Bus accident video footage is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Family of college hazing victim sues bus company is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Illinois court: don’t blame railroad for asbestos delivery is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

January 31 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Wrongful-Death Suit Filed Against Criminal Defendant’s Parents, Grandmother” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Montana: “Bicyclist Gets Nearly $100G After Fall on Icy Trail” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Sugarland sued over Indiana stage collapse” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

After the trial ended Tuesday, the mall’s lawyer, Terrence Cranert, said they would appeal.

He said there was significant evidence the jury didn’t receive, including a statement from White’s passenger who told the CHP that he and White had stopped to smoke marijuana after leaving the mall. Cranert said they weren’t able to find White’s passenger for the trial, but felt the information should have been allowed.

The judge, however, disagreed.

White’s passenger also told the CHP that he and White went into the back of the truck and opened a tool box to get the marijuana, according to Cranert. “They would have to unstrap the motorcycles,” Cranert said.

[Ventura County Star reporting, liability and damages phases]

Deep pocket files: Highway 101 crash is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Diana Maychick is now Diana Foote, a restaurant reviewer for a Palm Beach newspaper, and recently recounted the accident, claiming the recent Toyota troubles exonerated her mother.

Which I found fascinating, because I worked on that litigation—and the evidence that Maychick hit the gas instead of the brake was so strong that the plaintiffs’ lawyers abandoned the standard specious “mysterious gremlins caused the car to accelerate” theory and replaced it with a “General Motors knew that drivers were hitting the wrong pedal but didn’t do enough to warn them” theory. I took issue with Foote’s column in a letter to the newspaper.

As for the lawsuit itself, the judge excused everyone in the voir dire who expressed the remotest skepticism about plaintiffs’ theory, and GM settled shortly after the start of trial. One certainly marvels at the chutzpah of the theory of the case, given trial lawyers’ role in trying to persuade the public that driver error couldn’t possibly be to blame.

1995 Washington Square sudden acceleration revisited is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Decedent, Lloyd A. Wiseman, a vice president of a San Francisco bank, died of asphyxiation and burns in a hotel room in New York City. He was in that city on bank business, and his traveling expenses, including his hotel bills, were paid by the bank. A woman, not his wife but registered as such, was found unconscious in his room and died shortly thereafter. There was evidence that they had been drinking. Sometime between 4 and 5 in the morning of his death, Wiseman telephoned the hotel manager for help because of a fire in his room. After calling the fire department, the manager went to the room but was unable to open the door with his passkey. Firemen arrived shortly thereafter and broke into the room but were too late to save the occupants. It was the opinion of the assistant fire marshal that the fire was caused by careless smoking by either one or both of the occupants.

The California Supreme Court went on to hold that Wiseman’s widow and children were entitled to death benefits from his employer because his death “was proximately caused by the employment”—a remarkable definition of proximate cause. The Court reasoned that Wiseman might have died while entertaining a legitimate guest in the hotel room (at 4 in the morning?), so the fact that the death occurred in the course of nookie was irrelevant. That seems to me to prove too much: Wiseman might have died smoking in his bed at home, too, and he just happened to be in a hotel when his bad habits killed him. But this was part of Judge Traynor’s successful remaking of tort law in the 1950′s, and the death of proximate cause is a large part why we have the mess we have today. Wiseman v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1956) 46 Cal. 2d 570.

(You can tell that this is still over fifty years ago, though, because the widow didn’t sue the hotel or cigarette company.)

Deep pockets files: 1956 edition is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system