The cozy dealings between the state of Mississippi and well-connected private lawyers — especially the way the state comes to hire those lawyers on contingency fee to pursue high-ticket suits against outside defendants — have long furnished grist for this site. Now, opening a new chapter, Mississippi AG Jim Hood has hired former AG Michael Moore, like Hood a longtime Overlawyered favorite, to sue BP over the effects of the Transocean oil spill on the state. [AP, YallPolitics] Per YallPolitics, “Interestingly, there is no specific financial arrangement. Moore and Hood contractually agree to work it out later and have fees paid directly by BP to the as yet to be named legal team led by Moore.” When Moore hired later-disgraced Dickie Scruggs to represent Mississippi what was to develop into the most profitable litigation in history — the multistate tobacco caper — the financial details were likewise shrouded in secrecy, and it was later claimed that there was no written agreement.
Tagged as:
BP Transocean oil spill,
Jim Hood,
Michael Moore
“Oil giant BP’s $20bn (£13bn) fund to compensate those hit by the Gulf of Mexico spill has been frozen, following a court order that all claimants must share the cost of the legal team leading the action over the disaster – whether or not they pursued their claim through the courts.” [Telegraph]
Tagged as:
attorneys' fees,
BP Transocean oil spill
Campbell Robertson and John Schwartz of the New York Times find that many Vietnamese-Americans who are listed as law firm clients in the BP Transocean spill proceedings would rather not be law firm clients. “Like [Tim] Nguyen, some maintain that they never signed up with lawyers, but found that claims had been filed on their behalf (about 50 people have made formal complaints to the claims facility along these lines).” Nguyen found himself a client of lawyer Mikal Watts, “and to his further surprise, as a Louisiana shrimper rather than a Mississippi shipyard worker.” Watts, a big-league Texas tort lawyer, has reported having 43,000 spill clients, many mass-recruited from minority and poorer communities; he says he has a “signed contingency-fee contract with every client,” and that he has released clients who changed their mind about representation. “People familiar with the claims process [of one 26,000-claimant subgroup] said nearly every submission was listed as a deckhand with identical earnings.” Watts says the claims fund, administered by Kenneth Feinberg, has kept changing the documentation it asks for.
Tagged as:
BP Transocean oil spill,
Mikal Watts,
New York Times
“The amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon rig blowout will be determined by protracted court proceedings rather than purely scientific calculations, the nation’s top environmental enforcement officer said Thursday.” [Houston Chronicle]
Tagged as:
BP Transocean oil spill,
science and scientists
- “No refusal” DUI checkpoints spread and can result in mandatory blood tests for drivers; MADD cheers infringement of liberty [WTSP]
- Teleworking regulations: a new way to sue your (federal) boss? [welcome Mickey Kaus/Newsweek readers]
- “The federal government has been in the business of micro-managing our kids’ lunches for 30 years” [David Gratzer/Examiner] St. Paul, Minn. schools ban sweets, even when brought from home [Star-Tribune] Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and the Happy Meal lawsuit [John Steele Gordon, Commentary]
- Top ten insurance law decisions of 2010 [Randy Maniloff, Insurance Journal; also congrats on his new book (with Jeffrey Stempel)]
- “Mitch Daniels and Criminal Sentencing Reform in Indiana” [Orin Kerr] Daniels isn’t backing down from call for truce on social issues [GOP12]
- Happy 100th birthday, Ronald Coase [Gillespie, Reason]
- Damage to Gulf from spill now looks much less than feared [Robert Nelson, Weekly Standard]
- Saudi court decides that text message is valid method of divorce [Emirates 24/7]
Tagged as:
BP Transocean oil spill,
insurance,
obesity,
Saudi Arabia,
schools,
traffic laws,
workplace
Must reading in last week’s New York Times Magazine: Douglas McCollam explores the scramble over compensation after the BP TransOcean gulf oil spill, profiling Texas trial lawyer Tony Buzbee, who’s among those leading resistance to the Ken Feinberg administered-compensation-fund way of handling claims. It offers a much broader and better-informed perspective on wider litigation trends than is usual in such stories.
Tagged as:
BP Transocean oil spill
- White House panel’s counsel: no evidence corner-cutting caused Gulf spill [NYT, Reuters] Furor ensues [WaPo]
- Report: grief counselors assigned to Democratic congressional staffers [Maggie Haberman, Politico]
- “Lawyer Sues for Humiliation and Lost Business Due to Misspelled Yellowbook Ad” [ABA Journal, South Dakota]
- Argument today in important Supreme Court case, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion: will courts respect freedom of contract in consumer arbitration context, or yield Litigation Lobby the monopoly it seeks over dispute resolution? [Ted at PoL]
- No search warrant needed: armed deputies in Orlando storm unlicensed barbershops, handcuff barbers [Balko, Reason "Hit and Run"]
- After Colorado hit-run, banker allowed to plead down to misdemeanors lest his job be at risk [Greenfield]
- FDA to decide whether to ban menthol in cigarettes [CEI]
- Reshuffling blackjack decks is not “racketeering” [ten years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
arbitration,
BP Transocean oil spill,
chasing clients,
South Dakota,
tobacco,
U.S. House of Representatives
- Gulf spill fund flooded with dubious claims [Fred Smith, CEI]
- If these cases go forward, it will make it economically unfeasible for anyone to make vaccines in this country” [NYT quoting Beck on Bruesewitz v. Wyeth preemption case now before SCOTUS]
- Barney Frank’s evolving views on Fannie/Freddie oversight [Mankiw, Globe]
- $5.2 million legal bills to Michael Jackson estate [TMZ]
- Frederick, Maryland pizzeria owner asked to pay $200K for unsolicited faxes [Gazette; my WSJ take four years ago]
- UK: “Migration Watch” may sue critic [David Allen Green via Richard Wilson, more]
- Parody of cheesy law firm promotes TV series “Breaking Bad” ["Better Call Saul", autoplays video/audio]
- N.J.: “Drowns while fleeing cops, family sues for $50M” [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Barney Frank,
BP Transocean oil spill,
libel slander and defamation,
mortgages,
preemption,
restaurants,
United Kingdom,
vaccines
That’s despite the BP/Transocean spill. A danger sign of compensation fraud? [Daily Caller]
P.S. Another spill-compensation angle, with a hint of me too-ism: “Realtors Press Feinberg for BP Fund to Compensate Their Losses” [Bloomberg]
Tagged as:
BP Transocean oil spill,
Louisiana
- Emerging newspaper business model: copyright lawsuits against bloggers? [Kravets, Wired, Ron Coleman, TechDirt, PoL]
- Five NYC hospitals to use “health courts” to seek agreements before medical malpractice cases go to trial [WSJ]
- Serpentine asbestos politics behind “California state rock” fracas [Cal Civil Justice, more, PoL, Bailey, earlier here and here]
- From Andrew Grossman: “Feinberg: ‘priests, mayors or even sheriffs could vouch for [BP trust fund] claims of local businesses.’ Has he ever been to Miss, La.?!”
- Va. lawyer, real estate agent sanctioned for “frivolous claims supported by wild speculation” [ABA Journal]
- An injury lawyer reads and reacts to my first book, The Litigation Explosion [Alan Crede]
- Le Corbusier’s writing made him sound like certain pro se litigants [Johnson, PrawfsBlawg]
- “Tip: Photoshopping Self Into Charity Photos Not Likely to Reduce Sentence” [Lowering the Bar, more]
Tagged as:
asbestos,
bloggers and the law,
BP Transocean oil spill,
copyright,
crime and punishment,
health courts,
newspapers,
RightHaven,
sanctions,
The Litigation Explosion
- Kagan to senators: please don’t confuse my views with Mark Tushnet’s or Harold Koh’s [Constitutional Law Prof]
- Too much like a Star Wars lightsaber? Lucasfilm sends a cease-and-desist to a laser pointer maker [Mystal, AtL]
- Ottawa, Canada: family files complaint “against trendy wine bar that turned away dinner party because it included 3mo baby” [Drew Halfnight, National Post]
- “House left Class Action Fairness Act alone in SPILL Act” [Wood/PoL, earlier]
- Not so indie? Filmmaker doing anti-Dole documentary on Nicaraguan banana workers says he took cash from big plaintiff’s law firm Provost Umphrey [AP/WaPo, WSJLawBlog, Erik Gardner/THREsq., new plaintiffs' charges against Dole]
- Will liability ruling result in closure of popular Connecticut recreational area? [Rick Green, Hartford Courant; earlier]
- Class action lawyer Sean Coffey, running for New York attorney general, has many generous supporters [NYDN, more, WNYC (Sen. Al Franken headlines closed fundraiser at Yale Club)]
- “Judge Reduces Damages Award by 90% in Boston Music Downloading Trial” [NLJ, earlier on Tenenbaum case]
Tagged as:
age discrimination,
Al Franken,
attorneys general,
banana pesticide litigation fraud,
BP Transocean oil spill,
Canada,
Connecticut,
Elena Kagan,
New York,
politics,
Provost Umphrey,
recreation,
restaurants,
RIAA and file sharing
- “Kagan refused to identify anything the government couldn’t do under its Commerce Clause power” and “consciously left herself plenty of breathing room to cite foreign law inappropriately” [Ilya Shapiro, more]
- Multiple civil/criminal hats? “The odd responses of the attorney general to the oil spill” [WaPo editorial]
- Phillies Phanatic, “‘Most-Sued Mascot in the Majors’ Is Back in Court” [Lowering the Bar, which also hosts Blawg Review #271 this week]
- Federalist Society has a new blog;
- California will pay $20 million to woman abducted for nearly two decades [AP]
- Charges dropped against teen who tried to help lost kid in shopping mall [Lenore Skenazy, earlier]
- Two libertarians arrested after videotaping police in Greenfield, Mass. [Balko, earlier here and here]
- “‘Ambulance Chaser’ Lawsuits Hound Apple Over iPhone 4″ [Atlantic Wire]
Tagged as:
Apple,
baseball,
BP Transocean oil spill,
California,
cellphones,
Elena Kagan,
Federalist Society,
police
