Overlawyered » Dickie Scruggs

April 16 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 04:07:53 +0000

Although I’m known as a foe of everything John Edwards stands for, I hope he beats this campaign finance rap [Atlantic Wire]
Michael Bloomberg launches demagogic new campaign against Stand Your Ground laws, calling to mind the recent critique of the NYC mayor’s paternalist dark side by Conor Friedersdorf in the Atlantic;
Jerry Brown frees grandmother dubiously jailed in shaken-baby death [Slate, earlier]
As Scruggs (Dickey not Earl) still pursues vindication, Alan Lange looks back on Mississippi scandals [YallPolitics]
Deservedly favorable profile of Fifth Circuit judge Jerry Smith [NOLA]
In which I tell off Bill Donohue’s Catholic League for its double insult last week to gays and to adoptive parents [IGF]
“The Ninth Circuit was, believe it or not, correct” [Ilya Shapiro and Trevor Burrus, Cato, on administrative law case arising from NLRB rules change on drug rep overtime]

Tags: adoption, campaign regulation, Dickie Scruggs, Fifth Circuit, Jerry Brown, John Edwards, Michael Bloomberg, Ninth Circuit, self-defense, wrong right

April 16 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 12 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 05:13:02 +0000

After President Obama’s Orlando photo-op with construction workers came the high-ticket fundraiser at the home of med-mal titan John Morgan [Orlando Sentinel]
“Lawyer Sues Facebook, Says Tracking Cookie Violates Wiretap Laws” [ABA Journal]
The bone-marrow bounty that could save a life — and the law that gets in the way [Virginia Postrel]
New coalition to repeal New York’s unfair Scaffold Law;
“How the FDA Could Cost You Your Life” [Scott Gottlieb on medical device lags, WSJ]
Mississippi: new release of sealed Scruggs-scandal documents [YallPolitics, Freeland]
What I learned (about false accusation) at Dartmouth [Gonzalo Lira]

Tags: Barack Obama, colleges and universities, Dickie Scruggs, Facebook, FDA, New York, politics

October 12 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 6 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 05:39:43 +0000

Dodd-Frank, arms-trade laws serve to entrench bigger business against smaller [Tim Carney, Rand Simberg] Similarly with automakers and coal producers [David Henderson]
One guess as to why: “Many Physicians Feel They’re Delivering Too Much Care” [WSJ health blog, CJAC] Insurers report incidence of med-mal claims has dropped, severity has increased [National Underwriter] Roundtable on defensive medicine [Orthopedics Today]
Pinball Hall of Fame adversary doesn’t like being called a vexatious litigant [Las Vegas Weekly via @loweringthebar]
U.K. “Solicitors from Hell” gripe site has so far defied multiple efforts to shut it down [Independent]
WTC dust inhalation suits grind on on despite doubts on scientific effect [PoL, more] “Improbable Chain of Events Dooms Con Ed’s 9/11 Lawsuit” [Mark Hamblett, NYLJ]
Nathan Glazer’s work in perspective, and an interview [City Journal];
In the mail: Curtis Wilkie’s Dickie Scruggs book, “The Fall of the House of Zeus.”

Tags: autos, banks, defensive medicine, Dickie Scruggs, Ground Zero dust lawsuits, September 11, serial litigants, small business

October 6 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

September 12 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:37:28 +0000

Ninth Circuit: Holland America cruise line not responsible for customer’s swimming mishap at Mexican beach [Metropolitan News-Enterprise]
“President Perry would mean high noon for trial lawyers” [Kurt Schlichter, Washington Examiner; Politico; Prof. Bainbridge ("If the trial lawyers hate Rick Perry, maybe I should reconsider him")] Christie praises Perry’s “laudable” record on liability reform [PolitickerNJ] “Perry’s ‘loser pays’ is an economic winner” [Patrick Gleason and Jason Russell, Washington Times; Mass Tort Prof; background] Missing the point on the Texas med-mal experience [Coyote, earlier here, here, etc.] A bad sign: Gov. Perry reaches out to Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio [NRO, background] Another: courting social conservative vote, he pledges interference in state marriage law Houston Chronicle.
Alan Lange and Tom Dawson discuss their Dickie Scruggs book [Above the Law, background]
Hospital pays $25M to settle lawsuit charging lack of Katrina preparedness [White Coat]
Democratic majority on CPSC plans to ram through burdensome CPSIA testing and certification rule next month [Commissioner Nancy Nord, more]
For matching willing buyers with sellers through Canadian pharmacy ads, Google agrees to pay fine of $500 million, a forfeiture geared to the revenue the pharmacies (not it) took in from the ads [Atlantic Wire, Chris Fountain]
“Woman Won’t Have to Pay for Her Own Cavity Search” [Lowering the Bar]

Tags: advertising, CPSC, CPSIA, cruise ships, Dickie Scruggs, forfeiture, Google, hospitals, Katrina, Rick Perry, same-sex marriage, Texas

September 12 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 10 roundup

Walter Olson — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 05:53:52 +0000

Jury rejects Jamie Leigh Jones rape claim against Halliburton/KBR. Next, a round of apologies from naive commentators and some who used the case to advance anti-arbitration talking points? [WSJ; Ted Frank/PoL and more; WSJ Law Blog (plaintiff's lawyers sought shoot-the-moon damages)]
Time magazine vs. James Madison on constitutional law (spoiler: Madison wins) [Foster Friess via Ira Stoll]
Andrew Trask reviews new Curtis Wilkie book on the Dickie Scruggs scandal;
“Right to family life” evolution in human rights law deters UK authorities from deporting various bad actors [Telegraph]
Paging Benjamin Barton: How discovery rules enrich the legal profession at the expense of the social good [PoL]
USDA heeds politics, not science, on genetic crops [Henry Miller/Gregory Conko, PDF, Cato Institute Regulation]
“Legal Questions Raised by Success of Monkey Photographer” [Lowering the Bar]

Tags: agriculture and farming, arbitration, constitutional law, Dickie Scruggs, discovery, immigration law, international human rights, United Kingdom

July 10 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

June 24 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 05:04:47 +0000

“Law Prof Threatens Suit over University’s Plan to Reinstitute Single-Sex Dorms” [ABA Journal, WSJ Law Blog; John Banzhaf vs. Catholic U. in Washington, D.C.]
Mississippi: Dickie Scruggs files motion to vacate conviction in Scruggs II (DeLaughter case) [Freeland, YallPolitics] Before defending Paul Minor’s conduct in cash-for-judges scandal, review the evidence [Lange, YallPolitics and more]
Woman who filmed cop from own yard charged with obstructing his administration of governmen [BoingBoing]
East St. Louis, Ill. jury awards $95 million in sexual harassment, assault case against Aaron’s rental chain [ABA Journal]
Connecticut unions demand investigation of conservative Yankee Institute think tank [Public Sector Inc.]
“Court Upends $1.75M Award, Finding Plaintiff Lawyer’s Remarks Prejudicial” [NJLJ]
Hold it! San Francisco debates bathroom rights for schoolkids [C.W. Nevius, SF Chronicle]

Tags: colleges and universities, Connecticut, Dickie Scruggs, Paul Minor, San Francisco, Washington D.C.

June 24 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

David Rossmiller on the Dickie Scruggs scandal

Walter Olson — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:29:17 +0000

David Rossmiller, whose blog provided some of the most penetrating analysis of the Dickie Scruggs judicial corruption scandal of 2007-08, has now penned a review of one of the books to emerge from the scandal, “Kings of Tort” by Alan Lange and Tom Dawson. Rossmiller, an Oregon lawyer, also has some kind words for my book The Rule of Lawyers, published a few years earlier, which lays out the background for the scandal by showing how once-obscure plaintiff’s lawyers in states like Mississippi, working with courts known for “home cooking” and in alliance with local political figures, had begun redistributing billions of dollars in big-ticket litigation from tobacco and asbestos on down. [Mississippi College Law Review PDF via Insurance Coverage Blog; related here and here]

Tags: Dickie Scruggs

David Rossmiller on the Dickie Scruggs scandal is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

New book on Dickie Scruggs downfall

Walter Olson — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 05:05:24 +0000

“The Fall of the House of Zeus,” by veteran newspaper reporter Curtis Wilkie, is reviewed at Lemuria Books and the Wall Street Journal. An earlier book on the same subject was “Kings of Tort”, by Alan Lange and Tom Dawson. We covered the Scruggs scandal extensively in 2007-2008.

Tags: Dickie Scruggs

New book on Dickie Scruggs downfall is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 19 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:27:15 +0000

Judge bans $1.35 billion sugar beet crop for lack of environmental impact statement [NY Times]
Brennan Center, Justice at Stake attracting attention with new report on money in state court judicial races [report in PDF, Kang/ConcurOp]
Obama signs “libel tourism” bill into law [Levy, CL&P]
“Zach Scruggs claims new evidence clears him” [Patsy Brumfield, NE Mississippi Daily Journal via YallPolitics]
Second Circuit panel blasts 1980s abuse-accusation panic in ruling on Friedman case [opinion via NYT and Bernstein/Volokh]
Famed Cincinnati lawyer Stanley Chesley may face disciplinary action before Kentucky bar over role in fen-phen scandal [Courier-Journal via Dan Fisher and PoL]
Sexual harassment verdict against California casino “amounts to 2/3 of the company’s net worth” [Fox, Jottings]
Every White House needs to hire some partisan brawlers. But with “ethics czar” duties? [Matt Welch, Reason]

Tags: Barack Obama, child abuse, damages, Dickie Scruggs, environment, ethics, harassment law, judicial elections, Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud, libel slander and defamation, Stan Chesley

August 19 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Get that anti-Scruggs blogger! Get him!

Walter Olson — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:58:31 +0000

During the long series of scandals that brought down former tort potentate Richard (“Dickie”) Scruggs, of tobacco-asbestos-Katrina-mass tort fame, no blogger achieved the status of “must” reading more consistently than David Rossmiller of Insurance Coverage Blog. Now Alan Lange of Mississippi site YallPolitics (and co-author of Kings of Tort, a book on the scandal) has posted a massive document dump of emails between the Scruggs camp and its public relations agency, as made public in later litigation (see also). It shows the principals:

* boasting of their success in manipulating major media outlets to inflict bad publicity on the targets of Scruggs’s suits;

* plotting ways of striking back against critics — in particular, Rossmiller — with tactics including going after him with legal process, as well as creating fake commenters and whole blogs to sow doubt about his reporting;

* wondering who they might pay to secure “Whistleblower of the Year” awards, or something similar, for their clients;

* apparently oblivious, just days before the fact, as to how the ceiling was going to cave in on them because of Judge Henry Lackey’s willingness to go to law enforcement to report a bribe attempt from the Scruggs camp.

The whole set of documents, along with Rossmiller’s summary and reaction, really must be seen to be believed. It will easily provide hours of eye-opening reading, both for those who followed the Scruggs affair in particular, and for everyone interested in how ambitious lawyers manipulate press coverage to their advantage — and how they can seek to use the law against their blogger critics. (& welcome readers from Forbes.com and Victoria Pynchon’s “On the Docket” column there).

Tags: bloggers and the law, Dickie Scruggs, Katrina, legal blogs, State Farm, whistleblowers

Get that anti-Scruggs blogger! Get him! is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system