Donald Trump, bully-ionaire is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

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

“If he’s taken seriously as a candidate it’s going to be appropriate to look at his record of litigation,” conservative legal scholar Walter Olson of the Cato Institute told iWatch News . He said a big question will be “how consistent is [Trump’s record] with the Republican idea that litigation should be a last resort and not a weapon for tactical advantage.”

Atlantic Wire and Ben Smith at Politico discuss.

Trump’s litigiousness, cont’d is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

P.S. And here’s Radley Balko with Reason #1,002.

Donald Trump, litigation bully is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Judge tosses Donald Trump’s bid to silence critical author is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Worse than these, though, in many ways, are wealthy and/or powerful egotists who use the legal system on a whim, as their personal payback mechanism or as a means of venting their pettiest grievances.   At the risk of fatally lowering the tone of Overlawyered and of prematurely ending my tenure as a guestblogger, I note the latest example, a tiff between two deeply unpleasant but inescapable self-anointed celebrities: Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump (MSNBC, "Trump to Rosie O’Donnell: You’re sued!", Dec. 21).

Earlier this afternoon Trump announced he is filing suit against the TV talk show host. ‘She says things that come to her mouth, she’s not smart, she’s crude, she’s ignorant and to be honest I look forward to suing Rosie,’ he told our cameras. ‘I’m gonna sue her and I look forward to it.  She’s really very dangerous for the show.’

Trump declined to elaborate on the details of his proposed legal filings, but added O’Donnell will understand his reasoning.  ‘Rosie will find out what we’re suing her for.  She knows what we’re suing her for,’ he said adding the lawsuit is already in the works.  ‘It’s something I look very forward to,’ he added.

If ever there was a case for "loser pays," this is it.   Trouble is, with relentlessly meaningless suits like this one gumming up the works, we’re all the losers.

Of Related Interest: The scurrilous Los Angeles gossip site, Defamer, has the Trump video from which I have drawn the post title (Dec. 20).   Not that I would recommend watching it, of course.

“So, Probably I’ll Sue Her, Because It Would Be Fun” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

And the next time someone brings up Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case, ask why a $2 million lawsuit over third-degree burns to a woman’s genitals is frivolous, but a $5 billion lawsuit over Donald Trump’s ego isn’t.

Fascinating. What fictional reformer supports Donald Trump’s lawsuit? Certainly not the main author of this site, who has repeatedly scoffed at it. Where’s the hypocrisy? (More on Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case, which was frivolous, but is hardly the only reason for supporting reform.) Needless to say, I’m not impressed. Lane’s claim that proposed reforms wouldn’t affect Trump’s case is absolutely false; reforms such as anti-SLAPP laws, loser-pays, procedural streamlining, and limiting forum-shopping would all cabin the ability of a Trump to attempt to use litigation to intimidate critics.

Lane asks why reformers argue that “the king’s-ransom salaries ‘earned’ by corporate executives aren’t passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, but that the costs of the tort system are.” There’s a difference, of course: a consumer can object to high CEO salaries by refusing to invest in a corporation’s stock or to purchase its products or services. But a consumer who buys a car can’t opt out of the huge expenses trial attorneys have added to every motor vehicle in America—$500 for every vehicle sold in America. Tom LaSorda, the CEO of Chrysler, doesn’t make $500 for every vehicle, even if one finds his salary objectionable for some reason. But as long as Lane is criticizing the “hypocrisy” of reformers, one wonders if he’ll turn the same searching eye complaining about high salaries to the multi-millionaire trial attorneys he lauds who, unlike the executives, make their money by destroying wealth and jobs rather than creating wealth and jobs.

ATLA’s attack on reform supporters is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system