Lawyer/blogger Andrew Lavoott Bluestone, in his New York Attorney Malpractice Blog, noted and quoted a case in which Brooklyn lawyer Marina Tylo was (unsuccessfully) sued by a client for “serving a summons before buying the index number,” that being the wrong order in which to do things in New York. Tylo has proceeded to sue Bluestone for $10 million and several blogs have already 1) mentioned the strong privilege that attaches to fair reports of court proceedings and 2) suggested that Tylo will before long be well acquainted with the phrase “Streisand effect“. Coverage: Scott Greenfield, Eric Turkewitz, Mike Cernovich (more), Citizen Media Law Project, Ambrogi/Legal Blog Watch.

In March Peter Robbins, a retired homicide detective who blogs for Cape Cod Today as the Robbins Report, ran an item criticizing the law offices of Paul Revere III (yes, a descendant of you-know-who) and various local residents he represents, for having filed a procedural action seeking to stop the dredging of Barnstable harbor on environmental grounds. Robbins opines (to quote the post in its current form):

In my opinion this, NIMBY, frivolous, malicious action is doing nothing but stalling the inevitable and costing us the taxpayers unnecessary time and money. Millway Beach and Blish Point were pretty much created by past dredging. Perhaps if the town didn’t have to waste its time with foolish actions such as these, they would have been able to concentrate on the real issues and the bulkhead could have been saved. Who knows?

Robbins mocked the lawyer as “Paul (the dredge isn’t coming) Revere III” and, in the original version of the post — now altered — described one of the local abutters filing the dredge action, Joseph Dugas, as “infamous” with an added, unprintable opinion-based expletive. Now Revere and Dugas have sued Robbins and an anonymous third party who posted further hostile comments about the two. (James Kinsella, “Defamation suit filed against CC Today blogger, commenter”, Cape Cod Today, Aug. 29). Robbins is being represented by our very own Overlawyered guestblogger and Boston-area lawyer Peter Morin, who wrote in a response, “This matter is a textbook example of the justification for an anti-SLAPP statute that protects the right of individuals to comment on matters of significant public concern.” David Ardia at Citizens Media Law Project has an analysis which mentions Massachusetts’s existing anti-SLAPP provisions, and Dan Kennedy at Media Nation (via Ambrogi) takes a look at the case, observing that it’s hard to evaluate the merits of the defamation claim since we don’t know exactly how the blog post read before the publisher made deletions to it at the demand of the plaintiffs.

Finally, Chicago’s BlockShopper is a site that reports on real estate transactions in in-town neighborhoods, often with descriptions of the professionals buying and selling the homes and condos, a practice that has now drawn a lawsuit from the giant international law firm Jones Day. “The suit alleges trademark infringement and unfair trade practices, based on Blockshopper’s use of the firm’s [Jones Day's] service marks, links to its site and use of lawyers’ photos from its site.” Although BlockShopper removed all references to Jones Day, “the law firm continues to seek an injunction shutting down the site”. Unauthorized use of photographs and service marks presumably might give rise to valid claims, but the reference to “links to its site” may suggest a broader sweep, and in negotiations Jones Day is reportedly trying to extract a commitment from the site not to conduct journalism about its member lawyers’ real estate transactions at all. (R. David Donoghue, Chicago IP Litigation Blog, more; Ambrogi, Legal Blog Watch).

(Updated from July 30 post with new dates.)  I’m going outside the Beltway, and may be in your neighborhood, to speak at a variety of Federalist Society chapters:

• September 3, Loyola Law School, New Orleans (obesity litigation)
• September 4, LSU Law School (obesity litigation)
• October 13, Ave Maria Law School (Is Overlawyering Overtaking Democracy?)
• October 14 (new date!), University of Michigan Law School (debate with Professor Steven Croley)
• October 15, DePaul University Law School (class action settlements)
• October 16, University of Chicago Law School (class action settlements and Grand Theft Auto)
• October 16, Chicago-Kent College of Law (obesity litigation)
• October 21, Florida State University College of Law (TBD)
• October 22, University of Florida Levin College of Law (TBD)
• October 23, Stetson University College of Law (TBD)

Please do suggest my name to your local Federalist Society chapter (or ACS chapter or what-have-you) if you wish me to speak at your law school. (And if your law school is in the Chicago or New Orleans metropolitan areas, now’s a good time to free-ride off of what your neighbors have already scheduled and help save the Federalist Society money. Otherwise I’ll just use the free time to visit local casinos.)

Parents of a young pitcher at an American Legion baseball game were worried that the way the sun shone right toward the pitcher’s mound could hurt their son’s eyes. The next thing you know they were talking about a future lawsuit and the risk managers swung into action. The upshot is that Northwestern University, owner of Rocky Miller Park in Evanston, have told the teams that they can no longer play their home games at the park. Head coach Frank Consiglio said, “When it comes to the sun, you could say that about any ballpark in the country at any time. … It’s unfortunate that one person can ruin this.” (Dennis Mahoney, “Lawsuit threat forces NU to ban evening Legion games”, Pioneer Local, Jun. 26 via Chronicle of Higher Education and Pero)

Complainant Rory Beer — yes, her real name, though she used to be known as Rory Roberts — was dancing on the bar at Bar Chicago, a Division Street nightspot, when she fell off, with what her suit says are permanent injuries to her foot and ankle. “The lawsuit claims that Bar Chicago encourages patrons to dance on the bar, but doesn’t warn people of slippery surfaces or provide handrails, ‘cushioned flooring’ or ’safety nets.’” (Mark J. Konkol, “Dancer slips, now she wants bar to pay”, Chicago Sun-Times, Jul. 1; Chicagoist). We covered another bar-wasn’t-safe-for-her-to-dance-on suit, also from Illinois, last year.

• More on that New Mexico claim of “electro-sensitive” Wi-Fi allergy: quoted complainant is a longtime activist who’s written an anti-microwave book [VNUNet, USA Today "On Deadline" via ABA Journal]
• Your wisecracks belong to us: “Giant Wall of Legal Disclaimers” at Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor at Disneyland [Lileks; h/t Carter Wood]
• New at Point of Law: AAJ commissions a poll on arbitration and gets the results it wants; carbon nanotubes, tomorrow’s asbestos? California will require lawyers operating without professional liability insurance to inform clients of that fact (earlier here and here); and much more.
• Actuaries being sued for underestimating funding woes of public pension plans [NY Times via ABA Journal]
• City of Santa Monica and other defendants will pay $21 million to wrap up lawsuits from elderly driver’s 2003 rampage through downtown farmers’ market [L.A. Times; earlier]
• Sequel to Giants Stadium/Aramark dramshop case, which won a gigantic award later set aside, is fee claim by fired lawyer for plaintiff [NJLJ; Rosemarie Arnold site]
• Privacy law with an asterisk: federal law curbing access to drivers license databases has exemption that lets lawyers purchase personal data to help in litigation [Daily Business Review]
• Terror of FEMA: formaldehyde in Katrina trailers looks to emerge as mass toxic injury claim, and maybe we’ll find out fifteen years hence whether there was anything to it [AP/NOCB]
• Suit by “ABC” firm alleges that Yellow Book let other advertisers improperly sneak in with earlier alphabetical entries [Madison County Record]
• Gun law compliance, something for the little people? A tale from Chicago’s Board of Aldermen [Sun-Times, Ald. Richard Mell]
• Think twice about commissioning a mural for your building since federal law may restrain you from reclaiming the wall at a later date [four years ago on Overlawyered]

“Yes, I was a ‘duckeasy’,” confesses one restaurateur. “The repeal passed Wednesday over the shouted objections of the ordinance’s original sponsor by a vote of 37 to six after a council member forced it out of committee.” (AFP/Drexel “Smart Set”, May 15). We were among the many who criticized the Chicago government for banning the delicacy.

The city known for ghost voters also has ghost parking signage, it would seem:

[Heather Thome] was dismayed when she returned to find a police officer had just written a ticket for violating a parking ban from 4 to 6 p.m.

“I asked him where the sign was,” said Thome, 35, a temp worker. “He said there used to be a sign on ‘that’ pole, and it hasn’t been there for two years. My logical question was, ‘How can you write a ticket?’ And he told me he doesn’t want to, but his boss tells him he has to go out every day and write tickets.” … She [appealed but] still was found liable.

(Gary Washburn, “City rakes in revenue from tickets”, Chicago Tribune, Aug. 12). More: Cernovich.

In June 2003, there was a tragic porch collapse at an apartment building in Chicago; 13 people were killed and at least 50 more were injured. The quest for deep pockets began; as we discussed in August 2005, even though the porch was on private property, trial lawyers aimed their litigation guns at the city of Chicago, on the theory that Chicago taxpayers have more money than the building owner if city inspectors had done a better job, the accident wouldn’t have happened.

A trial judge bought that argument, but yesterday, in a victory for taxpayers, an appellate court reversed that ruling, holding that, contrary to the theory of the trial lawyers, the city is not a guarantor that nothing bad will ever happen within its city limits. The mere fact that the city inspectors failed to issue violation notices for the porch construction does not make the city financially liable for the collapse; if it did, then the potential to extend liability to taxpayers would be limited only by the imagination of the trial lawyer. Police fail to stop a driver who’s speeding, and he later hits you? Blame the city. Inspectors don’t make your neighbor cut down the dead tree on his property, and it falls on your house during a storm? Blame the city. The possibilities are endless.

The victims of the accident do have a legitimate case — but that legitimate case is against the building landlord, not taxpayers. But those deep pockets aren’t quite deep enough, so the trial lawyers aren’t satisfied with that answer:

But plaintiffs’ lawyers said that was not enough.

Pappas and his companies have about $17 million in insurance coverage, said Terry Ekl, who represents the family of Robert Koranda, who died in the collapse.

“Without the City of Chicago in the case, these families are not going to get anywhere near fair compensation,” Ekl said.

If the Appellate Court’s ruling stands, the plaintiffs would take up the issue with state lawmakers, Murphy said.

“We’re going to be having our clients go down to the legislature and say, ‘You can’t be letting this happen,’ ” Murphy said. “These children cannot have died or be injured in vain.’

Yep; they’re not doing it for their own bank accounts; rather, this is For the Children™.

Did you think the city famed for Al Capone and the Prohibition speakeasies would roll over for an even sillier nanny-statism?

When the letter came from City Hall threatening punishment if he continued to serve foie gras at his North Side restaurant, Doug Sohn framed the warning and set it beside his cash register.

And he kept serving the fattened duck liver without a care. …

The city has sent warning letters to nine restaurants believed to have served foie gras but issued no citations, Chicago Department of Public Health spokesman Tim Hadac said. Letters are sent after a citizen complaint and are followed by a visit after a second complaint. Visits that turn up evidence of the banished dish can result in fines from $250 to $500.

But Mayor Richard Daley is no fan of the ban–just this week, he called it “the silliest law” the City Council has ever passed.

Perhaps that helps explain why the Health Department is in no rush to boost their compliance checks.

“In a world of very limited public health resources we’re being asked to drop some things so we can enforce a law like this,” Hadac said. “With HIV/AIDS, cancer, West Nile virus and some of the other things we deal with, foie gras is our lowest priority.” …

Some owners have tiptoed around the ban by serving the dish under alternate or code names (”I’ll have the special lobster” will supposedly score foie gras at one restaurant), but renegades say they’ll do what they must to fight City Hall. …

At first, [restauranteur David Richards] said, restaurant owners worried their access to foie gras would be limited, and they crafted plots to keep their supply flowing–like getting it mailed to a suburban address for weekly covert pickups. Such cunning turned out not to be necessary, he said. Richards still gets foie gras from the same distributor he always did, and no one seems to care that it is still on his menu.

“We look at it as a choice,” he said. “We live in a free-market society and if people are truly offended they won’t buy it. If they don’t buy it, I won’t buy it.”

Instead, he said, his foie gras sales have climbed, making him even less inclined to heed the law. …

Many of those most vocally opposed to the ban have coolly stepped away from the debate by ending their foie gras sales or at least coming up with names clever enough to obscure the issue. Available on the menu at Copperblue, for instance, is “`It Isn’t Foie Gras any Moore’ Duck Liver Terrine”–a testy nod to the alderman who sponsored the foie gras ban.

Though the $16 cost seems closer to the price of foie gras than simple duck liver, Copperblue chef and owner Michael Tsonton would not say whether he had merely renamed the illicit dish. In September, when still serving foie gras, he got a warning letter that he said he hung in his kitchen.

(Josh Noel, “Let ‘em eat foie gras, they declare”, Chicago Tribune, Dec. 22 (via Noonan, who says he was thinking of opening a restaurant called “Foie Gras Fried In Trans Fat”)). The Tribune story lists the nine restaurants that have gotten warning letters, and I can personally vouch for one of my favorites, Bin 36, where a date and I had a fine meal during a January 2005 blizzard.

The Chicago class action lawyer, vividly remembered for his role in the notorious BancBoston Mortgage case, among others (Nov. 15, 1999, Feb. 7, 2000; see also Dec. 15, 2004 for his involvement in junk-fax litigation) is now filing suits against lenders who solicit persons with poor credit histories for more loans. The Northwest Indiana Times kindly quotes me on the subject (Joe Carlson, “Lawsuits targeting credit scams”, Nov. 27).

Personal injury lawyers filing the first lawsuits arising from a July 11 fire and derailment on the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line “said their clients’ damages may be greater than normal due to initial fears that the accident was a terrorist attack.” Attorney Dan Kotin of Corboy & Demetrio, representing plaintiffs, “said the timing of the accident might have magnified their emotional distress. ‘Coming just hours after the subway bombings in India, these women were convinced that they were under attack,’ Kotin said.” Kotin’s clients were treated and released at a hospital at the time; how badly hurt are they now? “I think we’re going to learn over the course of time that the emotional suffering is far worse than the physical pain.” Oh. (Michael Higgins, “First lawsuits filed in subway fire”, Chicago Tribune, Jul. 12).

“The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law sued San Francisco-based Craigslist, claiming that during a six-month period beginning in July, the site ran more than 100 ads in Chicago that violated the federal Fair Housing Act. The committee, a public interest consortium of the city’s leading law firms, said in a federal suit that those ads discriminated on race, religion, sex, family status or national origin.” Craigslist does not screen ads in advance, although it gives readers a way to flag unlawful or inappropriate content for possible removal. According to the complaint (Chicago Lawyers Committee v. Craigslist, PDF format), some of the rental ads carried such damning indicators of putative bigotry as “Perfect place for city single” (unfair to families of eight!) and “very quiet street opposite church” (trying to screen out atheists, are you?), and many are plainly for roommate shares or other live-in situations. Paging David Bernstein! (Mike Hughlett, “Craigslist sued over housing ad bias”, Chicago Tribune/Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Feb. 8)(via Reynolds). Eric Goldman says a similar earlier suit against Roommate.com did not fare well (Feb. 8). For more on the issue of “discrimination” in roommate selection, see Jul. 10-11, 2002; for more on such complaints against Craigslist, see Aug. 10, 2005. (& welcome Instapundit readers).

P.S. As requested, David Bernstein weighs in (Feb. 9), as does Eugene Volokh.

On January 2, 2003, thieves stole a wallet at the Redfish restaurant and jumped into a getaway Dodge Intrepid driven by Lakesha Smith. Police started to pursue, and were called off the chase; one sergeant disregarded the order, and continued pursuit, though never faster than 30 mph. Five minutes later, the Intrepid ran a red light, hit an SUV, and then richocheted into a pedestrian, 25-year-old Qing Chang. Smith and another passenger have been charged with murder; a hearing is pending December 12.

But meanwhile, a civil jury has already determined that Smith and her passenger were only 25% responsible—which makes Chicago taxpayers entirely responsible for a $17.5 million award. Chicago has changed its chase procedures, though, of course, citizens killed by criminals who aren’t caught will have no cause of action against Chicago or the trial lawyers who forced Chicago into adopting a policy that makes lawsuit prevention more important than crime prevention. And it’s not clear what good changing the policy does if Chicago can still be held liable if a police officer disobeys orders to stop a chase. (Frank Main, “City slapped with $17.5 mil. judgment”, Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 25; NBC5, “City To Appeal $17.5 Million Police Chase Crash Verdict”, Oct. 25; Ben Bradley, “Charges filed in wake of local chase”, ABC7 Chicago, Jan. 5, 2003). See also: Mar. 29, Mar. 15 and links therein.

You may recall the unfortunate collapse of a Chicago porch at a party that killed thirteen and injured 57. Of course there are lawsuits against the building owners and the contractor who built a porch that couldn’t support 70 people. But the plaintiffs’ attorneys recognize that that insurance and the defendants’ underlying assets will run out quickly. Thus, they have sought to join the city of Chicago as a defendant for allegedly failing to enforce building codes. (Because, as anyone who has lived in Chicago knows, what that town needs is more city workers.)

John Ehrlich, the city’s chief assistant corporation counsel, told Cook County Judge Jeffrey Lawrence that if he didn’t drop the city from the lawsuit, it could lead to suits against other cities for everything from bad restaurant food to house fires.
“That makes the city of Chicago an insurer for every single bad incident that occurs on private property. And it makes every city — every municipality in the state — an insurer for every bad incident” that happens, Ehrlich said. ”If you allow that to happen, you will have [the] bankruptcy of every single municipality and local government in the state. That is simply untenable.”

(Nathaniel Hernandez, “Porch suit threatens Illinois cities: lawyer”, Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 24).

In 1995, Chicago paid $5 million for an African-American consultant to work with a blue-ribbon panel to devise a race-neutral exam for promoting firefighters. Unfortunately, in the end result, whites were twice as likely to score “well-qualified” as blacks. In 2002, when it ran out of candidates who scored 89, Chicago stopped requiring that promoted firefighters score that high, and a federal district court has decided as a result that the test was racially discriminatory for the previous seven years. Chicago taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as an additional $80 million in back pay and front pay. (Glenn Jeffers, “Judge rules city fire exam biased”, Chicago Tribune, Mar. 23; AP/Chicago Sun-Times, Mar. 23; Fran Spielman, “Exam bias ruling may cost city $80 million in firefighter lawsuit”, Chicago Sun-Times, Mar. 24).

A question for readers: none of the press has mentioned it, but, in 2001, a labor arbitrator ruled that the city discriminates against whites when it promotes a lower-scoring minority over a white. (Fran Spielman, “City ordered to promote white firefighters”, Chicago Sun-Times, Apr. 14, 2001). In 2002, a federal jury found that the 1986 test was fair, and that the city discriminated by promoting lower-scoring minorities over whites, awarding millions. (AP, May 18, 2002). These would appear to put the city in an impossible position. Or has something happened in the interim that obviates these earlier rulings? As an experiment, I’ve opened comments; please restrict your remarks to this latter question, and please remain civil and respectful.

Update: the 2002 decision’s reverse-discrimination finding was affirmed in Biondo v. Chicago (7th Cir. Aug. 27, 2004), though the damages award was vacated. (Schrank blog discussion).

The decisions are arguably reconcilable: the two exams are different; Biondo involved an explicit quota. On the other hand, page 5 of the Biondo slip opinion explicitly endorsed the methodology used by Chicago that the district court condemned this week.