- We’re worth it: lawyers in credit card case want judge to award them $720 million [Alison Frankel, Reuters] Johnson & Johnson will fight $181 million payday for private lawyers in Arkansas Risperdal case [Legal NewsLine]
- British Columbia, Canada: “Lawyer Ordered To Pay Costs Personally For ‘Shoddy Piece Of Counsel Work’” [Erik Magraken] Ontario client questions lawyer’s fee [Law Times]
- Sixth Circuit: attorneys fees statute not intended to cover dry cleaning and mini-blinds [Legal Ethics Forum]
- Indiana lawmaker goes back to drawing board on loser-pays bill [Indiana Law Blog]
- ‘Shocked’ by $3M legal fee in fatal car-crash case, judge tells lawyers to pay plaintiff lawyer $50K [ABA Journal]
- Seth Katsuya Endo, “Should Evidence of Settlement Negotiations Affect Attorneys’ Fees Awards?” [SSRN via Legal Ethics Forum] /li>
- In Israel, more of a discretionary loser-pays arrangement [Eisenberg et al, SSRN via @tedfrank]
- British cabbie beats ticket, recovers only some of his legal costs. Still better than he’d do here, right? [Daily Mail]
- Turnaround guru Wilbur Ross: current structure of bankruptcy fees encourages lawyer “hyperactivity” [Reuters]
Tagged as:
attorneys' fees,
bankruptcy,
Canada,
feeing frenzy,
Israel,
loser pays,
Sixth Circuit,
United Kingdom
It’s behind a paywall, but TortsProf has a few highlights. Some lawyers are battling to stave off transparency that could catch out counsel and clients who tell inconsistent stories from one case to the next in the course of squeezing maximum payouts from bankruptcy trusts set up to handle claims against asbestos defendants; the trusts themselves have extensive managerial ties to leading plaintiff’s-side firms.
P.S. And House hearings [Bloomberg News, Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine].
Tagged as:
asbestos,
bankruptcy,
claims fraud
We’ve already mentioned this in the context of the Chrysler bankruptcy (criticized in some quarters for having divested the reorganized company of punitive damage exposure over pre-bankruptcy conduct) but here’s Drug and Device Law gathering up decisions from various states to confirm that, no, there is no vested or constitutional right to punitive damages:
Constitutional challenges have been rejected under due process, taking, jury trial, open courts and various other state constitutional provisions. It makes sense. While compensatory damages might present a closer question (depending on issues such as retroactivity), there’s simply no constitutional right for one private party to demand that another private party be punished.
Especially not when the putative purpose of the damages, to inflict financial distress on the target, has been obviated by an intervening bankruptcy.
Tagged as:
bankruptcy,
Chrysler,
punitive damages
- Debate on medical malpractice between Ted Frank (Manhattan Institute) and Shirley Svorny (Cato Institute) [PoL]
- Lawyers, accountants have done well from litigation-ridden Pearlman Ponzi aftermath [Orlando Sentinel]
- Book drop “inherently dangerous”, says rape victim’s family suing library designers [Florida, LISNews]
- “The iTunes Class Action Lawsuit You’ll Never Hear About”[NJLRA] “Jackson v. Unocal – Class Actions Find a Welcome Home in Colorado” [Karlsgodt]
- Another tot accused of sexual harassment, this time a first grader [Boston Herald, earlier (six year old's "assault")]
- Profile of lawyer who defends fair use of clips for documentary makers [ABA Journal]
Tagged as:
Apple,
bankruptcy,
Florida,
harassment law,
medical malpractice,
movies film and videos
$1 billion so far in lawyers’ and other professional fees, and counting. [Reuters]
Tagged as:
bankruptcy
- Update: “Tax Panel Rejects Lawyer’s Bid to Deduct Spending for Sex” [NYLJ, William Barrett/Forbes, earlier] And: “Musings on laws affecting adult entertainment, alcoholic beverages and other ‘vice’ industries” [Meeting the Sin Laws blog]
- Mississippi: judge jails lawyer for not saying Pledge of Allegiance [Freeland]
- More on much-written-about Israeli “rape by fraud” case [Volokh, more, earlier here and here]
- “Tribune bankruptcy talks complicated by emergence of pugnacious hedge fund” [Romenesko; earlier on involvement of hedge funds in bankruptcies]
- More disturbing tales from Connecticut probate court [Rick Green, Hartford Courant, earlier]
- Marc Williams of the Defense Research Institute responds to Ted Frank’s criticism of many defense lawyers [PoL]
- Advice for Australians: to fix your litigation system, look to Germany’s success [Ackland, Sydney Morning Herald]
- Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.) & ’70s band Orleans threaten suit against GOP remix ["Orleans Reunion Tour"]
Tagged as:
Australia,
bankruptcy,
Connecticut,
defense lawyers,
Germany,
Mississippi,
music and musicians,
strippers and exotic dancers,
taxes,
U.S. House of Representatives,
wills and trusts
- Facing four harassment claims, embattled Philadelphia housing chief files his own suit for $600K+ [Inquirer]
- “Ohio State Abuses Trademark Law to Suppress a Fan Magazine and Website” [Paul Alan Levy, CL&P]
- “Judge Dismisses Baltimore Blight Suit Against Wells Fargo, Will Allow Refiling” [ABA Journal]
- Trial lawyer taking behind-the-scenes hand in Louisiana politics [OpenSecrets via Tapscott]
- “Are hedge funds abusing bankruptcy?” [Felix Salmon and WSJ]
- North Carolina alienation-of-affection law strikes again: “’Mistress Ordered to Pay $5.8 Million’ to Wronged Wife” [Volokh, Althouse]
- “Lawyers take a haircut on a contingency fee in Colorado” [Legal Ethics Forum]
- ADA lawsuits close another beloved eatery [Stockton, Calif.; six years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
alienation of affection,
Baltimore,
bankruptcy,
fans as infringers,
Louisiana,
North Carolina,
Philadelphia,
trademarks
- “Father demands $7.5 million because school officials read daughter’s text message” [KDAF via CALA Houston]
- How many different defendants can injured spectator sue in Shea Stadium broken-bat case? [Melprophet]
- Prominent trial lawyer Russell Budd of Baron & Budd hosts Obama at Texas fundraiser [PoL]
- DNA be damned: when actual nonpaternity doesn’t suffice to get out from under a child support order [Alkon, more]
- “Sean Coffey, a plaintiffs’ lawyer-turned-candidate for New York Attorney General, made more than $150,000 in state-level campaign contributions nationwide over 10 years.” [WSJ Law Blog] “Days before announcing a shareholder lawsuit against Bank of America, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli accepted $14,000 in campaign donations from a law firm hired to help litigate the case.” [WSJ]
- Big new RAND Corp. study on asbestos bankruptcy trusts may spur reform [Lloyd Dixon, Geoffrey McGovern & Amy Coombe, PDF, via Hartley, more, Daniel Fisher/Forbes, background here and here] Update: Stier.
- Public contingency suits? Of course the elected officials are in control (wink, wink) [The Recorder via Cal Civil Justice]
- Copyright enforcement mill appears to have copied its competitor’s website [TechDirt via Eric Goldman]
Tagged as:
asbestos,
bankruptcy,
Barack Obama,
baseball,
baseball bats,
child support,
contingent fee,
copyright,
Fred Baron,
New York,
politics,
privacy,
schools,
shotgun defendant selection
- Failure to warn? “Non-Child Sues For Slide-Related Injury” [Lowering the Bar]
- “AG Cuomo Sues Lawyer for Fraud, Says He Sold His Name to Debt Collector for $141K” [ABA Journal]
- Ted Frank on his move to the Manhattan Institute and Point of Law [CCAF]
- “Viacom is becoming a lawsuit company instead of a TV company” [Doctorow, BoingBoing]
- UK: “NHS pays £10,000 to family of psychiatric patient who committed suicide” [Times Online]
- American Cancer Society: federal advisory panel’s chemicals-cause-cancer alarms are overblown [NYTimes] More: Taranto, WSJ.
- “Who Knew Bankruptcy Paid So Well?” [NYTimes]
- Famed sleuth Bloomberg Holmes on the case: was the Pathfinder headed for a vile sodium den? [IowaHawk]
Tagged as:
bankruptcy,
debtor-creditor law,
environment,
failure to warn,
Manhattan Institute,
salt,
suicide,
Ted Frank,
YouTube
- From attorney Bob Ambrogi, on Twitter: “This felt wrong: Shortly after heated call with lawyer saying he’d sue my client, he sent me invite to connect on LinkedIn.” Related: Amy Alkon.
- “Spot the lawsuit in this commercial” [Louis Vuitton vs. Hyundai; Trademark Blog]
- Video: “Community swimming pool closes due to lawsuit” [Hazleton, Pa.; U.S. Chamber Faces of Lawsuit Abuse series; plaintiff's side of things]
- Recycling, found materials, and why so much “green building” won’t last [Sippican Cottage and followup]
- German ban on homeschooling not a compelling reason to grant asylum to affected family [Krikorian, NRO, Volokh]
- Ted’s Center for Class Action Fairness files objections to a Costco fuel class settlement; related reflections from the judge in the recent Honda case;
- “Photographing Public Art: A Legal Waltz in Seattle” [Citizen Media Law, earlier]
- “Big Bankruptcies’ Big Fees Raising Questions” [Asarco, Station Casinos; Baxter, AmLaw Daily]
Tagged as:
bankruptcy,
class action settlements,
immigration law,
lawyers,
Pennsylvania,
pools,
recycling,
trademarks
Yes, it’s probably the biggest and most complicated bankruptcy ever. Fees so far: $310,791,000, including $296,631 per day for lead counsel Weil Gotshal. [AmLaw Daily, Business Insider]
Tagged as:
bankruptcy
“U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Joan Lloyd ruled Friday that attorney Bruce Atherton and [financier] Randall Scott Waldman ‘blatantly breached’ their duty to the owner of a Louisville tool machinery company by forcing him out of business and seizing his assets. …Atherton was suspended from practicing law last month by the Kentucky Supreme Court based on his guilty plea in September in Pennsylvania federal court to charges that he aided a scheme in which other defendants allegedly ‘busted out’ small businesses by pretending to buy them, then draining their assets before the deals were completed.” [Louisville Courier-Journal via ABA Journal]
Tagged as:
bankruptcy,
ethics,
Kentucky
Readers might remember the Mraz case, where a driver was run over by his own truck because he failed to engage the parking brake, and a jury nevertheless awarded $55 million. (March 8 and March 21, 2007.)
The Chrysler bankruptcy threw a wrench into the appellate process. Given the number of unsecured (and secured!) creditors who were taking a haircut on what Chrysler owed them, and the weakness of the case, one would expect the claim to be extinguished. But Chrysler unilaterally (and almost certainly politically) decided not to extinguish product-liability lawsuits against it, and the Mraz case has settled for $24 million. (Amanda Bronstad, “Chrysler bankruptcy judge approves $24 million personal injury settlement”, National Law Journal, Sep. 25). Of course, the likely $8-$10 million attorneys’ fee in this case is being funded by taxpayers’ bailout money.
Tagged as:
autos,
bankruptcy,
California,
Chrysler,
taxpayers
Critics including the Securities and Exchange Commission dispute whether receivers really deserve $27 million for their work through May in cleaning up after the collapse of Texas businessman R. Allen Stanford’s empire. [AP/USA Today; earlier]
Tagged as:
bankruptcy,
feeing frenzy,
fraud
