center bombing, Pan Am Flight 103, the sailors on the U.S.S. Cole, and others. (Michael Freedman, “Compensatory Damages”, Forbes.com, Sept. 16)(reg). (DURABLE LINK)
September 6-8 — Update: government can be sued for not warning of Yellowstone thermal-pool dangers. “A Wyoming federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a Utah teenager who was severely burned when he and two others jumped into a thermal pool in Yellowstone National Park. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Roberts had asked the U.S. District Court in Cheyenne to reject Lance Buchi’s complaint, which alleges the federal government failed to adequately warn of dangers posed by thermal pools in the park.” (see Jun. 26, 2001) (“Judge won’t dismiss Yellowstone burn victim’s lawsuit”, AP/Billings Gazette, Aug. 30)
(DURABLE LINK)
September 5 – “Disabled Entitled to Same Sight Line in Theaters”. Departing from decisions handed down by other courts, a federal judge in Albany, N.Y. “has held that a movie theater providing handicapped patrons with an unobstructed sight line to the screen has not necessarily complied with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Rather, U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd found, the law implicitly requires a qualitative element demanding an analysis into whether the lines of sight available to ambulatory and wheelchair customers are comparable.” Although Judge Hurd held that it might constitute an ADA violation for wheelchair-using patrons to be given less desirable viewing angles, he found that Hoyts Theaters had sufficiently complied with the mandate in the case at hand. (John Caher, New York Law Journal, Aug. 28). (DURABLE LINK)
September 5 – Missouri: a judge speaks out. Ralph Voss, recently retired from the Missouri bench, has launched a website that minces no words about what he sees as wrong with the local civil courts. “My story begins around 1985. By that time it was possible to see major inroads the plaintiffs’ lawyers were making in asserting control over the civil justice system. They exercised tremendous influence in the Missouri legislature, but also in the judiciary. Their influence came from their money and their money came in large part from huge and relatively easily-obtained victories in the courts of St. Louis and Kansas City. … The contingent fee has gotten so out of hand something needs to be done. I am told by one judge that 50 and 60 percent contingent fees in Kansas City are not uncommon. This same judge reports that the fee comes on top of charging the client for the expenses of depositions taken at 5-star resorts.” There’s much more, including critiques of forum-shopping, of lawyers who pocket big contingent fees on sure-thing insurance settlements, and of some fellow judges whom he names elsewhere on the site as (in his view) undeserving of re-election this November. (RalphVoss.com, “Opening Statement”, Aug. 16). (DURABLE LINK)
September 5 – A Gotham lawyer’s complaint. Outside the courthouse in Brooklyn, the New York Press‘s Johnny Dwyer transcribes the gripes of a local personal injury attorney who “only wants his first name used — Dan”. Not only are verdicts down and settlements harder to get in the formerly bounteous borough, but clients aren’t willing to accept the bad news. “Plaintiffs have a skewed view on what a case is worth. I’ve never seen a more obsessional group of people. The case becomes their whole life. And it’s the newer immigrants that are suing the most — at least in Brooklyn. …That’s become the new American dream.” (“Lawsuits: A Lawyer’s Dilemma”, New York Press, vol. 15, #36 (recent)). More: “Jane Galt” and her readers weigh in. (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – By reader acclaim: “Airline sued for $5 million over lost cat”. “A couple sued Air Canada for $5 million, claiming the airline lost their tabby cat during a flight from Canada to California. … ‘It’s not about the money,’ [Andrew] Wysotski said.” (AP/CNN, Aug. 29). (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – “Federal authorities say judge offered illegal payoff”. Pittsburgh: “In a meeting secretly taped by federal authorities, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph A. Jaffe told a lawyer how he could use his judicial powers to pay back $13,000 in cash that the lawyer had given him in an envelope.” Judge Jaffe, who is presiding over thousands of asbestos cases, “said the attorney could file 26 motions in settled asbestos cases, and he would order insurance companies to pay the lawyer’s firm $500 per motion in legal fees, or $13,000.” He also said that by holding a mass settlement conference he could “put pressure on defendants to favorably settle the claims. …Jaffe evidently did not know that the lawyer, Joel Persky, was cooperating with federal investigators after receiving what he considered an improper request for money from the judge.” Persky’s firm, Goldberg, Persky, Jennings & White, represents thousands of asbestos complainants. Who says plaintiff’s attorneys don’t sometimes figure as heroes in these chronicles? (Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 29). Update: Mar. 25-30, 2003. (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – “Crime pays for teenage lout”. Australia: In a decision that “stunned the legal community and victim’s groups”, a “teenager who broke into a nightclub was yesterday awarded nearly $50,000 damages for injuries he received in an attack by the publican. Joshua Fox was a ‘grossly stupid, totally irresponsible drunken lout’, according to a court assessment. But a [New South Wales] judge said the force used against him was excessive. Mr. Fox’s mother was awarded $18,000 for nervous shock upon seeing her son’s injuries.” (Steve Gee and Patrick O’Neil, Melbourne Herald-Sun, Aug. 30). (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – 2002′s least surprising headline. [Sen. John] “Edwards has been on a fundraising frenzy over the last three months, raising nearly $2 million in ‘soft money’ — the type of donation soon to be banned, with three-quarters of it coming from trial lawyers.” (Jim VandeHei, “Trial Lawyers Fund Edwards”, Washington Post, Sept. 3). (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – A breast-cancer myth. For years many have held it as an article of faith that synthetic chemicals in the environment are an important contributor to American cancer rates, the best-known example being the supposedly inexplicably high rates of breast cancer occurring on New York’s Long Island. But as a new $8 million study from National Cancer Institute researchers concludes, science has not found evidence to document the thesis. (“Federal study shows no link between pollution and breast cancer”, AP/MedLine, Aug. 6; Gina Kolata, “Looking for the Link”, New York Times, Aug. 11; “Epidemic That Wasn’t”, Aug. 29)(both reg)). See Ronald Bailey, “Cluster Bomb”, Reason Online, Aug. 14. This weekend, in a perhaps surprising development, the New York Times‘s editorialists joined the chorus (“Breast Cancer Mythology on Long Island”, Aug. 31)(reg).
Who should be embarrassed by these developments? Well, for starters, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (Margaret Costello, “Elmirans to testify about cancer”, Elmira (N.Y.) Star-Gazette, June 11, 2001); Ms. magazine (Sabrina McCormick, “Breast Cancer Activism”, Summer); activist groups like the Breast Cancer Fund and the Nader-orbit New York Public Interest Research Group (Stony Brook chapter). And perhaps more than any other well-known group, the Sierra Club, which notwithstanding its sometimes warm-huggy image has published spectacularly wrongheaded and irresponsible coverage of the issue (Sharon Batt & Liza Gross, “Cancer, Inc.”, Sierra Magazine, Sept./Oct. 1999). For similar myths about “cancer alley” in Louisiana, see Nov. 8, 2000. (DURABLE LINK)
Tagged as:
ACLU,
asbestos,
Australia,
contingent fee,
Long Island,
Louisiana,
Mississippi,
Missouri,
not about the money,
Ohio,
Oklahoma,
Pittsburgh,
Seattle,
silicone breast implants,
State Farm,
Utah,
Victim Compensation Fund,
Washington state,
Wyeth,
Wyoming
June 10 – Advertisement for “friendly” employee deemed discriminatory. In Bolton, England, a government job listing center has refused to accept an advertisement asking for a “friendly” applicant to manage a travel agency’s staff cafe. The travel agency’s manager said “we were told, ‘It’s discriminatory because some people may perceive that they are friendly even if you don’t’.” A spokeswoman for the government bureau that runs the job center service acknowledged that “somebody’s been a little over-zealous,” but also said: “We’ve got to be very careful when we get adverts so we don’t discriminate against anybody.” (“Jobcentre comes under ‘friendly’ fire”, BBC, Jun. 7). (DURABLE LINK)
June 10 – Profiling: a Democrat outflanks Ashcroft. On CNN last week, California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein spoke frankly of the need for some measure of ethnic profiling in both air passenger security and intelligence gathering — a position that places her considerably to the right of Attorney General John Ashcroft and his colleagues in the Bush Administration, who continue to deny any such need. (Chris Weinkopf, “Sanity, not bigotry, calls for profiling”, L.A. Daily News, Jun. 9). (DURABLE LINK)
June 10 – Sin-suit city. In Las Vegas, ripples continue from the word that some lawyers and activists are eyeing the hometown industry as their nominee for Next Tobacco (“Organization: Casinos could be sued”, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jun. 6; see May 31, May 20-21). And on the food-suit front, a major British newspaper, the Independent, has claimed that corporate machinations make healthful and low-calorie foods simply unavailable to Middle Americans, an assertion that columnist Jacob Sullum calls “such an audacious misrepresentation that I don’t know whether to refute it or simply stand in awe.” (Andrew Gumbel, “Fast Food Nation: An appetite for litigation”, The Independent, Jun. 4 (profile of anti-tobacco and anti-food industry law prof John Banzhaf)(alternate site); Jacob Sullum, “Big fat lie”, Reason Online, Jun. 7). (DURABLE LINK)
June 7-9 – “Tough tobacco laws may not deter kids”. Now they tell us dept.: “Stopping kids from buying cigarettes has become a centerpiece of anti-smoking campaigns, but a new study finds that cracking down on merchants doesn’t prevent underage smoking.” (Jim Ritter, Chicago Sun-Times, Jun. 3; Caroline M. Fichtenberg and Stanton A. Glantz, “Youth Access Interventions Do Not Affect Youth Smoking”, Pediatrics, Jun.) (via MedPundit, Jun. 5)(see Sept. 16, 1999). (DURABLE LINK)
June 7-9 – “Legal Fight Over Chemical Leak Ends With Whimper”. “Attorneys who won $38.8 million in West Virginia’s first class action toxic tort case have agreed to settle for a fraction of that amount after a federal appeals court ruled their original victory was based on the testimony of a witness who did not know what he was talking about.” FMC Corp. will instead pay only $1.35 million, which “will cover about $500,000 in litigation expenses but nothing for fees”, according to the plaintiff’s counsel, attorney/author and former state chief justice Richard Neely. (Peter Page, National Law Journal, Jun. 4). (DURABLE LINK)
June 7-9 – Helmets for roller skaters. First it was motorcycles, then bicycles, and now the anti-fun brigade, in the form of the California state senate, has voted to extend mandatory helmet-wearing to riders of skateboards, non-motorized scooters and even roller skates. (“Senate OKs helmet law for skateboarders”, AP/Contra Costa Times, May 17). (DURABLE LINK)
June 6 – Airlines sued over alleged profiling. “Washington is in its third week of self-flagellation over why the U.S. government couldn’t prevent the Sept. 11 hijackers from commandeering four planes and slamming them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Meanwhile, with no sense of irony, the ACLU, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and some other groups are launching five separate lawsuits over cases of men being removed from airplanes. The ACLU is party to three of the suits.” (Jonah Goldberg, “Flying While Arab”, National Review Online, Jun. 5). The men were removed from planes or denied boarding in various incidents late last year after airline employees or co-passengers deemed them suspicious in behavior or appearance. “The airlines named in the suits are American, Continental, Northwest and United. Most of the companies responded strongly to the suits yesterday, denying allegations of prejudice.” (“Lawsuits Accuse 4 Airlines of Bias”, Washington Post, Jun. 5; Niala Boodhoo, “Rights Groups Hit Airlines with Post-Sept. 11 Suits”, Reuters/ Yahoo, Jun. 4).
Many opponents of passenger profiling (including, frequently, officials within the Bush administration) act as if it were flatly impermissible to apply even the slightest bit more scrutiny to young male Arab fliers with Muslim first names than to elderly Dutch nuns — a position that at least has the merit of bright-line clarity and consistency, however suicidal it could prove in practice. Curiously, the lawyers filing the latest suits seem to be taking pains to stake out a critique of profiling that is less absolutist and makes more concessions to the threats made manifest last Sept. 11. Thus Reginald Shuford, an ACLU lawyer based in New York, says his clients are resigned to a “higher level of scrutiny when they fly, more security checks” but suggests that further extra scrutiny becomes intolerable once fliers have “cleared all security checks [and are] sitting on the airplane”. (Why? He doesn’t say.) Even Ibish Hussein, of the American- Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee, acknowledges that it’s “a tricky situation” and says of refusals to fly passengers: “It’s understandable, but it’s not acceptable.” (Alexandra Marks, “New lawsuits aim to curb racism aboard airplanes”, Christian Science Monitor, Jun. 5). Despite this concessionary- sounding language, with its seeming recognition of the unavoidability of judgment calls and gray areas, at least three of the suits ask for the airlines to be subjected to punitive damages. See also Eugene Volokh, Volokh Conspiracy weblog, Jun. 4. (DURABLE LINK)
June 6 – Alexa “Editor’s Pick”. The editors of indexing service Alexa have selected various sites in the category of “Legal Reform”, with you-know-who leading the pack (June 5). This site’s front page clocks in at #94,327 in Alexa’s traffic ratings, a little ahead of Virginia Postrel (#103,177) and nipping at the heels of Matt Welch (#90,063) and Mickey Kaus (#78,754) — though we have no idea how reliable all these numbers are. Update: not very reliable at all, says Glenn Reynolds (Jun. 6) (DURABLE LINK)
June 5 – “Remove child before folding”. “Americans are not losing their minds, but they are afraid of using their minds. They are afraid to exercise judgment — afraid of being sued.” Not-to-be-missed George Will column ties together overprotective playgrounds, fear-of-asbestos verdicts, demoralized obstetricians and public employee tenure and tips the hat to author Philip Howard’s new organization Common Good, which intends to call public attention to legal excess on a regular basis (Washington Post, June 2). In April, Common Good released the results of its first study, in association with the AEI-Brookings Joint Center, on defensive medicine: “Concerns about liability are influencing medical decision-making on many levels. From the increased ordering of tests, medications, referrals, and procedures to increased paperwork and reluctance to offer off-duty medical assistance, the impact of the fear of litigation is far-reaching and profound.” (“The Fear of Litigation Study: The Impact on Medicine”, AEI-Brookings Joint Center Related Publication, April (abstract), (full text, PDF format) (DURABLE LINK)
June 3-4 – Australian party calls for banning smoking while driving. The Australian Democrats, a small but non-fringe political grouping, have called for a ban on smoking cigarettes while driving. “If using mobile phones is illegal, so should cigarette smoking in cars because of its capacity to distract drivers,” said party official Sandra Kanck in a statement. “Ms. Kanck called for legislation to also ban smoking cigarettes in vehicles transporting children. ‘Parents and other adults shouldn’t subject young people to the carcinogenic dangers of side-stream smoke in cars, yet it is common to see this happening,’ she said.” (“Democrats call to ban smoking while driving”, AAP/West Australian, May 31; see Oct. 5, 2001, Dec. 29, 1999). And although anti-tobacco campaigners are crowing about a recent court verdict in Australia against British American Tobacco, blogger “Max Power” (May 23) suggests the verdict may reflect one judge’s idiosyncratic view of company document retention obligations. (DURABLE LINK)
June 3-4 – Penthouse sued on behalf of disappointed Kournikova-oglers. Dignity of the law dept.: The skin mag has already paid to settle the legal claim of a woman whose topless images it mistakenly ran as those of Anna Kournikova, and “now Miami, Florida lawyer Reed Stomberg has filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of himself and every other male who purchased the June issue. Stomberg explains, ‘The sole reason I paid the $8.99 was for the alleged Anna pictorial. I bought it for a friend of mine, not to say I didn’t take a quick peek at the pictures.’” (IMDB People News, May 30) (& welcome WSJ Best of the Web readers). (DURABLE LINK)
June 3-4 – Sue foodmakers for obesity? Of course! In response to its publication (see May 27) of an article critically examining the push for class actions against purveyors of calorie-laden foodstuffs, Salon draws a big sack of mail from its readers, including a couple of amusingly hysterical attacks on author Megan McArdle (May 31). (DURABLE LINK)
June 3-4 – “Top Ten New Copyright Crimes”. Satire making the rounds on what could soon land you in trouble if ideas of creators’ rights continue to proliferate: “10. Watching PBS without making a donation … 9. Changing radio stations in the car when a commercial comes on. … 7. Getting into a movie after the previews, but just in time for the main feature. … 5. Inviting friends over to watch pay-per-view.” (Ernest Miller, LawMeme, May 2 & May 8). (DURABLE LINK)
June 3-4 – Sick in Mississippi? Keep driving. Malpractice-suit crisis, cont’d: “You are driving through Mississippi and you develop a serious pain in your side. What do you do? If you are smart, you keep on driving until you reach the border.” (Dick Boland, “Sue your way to the morgue”, Washington Times, May 25; see Apr. 5) Evidence that he may not entirely be joking: Ed Cullen, “Natchez doctors eye Vidalia”, Baton Rouge Advocate, May 19 (doctors in Natchez, Miss. consider transferring practices to Vidalia, La., across the river). (DURABLE LINK)
Tagged as:
ACLU,
asbestos,
attorneys general,
Australia,
copyright,
Mississippi,
Netherlands,
obstetric,
Richard Neely,
tobacco,
West Virginia
May 10-12 – Lawyers say taxpayers owe $41 million to smuggled illegals’ survivors. Two Yuma, Ariz. lawyers have filed wrongful death claims with the federal government’s Fish and Wildlife Service demanding $3.75 million each for the families of eleven illegal immigrants who died in May 2001 while being smuggled through a desolate section of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona near the Mexican border. The suit charges the government with failing to authorize the placement of water stations intended for use by unlawful visitors, though it knew smugglers of immigrants were active in the desert area. “It’s absolutely untrue that anyone ever proposed to put stations where the aliens perished,” said Tom Bauer, spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service regional office in Albuquerque. (Hernán Rozemberg, “Families sue U.S. over Mexican migrants who died in desert”, Arizona Republic, May 9; David J. Cieslak, “Families of migrants who died last year file claim against U.S. government”, Tucson Citizen, May 8). Update May 21, 2004: judge allows further time for plaintiffs to prove case. (DURABLE LINK)
May 10-12 – “Judge allows powwow lawsuit”. It’s sensitivity vs. sensitivity: in Minnesota state court a group of female drummers are pursuing a sex discrimination law over their exclusion from the ritual drumming at a Native American powwow held annually at the University of St. Thomas. “Larry Smallwood, part of the Little Otter Singers drum group from the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation in central Minnesota, said women singing around a drum is a ‘cultural no-no.’” However, a judge denied the university’s motion to throw out the case, ruling (among other things) that “the school failed to show that drumming is protected speech under the First Amendment”. (Hannah Allam, St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 7). (DURABLE LINK)
May 10-12 – Updates. More developments in stories familiar to longtime readers:
* In a case arising under San Francisco’s pioneering ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of height and weight, “Jennifer Portnick, a 240-pound San Francisco aerobics instructor rejected by Jazzercise because of her size, has reached an agreement under which the firm will drop its requirement that instructors look fit.” (see Feb. 27) (Elizabeth Fernandez, “Exercising her right to work”, San Francisco Chronicle, May 7).
* Blackford High School in Hartford City, Ind., has relented and is going to allow Rob Mahon to attend its prom after all despite the positive results on his blood test for nicotine (he is 18 and it is legal for him to smoke) (“School Reverses Prom Ban For 18-Year-Old Smoker”, IndyChannel, Apr. 26)(see Apr. 26)(via WhatTheHeck.com)
* In the acrimonious litigation between the members of classical music’s Audubon Quartet (see Nov. 13, 2001 and links from there), “Estranged violinist David Ehrlich, who won a $611,000 judgment against his former quartet colleagues over his sudden dismissal two years ago, has filed motions in court that could force Clyde ‘Tom’ Shaw and his wife, Doris Lederer, to sell their Blacksburg home in order to pay their court-imposed debt.” (Kevin Miller, “Spurned violinist seeks house”, Roanoke Times, May 9; documents, defendant Shaw’s site)(& see letter to editor, Jun. 14, recommending website critical of defendants)(Update Dec. 4, 2005). (DURABLE LINK)
May 9 – The rewards of growing mold together. “Toxic mold” claims are among the fastest-growing source of lawsuits and claims against property insurance companies. Now various government agencies in Texas are investigating suspected unsavory practices in the thriving business that has sprung up of assisting homeowners to file such claims. After first moving the homeowner into a rental, some dishonest adjusters proceed to “put wet towels in the house, spray down the draperies, hose down furniture — anything to increase moisture. They close the windows and crank up the heat. It’s called ‘cooking’ the house, and it’s a recipe for sprouting mold and bilking insurance companies out of thousands of dollars.” The scams sometimes are unbeknownst to homeowners and at other times go on with their collusion. Alan Bligh, president of the Better Business Bureau in the Coastal Bend area of Texas, calls the practice “fairly widespread”, saying there are both legitimate and dishonest firms operating locally within the “mold remediation” business, which has mushroomed in short order from two or three companies to about 100. Insurance companies that delay paying mold claims or subject them to too much scrutiny can face punitive damages from angry jurors. (Laura Elder, “‘Cooked’ houses burn insurers”, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, May 5)(via CALA Houston). See also Mike Vallante, “Calm the mold hysteria”, Houston Chronicle, Apr. 26. (DURABLE LINK)
May 9 – House bill would cut off municipal gun suits. A proposed “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” would defend interstate commerce in guns from lawsuits brought on behalf of hostile local jurisdictions. As of mid-April the bill had 215 co-sponsors in the House. “When 219 members co-sponsor it the bill would likely be voted on by the full House. Four more co-sponsors would help bring the battle between the gun banners and the firearms industry to a swift and honorable conclusion.” (Tanya Metaksa, “Stop the War Against the Gun Industry”, FrontPage, Apr. 16; H. Sterling Burnett, National Center for Policy Analysis, “Congress should stop lawsuits against legal firearms, Apr. 18; “House GOP seeks to end handgun suits”, AP/Washington Times, Apr. 19). (DURABLE LINK)
May 9 – “‘Little’ done for firm, Rendell says”. It’s commonplace for politicians on leaving office to step into remunerative partnerships at big law firms, even when (especially when?) those law firms do a lot of business with the public entities associated with the politicians. What has raised eyebrows in the case of former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Ed Rendell is his superior candor: he freely admits that he has done “very little work” to justify the $250,000 he draws annually from the prominent Philadelphia law firm of Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll. (Tom Infield and Thomas Fitzgerald, Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 23). (DURABLE LINK)
May 8 – Zoo asserts animals’ “medical privacy”. The Washington Post had asked to see the medical records of a beloved giraffe after its death, but no go: “The Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo has taken the position that viewing animal medical records would violate the animal’s right to privacy and be an intrusion into the zookeeper-animal relationship.” On the other hand, the zoo does allow curious visitors to view the matings and other intimate habits of reclusive creatures through its PandaCam, ElephantCam and Naked Mole-Rat Cam. (James V. Grimaldi, “National Zoo Cites Privacy Concerns in Its Refusal to Release Animal’s Medical Records”, Washington Post, May 6). (DURABLE LINK)
May 8 – Mayor Bloomberg goes to bat for liability reform. “Having made little headway so far in his efforts to get the State Legislature to pass the bills he is seeking to limit damages against the city, the mayor has now turned his sights on the City Council. Mr. Bloomberg said that he would submit two bills to the Council tomorrow to make the city less vulnerable to slip-and-fall lawsuits. ‘All too often, people file tort claims for the same reason they file lottery tickets,’ he complained at a news conference in City Hall.” (Michael Cooper, “Mayor Fights to Reduce Damage Awards”, New York Times, May 7 (reg)). See Steven Malanga, “Tort City”, City Journal, Spring 2001; “Tort Trauma”, Summer 2001. (DURABLE LINK)
May 8 – Blumenthal sues own client. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, whose never-ceasing quest for turf and publicity frequently earns him mentions in this space, has filed suit against a body called the Connecticut Siting Council in an attempt to stall construction of an underwater cable line that would supply electric power to New York’s Long Island. There’s just one problem: the Council is a unit of the state government and thus is among his own clients, being in fact “represented in court by members of Blumenthal’s office.” (Thomas Scheffey, “Can Connecticut AG Sue His ‘Client’?”, Connecticut Law Tribune, April 30). (DURABLE LINK)
May 7 – “Crime and Punitives”. The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in civil punitive damage cases like BMW v. Gore — where it limited a state court’s multi-million-dollar punitive award over a new car’s undisclosed paint touch-up — turns out to have various organic connections with the course of its jurisprudence on arguably excessive criminal sentences, like those handed out under California’s “three-strikes” law. Why? “Because, when it comes to punishment, the Court should try to be consistent — even across the line dividing criminal law from civil law and the line dividing the Eighth Amendment from the due process clause. This isn’t just my opinion; it’s the Court’s.” (Evan Schultz, Legal Times, Apr. 19). (DURABLE LINK)
May 7 – “Big government ruined my long weekend”. A couple goes off for a brief getaway to the mountains, then realizes that the wife has left behind her prescription medication. Think they can convince a standby doctor to authorize four pills so that she can make it through the weekend? Forget it: “Between the War on Drugs and the liability climate, doctors are scared to death to make this kind of accommodation.” (Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings blog, Apr. 6). (DURABLE LINK)
May 7 – “Reno owes the public answers”. If former attorney general Janet Reno is going to present herself to the voters of Florida as a candidate for governor, the least she can do is answer questions — raised anew by a PBS “Frontline” documentary last month — about whether her prosecution as Dade County district attorney of the sensational Country Walk ritual-child-abuse case resulted in the imprisonment of innocent defendants (editorial, St. Petersburg Times, Apr. 28; PBS/WGBH, “The Child Terror“; Dorothy Rabinowitz, “The Pursuit of Justice in Dade County”, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 28, 1996, reprinted at McGill University site; Rael Jean Isaac, “Janet Reno and her Record as a So-Called Champion of Children”, Independent Women’s Forum, Apr. 27, 2000). (DURABLE LINK)
May 6 – Fearing ethnic profiling charges, bureau ignored flight school warning. “An F.B.I. agent in Phoenix told counterterrorism officials at the bureau’s headquarters last July that he had detected an alarming pattern of Arab men with possible ties to terrorism taking aviation-related training, and urged a nationwide review of the trend, according to F.B.I. officials. The agent’s recommendation was not acted upon before Sept. 11, however … F.B.I. officials said there was reluctance at the time to mount such a major review because of a concern that the bureau would be criticized for ethnic profiling of foreigners.” (James Risen, “F.B.I. Told of Worry Over Flight Lessons Before Sept. 11″, New York Times, May 4; Kausfiles, “Hit Parade”, scroll to May 5). (DURABLE LINK)
May 6 – ReplayTV copyright fight. Television networks are suing the maker of the ReplayTV device, arguing, among other things, that their copyright is infringed by the device’s power to let users skip commercials during playback. To Steven den Beste, this is a bit like demanding that scissors be banned “because they might be used to clip articles out of magazines.” (U.S.S. Clueless, May 4; Christopher Stern, “Privacy Fight Centers on Ad-Zapper”, Washington Post, May 4). (DURABLE LINK)
May 6 – “Unharmed woman awarded $104,000″. “A woman who believes she was poisoned by a chemical spill in 1993 has been awarded [C]$104,000 by a Manitoba court, even though the judge acknowledged the woman is likely mistaken in her belief.” Lynette Mary Sant, 55, reported being exposed to fumes from a broken bottle of the chemical phenol. “Medical tests found no evidence of liver, kidney or nervous system damage.” When Sant was examined at a clinic, “it was found that while she exhibited symptoms when exposed to phenol, she also exhibited symptoms when exposed to distilled water.” (Francine Dubé, National Post, Apr. 26). (DURABLE LINK)
May 3-5 – Australian roundup: taxpayers pay for schoolyard fight. “A young man involved in a schoolyard punch-up with another student seven years ago was awarded more than [A]$1 million in damages yesterday because the teachers failed to provide adequate playground supervision.” At Narrandera High School, according to the record of the case, 13-year-old David Michael Griffin “and another student, Joshua Ferguson, met for an ‘arranged fight’ next to the basketball court, in the schoolgrounds, at lunchtime on March 1, 1995. Mr Griffin threw the first punches and Mr Ferguson hit back, knocking him to the ground.” (Ellen Connolly, “Former student wins $1m over injuries”, Sydney Morning Herald, May 1). “An entrepreneur schoolboy trying to save up for a skateboard by selling flowers has fallen foul of local laws by failing to take out a A$5 million ($2.70 million) public liability insurance policy.” (“Law Puts Schoolboy Flower Seller Out of Business”, Reuters, Apr. 23). And a dispute over team standings in the Australian soccer league may proceed to litigation (Michael Cockerill, “Con-undrum: who is in the finals?”, Sydney Morning Herald, Apr. 7). Plus: coverage of medical liability insurance crisis (“Health Under Threat”, news.com.au, May 3 and other dates) (DURABLE LINK)
May 3-5 – Update: Defend yourself in print and we’ll sue (cont’d). In a decision deplored alike by business groups and the ACLU, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday by a 4-3 vote (PDF format) that that companies can be sued for false advertising over policy statements made in “issue ads”. The Nike Corporation had bought ads defending its record on the use of so-called sweatshop labor and was promptly sued by activists whose “private attorney general” action claimed that the ads violated the state’s fair advertising law (see Feb. 13). “What [Thursday's] decision means,” says Deborah La Fetra of the Pacific Legal Foundation, “is that one side of the debate gets full free speech protection, but a corporation trying to defend itself is subject to strict liability.” (Mike McKee, The Recorder, May 3). UCLA free speech specialist Eugene Volokh, whose already-indispensable new blog it seems we are beginning to quote daily, has the perfect instant analysis complete with a hypothetical on speech by abortion clinics that may help drive home why this new decision is anything but “progressive” (May 2). (DURABLE LINK)
May 3-5 – “It’s No Laughing Matter”. The Chicago Tribune finds harassment law trainers continuing to warn management against tolerating an atmosphere of joking in the workplace: “once a disgruntled employee files a lawsuit, ‘they’ll remember every inappropriate joke (ever) told,’ said Malcolm Kushner, who teaches harassment classes to attorneys in Santa Cruz, Calif. ‘Even if they laughed at it (at the time), it looks horrible to a jury.’” (T. Shawn Taylor, Chicago Tribune, Apr. 28). (DURABLE LINK)
May 1-2 – What big teeth you have, Sen. Edwards. In this week’s New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann profiles ambitious trial lawyer/Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who is itching to run for President “as a trial lawyer”. (“The Newcomer”, May 6, not online.) Noteworthy line: “Throughout much of the South, trial lawyers are, in effect, the left: an influential group that, instead of converting populist sentiment into redistributionist legislation, converts it into big rewards for a small number of people who have stories of having been screwed by powerful, uncaring figures.” Mickey Kaus nails Edwards’ demagogic “us against them” populism as exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from one who chose his route to the top: “Trial lawyers like Edwards, Lemann notes, specialize in a theatrical form of scapegoating, taking complicated disasters and finding a ‘villain’ with deep pockets.” (Kausfiles, “Hit Parade: The pretty ShrumPuppet”, scroll to Apr. 30; InstaPundit, Apr. 30).
An analysis by Roll Call finds that Edwards (D-N.C.) “has relied almost entirely on his trial lawyer friends” to underwrite his $1.39 million war chest. “Of that total, $1.19 million — 86 percent — came from lawyers, their employees or their family members, …. No other Congressional leader or potential presidential contender has such a heavy reliance on a single industry for their leadership PAC. Edwards … makes a point of stressing that he won’t take money from PACs or registered lobbyists”, but conveniently trial lawyers don’t need to couch their donations in either of those forms. (Paul Kane, “Trial Lawyers Fuel Edwards’ Efforts”, Roll Call, Apr. 25; see Ribstone Pippin blog, Apr. 28) (& welcome Andrew Sullivan readers). (DURABLE LINK)
May 1-2 – Ad model sues tobacco company. “An Arkansas man who said he worked as a model in cigarette ads in the late 1970s sued R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. yesterday, saying he experienced years of emotional distress from enticing people to smoke. Raymond Leopard of Little Rock seeks at least $65 million in damages in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court … The suit said Mr. Leopard worked as the ‘Winston Man’ from 1978 to 1980, pictured in Winston cigarette ads in popular magazines. The suit said he never smoked Winstons. … ‘His reputation has been forever tarnished and his personal credibility diminished,’ the suit said.” (“Former tobacco model sues Reynolds over ‘reputation’”, Washington Times, Apr. 30). (DURABLE LINK)
May 1-2 – “Injudicious conduct”. National Law Journal‘s annual roundup of bad behavior on the bench includes cases mentioned previously in this space (Amundson, Couwenberg) plus a bunch of others (Gail Diane Cox, National Law Journal, Apr. 23). (DURABLE LINK)
May 1-2 – “Don’t sue for Israel”. Following legal threats, a small Texas automotive exporter has apologized for apparently having refused to do business with Israeli firms and citizens. When the story circulated last week, our friend James Taranto at the WSJ/OpinionJournal’s “Best of the Web” audibly hoped that the exporter would get in trouble under the odd “antiboycott” law that makes it a federal offense, inter alia, for an American company to engage in “actual refusal to do business with or in Israel”. (“Best of the Web”, Apr. 25; W. Gardner Selby, “Texan’s fax causes international fuss”, San Antonio Express-News, Apr. 30). But Sasha Volokh points out the inconsistency of the antiboycott law with the principle of free association, connects that theme nicely with the Boy Scouts v. Dale case and hate speech litigation, and adds a bunch of useful links (“Don’t sue for Israel”, Volokh brothers blog, Apr. 28). (DURABLE LINK)
Tagged as:
ACLU,
Arizona,
Arkansas,
attorneys general,
Australia,
Connecticut,
copyright,
deep pocket,
emotional distress,
free speech,
governors,
Houston,
Janet Reno,
John Edwards,
Long Island,
Minnesota,
North Carolina,
Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia,
tobacco
April 19-21 – Pitcher hit by line drive sues maker of baseball bat. Hurling for the Pittsfield (Ill.) High School baseball team, Daniel Hannant put one over the plate to a batter from opponent Calhoun High School, who smacked the ball in a line drive straight at the pitcher’s mound where it hit Hannant on the head. Now Hannant is suing … guess who? The maker of the baseball bat, Hillerich & Bradsby, known for its trademark Louisville Slugger. (“Lawsuit comes out swinging”, Chicago Tribune, Apr. 18) (& see letter to the editor, Jun. 14; update, Dec. 30). (DURABLE LINK)
April 19-21 – No apologies from RFK Jr. As the uproar continues in Iowa over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s assertion that large hog-raising operations are more of a threat to American democracy than Osama bin Laden, Kennedy’s office has sent word to the Des Moines Register not to expect an apology or retraction. (Mark Siebert, “Kennedy stands by hog-lot remark”, Apr. 18; J. R. Taylor, “To the Preening Born”, New York Press “Billboard”, Apr. 18; earlier reports on this site Apr. 15, Apr. 17). Far from being an unconsidered slip of the tongue, the comparison seems to have been a feature of Kennedy’s speeches for months, to judge from a report published back in January on another of his Midwestern swings: “This threat is greater than that in Afghanistan,” he was quoted as saying. “This is not only a threat to the environment, it is a threat to the American economy and democracy.” (Gretchen Schlosser, National Hog Farmer, Jan. 15, linked in WSJ OpinionJournal.com “Best of the Web” Jan. 21). And a staff attorney from Kennedy’s office has sent us a letter responding to our editor’s Wednesday New York Post op-ed on the affair, to which we append a fairly lengthy response — see our letters page.
MORE: The food-industry-defense group Center for Consumer Freedom has been on the warpath against Kennedy and his band of lawyers for a while. It quotes Iowa Agriculture Secretary Patty Judge as saying: “The true agenda of this group is to sue farms and take the monetary rewards back to the East Coast.” (“Trashing Pork, Cashing In”, Apr. 11). Kennedy has estimated “damages” against the industry of $13 billion: “We have lawyers with the deepest pockets, and they’ve agreed to fight the industry to the end,” he has said. “We’re going to go after all of them.” (“Kennedy’s Pork Police Hit Iowa”, Apr. 2; “Waterkeepers, Farmers Weepers”, Dec. 12, 2001) “‘We’re starting with hogs. After the hogs, then we are going after the other ones,’ referring to the poultry and beef industries.” (“Warning”, Jan. 16, 2001, citing “Concerns that pork suit may be extended to other areas,” Des Moines Register, Jan. 8, 2001). (DURABLE LINK)
April 19-21 – Traffic-cams, cont’d. In the controversy (see Apr. 8-9) over the uses and abuses of automated traffic camera systems, a reader writes in (see letters page) to say we were wrong to describe Lockheed Martin as the current contractor on the systems; it actually sold the operation last August to another company. Our apologies. And Eugene Volokh reports on his blog (Apr. 17) that he found some inaccuracies in Matt Labash’s Weekly Standard investigative series on the cameras which Labash and the Standard have been happy to correct. See also “Hawaii scraps ‘Talivan’ traffic cameras”, AP/ABC News, Apr. 11. (DURABLE LINK)
April 19-21 – Clipboard-throwing manager = $30 million clipping for grocery chain. The Ralphs supermarket chain in California had a store manager who over the course of a decade “physically and verbally abused six female Ralphs employees by calling them vulgar names, manhandling them, and throwing items like telephones, clipboards and, in one instance, a 30- to 40-pound mailbag, at them.” So a San Diego jury awarded them $5 million each in damages. (Alexei Oreskovic, “$30M Awarded in Sex Harassment Suit Against Grocery Chain”, The Recorder, Apr. 9)(& update Jul. 26-28: judge cuts total award to $8 million). (DURABLE LINK)
April 19-21 – See you … at the Big Apple Blog Bash Friday night. (DURABLE LINK)
April 18 – “Tampa Taliban” mom blames acne drug. By reader acclaim: “The family of 15-year-old Charles Bishop has filed a $70-million lawsuit against the maker of acne medication Accutane, saying nothing else explains the teenager’s suicidal flight into a downtown Tampa high-rise.” Bishop, whose father bore an Arab surname, left a suicide note praising Osama bin Laden; the county medical examiner’s office found no trace of Accutane in his bloodstream, although it says that does not rule out the possibility that he might have been on the medication, for which he had been written a prescription. Although the maker of the widely used acne drug denies that it causes psychosis or suicidal impulses, its cautious consent form “required the Bishops to agree to tell their physician ‘if anyone in the family has ever had symptoms of depression, been psychotic, attempted suicide, or had any other serious mental problems.’ Julia Bishop, however, did not reveal that in 1984, she and Charles’ estranged father failed in a bloody suicide pact during which she stabbed him with a 12-inch butcher knife.” Mrs. Bishop’s lawyer, Michael Ryan of Fort Lauderdale, calls that earlier suicide pact incident “completely irrelevant”. (Robert Farley, “Suit: Drug behind suicide flight”, St. Petersburg Times, Apr. 17; Natashia Gregoire, “Teen Pilot’s Family Sues Drug Maker”, Tampa Tribune, Apr. 17; “Accutane acne drug maker sued over suicide”, USA Today/Reuters, Apr. 16; Broward Liston and Tim Padgett, “Despair Beneath His Wings”, Time, Jan. 13; Howard Feinberg, “Is Accutane to Blame?”, TechCentralStation.com, Apr. 18; see Feb. 1). Updates: manufacturer wins first jury trial (Margaret Cronin Fisk, “Suits Probe Acne Drug, Depression”, National Law Journal, Apr. 25; Michael Fumento, “The Accutane Blame Game”, National Review Online, May 9). (DURABLE LINK)
April 18 – Judge compares class action lawyers to “squeegee boys”. A Florida judge has rejected the tentative settlement of a shareholder lawsuit filed by Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach against power company Florida Progress Corp. over a 1999 merger, saying the evidence indicated that the suit did not leave class members in a better position than if it had never been filed. Added Pinellas County Judge W. Douglas Baird: “This action appears to be the class litigation equivalent of the ‘squeegee boys’ who used to frequent major urban intersections and who would run up to a stopped car, splash soapy water on its perfectly clean windshield and expect payment for the uninvited service of wiping it off.” (Jason Hoppin, The Recorder, Apr. 17). (DURABLE LINK)
April 18 – Welcome Humorix.org readers. The Linux-humor site started linking to us way back in 1999, if we remember correctly. Also sending us visitors lately: Auckland (N.Z.) District Law Society, Mar. 14 (“For a change of pace, spend some time with this digest of news stories … Most cases reported on are from the U.S., but there are quite a few examples from Europe, Australia, and elsewhere”); WTIC-AM Hartford, “Morning Links”, Apr. 7; American Civil Rights Union “ACLU Watch”, Nintendominion “Site Unseen”, Mar. 31; Dog Brothers Martial Arts (Hermosa Beach, Calif.), Mutual Reinsurance Bureau, Anne Klockenkemper (Univ. of Florida) Media Law Resources, Smith Freed & Eberhard P.C. (attorneys at law, Portland, Ore.), Univ. of Nevada-Reno Tau Kappa Epsilon, RKKA.org (Russian Red Army-themed wargaming); Fureyous.com, Mar. (“My dream site, a site where I can find the entire downfall of civilization due to frivolous and pathetic lawsuits and legal actions”), and many more. (DURABLE LINK)
April 17 – New York Post op-ed on RFK Jr. & hogs. Our editor has a piece today on the op-ed page of the New York Post about the furor that broke out in Iowa when celebrity environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. told a rally that large-scale hog farms are more of a threat to America than Osama bin Laden and his terrorists. For links to the local Iowa coverage, see our item here from Monday, of which the Post op-ed is an expansion. (Walter Olson, “Osama, the Pigs and the Kennedy”, New York Post, Apr. 17).
April 16-17 – Pharmaceutical roundup. The total cost of the settlement over the diet compound fen-phen has ballooned to more than $13 billion, swollen by mass recruitment by law firms of claimants who defendants believe have suffered no ill effects from the compound at all aside from possible worry. “Wyeth’s general counsel, Louis L. Hoynes Jr., said he believes that in a different legal climate his company might have been able to settle all serious claims for less than $1 billion. That would amount to an average of $1 million each for 1,000 cases.” (L. Stuart Ditzen, “Mass diet-pill litigation inflates settlement costs to $13.2 billion”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 9 — whole article well worth reading). Lawyers for a group of British women have filed what is believed to be the first injury suit over the “third-generation” birth control pill, which they say raises the risk of blood clots, and similar suits are expected to follow in the United States (Mary Vallis, “U.K. suit targets perils of The Pill”, National Post, Mar. 5). In one of the more recent applications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Daubert doctrine, courts have dismissed several lawsuits seeking to blame Pfizer’s anti-impotency drug Viagra for users’ heart attacks, ruling that the expert testimony in the cases was not based on scientific principles that had gained “general acceptance.” (Tom Perrotta, “Viagra Cases Dismissed”, New York Law Journal, Jan. 22). The Nov. 9, 2001 installment of CBS’s “48 Hours” launched a one-sided attack on psychiatric drugs used to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity and told the stories of two parents who say their use of the ADHD drug Adderall caused them to behave irrationally, resulting in the death of their children; but Hudson Institute fellow Michael Fumento finds that much was misstated or left out in the network’s account, including the exact role of the trial lawyers hovering in the background (Michael Fumento, “Prescription for Bias“, “Dawn Marie Branson: A Sad Story Only Half Told“) And although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not chosen to give a green light for the reintroduction of silicone breast implants for American women following the litigation-fueled panic that drove them from the market, they have regained popularity among women in Canada, reports the CBC (“Silicone implants back in style”, Sept. 20, 2001). (DURABLE LINK)
April 16-17 – A DMCA run-in. Tom Veal’s Stromata site, which covers topics ranging from pension regulation to science fiction, had a run-in a few days ago with its hosting service, Tripod, which abruptly closed down access to the site and then took its sweet time about reopening it. The reason? Tripod had received a nastygram from a law firm charging that Stromata was in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, not because it had posted any copyrighted material itself, but because it had linked to another site which had (it said) posted an unauthorized translation of a widely discussed piece on terrorism by Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. Unfortunately, as Veal notes, the incentives under DMCA are for hosts to muzzle speech in haste and un-muzzle at leisure. (“Et Cetera”, Apr. 9). (DURABLE LINK)
April 16-17 – Unlikely critic of litigation. The Washington group Judicial Watch files lawsuits at a manic clip, but now its founder Larry Klayman is taking to the mails to decry our national problem of excessive litigiousness. “One may liken the overall effect of Klayman’s direct-mail sermon against frivolous lawsuits to that of a Weight Watchers commercial starring Marlon Brando or a temperance lecture given by Hunter S. Thompson.” (Tim Noah, “Larry Klayman Decries Evils of Litigation!”, Slate, Apr. 3). (DURABLE LINK)
April 15 – RFK Jr. blasted for hog farm remarks. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the highest-profile spokesman for the developing alliance between trial lawyers and some environmentalist groups (see Dec. 7, 2000), “made an ass of himself” in remarks last weekend at a Clear Lake, Ia. rally, according to veteran Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen. Kennedy’s “statement that large-scale hog producers were a bigger threat to America than Osama bin Laden’s terrorists has to be one of the crudest things ever said in Iowa politics. … [Kennedy] brought his Waterkeeper’s Alliance for a rally [in Clear Lake]. It’s a group that is threatening lawsuits against livestock industries. … Rural America needs positive solutions to this problem, not the corrosive rhetoric of another out-of-state political operative or lawsuits from greedy trial lawyers. … What was one of the finest hours of this legislative session was marred by this fool from the East. … Kennedy looks to be cashing in on his family’s name. … If his name were Bob Fitzgerald, he’d be dismissed as another one of the kooks on the fringe of this debate.” Other reaction was not much more favorable: “‘You have to be a complete wandering idiot to make that statement,’ said [Luke] Kollasch [of Algona, Ia.], whose family owns several hog farms and feed and construction companies in northwest Iowa.” (Donnelle Elder, “Big hog lots called greater threat than bin Laden”, Des Moines Register, Apr. 10; “Kennedy’s outrageous rhetoric” (editorial), Apr. 11; David Yepsen, “Kennedy cashes in on family name while acting like a fool”, Apr. 14) (DURABLE LINK)
April 15 – Updates. Stories that seem to have a life of their own:
* Richard Espinosa, “who is suing the city of Escondido because his dog was attacked by a cat inside a city library, now says the attack was a hate crime.” (see Dec. 4, 2001) (“Cat attack now described as hate crime”, MSNBC, Apr. 5)
* “The Florida Legislature has partially undone a landmark Florida Supreme Court ruling issued in November that gave slip-and-fall injury victims the upper hand in lawsuits against supermarkets and other premises owners.” (see Jan. 7). The ruling had required businesses to prove they were not negligent when presented with slip-fall claims. However, trial lawyers extracted a compromise in which plaintiffs will not have to prove that a slippery material was on the floor for long enough for the store owner to have known about it. (Susan R. Miller, “Florida Legislature Passes Bill on Slip-and-Fall Cases”, Miami Daily Business Review, Mar. 27).
* “A Hays County judge has thrown out a default judgment that would have awarded $5 million to a local woman whose near-topless image was used in a national television ad for a ‘Wild Party Girls’ video without her permission. … Judge Charles Ramsay set aside the default judgment, ruling that the plaintiff had listed the wrong company in the lawsuit, and that the video’s makers were not either properly named or properly served.” (see Mar. 6-7) (Carol Coughlin, “Topless suit is groundless, judge rules”, San Marcos (Tex.) Daily Record, Mar. 30).
* More on the symbiotic relationship between state attorneys general and Microsoft competitors (see Apr. 3-4): “An April 2000 e-mail message from the Utah attorney general’s office to Novell, revealed in court, asked for ‘guidance … preferably without involving too many people seeing this language.’” (Declan McCullagh, “Report: MS Foes Bribed Attorneys”, Wired News, Apr. 6). (DURABLE LINK)
April 12-14 – Hey, no fair talking about the pot. During a 20-hour trip from California to Texas pulling a U-Haul trailer, three young women work their way through a bag of marijuana. Of course the ensuing rollover accident is, like, practically totally the fault of their Firestone tires and the U-Haul company, or at least so their lawyers argue in a suit against those companies, even though the tires did not suffer the “tread separation” that has heretofore been seen as the distinctive source of accident risk with the now-recalled Firestones. Now Matagorda County, Tex. Judge Craig Estlinbaum has declared a mistrial at the request of plaintiff’s lawyer Mikal Watts who complained that defense attorney Morgan Copeland “had breached a pretrial order by introducing detailed evidence of marijuana use” during the trip. If we read the AP story correctly, Judge Estlinbaum had ruled that the defense could mention only that portion of the marijuana it could prove the driver consumed, and attorney Copeland, who may now face sanctions in the famously pro-plaintiff county, had improperly let jurors know about the whole bag. The Ford Motor Co. was also named as a defendant but has already settled out of the case (“Texas judge declares mistrial in Firestone case”, Yahoo/ Reuters, Apr. 5; Pam Easton, “Judge declares Firestone mistrial”, AP/ MySanAntonio.com, Apr. 6). Update — additional coverage of ruling: Miriam Rozen, “Mistrial declared in Firestone case”, Texas Lawyer, Apr. 15).
April 12-14 – In the line of fire. Post-Enron, many companies feel the need to seek out savvier and more experienced executives to sit on boards and audit committees, but with escalating fears of personal liability “attracting talent may become nearly impossible. ‘Recruiting directors for the audit committee is like calling them on deck for a kamikaze attack,’ quips [corporate finance officer Bob] Williamson.” (Marie Leone, “Audit Committee? Thanks, But No Thanks”, CFO Magazine, Apr. 5).
April 12-14 – L.A. police sued, and sued. The family of the late James Allen Beck, who died in a fiery shootout with L.A. sheriff’s deputies last August after barricading himself in his home, has filed a wrongful death claim against the sheriff’s department. During the standoff Beck, an ex-police officer with a history of stockpiling weapons at his home, shot and killed Deputy Hagop Kuredjian. (“Mother of gunman who died in shootout files claim”, Sacramento Bee, Apr. 10)(& see Feb. 23, 2000). And: “Heirs of the late rap star Notorious B.I.G. have filed a wrongful death and federal civil rights lawsuit against Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks, two former chiefs and the city of Los Angeles, claiming they did not do enough to prevent the rapper’s death five years ago in a drive-by shooting.” (“Notorious B.I.G. heirs sue LAPD, officials, city”, CNN, Apr. 11).
April 11 – Don’t ban therapeutic cloning. Though not usually the petition-signing types, we (our editor) have signed a petition being circulated by Virginia Postrel’s just-launched Franklin Society opposing the current stampede in Congress to ban all scientific use of cloned human cells including “therapeutic” (non-reproductive) uses, and even the use of imported pharmaceuticals developed via such methods (see “Criminalizing Science” (symposium), Reason, Nov.). If you agree with us that this proposed law is a bad idea, you can sign the petition here and view the list of distinguished signers: despite efforts in some conservative quarters to hand down a party line opposing this potentially life-saving branch of biomedical research, support for it in fact cuts across the political spectrum. For information on contacting elected representatives, see InstaPundit, Apr. 10. (DURABLE LINK)
April 11 – Texas doctors’ work stoppage. Monday’s one-day work stoppage by South Texas doctors outraged at spiraling malpractice costs (see Mar. 15-17) drew national attention (“Texas docs protest malpractice claims”, AP/CNN, Apr. 8; see also Dean Reynolds, “Crushing Cost of Insurance”, ABCNews.com, Mar. 5 (Nev., Pa.)). And a Florida physician has launched an insurance policy for doctors “that aims to provide them with the legal resources they would need to countersue lawyers or expert witnesses filing frivolous lawsuits”. (Tanya Albert, “Frivolous suits feel wrath of Medical Justice”, American Medical News, Feb. 11). (DURABLE LINK)
April 11 – Batch of reader letters. Topics include the “pedal-extender” suit against Ford; OxyContin; suing food companies for waistline problems; police getting ticketed while responding to calls; laws mandating handicap accessibility in private homes; and why schools would send kids home when they have a slight sniffle. One writer upbraids blogger Natalie Solent for thinking it crazy to impose strict product liability on British blood suppliers that currently offer their services free of charge to patients; he thinks she (and by extension we) must not have stopped to consider that blood transfusions can transmit lethal diseases like AIDS and hepatitis.
Best of all, we hear from attorney Jack Thompson, the anti-videogame crusader who has just filed a lawsuit claiming that Sony’s EverQuest game is responsible for the suicide of a user, and he turns out to be every bit as suave and ingratiating as we dared hope (“go to Afghanistan where your anarchist, pro-drug views will be greatly rewarded”), though we wonder whether he caught the phrase “as if” in our original Apr. 3 posting. Mr. Thompson will probably not appreciate Eugene Volokh’s new satirical piece for TechCentralStation.com (“Worse than Internet Addiction”, Apr. 10). (DURABLE LINK)
Tagged as:
ACLU,
attorneys general,
Australia,
baseball,
Bill Lerach,
copyright,
Daubert,
Europe,
fen-phen,
Ford Motor,
Hawaii,
Iowa,
Italian,
Jack Thompson,
Larry Klayman,
Mikal Watts,
Milberg Weiss,
Philadelphia,
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
San Diego,
silicone breast implants,
trademarks,
Utah,
Wyeth
March 29-31 – British judge rejects hot-drink suits. U.K. lawyers had hoped to replicate the success of the celebrated American case in which a jury voted Stella Liebeck $2.7 million (later reduced to just under $500,000, and settled out of court) after she spilled coffee in her lap. However, on Mar. 27 High Court Justice Richard Field ruled against lawsuits by 36 patrons whose lawyers had claimed that the burger chain failed to warn of risks of scalding, “served drinks that were too hot, [or] used inadequate cups … ‘I am quite satisfied that McDonald’s was entitled to assume that the consumer would know that the drink was hot and there are numerous commonplace ways of speeding up cooling, such as stirring and blowing,’ the judge said.” (“British Judge Rules McDonald’s Not Liable for Hot Drinks That Scald”, AP/TBO, Mar. 28; “Judge rules against McDonald’s scalding victims”, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 27).
March 29-31 – Florida’s ADA filing mills grind away. The clutch of Miami lawyers who’ve been making a tidy living filing disabled-accommodation claims against local entrepreneurs are moving their way up into central Florida, where they are suing tourist businesses along interstate corridors, reports the St. Petersburg Times (see July 20, 2001 and links from there). One motel owner hit with a complaint has agreed to pay off the plaintiff lawyer’s hefty “fee” in installments, but can’t tell a reporter how big it is, because as part of the settlement he is forbidden to disclose the amount. (“Big winners in disabled crusade? Lawyers”, St. Petersburg Times, Mar. 24).
March 29-31 – The lawyers who invented spam. “On April 12, 1994, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, two immigration lawyers from Arizona, flooded the Internet with a mass mailing promoting their law firm’s advisory services.” Widely reviled at the time, Canter is still quite unapologetic: “Yes, we generated a lot of business. The best I can recall we probably made somewhere between $100,000 to $200,000 related to that — which wasn’t remarkable in itself, except that the cost of doing it was negligible.” (Sharael Feist, “Spam creator tackles the meaty issue”, ZDNet News, Mar. 26).
March 27-28 – Judge orders woman to stop smoking at home. In Utica, N.Y., Justice Robert Julian has ordered Johnita DeMatteo, if she wants to continue visitation rights with her 13-year-old son, to stop smoking in her home or car, even in the boy’s absence. “While similar rulings have been made in cases where children are in poor health, Julian’s ruling is apparently the first involving a healthy child who is not allergic to smoke” or suffer from a condition like asthma that would be worsened by it. (Dareh Gregorian, “Judge Bars Mom from Smoking”, New York Post, Mar. 26; Samuel Maull, “Judge Imposes Smoking Ban on Mother”, AP/Washington Post, Mar. 25)(see Oct. 5 and Nov. 26, 2001). Following the publication of a new study suggesting the possibility of a link between smoking and sudden infant death syndrome, anti-smoking activists are excited to think they may now have the leverage needed to obtain legal measures against smoking by parents in homes. “Ms. [Gail] Vandermeulen of [Ontario] Children’s Aid said attempts to curb smoking in the home have so far proved unworkable. In 1999, for example, the association drew up a policy trying to keep foster parents from smoking. ‘It caused quite a controversy; people felt they had a right to do what they want to do in their own homes,’ Ms. Vandermeulen said. (Carolyn Abraham, “Secondhand smoke linked to SIDS”, Toronto Globe & Mail, Feb. 21). And anti-smoking activists, in a report financed by the government of California, are demanding that an “R” rating be attached to movies in which anyone smokes, putting Golden Age Hollywood films off limits to the underage set unless they drag an adult to the theater with them (“Anti-smoking groups call for movie ratings to factor in tobacco”, Hollywood Reporter, Mar. 12; “The Marlboro woman” (editorial), The Oregonian, Jan. 28 (Univ. of Calif.’s Stanton Glantz)). (DURABLE LINK)
March 27-28 – “The American Way”. Thanks to James Taranto at WSJ “Best of the Web” (Mar. 26) for this pairing of quotes:
* “They evil ones didn’t know who they were attacking. They thought we would … roll over. They thought we were so materialistic and self-absorbed that we wouldn’t respond. They probably thought we were going to sue them.” — President George W. Bush, Mar. 21.
* “Whether or not we invade Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, let’s go about this the American way. Let’s sue him.”– Nicholas Kristof, New York Times (reg), Mar. 26.
March 27-28 – Reparations suits: so rude to call them extortion. What happened on Wall Street when the first three major U.S. companies were named in lawsuits demanding reparations for slavery? “In afternoon New York Stock Exchange trading, Aetna shares were up 44 cents at $37.78, CSX shares were up 66 cents at 37.55, and FleetBoston shares were up 24 cents at $35.38.” Should we interpret that as a recognition of the frivolous nature of the suits, or as investors’ vote of sympathy for the first extortion targets among many more to come? (Christian Wiessner, “Reparations Sought From U.S. Firms for Slavery”, Reuters/Yahoo, Mar. 26; “Suit seeks billions in slave reparations”, CNN, Mar. 26; text of complaint in PDF format, courtesy FindLaw; James Cox, “Aetna, CSX, FleetBoston face slave reparations suit”, USA Today, Mar. 24). Reparations activists are shrewdly structuring their meritless suits as guilt-seeking missiles, aimed at corporations nervous about their image and, coming up, the juiciest target of all: elite colleges and universities. At Princeton, for example, an early president of the college was recorded as owning two slaves at his death, and “numerous trustees and antebellum-era graduates owned slaves.” Reason enough to expropriate Old Nassau — get out your wallets, alums. (Andrew Bosse, “Reparations scholars may name University in lawsuit”, Daily Princetonian, Mar. 12; Alex P. Kellogg, “Slavery’s Legacy Seen in the Ivory Tower and Elsewhere”. Africana.com, Aug. 28, 2001) (see Feb. 22).
“It’s never about money,” lawyer Alexander Pires of the Reparations Coordinating Committee said last month. (Michael Tremoglie, “Reparations — ‘It’s Never About Money’”, FrontPage, March 4). “To me it’s not fundamentally about the money,” said radical Columbia scholar Manning Marable, who is also helping the reparations effort. (Kelley Vlahos Beaucar, “Lawsuit Chases Companies Tied to Slavery”, FoxNews.com, Mar. 25). Translation: it’s about the money. And next time you are inclined to be overawed by the reputation of Harvard Law School, consider that an ornament of its faculty, Prof. Charles Ogletree, not only is a key adviser to the reparations team but also co-chairs the presidential exploration committee of buffoon/spoiler candidate Al Sharpton, whose name will be forever linked with that of defamation victim Steven Pagones (see Dec. 29, 2000). (Seth Gitell, “Al Sharpton for president?”, Boston Phoenix, Feb. 28 – Mar. 7). (DURABLE LINK)
March 27-28 – Why your insurance rates go up. To the Colorado Court of Appeals, it makes perfect sense to make an auto insurer pay for a sexual assault that took place in a car. (Howard Pankratz, “Court: Attack in car insured”, Denver Post, Mar. 15). Update Oct. 15, 2003: state’s Supreme Court reverses by 4-3 margin.
March 25-26 – Web speech roundup. The famously litigious Church of Scientology has had some success knocking a major anti-Scientology site off the Google search engine (the offshore Xenu.net, “Operation Clambake”) by informing Google’s operators that the site violates copyrighted church material under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (Declan McCullagh, Google Yanks Anti-Church Sites”, Wired News, Mar. 21; “Google Restores Church Links”, Mar. 22; John Hiler, “Church v Google, round 2″, Microcontent News, Mar. 22) (via Instapundit)(see Mar. 19, 2001). The National Drug Intelligence Center, a unit of the U.S. Department of Justice, acknowledged in December that it monitors more than 50 privately operated websites that provide information about illegal drugs. In a report, the Center warned that many such sites include material “glamorizing” such substances or are “operated by drug legalization groups” with an aim to “increase pressure on lawmakers to change or abolish drug control laws.” Yes, it’s called “speech” to you, buddy (Brad King, “DOJ’s Dot-Narc Rave Strategy”, Wired News, Mar. 13; “Government Admits Spying on Drug Reformers”, Alchemind Society, Mar. 15; National Drug Intelligence Center, “Drugs and the Internet”, Dec. 2001; more on what DoJ calls “offending” websites).
Companies continue to wield threats of litigation with success against individuals who criticize them on investor and other message boards: “Dan Whatley …lost a $450,000 defamation lawsuit for statements he had made about a company called Xybernaut on an Internet message board. He said he didn’t even know the suit existed.” (Jeffrey Benner, “Online Company-Flamers: Beware”, Wired News, Mar. 1). The Texas Republican Party recently threatened legal action against a parody website aimed at calling attention GOP links to the failed Enron Corp., but succeeded only in giving the site’s operators far more publicity than they could have gotten in any other way (Eric Sinrod (Duane Morris), “E-Legal: Republican Party of Texas Goes After Enron Parody Web Site”, Law.com, Mar. 5). The Canadian government has demanded that pro-tobacco website Forces Canada cease using a version of the national flag’s maple leaf (which turns out to be a trademarked logo) as a design feature, claiming it could confuse viewers into thinking the site is officially sanctioned (Joseph Brean, “Take Canadian flag off Web site, government tells smokers’ group”, National Post, Jan. 30). And the Electronic Frontier Foundation along with law school clinics at Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, and the University of San Francisco have launched the new Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, aimed at assisting site owners worried about being accused of violating copyrights or trademarks. It includes special sections devoted to fan sites, poster anonymity and other issues, and publishes examples of lawyers’ letters commanding site owners to cease and desist, popularly known as nastygrams. (Gwendolyn Mariano, “Site reads Web surfers their rights”, Yahoo/CNet, Feb. 26). (DURABLE LINK)
March 25-26 – La. officials seek oyster judge recusal. “The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources is asking a state district judge to remove himself from hearing oyster lease damage cases because he has already awarded a former client and the client’s family almost $110 million from two previous cases. Monday, state District Judge Manny Fernandez is set to begin hearing more lawsuits claiming the Caernarvon Freshwater Diversion damaged oyster leases in St. Bernard Parish. The state says at least one plaintiff in the case is a former client of Fernandez’s and that man’s family and related companies received damage awards in recent Fernandez decisions. … The upcoming case is the latest in a string of oyster damage suits that, if upheld on appeal, will cost the state more than $1 billion, according to the state’s motion.” (Mike Dunne, “DNR asks judge to step down”, Baton Rouge Advocate, Mar. 16). (DURABLE LINK)
March 25-26 – Tribulations of the light prison sleeper. David Wild, serving a sentence for murder at a medium security prison in British Columbia, is asking C$3 million in damages over what he calls the prison’s “inhumane” practice of conducting head counts in the middle of the night, which “has caused him to lose a full night’s sleep 509 times over five years.” In particular, Wild’s suit “says prison guards acted thoughtlessly and carelessly by rattling door knobs, stomping down stairs, turning on lights and talking loudly on two-way radios in the middle of the night.” Federal Court Justice James Hugessen has already ruled that the case can go forward, rejecting the Canadian government’s attempt to get it thrown out as frivolous or vexatious. (Janice Tibbetts, “Prison guards wake me up too much, murderer claims in $3.1M lawsuit”, Southam/National Post, Mar. 12). (DURABLE LINK)
March 22-24 – “O’Connor Criticizes Disabilities Law as Too Vague”. Another noteworthy public speech from Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor on a topic dear to our heart, namely the way the Americans with Disabilities Act created a massive new edifice of rights to sue without making clear who was actually covered by the law or what potential defendants had to do to comply. Law professor Chai Feldblum, who played a key role in guiding the law to passage while with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington office, counters by saying that its backers were not rushed and devoted much care and attention to drafting the bill’s provisions. Note that this does not actually contradict the charge of vagueness, but only Justice O’Connor’s charitable assumption that the vagueness was inadvertent; it is consistent with our own long-voiced opinion that the bounds of the law were made unclear on purpose. (Charles Lane, Washington Post, Mar. 15). For the Justice’s comments last summer on the relation between contingency fees, class actions and the litigation explosion, and on zero-tolerance policies, see July 6, 2001. (DURABLE LINK)
March 22-24 – Lawyers stage sham trial aimed at inculpating third party. Arizona bar authorities say opposing lawyers in a medical malpractice case cut a secret deal in which the lawyers for the physician defendant “promised not to object to any of the plaintiffs’ evidence in return for the plaintiffs’ promise to dismiss the case before the jury began deliberations.” A second defendant, Scottsdale Memorial Hospital, had already been dismissed from the case on summary judgment, and for the plaintiffs the point of the maneuver “was to create a record that would help them in seeking reconsideration of the summary judgment in favor of the hospital”. Both parties were aware that the physician defendant’s resources were insufficient to pay the claim if successful. The trial judge had been suspicious of the plaintiffs’ motion to withdraw the case, and later discovered the secret agreement when considering their motion to reconsider the summary judgment in favor of the hospital.
The state bar of Arizona brought a disciplinary action against Richard A. Alcorn and Steven Feola, who had represented the doctor. (The plaintiff’s attorney involved in the deal, Timothy J. Hmielewski, is from Florida). A hearing officer recommended against punishing the two, “concluding that the lawyers had a ‘good faith belief’ that they had no duty to disclose the secret pact”. However, both a disciplinary panel and the Arizona Supreme Court disagreed, and the latter ordered Alcorn and Feola suspended from practice for six months. It “concluded that the scripted trial and prearranged dismissal worked a serious fraud on the court and the public.” The trial judge had also “ordered all the attorneys involved to pay a $15,000 fine each for committing a fraud on the court and duping the court into conducting ‘a mock trial at the taxpayers’ expense.’ That sanction was affirmed on appeal.” (“‘Sham Trial’ Slammed, ABA Journal eReport, Mar. 8; In re Alcorn, Ariz. No. SB-01-0075-D.) (DURABLE LINK)
March 22-24 – Arsenic: one last dose? Last year some environmental groups did their best to make the public think that by pulling back the Clinton administration’s last-minute arsenic rules the incoming Bush White House was trying to let “polluters”, specifically the mining industry, get away with dumping the poison into town drinking water supplies. “This decision suggests the Bush Administration is caving to the mining industry’s demands to allow continued use of dangerous mining techniques,” said Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope. (Sierra Club release, Mar. 20, 2001). “This outrageous act is just another example of how the polluters have taken over the government,” said Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney Erik Olson. (NRDC release, Mar. 20, 2001). Critics of the stringent Clinton rule said its real victims would be ratepayers and taxpayers in the Southwest where municipal water systems would be forced to spend huge amounts to remove traces of naturally occurring arsenic that had been causing no evident health effects (see Sept. 11, 2001 and links from there).
So who was right? The Bush people ran into a p.r. disaster and soon backed down, but this week’s L.A. Times report from Albuquerque, N.M., which has more arsenic in its water than any other big American city, suggests that the enviros won their victory on the issue by misleading the public. Pretty much everyone the paper talked to in Albuquerque, from the Democratic mayor on down, dislikes the new standard: “many people here say the rule will do little more than cost the city $150 million, and Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico are suing to block it.” Did mining operations cause the city’s high arsenic levels? No, “volcanoes and lava flows are responsible”. (Elizabeth Shogren, “Albuquerque Battles to Leave Arsenic in the Water”, L.A. Times, Mar. 18). See also Robert McClure, “Mining, arsenic rules are next on Bush’s list”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Mar. 21, 2001: “Virtually all arsenic in drinking water is naturally occurring.” Mining companies wind up being affected indirectly by drinking water standards because of rules that treat mine runoff water as pollution if it flunks drinkability standards, even (absurdly) if the natural occurrence of substances like arsenic in the soil meant that the water would not have met the standard with or without mining operations. (More: Nick Schulz, “Greens vs. Poor People”, TechCentralStation, Nov. 6; Jonathan Adler, “Wrong way on water”, National Review Online, Nov. 13). (DURABLE LINK)
Tagged as:
ACLU,
Arizona,
Canada,
Colorado,
contingent fee,
copyright,
Denver,
hospitals,
libel slander and defamation,
Louisiana,
New Mexico,
Oregon,
reparations,
Scientology,
Seattle,
The Litigation Explosion,
tobacco,
trademarks
November 19-20 – New frontiers in discrimination law: Harleys among the cyclamens. Lawmakers in Ohio, South Carolina and several other states are pushing legislation that would prohibit businesses from turning away customers on motorcycles. Georgia state Sen. Joey Brush, who rides a Harley-Davidson, “introduced the legislation because of a long-running dispute with Calloway Gardens, a private, nonprofit horticultural garden that doesn’t allow bikers to drive onto the grounds. The ban, in place for the garden’s entire 49-year existence, is meant to protect the serenity and peace for which the grounds are known, said spokeswoman Rachel Crumbley. ‘We feel it’s not a civil right to ride a motorcycle wherever you please,’ Crumbley said.” An Ohio rider who supports such legislation “said a waitress at a restaurant near Cincinnati once placed him and his wife in a corner away from other patrons when the couple pulled up wearing leather boots, chaps and vests.” But the biker community, which in the past has often sided with libertarian causes such as opposition to mandatory helmet laws, is far from unanimous on this one: “As a business owner, they should have right to decide who they want,” says spokesman Steve Zimmer of Ohio’s pro-biker ABATE group — clearly someone who hasn’t forgotten that biking is supposed to be about freedom. (Andrew Welsh-Huggins, “Laws Seek to Protect U.S. Bikers”, AP/Yahoo, Nov. 14). (& letters to the editor, Feb. 28) (DURABLE LINK)
November 19-20 – Can’t find the arsonist? Sue the sofa-maker. “With the two-year statute of limitations almost up, lawyers representing victims of New Jersey’s Seton Hall University dormitory fire are working frantically to find parties to sue.
“The fire, which authorities believe was intentionally started, broke out in the Boland Hall dormitory on Jan. 19, 2000, killing three students and injuring 58 others. Seton Hall, which enjoys charitable immunity from suit, has settled out of court with some of the plaintiffs. Still, lawyers contemplate suits against other people who may have contributed to the conflagration — the arsonists, the maker of the sofa that ignited and any other potentially responsible parties.” (Charles Toutant, “Seton Hall Fire Victims’ Lawyers Still Scrambling to Identify Defendants”, New Jersey Law Journal, Nov. 14) (see June 1, 2000). (DURABLE LINK)
November 19-20 – By reader acclaim: football’s substance abuse policy challenged. “New England wide receiver Terry Glenn has sued the NFL, claiming a disability makes it difficult for him to adhere to certain rules in the league’s substance abuse policy. … Glenn filed the complaint under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but it did not specify what disability Glenn suffers. Glenn claims he should not have been suspended by the NFL for the first four games of the season for violation of the substance abuse policy.” (“Glenn’s suit doesn’t specify disabilities”, AP/ESPN, Nov. 4). Plus: reader Rick Derer, outraged by the Casey Martin episode, has put up an ADA horror stories website to call attention to what he terms “the worst law ever foisted on the American people”.
November 19-20 – Municipal gun suits on the run. Cause for thanksgiving indeed: the lawless and extortionate municipal gun-suit campaign has been encountering one setback after another. “In a major victory for gun manufacturers, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on [Nov. 16] upheld the dismissal of a suit brought by Camden County, New Jersey, that accused gun makers of creating a ‘public nuisance’ and sought to recoup the governmental costs associated with gun-related crimes.” Arguing the losing side were radical law prof David Kairys and class-action firm Berger & Montague. The three-judge panel was unanimous. (Shannon P. Duffy, “3rd Circuit Shoots Down Gun Suit Theory”, The Legal Intelligencer, Nov. 19). The city of Atlanta is desperately trying to keep its anti-gun suit alive in the face of legislation enacted by its parent state of Georgia making it as explicit as humanly possible that the city has no authority to press such a suit (Richmond Eustis, “Atlanta Asks State Appeals Court to Keep Alive Suit Against Gun Makers”, Fulton County Daily Report, Nov. 15).
Yale law professor Peter Schuck describes the gun lawsuits as based on the “most tenuous” theories yet of government rights of recoupment (“subrogation”) and tort law as “one of the last places” we should look to resolve the policy issues of gun control (“Smoking Gun Lawsuits”, American Lawyer, Sept. 10). And Bridgeport, Conn. mayor Joseph Ganim, who had taken perhaps the highest profile among Northeastern mayors in support of the gun suits, is likely to be less heard from for a while given his indictment last month on two dozen felony counts including extortion, bribery and mail fraud. (He denies everything.) (John Christoffersen, “In Connecticut, a growing and unwelcome reputation for corruption”, AP/Charleston (W.V.) Gazette, Nov. 16; Chris Kanaracus et al, “Ganim on the Spot” (pre-indictment coverage), Fairfield County Weekly, undated). See also Kimberley A. Strassel, “Bummer for Sarah Brady”, OpinionJournal.com, Nov. 15 (expressing optimistic view that municipal gun suits have been contained). (DURABLE LINK)
November 16-18 – Profiling perfectly OK after all. “State highway safety officials said they have received a $700,000 federal grant to help them crack down on two groups of chronic violators of the state’s seat belt law: drivers and passengers of pick-up trucks, and all male drivers and passengers between 18 and 55. … [Louisiana Highway Safety Commission Executive Director James] Champagne said state and federal studies have consistently shown pickup drivers and all male drivers are less likely to buckle up than any other groups of drivers or front-seat passengers. State law requires both the driver and front-seat passengers of vans, sports utility vehicles, cars and trucks to use seat belts. … Asked if the targeting of males and pickup drivers and passengers is profiling of a certain group, Champagne said, ‘Absolutely.’” To recap, then: the federal government strictly bans giving extra attention to 25-year-old males from Saudi Arabia at airport check-in. While they’re driving to the airport, on the other hand, it positively encourages them to be profiled. Perhaps the explanation is that it’s willing to swallow its scruples in order to combat really antisocial behavior — like failing to wear seat belts, as opposed to hijacking planes into buildings. (Ed Anderson, “Police to harness seat belt scofflaws”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Nov. 10 — via InstaPundit). Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union is soliciting racial-profiling plaintiffs in New Jersey. “The ACLU billboard, which went up last month, shows a photograph of two minority men and between them the words ‘Stopped or searched by the New Jersey State Police? They admit to racial profiling. You might win money damages,’ the sign reads. The ad includes the ACLU’s toll-free number.” (“Billboards in New Jersey Ask for Trooper Praise, Not Profiling Complaints”, FoxNews.com, Nov. 14).
November 16-18 – EEOC approves evacuation questions for disabled. To the relief of many in the business community, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has announced that it is not unlawful to ask workers about the state of their health for the purpose of formulating plans for emergency building evacuations. The September attacks called attention to the difficulty experienced in disaster situations by evacuees with such conditions as blindness, paraplegia, extreme obesity, and asthma. While employers may ask about problems that might impede evacuation, they should not insist on getting actual answers; EEOC officials recommend that they let each worker elect whether to disclose the information. The Americans with Disabilities Act has generally been interpreted as conferring on employees a broad legal right to conceal health problems from their employers. (Kirsten Downey Grimsley, “EEOC Approves Health Queries”, Washington Post, Nov. 1).
November 16-18 – Et tu, UT? Perhaps envying California its litigious reputation, the Supreme Court of Utah has ruled that it will not enforce releases in which parents agree to waive their children’s right to sue for negligence. The case involved a child thrown from a rented horse; the mother had signed a release before the accident, but then decided she wanted it invalidated so she could sue anyway. Attorney James Jensen, who represented defendant Navajo Trails, “listed many activities that now may be affected or curtailed, including school field trips, religious organization youth activities, scouting programs, amusement parks and ski resorts. ‘Anybody that provides recreational activities to minors,’ he said.” (Andrew Harris, “Utah High Court Says No Release of Liability to Children”, National Law Journal, Nov. 12).
November 15– “Poor work tolerated, employees say”. We keep hearing that if we were really serious about airport security we’d kick out those ill-paid Argenbright bag screeners and swear in a new 28,000-strong corps of federal employees to replace them. But a “new study concludes that federal workers themselves view many of their co-workers as poor performers who are rarely disciplined. The survey of 1,051 federal workers, conducted for the Brookings Institution’s Center for Public Service prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, found that on average federal employees believe 23.5 percent of their colleagues are ‘not up to par.’ Meanwhile, only 30 percent believe their organization does a very or somewhat good job of disciplining poor performers.” Those numbers are worse than the ones you get when you poll employees of private firms. At least when Argenbright botches things you can kick it out in favor of another contractor (Ben White, Washington Post, Oct. 30; Gregg Easterbrook, “Fighting the Wrong Fight”, The New Republic Online, Nov. 13).
November 15 – Lawyers’ immunity confirmed. In a dispute arising out of a developer’s plan to buy Fisher Island, home to many celebrities and wealthy persons, a Florida court has ruled that the developer cannot pursue a countersuit for tortious interference against residents who filed lawsuits aimed at derailing the deal, even if it can show they knew the suits to be unmeritorious. The court relied on a 1994 case in which the Florida Supreme Court ruled that an attorney’s acts in the course of litigation are subject to an “absolute” privilege: “We find that absolute immunity must be afforded to any act occurring during the course of a judicial proceeding, regardless of whether the act involves a defamatory statement or other tortious behavior such as the alleged misconduct at issue, so long as the act has some relation to the proceeding.” Or, as the Miami legal paper puts it, “litigation itself is immune from litigation”. Put differently, people engaged in litigation boast an “absolute immunity” to engage in injurious behavior that would have a remedy at law if you or I tried it (Julie Kay, “Lawsuits of the Rich and Famous — and Their Two Dozen Law Firms”, Miami Daily Business Review, Nov. 1).
November 15 – Exxon Brockovich vs. Erin Valdez. The Ninth Circuit has struck down as excessive an Alaska jury’s $5 billion punitive award against Exxon over the Valdez oil spill, sending the case back for further litigation; compensatory damages are unaffected by the ruling (Henry Weinstein & Kim Murphy, “Court Overturns $5-Billion Judgment Against Exxon in ’89 Alaska Oil Spill”, L.A. Times, Nov. 8; Yahoo Full Coverage)(update Dec. 30, 2002: judge cuts award to $4 billion). Meanwhile, toxic-tort celebrity Erin Brockovich is helping spearhead a new effort to recruit plaintiffs from among the more than 15,000 workers who took part in the cleanup effort a dozen years ago, some of whom believe that it caused their health to take a turn for the worse. A Los Angeles Times account, after sympathetically relaying what would seem to be the most striking such cases the plaintiff’s team could come up with, concedes that “most health officials remain unconvinced that the cleanup left anyone sick”. (Nick Schulz, “Busy Bee Brockovich Looking to Sting Again”, TechCentralStation, Nov. 9; Kim Murphy, “Exxon Oil Spill’s Cleanup Crews Share Years of Illness”, L.A. Times, Nov. 5; Mary Pemberton, “Erin Brockovich probes Exxon complaints”, AP/ Anchorage Daily News, Nov. 6).
November 14 – “Rejoice, rejoice”. “[Y]esterday’s liberation of Kabul and much of the rest of Afghanistan is a great victory. … The moving scenes from the Afghan capital remind us … that most believing Muslims reject the rigorist insanity that bin Laden and the Taliban promote in their name, and are happy to worship God without having to wear a beard or a burqa. They can sing and dance again; women can work, and children can learn. The Taliban’s scorched-earth devastation of so many Afghan villages reveals their contempt for their own people, and their desertion of so many of their own Arab and Pakistani jihadis shows their capacity to betray. … Today, though, everyone who cast doubt on the possibilities of success and everyone who sneered at American ‘gung-ho’ should observe a period of silence. The rest of us should, to use a famous phrase from another war, ‘just rejoice rejoice’”. ((editorial), Daily Telegraph, Nov. 14; Paul Watson, “Taliban torturers on the run”, L.A. Times, Nov. 14; Christopher Hitchens, “Ha ha ha to the pacifists”, The Guardian, Nov. 14; Dexter Filkins, “In Fallen Taliban City, a Busy, Busy Barber”, New York Times, Nov. 13).
November 14 – Insurance market was in trouble before 9/11. With alarms being heard about an impending crisis in the availability of commercial insurance, it’s worth noting for the record that conditions were deteriorating rapidly in that market even before Sept. 11, mostly because insurers were pulling back from liability exposures: “Among the lines tightening the most are products liability, umbrella liability, contractor liability and nursing home liability, insurers and brokers say,” reported the July 2 issue of the trade publication Business Insurance. Also in scarce supply was coverage for “anything with an occupational disease exposure, like insulation and cell phones,” said one industry observer, Tom Nazar of Near North. “Generally, premiums for most liability lines are increasing anywhere from 25% to 60%,” with transportation risks seeing rate hikes of 100-200 percent and nursing homes 150 percent, said another insurance exec — all this well before the WTC attacks hit carriers with the largest losses from a single insured event in history. (Joanne Wojcik, “Transportation takes biggest hit in hardening market”, Business Insurance, July 2 (online subscribers only), and other contemporaneous coverage in the same publication). Directors’ and officers’ liability was another big problem area, especially for companies in fields such as high tech and telecom, financial services and health care. “The risks facing the steepest premium increases are pharmaceutical companies, nursing homes and contractors, especially organizations located in the litigious markets of California, Illinois and New York, insurance executives said.” In workers’ comp, “loss severity continues to deteriorate”.
And then there was asbestos: an August Standard & Poor’s report indicated that insurers were setting aside an additional $5-10 billion this year for asbestos claims, above earlier amounts reserved. “The implications to the insurance community are potentially devastating,” says the report. “Other analysts and ratings agencies recently have estimated that the insurance industry would need to put up as much as $20 billion to $40 billion more to cover their asbestos exposure. In May, ratings firm A.M. Best Co. calculated that insurers have set aside $10.3 billion to pay additional asbestos claims, having already paid out $21.6 billion.” A not-insubstantial portion of those sums, as we know, will go to compensate persons who are not sick from asbestos and never will be — raising once again the question of why we don’t try harder as a society to reserve the limited pool represented by insurance for situations where it’s really needed (Christopher Oster, “Insurers to Set Aside Additional Billions For Asbestos Claims”, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 1 (online subscribers only)). On proposals to bail out insurance markets since the attacks, see Scott Harrington and Tom Miller, “Insuring against terror”, National Review Online, Nov. 5. (DURABLE LINK)
November 14 – “Diabetic German judge sues Coca-Cola for his health condition”. Why should American lawyers have all the fun? In a trial that began Monday in Essen, Germany, Hans-Josef Brinkmann, 46, a judge in the east German town of Neubrandenburg, says the beverage company is partly responsible for his developing diabetes after drinking two bottles of Coca-Cola a day for years. He further “disputes the contention of the drinks company that Coca Cola is a ‘flawless foodstuff’ … Brinkmann plans to bring a similar case against Masterfoods, manufacturers of Mars Bars, Snickers and Milky Way chocolate candy, in January.” Whether Herr Brinkmann wins or loses these suits, we hope he’ll come to America — we bet he’d have no trouble landing a job at one of our law schools. (AFP/Times of India, Nov. 14) (more).
November 13 – From the paint wars: a business’s demise, a school district’s hypocrisy. “Sherwin-Williams Co. acquired Mautz Paint Co. Thursday after the local company said it could no longer afford facing a costly lawsuit filed by the city of Milwaukee. Bernhard F. ‘Biff’ Mautz, the company’s chairman of the board, said negotiations to sell the [family-owned] firm intensified in April after the city of Milwaukee filed suit seeking more than $100 million in damages over the manufacture of lead-based paints decades ago.
“‘Although we believe the city’s case is meritless and Mautz will ultimately be absolved of any responsibility, for the first time in our history we were faced with years of litigation, which even if (the plaintiff was) unsuccessful, would destroy our small company,’ he said. …
“The sale price was not released, but Mautz President Dan Drury said it was discounted to reflect the costs of the lawsuit. Founded in 1892, Mautz employed 260 people at its 33 retail stores and manufacturing plant. It had sales of $32 million last year. …
“Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce said the sale of the one of Madison’s oldest businesses will make it more difficult for the state to attract new businesses. ‘This is a sad day in the state of Wisconsin,’ said James S. Haney, the organization’s president. ‘This is every business person’s worst nightmare. Mautz got in the gun sights of the contingency fee trial lawyers and the bureaucrats and now another homegrown locally owned business with strong ties to the community is gone.’” (“Mautz announces acquisition by Sherwin-Williams”, AP/Janesville (Wis.) Gazette, Nov. 9).
Meanwhile: In Houston, where contingency-fee lawyers have been recruiting local school districts to go after paint companies, the lawsuit filed by the Spring Branch School District claims that residual paint from decades past exposes students and teachers to “a substantial risk of lead poisoning” — a dramatic charge indeed. Which left Jon Opelt, executive director of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse Houston and the parent of a child in the district, wondering why “the school district has never notified me, as a parent, of the presence of any health or safety risks related to lead. No cautionary notes have been sent home with my children. No alarming studies have been released discussing the severity of the problem in our schools.’”
Which naturally raises the question: is there a genuine lead hazard, which the district has been covering up from parents, or just a phony hazard, which their lawyers are conjuring up in an effort to squeeze money from manufacturers? Opelt: “Ron Scott, a lawyer for the school district, is quoted in a Houston Chronicle article as saying: ‘This isn’t a panic issue. People don’t need to feel their schools are unsafe.’ Duncan Klussmann, a district administrator, told me, ‘Your child is not at risk.’ These are the very same people who signed onto a lawsuit that says there is a ‘substantial risk of lead poisoning.’ What are we to believe? District officials are telling parents their schools are safe but their lawsuit demands millions of dollars for addressing a dangerous situation caused by lead paint. Both cannot be true.” (CALA Houston website, “Parent Urges School District To “Get The Lead Out“, “Contrary to Other Reports“, David Waddell, “Why Should Safety Be a Secret?“, Annette Baird, “District: Lead-paint concerns in check”, Houston Chronicle, Oct. 17). (DURABLE LINK)
November 13 – Update: ousted quartet member wins damages. “A Pennsylvania judge has ordered three members of the Audubon Quartet to pay their former colleague David Ehrlich more than $600,000 in damages, adding yet another dramatic twist to the legal battle that has largely silenced the internationally acclaimed quartet since February 2000 and cost the group its home at Virginia Tech.” (Kevin Miller, “Ousted quartet member should receive damages, judge rules”, Roanoke Times, Oct. 16; “In Support of the Audubon Quartet“; summary of court opinion) (see June 5, 2000, June 14, 2001). Update May 10-12, 2002: defendants could lose house.
November 13 – Women’s rights: British law, or Islamic? According to columnist Theodore Dalrymple of The Spectator, a misguided multiculturalism has led authorities in the United Kingdom to adopt a hands-off policy toward some British Muslim families’ trampling of their young daughters’ rights (“The abuse of women”, Oct. 27).
November 12 – “Morales trying to ‘clear the air’ before campaign”. Many assumed the political career of former Texas attorney general Dan Morales was dead, dead, dead after allegations began flying in the papers about the circumstances under which he’d hired outside lawyers to represent the state in the tobacco affair and share one of the largest fee windfalls in history (see Sept. 1-3, 2000). But now Morales wants to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Phil Gramm and is insisting with new vehemence that he never acted improperly and that it’s all been a misunderstanding. Two of his lawyers have “asked a state district court in Austin to let Morales lay the groundwork for a possible defamation suit by taking the sworn testimony of four former associates. Morales wants to question John Eddie Williams Jr. of Houston — one of five trial lawyers who shared $3.3 billion in legal fees from the tobacco case — and three former assistants in the attorney general’s office — Harry Potter of Austin and Jorge Vega and Javier Aguilar of San Antonio. He indicated that Williams and Potter, who was actively involved in the tobacco suit, could be targets of any suit he may file.” Pull up a chair, this promises to be interesting (Clay Robison, Houston Chronicle, Nov. 7). Morales also continues to deny “allegations by Houston trial lawyer Joe Jamail that Morales improperly solicited $1 million from each of several lawyers he considered hiring for the tobacco suit.”
November 12 – Short-sellers had right to a drop in stock price. At least that’s the premise underlying this press release and lawsuit from a class action law firm seeking the right to sue on behalf of short-sellers who feel their speculative bets against the stock of Intelli-Check Inc. were stymied by the company’s allegedly over-sunny fiscal projections. (“Speziali, Greenwald & Hawkins, PC Announces the Filing of a Class Action Suit on Behalf of Short-Sellers of Intelli-Check, Inc. (Amex: IDN) Securities”, Yahoo/PR Newswire, Oct. 18).
November 12 – “U.S. Debates Info on Chemical Hazards”. “Separate hearings in the House and Senate [were] held this week to reassess the safety of chemical and industrial facilities in the light of recent terrorist attacks. A key policy at stake is the so-called ‘right to know’ law, which requires the federal government to publicly disclose sensitive information about facilities around the country that could be used by terrorists to target the most dangerous locations.” Jeremiah Baumann, a spokesman for the Nader-empire U.S. Public Interest Research Group, called for preserving public access to the sensitive information. “‘Let’s at least make the bad guys work for it,’ countered Amy E. Smithson, a chemical and biological weapons analyst for the Henry L. Stimson Center think tank.” Smithson said “[t]he Clinton EPA’s decision to post those plans for some 15,000 plants on the Internet in August 2000 ‘wasn’t just bad, it was colossally bad’.” (John Heilprin, AP/Yahoo, Nov. 8) (see Oct. 1). More: Carol D. Leonnig and Spencer S. Hsu, “Fearing Attack, Blue Plains Ceases Toxic Chemical Use”, Washington Post, Nov. 10 (chlorine use at Washington sewage treatment plant); Jonathan Adler, “How the EPA Helps Terrorists”, National Review Online, Sept. 27; “Environmental Danger”, Oct. 11; Angela Logomarsini, “Laws that Make Terror Easy”, New York Post, Oct. 12; “‘Right To Know’ Hearings – Taking Away Terrorist Tools”, Competitive Enterprise Institute press release, Nov. 7.
Tagged as:
ACLU,
Alaska,
asbestos,
Atlanta,
attorneys general,
Cincinnati,
Coca-Cola,
Connecticut,
contingent fee,
Erin Brockovich,
Exxon,
Germany,
Houston,
Illinois,
Joe Jamail,
lead paint,
libel slander and defamation,
Louisiana,
New Jersey,
nursing home,
Ohio,
Pennsylvania,
Saudi Arabia,
South Carolina,
statutes of limitations,
tobacco,
Utah,
Virginia Tech,
Wisconsin
|
