- Alleged wife murderer “sues J.P. Morgan for cutting off his home equity line of credit.” Reason cited: “imprisonment”. [Joe Weisenthal, Business Insider via Fountain]
- Charles Krauthammer on the need to “reform our insane malpractice system. … I used to be a doctor, I know how much is wasted on defensive medicine.” [Der Spiegel interview]
- Popehat looks back on turning two, in customarily entertaining fashion [unsigned collective post]
- Sigh: “Chamber of Commerce Sues ‘Yes Men’ for Fake News Conference” [ABA Journal]
- Coverage mandates explain a lot about why health insurance is so much costlier in some states than others [Coyote] More: Tyler Cowen (autism treatment)
- Watch out for those default judgments: PepsiCo hit with $1.26 billion award in Wisconsin state court, says word of suit never got to responsible officials within the company [National Law Journal]
- Ohio appeals court: characterizing incident as “Baby Mama Drama” is not prosecutorial misconduct [The Briefcase]
- Ideological tests for educators? On efforts to screen out would-be teachers not seen as committed enough to “social justice” [K.C. Johnson, Minding the Campus]
Tagged as:
banks,
defensive medicine,
insurance,
mortgages,
Ohio,
on other blogs,
prosecution,
schools,
soft drinks,
Wisconsin
From Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider, the story of the Long Island retail developer who was comfortable in a nice $40 million loan, until the lenders began waving their tempting if predatory offers to borrow more than that.
Tagged as:
banks,
mortgages
- The wages of addiction: former basketball star Roy Tarpley settles his $6.5 million ADA lawsuit against NBA and Dallas Mavericks [Randy Galloway, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sports Law Blog]
- One result of litigation-fed “vaccines cause autism” scare: parents turn to dangerous quack treatments [Arthur Allen, Slate; in-depth coverage at Kathleen Seidel's and Orac's sites]
- Julie Hilden on First Circuit “true statements can be defamatory” ruling [FindLaw, earlier here and here]
- More coverage of conviction of Kentucky lawyers for grabbing much of fen-phen settlement [Louisville Courier-Journal, earlier]
- Judge dismisses most counts in lawsuit against Richard Laminack of Texas’s O’Quinn law firm [Texas Lawyer, earlier; FLSA overtime claims remain]
- All but three of the outstanding 9/11 airline suits due to settle for $500 million [AP/NorthJersey.com]
- One needn’t make the Community Reinvestment Act a scapegoat for unrelated credit woes to recognize it as an ill-conceived law [Bank Lawyer's Blog]
- U.K.: Woman who plays classical music to soothe horses told she must pay for public performance license [Telegraph]
Tagged as:
autism,
aviation,
banks,
copyright,
Dallas,
disabled rights,
Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud,
September 11,
sports,
vaccines
Steve Chapman, as usual, keeps a cool head about things. And I’ve got some links at Point of Law on the remarkable House-passed proposal to slap a punitive tax on the compensation of many thousands of financial institution employees who are not even notionally to blame for the current crisis, as well as on the threats of violence to AIG employees, which are being met with complacency if not encouragement in some surprisingly respectable circles. Update: Point of Law post now considerably expanded, and with followups here and here.
Tagged as:
banks,
Crisis of 2008
“I’m a capital ‘D’ Dumbass,” Houston lawyer Richard T. Howell Jr. said about the incident. His law firm is however suing on the grounds that the bank should have better explained the check-clearing process. The scam artist posed as a businessman in Japan who wanted to become a client of Howell’s firm. [Texas Lawyer, TechDirt]
Tagged as:
banks,
fraud
- “The Boston Public Health Commission has just banned the sale of all tobacco products at colleges. Not high schools. Colleges.” [Saletan, Slate]
- Sometimes the case caption seems to tell a little story all by itself [Lorraine Hodges v. Mt. Zion Temple d/b/a Zero Gravity Skatepark Oakland County, Mich., 12/1/2008 08-096435 NI Chabot (Pontiac), slip-fall on snow and ice]
- Consumer complaint site Ripoff Report is magnet for lawsuits [Citizen Media Law, Eric Goldman and again]
- EEOC hearing on English-in-the-workplace issues [Clegg, NRO "Corner"]
- Wiretapper Anthony Pellicano, helpful gnome behind the scenes for many powerful Hollywood lawyers, sentenced to 15 years behind bars [CNN, Patterico]
- “Hungary’s Constitutional Court says it has annulled a law giving rights to domestic partners because it would diminish the importance of marriage”; now just watch how many folks on both sides flip their opinion of judicial activism [AP/WHEC]
- No teaser rates for you! Harvard’s Elizabeth Warren wants new law empowering federal government to order withdrawal of “too-risky” consumer credit products [Consumer Law & Policy]
- Major new study of defensive medicine, conservatively estimated to waste $1.4 billion in Massachusetts alone [KevinMD, Boston Globe; Massachusetts Medical Society]
Tagged as:
Anthony Pellicano,
banks,
Boston,
defensive medicine,
domestic partners,
language bias,
Massachusetts,
tobacco
Did we imagine that it was not going to occur to anyone to have the government start using its big new stakes in banks and other commanding heights of the economy to, as it were, command? (David Frum, Oct. 30).
Tagged as:
banks,
Crisis of 2008
Snuggling in under the TARP. (Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal, Oct. 15).
Tagged as:
banks
- Don’t miss Roger Parloff’s tour de force coverage in Fortune blowing whistle on that dodgy suit in Moscow against Bank of New York Mellon, adorned by participation of lawprofs Dershowitz and Blakey [PoL overview, main article]
- Digital remixes and copyright law [Lessig, WSJ]
- Surgeon at Connecticut’s Greenwich Hospital revealed as drug abuser, Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder now pressing suit on behalf of general class of patients, which sounds like it means “whether harmed or not” [Greenwich Time, Newsday via TortsProf weekly roundup]
- Chicago sheriff halting foreclosures, or maybe not, reportage is confused [Reuters, big discussion at Steve Chapman blog] And is Obama taking the idea national with bid for 90-day moratorium on foreclosures? [AP]
- Foie gras-style financial gavage? “None of banks getting government money was given a choice about it, said one of the people familiar with the plans.” [Bloomberg, Bernstein @ Volokh] More: Ann Althouse, Kuznicki/Cato at Liberty.
- Trey Allen law firm in Dallas agrees to pay $840,000 restitution after profiting from staged car crash scheme, but Allen’s lawyer says client wasn’t aware of any fraud [ABA Journal]
- Smoking bans, alcohol taxes contributing to steep decline of English village pubs [Newsweek]
- Bias-law panel rules Wal-Mart within its rights not to hire a female applicant for Santa Claus position [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
alcohol,
banks,
Barack Obama,
Chicago,
Connecticut,
copyright,
crash faking,
Dallas,
harmless lawsuits,
hospitals,
smoking bans,
Texas,
United Kingdom
