“A man who overdosed on stolen drugs he ingested at a party in 2007 has settled his lawsuit with a pharmacy, several guests, the party’s host and the host’s mother for $4.1 million. … [Scott] Simon sued the pharmacy for not taking proper precautions to avoid the theft of drugs. He also sued several guests, the party’s host and the host’s parents, who were away for the weekend.” [AP via NJLRA, Schepisi & McLaughlin]
Tagged as:
illegal drugs,
New Jersey,
personal responsibility,
pharmaceuticals,
social host
- Six-year-old charged with sexual assault [Channel3000.com, Wisconsin; Radley Balko]
- “Beware: Cities Hunting You Down For Reagan-Era Parking Tickets” [David Kiley, AOL]
- Waco, Texas: “McLennan DA fights DNA testing because exonerations override juries” [Grits for Breakfast] Robert Mosteller, “Failures of the Prosecutor’s Duty to ‘Do Justice’ in Extraordinary and Ordinary Miscarriages of Justice” [Legal Ethics Forum]
- Controlled substances: “Could a US lawyer lawfully counsel clients about this proposed new law?” [John Steele, LEF]
- Mens rea erosion a “deeply troublesome trend” [Kevin LaCroix on WSJ] “Trial penalty,” long sentence minimums give prosecutors muscle to extract plea deals [NYT, Sullum] “Settlements feed U.S. prosecutor overreach” [Reynolds Holding, Reuters BreakingViews] “Responsible corporate officer doctrine” worries pharma defense lawyers [WSJ Law Blog] “The continuing quest to criminalize business judgment” [Kirkendall]
- “More than three-quarters of turn-of-the-century Chicago homicides led to no criminal punishment — not because the perpetrator could not be identified, but because no jury would convict.” [William Stuntz's posthumous book via Cowen]
- “Scalia criticizes narcotics laws” [for over-federalization] [WSJ]
Tagged as:
Chicago,
crime and punishment,
illegal drugs,
prosecution,
traffic laws
Pennsylvania: “A York man who pleaded guilty to illegally selling prescription drugs is suing the doctor who prescribed the painkillers to him for medical malpractice and medical negligence.” [York Daily Record]
And from the same state: veteran who broke into a pharmacy to steal drugs sues Veterans Administration for not having given him better mental health counseling. [Times-Leader]
Tagged as:
criminals who sue,
illegal drugs,
medical malpractice,
Pennsylvania
Just when you think the school-locker-search genre has exhausted its outrage potential, comes this: Wolcott, Ct., school authorities falsely informed students over the intercom that a menacing intruder was loose in the school and that everyone needed to go into lockdown mode. Actually, it was an excuse to search lockers for drugs. (None were found.) One possible lesson? “If you say something important to teenagers and you want them to trust you, it’s better not to lie.” [Rick Green, Hartford Courant via Scott Greenfield]
Tagged as:
illegal drugs,
schools
- Educator: please don’t bring lawyers to parent-teacher meetings [Ron Clark, CNN] Steve Brill: what I found when I investigated NYC teacher “rubber rooms” [Reuters] “The Six Dumbest Things Schools Are Doing in the Name of Safety” [Cracked] School waterfall liability [Lincoln, Neb. Journal-Star]
- As predicted: “Dodd-Frank Paperwork a Bonanza for Consultants and Lawyers” [NYT]
- “Running out of common drugs” [Josh Bloom, NY Post] Pharmaceutical shortages: the role of Medicare price controls [Richard Epstein, Hoover; earlier here, here, etc.]
- DoT insists on exposing private flight plans online. Yoo-hoo, privacy advocates? [Steve Chapman]
- New class action law in Mexico includes loser-pays provision [WSJ]
- Newt Gingrich candidacy revives memories of his 1995 call for death penalty (with “mass executions”) for drug smuggling [NYT archive via Josh Barro; see also @timothy_watson "Sounds kinda like Shariah Law to me.")
- "Cy pres slush fund in Georgia under ethics investigation" [PoL]
Tagged as:
aviation,
class actions,
cy pres,
Georgia,
illegal drugs,
loser pays,
Mexico,
pharmaceuticals,
schools,
teacher tenure
The teenage girl’s family has now sued the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, the event company Insomniac, a former events manager, and other parties alleging negligent staffing and supervision, inadequate security, slow emergency response and other deficiencies [L.A. Times]
Tagged as:
illegal drugs,
Los Angeles,
personal responsibility
- Yikes! “House Committee Approves Bill Mandating That Internet Companies Spy on Their Users” [EFF; Julian Sanchez, New York Post/Cato and podcast]
- Australia courts skeptical about claim that sex injury is covered under workers’ comp [Herald Sun]
- Well-off community doesn’t need annual HUD grant, seeks to sell it [Dan Mitchell]
- Report: playful City Museum in St. Louis has taken down signs criticizing lawyers [Bill Childs/TortsProf, earlier]
- Chicago neurosurgeons pay $4500 a week in med-mal premiums, blame lawless Illinois Supreme Court [Medill Reports] Supreme Court declines to review Feres doctrine, which shields military doctors (among others) from suits [Stars and Stripes] Why is the most widely cited number of medical-misadventure deaths such an outlier? [White Coat; more here, here, etc.]
- After “Facebook broken heart” suit, will pre-nups for Mafia Wars relationships be next? [Tri-Cities Herald]
- Another horrific report of poppy seed positive drug test followed by child-grabbing [Radley Balko]
Tagged as:
Australia,
Chicago,
Child Protective Services,
Facebook,
illegal drugs,
medical malpractice,
workers' compensation
- “Battle of the tort reform flicks”: trial-bar-backed “Hot Coffee” documentary said to be more entertaining than U.S. Chamber-backed “InJustice” [TortsProf, Abnormal Use, Daily Caller, Frank/PoL, Above the Law, Fisher, LNL] Memo to liberal studio heads: c’mon, now’s the time to greenlight more business-bashing flicks [Alyssa Rosenberg, TP]
- Interlock makers join forces with MADD to lobby for new federal DUI mandates [Luke Rosiak, Wash Times] More: Greenfield.
- Consumer found liable after posting gripes about driveway contractor on Craigslist [Minneapolis Star-Tribune] P.S.: Default judgment, not merits [h/t ABA Journal]
- Angelos law firm obtains $1 billion+ punitive award in Exxon Baltimore gasoline leak case, bringing total to $1.5 billion+ [AP, earlier]
- Taiwan: “Jail Time (And $7000 Fine) for Saying a Restaurant’s Dishes Were ‘Too Salty’” [Volokh]
- Headed for SCOTUS? Sixth Circuit panel strikes down Michigan law banning discrimination in higher ed admissions and other state activities [Gail Heriot, Daily Caller; Hans Bader, CEI]
- Court in British Columbia includes C$30,000 in damage award for injury plaintiff’s purchase of medical marijuana for pain management [Erik Magraken]
Tagged as:
Baltimore,
Canada,
Craigslist,
illegal drugs,
jackpot justice,
MADD,
oil industry,
restaurant critics,
Sixth Circuit
- Reforms billed as loser-pays advance in Texas, but they’re very scaled-down [WSJ, WLF and more, Legal Blog Watch, Wood/PoL, Cary Gray/Houston Chronicle, WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
- “Refutation of Toyota sudden acceleration hysteria doesn’t stop Toyota sudden acceleration litigation” [Ted at PoL]
- “Five Questions With Legal Scholar Richard Epstein” [Jamie Weinstein, Daily Caller; his views on Title IX]
- Employers glad for small favors: “Refusing to Hire Applicant Who Fails Drug Test Not an ADA Violation” [Robin Weideman, California Labor and Employment Law Blog; Ninth Circuit]
- “Study Shows Litigation Doesn’t Improve Nursing Home Safety” [Studdert et al, NEJM via Daniel Fisher]
- Risperdal? No thanks: “Mother battles Michigan over daughter’s medication” [AP]
- Personal-injury litigation plummets in Australia following enactment of state-level reforms [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
illegal drugs,
loser pays,
nursing homes,
psychiatry,
Richard Epstein,
sudden acceleration,
Texas,
Title IX,
Toyota
First was the ban, then came the legalization, and now along comes the right to sue your employer for being disapproving or at least uncooperative about it. Former Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill. [Nancy Berner, Cal Labor] I wrote about related issues last year.
Tagged as:
California,
illegal drugs
I’ve got some thoughts at Cato at Liberty on the overreaching way California’s Proposition 19 tried to curtail employers’ liberty in employment decisions related to pot smoking — which might have contributed to the measure’s defeat at the polls on Tuesday. Earlier here. Jacob Sullum points out that much of employers’ tendency to treat off-job marijuana use more harshly than off-job alcohol use is itself stimulated by government mandates and exhortation, prominently including drug testing programs (& welcome Instapundit readers). More: Nancy Berner, California Labor & Employment Law Blog (”Merely smelling marijuana on a worker’s clothes after lunch would not be sufficient to justify a write-up” had the measure passed.)
Tagged as:
employment at will,
illegal drugs,
workplace
Headline stories of the week:
- Crude for sure: Law.com runs highlights of the tapes of American lawyers stage-managing the Ecuador-Chevron suit [Corporate Counsel, ShopFloor]
- Why such broad gag orders in Kansas pain-doc advocacy case? [Jacob Sullum, Reason; Adam Liptak, NYT]
- Spectacular fall of lawyer Adorno in Miami fire fee case [ABA Journal, PoL, earlier]
- Fiscal 2010 saw biggest increase in regulatory burdens placed on US economy since measurements began [Heritage]
- Watch for nonstandard definitions of “rights”: “Unions Fear Rollback of Rights Under Republicans” [NYT]
- Marijuana, freedom and the California ballot [David Boaz, Cato at Liberty] Alas, text of Proposition 19 also contains “antidiscrimination” provisions that restrict private liberty [David Henderson]
- New papers from U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform unveiled at last week’s Legal Reform Summit: ways to fix the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) (more on FCPA from Nathan Burney via Greenfield); Beisner-Miller-Schwartz on cy pres in class actions, via CCAF and Trask; and a new paper on asbestos claiming in Madison County, Illinois;
- Will Supreme Court clients be as keen on hiring Tribe after revelation of his letter trashing Sotomayor? [Whelan, NRO]
Tagged as:
Chevron,
class action settlements,
illegal drugs,
Kansas,
labor unions,
prosecution,
Sonia Sotomayor
