Overlawyered » Coca-Cola http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 If you drink more than 1000 cans of cola a day… http://overlawyered.com/2011/03/if-you-drink-more-than-1000-cans-of-cola-a-day/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/03/if-you-drink-more-than-1000-cans-of-cola-a-day/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:16:45 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=21835 … you may want to know more about the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s “caramel coloring” cancer scare (earlier). Pediatric Insider and Abnormal Use provide some needed perspective.

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/03/if-you-drink-more-than-1000-cans-of-cola-a-day/feed/ 9 March 25 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/march-25-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/march-25-roundup/#comments Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:04:22 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=6016
  • Speaking of patients who act against medical advice and sue anyway: doctor who advised against home birth is cleared by Ohio jury in $13 million suit [Plain Dealer and earlier via KevinMD]
  • UK: “A feud over a 4ft-wide strip of land has seen neighbours rack up £300,000 in lawyers’ bills, and left one family effectively homeless.” [Telegraph]
  • Last of the Scruggs judicial bribery defendants without a plea deal, Dickie’s son Zack, takes one [Folo]
  • By reader acclaim: securities trader sues over injury from lap dancer’s attentions [AP/NY Sun]
  • Amid the talk of FISA and retroactive telecom immunity, it would be nice to hear more about the actual lawsuits [Obbie]
  • Australian worker loses suit over firing despite a doctor’s note vouching that stress of worrying about upcoming football game made it medically necessary for him to take day off to go see it [Stumblng Tumblr]
  • Megan McArdle and Tyler Cowen toss around the question of federal FDA pre-emption of drug liability suits, as raised by Medtronic;
  • Should Coughlin Stoia have bought those stolen Coke documents? For one lawprof, question’s a real head-scratcher [David McGowan (San Diego), Legal Ethics Forum] And WSJ news side is oddly unskeptical of trial lawyers’ line that the affair just proves their power to go on fishing expeditions should never have been curtailed [Jones/Slater]
  • Dashboard-cam caught Tennessee cops red-handed planting marijuana on suspect, or so Jonathan Turley suggests — but could it be a little more complicated than that? [WSMV, AP/WATE] (& Greenfield)
  • “Heck Baptists don’t even sue you for disagreeing with them,” though no doubt there are exceptions [Instapundit; NYT on Danish cartoons; Ezra Levant with more on those Canadian speech tribunals]
  • Bestselling authors who sue their critics [four years ago on Overlawyered]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/march-25-roundup/feed/ 1     Special master: Coughlin Stoia paid for “stolen” Coke documents http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/special-master-coughlin-stoia-paid-for-stolen-coke-documents/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/special-master-coughlin-stoia-paid-for-stolen-coke-documents/#comments Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:22:57 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5940 Do they often do business this way? The law firm of Coughlin Stoia, known as Lerach Coughlin before the departure of now-disgraced Bill Lerach, has been vying for lead counsel status in a shareholder class action against Coca-Cola. Now Roger Parloff at Fortune “Legal Pad” (Feb. 28) reports that a special master on the case has recommended that the firm be disqualified for “extremely troubling” conduct which it then defended after exposure using “pretextual” arguments. It seems two former Coke executives approached the law firm of Milberg Weiss (predecessor before its split of Coughlin Stoia), one of them in possession of more than 3,000 company documents he’d taken on departure, many stamped “confidential”. The law firm then agreed to pay the execs at least $75,000 to serve as “consultants”, part of the deal consisting of access to the documents, which it then used in its complaint.
    When the consulting agreement came to light more than a year ago, Coughlin Stoia lawyers backed [Greg] Petro’s claim that neither he nor they had thought he was taking Coke documents without authority because, among other things, Petro had been ordered, when terminated, to “clean out his office.” Special Master [Hunter] Hughes found that such a command could not “rationally be construed to authorize Petro to walk off with company documents, any more than it authorized him to take the company’s desk, chairs, and computer.”

    Hughes also rejected arguments that the firm was not really buying the documents, just entering into a consulting agreement, and a public-policy style argument that Petro’s conduct should be condoned because he was a whistleblower trying to expose corporate wrongdoing.

    In a footnote, Hughes found that public policy arguments weighed in the other direction: “On a very practical level, for the Court to give Plaintiffs’ counsel a pass on this conduct, would simply invite terminated employees, particularly of public companies, to on a wholesale basis remove company documents following their termination in hopes they can sell them should the company be sued.”

    More: San Diego Union-Tribune, ABA Journal, WSJ law blog (where several comments defend the law firm’s conduct).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/special-master-coughlin-stoia-paid-for-stolen-coke-documents/feed/ 1     August 6 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2007/08/august-6-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2007/08/august-6-roundup/#comments Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:08:17 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5191
    • Patent suit by firm called Parallel Processing demands that all Sony PlayStation 3 consoles be impounded and destroyed [ArsTechnica, Slashdot]

    • It’s not all going to Edwards: a scorecard on presidential campaigns’ law-firm fundraising [National Law Journal]

    • Link roundup on Oregon criminal charges against fanny-swatting 13-year-olds [Right Side of the Rainbow; earlier]

    • New at Point of Law: Spitzenfreude is mirth derived from ethical pratfall of NY’s moralist governor; Florida’s insurance fiasco; more on those “medical” bankruptcies; Alabama judge appoints special prosecutor in Dickie Scruggs affair after feds take a pass; and much more;

    • One hurdle for court action by survivors of slain Middle East contractors against Blackwater: the four men had signed contracts agreeing not to sue their employer [Henley; W$J]

    • Saying swim diaper should suffice, Akron mom and “fair housing” advocates sue condo that barred pre-potty-trained kids from pool [AP/FoxNews.com]

    • Not only are those punitive new Virginia traffic laws unpopular, but a judge has just declared them unconstitutional as well [Washington Post; earlier here and here]

    • Pepsi settles class actions over minute quantities of benzene that might form when soft drink ingredients combine [Reuters, Food Navigator, Journal-News]

    • U.K. considers making it easier for unmarried cohabitators to go to court when their households break up [Times Online]

    • Did a securities fraudster use protracted depositions to browbeat his victims? [Salt Lake City Tribune]

    • “Victims’ Rights Amendment” to U.S. Constitution, promoted as giving crime victims a fairer shake, is bad idea for lots of reasons [eight years ago on Overlawyered]

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2007/08/august-6-roundup/feed/ 0     April 8 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2007/04/april-8-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2007/04/april-8-roundup/#comments Sun, 08 Apr 2007 12:29:23 +0000 Ted Frank http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=4773

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2007/04/april-8-roundup/feed/ 0     Coke Zero “lawsuit” http://overlawyered.com/2007/03/coke-zero-lawsuit/ http://overlawyered.com/2007/03/coke-zero-lawsuit/#comments Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:27:58 +0000 Ted Frank http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=4712 For a viral marketing campaign, Coca-Cola pranked its own in-house counsel by sending improvisational actors portraying brand-manager employees to attorneys asking if they could sue Coke Zero for tasting so much like Coca-Cola; the results are on a series of videos on YouTube. So far none of the victim lawyers have sued. (Janet Conley, “Frivolous litigation: How Coke ‘punk’d’ its lawyers”, Daily Report, Mar. 23 (via BLT)).

    Perhaps related: Mar. 6.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2007/03/coke-zero-lawsuit/feed/ 0     Coca-Cola promotion tweaks client-chasers http://overlawyered.com/2007/03/coca-cola-promotion-tweaks-client-chasers/ http://overlawyered.com/2007/03/coca-cola-promotion-tweaks-client-chasers/#comments Tue, 06 Mar 2007 13:09:10 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=4621 Let’s just hope no one tells the Kentucky bar about the new Coke Zero campaign, with its reference to a supposed law firm by the name of Covet & Yourminy. (Stuart Elliott, “Can’t Tell Your Cokes Apart? Sue Someone”, New York Times, Mar. 5). The Times misses the chance to mention the similarity of the widely noted AllTel campaign last year (Jul. 6, Aug. 3).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2007/03/coca-cola-promotion-tweaks-client-chasers/feed/ 0     November 21 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2006/11/november-21-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2006/11/november-21-roundup/#comments Tue, 21 Nov 2006 07:55:16 +0000 Ted Frank http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=4205
  • Today at AEI: Panel (and webcast) on Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court argument on carbon dioxide regulation. [AEI]
  • Paulson to Economic Club of New York: “Legal reform is crucial to the long-term competitiveness of our economy.” [Paulson; WSJ; WaPo; NYT; American]
  • One who reposts on Internet allegedly libelous news article immune from liability in California. One hopes this deters a certain attorney complaining about a six-year-old Overlawyered post recounting a 2000 LA Times article. [Point of Law; Volokh]
  • It’s an obvious point, but many judges simply refuse to acknowledge it in failure-to-warn litigation: overwarning can be counterproductive. [WaPo]
  • Congress holds that Psalms 37:21 trumps Leviticus 27:30; Senator Obama objects. [WaPo]
  • Russia: woman successfully sues Coca-Cola for causing gastrointestinal distress. [Kevin M.D.]
  • More on breast implants. [Bernstein @ Volokh]
  • More on the New Zealand no-fault med-mal system. [Point of Law]
  • Posner on Friedman. [Posner]
  • John Edwards seeks to cut in front of line to purchase Playstation 3 at Wal-Mart. Which of the Two Americas is that again? [Taylor @ Reason via Kirkendall]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2006/11/november-21-roundup/feed/ 3     “This focus of evil in the modern world” http://overlawyered.com/2006/09/this-focus-of-evil-in-the-modern-world/ http://overlawyered.com/2006/09/this-focus-of-evil-in-the-modern-world/#comments Thu, 14 Sep 2006 10:31:03 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=3945 If the Forces of Disapproval ever tire of beating up on Wal-Mart, they’ll need a new business to blame for the world’s not being everything it ought. George Will thinks Coca-Cola might fill the bill (”Liberalism as Condescension”, syndicated/RealClearPolitics, Sept. 14).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2006/09/this-focus-of-evil-in-the-modern-world/feed/ 7     Update: Diet-book author drops suit against Coke http://overlawyered.com/2006/08/update-diet-book-author-drops-suit-against-coke/ http://overlawyered.com/2006/08/update-diet-book-author-drops-suit-against-coke/#comments Thu, 03 Aug 2006 04:13:55 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=3784 The Coca-Cola Co. can rest easy: diet-book author Julia Havey has withdrawn her lawsuit (see Jul. 17) charging that one of the company’s product loyalty campaigns encourages kids to consume so many soft drinks that they could die. Havey declared herself satisfied that a Coke spokesman told the press that purchasers seeking to accumulate product credits could share the soft drinks with friends instead of being obliged to consume them all personally. Coke has said Havey’s lawsuit is a publicity ploy intended to call attention to her release of a new diet book. And this:
    Havey said she wouldn’t be surprised if Coca-Cola sued her.

    “The world of litigation is a crazy place,” she said.

    (”Lawsuit Over ‘Lethal Doses’ Of Coca-Cola Dropped”, KPRC Houston, Aug. 2).

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