Elie Mystal at Above the Law thinks a Decorah, Iowa “Trial Lawyers for Justice” plaintiff’s firm might want to consider including an “equal opportunity employer” tagline in its hiring announcement. Update: Firm defends its position.
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Posts tagged as:
Iowa
- Probate court in Connecticut: bad enough when they hold you improperly in conservatorship, but worse when they bill you for the favor [Hartford Courant]
- Does “Patent Troll” in World of Warcraft count as a character type or a monster type? [Broken Toys]
- 102-year-old Italian woman wins decade-long legal dispute, but is told appeal could take 10 years more [Telegraph]
- “This Cartoon Could Be Illegal, If Two Iowa Legislators Have Their Way” [Eugene Volokh]
- David Giacalone, nonpareil commentator on attorneys’ fee ethics (and haiku), has decided to end his blog f/k/a. He signs off with a four-part series on lawyer billing and fairness to consumers/clients: parts one, two, three, four, plus a final “Understanding and Reducing Attorney Fees“. He’s keeping the site as archives, though, and let’s hope that as such it goes on shedding its light for as long as there are lawyers and vulnerable clients. More: Scott Greenfield.
- Even they can’t manage to comply? Politically active union SEIU faces unfair labor practice charges from its own employees [WaPo]
- Judge in Austin awards $3 million from couple’s estate to their divorce lawyers [Austin American-Statesman]
- “Keywords With Highest Cost Per Click”, lawyers and financial services dominate [SpyFu]
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A state Supreme Court ruling that allows a Bettendorf woman to sue over injuries her daughter suffered when she was struck with an errant bat at a minor-league baseball game threatens the spirit of America’s pastime, according to a judge who said his fellow justices have “taken a mighty swing … and missed by a mile.”
Cynthia Sweeney had signed a liability waiver, but sued anyway after her daughter, sitting in the bleachers as part of a school field trip, was struck by a bat that went flying. For more baseball-liability reports, follow our baseball tag.
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Teresa Wagner claims the University of Iowa Law School denied her the appointment because of her conservative views. (TaxProf, WSJ Law Blog, Somin @ Volokh).
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The cold and allergy remedy may be sold over the counter, but that doesn’t mean buyers like Gary Schinagel, a 47-year-old Iowa investment executive who has suffered from nasal congestion since childhood, can stay out of serious legal trouble should they purchase it in other than the government-approved manner. (John Skipper, “Man says stuffy nose did him in”, Mason City (Ia.) Globe Gazette, Sept. 22; Jacob Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”, Oct. 3; Colleen O’Shaughnessy, “Mason City Man Tries To Clear His Name”, KIMT, undated).
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The plaintiff in the Muscatine County, Iowa case said her former boyfriend had assured her he was free of sexually transmitted disease even though he should have had reason to know this wasn’t the case. She was later “diagnosed with both strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), one of which causes genital warts and the other cell abnormalities that can lead to cervical cancer.” [OnPoint News] Marc Randazza at Legal Satyricon says the jury’s $1.5 million award “seems like a fair decision” (Aug. 15). Reader Scott M. isn’t so sure, writing in email, “One has to wonder how the other hundreds of millions of Americans manage to get by without compensation, since according to WebMD ‘HPV virus is common and infects at least 50% of all people who have sex at some time in their lives.’” (more).
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The lowest medical malpractice insurance rates are found in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas. Why is that? Probably not because doctors there have managed to achieve anything resembling error-free practice; and probably not because the five states, taken as a whole, are distinguished by any unusually pro-defendant set of tort laws. MedInnovationBlog takes up the question here and here, and speaks with a mutual insurer executive in search of explanations, which may include (among others) a “culture of collegiality among doctors and society as a whole”, a hard line against doubtful claims, and a paucity of giant verdicts of the John Edwards variety. (cross-posted from Point of Law).
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As a number of commentators have noted (e.g. Brett Kittredge @ Majority in Mississippi, Alan Lange @ YallPolitics), Booneville attorney Joey Langston, who just entered a guilty plea on charges of judicial corruption, is someone accustomed to throwing the weight of his pocketbook around in Mississippi politics. In particular, he has been among the biggest donors to incumbent Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood, even as Hood employed Langston and partner Tim Balducci on contract to handle the controversial MCI tax bill negotiations, with their resulting $14 million legal fees payable to Langston et al, and the potentially very lucrative Zyprexa litigation.
Equally interesting in some ways, however, are Langston’s activities on the national political scene. To take just one example: this CampaignMoney.com listing tabulates the top “527″ contributions to a group called the Democratic Attorneys General Association, whose political and electoral mission is implied by its name. In the listing, two donors are tied for first place, with contributions of $100,000 apiece. One is the large Cincinnati law firm of Waite Schneider Bayless Chesley, associated with one of the country’s best-known plaintiff’s lawyers, Stanley Chesley. The other $100,000 contribution is from Joey Langston.
In presidential politics, Langston has recently been a repeat donor to the quixotic (and, since Iowa, defunct) campaign of Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), a lawmaker whose high degree of seniority on the Senate Judiciary Committee makes him important to ambitious lawyers whether or not he ever attains the White House. When the Scruggs scandal was still in its early stages, the WSJ law blog (Dec. 10) noted that two key figures in the affair, Tim Balducci and Steve Patterson, were strong backers of the Biden campaign: “Their bet on Biden was that he wouldn’t win the presidency but would become Secretary of State under a Hillary Clinton administration, according to two people familiar with their thinking.” The Journal reprinted (PDF) an invitation to an Aug. 10, 2007 fundraising reception for Biden at the Oxford (Miss.) University Club, sent out above the names of six hosts, three of whom (Scruggs, Balducci and Patterson) were soon indicted. Scruggs, of course, is better known for his support of Mrs. Clinton, a fundraiser for whom he had to cancel after the scandal broke.
Campaign-contributions databases such as OpenSecrets.org and NewsMeat indicate that Langston has been a prolific and generous donor to incumbent and aspiring Senators across the country, mostly Democrats (Murray, Cantwell, Daschle, Nelson, etc.) but also including a number of Republicans who might be perceived as swing votes or reachable, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Susan Collins (Me.), and Arlen Specter (Penn.)
Incidentally, some critics have intimated that Langston’s generous support to DAGA, the Democratic Attorneys General Association, should actually be interpreted as a roundabout gift to Hood, who was the beneficiary of interestingly timed largesse from DAGA. It does not appear, however, that any of the parties involved — Langston, Hood or DAGA — have acknowledged any connection between the timing of the donations (& welcome Michelle Malkin, David Rossmiller, YallPolitics readers).
[Second of a two-part post. The first part is here.]
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The Alliance for a New America is an “independent” campaign organization running television ads in Iowa on behalf of John Edwards—whose ability to spend money himself in Iowa is restricted because he is taking taxpayer money as campaign funds (all while bashing other candidates for taking money from “lobbyists”, even as he takes millions from trial lawyers and his finance chair is the former head of lobbying group ATLA).
Via Kaus, though Paul Krugman calls the Alliance for a New America a “labor 527″, it turns out that a third of its money comes from Rachel Mellon, of the Mellon family fortune. (Though one wonders why Krugman is willing to defend the 527 as a labor 527. It’s not like SEIU, which also heavily funds the Alliance for a New America, doesn’t lobby the government for special-interest legislation. If, as Edwards says, lobbyists are bad, they don’t suddenly become good because you agree with them. And if lobbyists you do agree with are good, then why isn’t the issue the underlying policy proposal rather than the fact of the lobbying, as Edwards tries to demagogue?)
Here’s the thing: Mellon is 96 years old. There are certainly competent 96-year-olds out there, and it’s possible that Mellon really likes John Edwards. But what we do know is that a New York trust attorney who holds the power of attorney for Mellon and the Mellon-related LLC that is fronting the money is a big fund-raiser for Edwards. Does Mellon know that she’s funnelling hundreds of thousands of dollars to John Edwards through her attorney through multiple 527s? Or is there something else going on? One expects Obama to complain:
According to the available records, which go back to 1980, she has never donated to a political candidate until a contribution was made in her name to John Edwards this year. Mellon’s involvement in the decision to donate to the Edwards campaign is unknown. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Alexander Forger, who has power for attorney for Mrs. Mellon, is a major supporter of John Edwards’ candidacy. Crain’s Business Journal reported in February that Forger and “a group of prominent New York lawyers” hosted a fund-raiser for Edwards at Essex House — the Central Park South address where his office is located. Forger has also personally donated $4,600 to Edwards’ campaign, according to FEC records. This is not the first time Forger has used Oak Springs Farms to support Edwards; in 2006, he made a $250,000 contribution to Edwards’ One America 527 group.
And even Daily Kos is asking questions.
(If there is something fishy, it wouldn’t be the first time lawyers have engaged in campaign finance shenanigans for John Edwards. See the case of Tab Turner. There’s the pending Fieger indictment, though Edwards and Fieger profess innocence. And Edwards still hasn’t returned all of the Milberg Weiss money, despite several guilty pleas and a pending indictment.)
Speaking of Edwards and demagoguery: he’s dropped references to the Mellons from his stump talks.
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- “Of all the body parts to Xerox!” Another round of stories on efforts to reduce liabilities from office holiday parties [ABA Journal, Above the Law, and relatedly Megan McArdle]
- New edition of Tillinghast/Towers Perrin study on insurance costs of liability system finds they went down last year, which doesn’t happen often [2007 update, PDF]
- Vermont student sues Burger King over indelicate object found in his sandwich; one wonders whether he’s ruled out it being a latex finger cot, sometimes used by bakery workers [AP/FoxNews.com]
- Good discussions of “human rights commission” complaints against columnist Mark Steyn in Canada [Volokh, David Warren and again @ RCP, Dan Gardner; for a contrasting view, see Wise Law Blog]
- Having trousered $60-odd million in fees suing Microsoft in Minnesota and Iowa antitrust cases, Zelle Hofmann now upset after judge says $4 million in fees should suffice for Wisconsin me-too action [Star-Tribune, PheistyBlog]
- Australian rail operator will appeal order to pay $A600,000 to man who illegally jumped tracks, spat at ticket inspectors, hurt himself fleeing when detained [Herald Sun]
- Lawyers’ fees in Kia brake class action (Oct. 29, Oct. 30) defended by judge who assails honesty of chief defense witness [Legal Intelligencer]
- Who deserves credit for founding Facebook? Question is headed for court [02138 mag]
- Yes, jury verdicts do sometimes bankrupt defendants, as did this $8 million class action award against a Kansas City car dealer [KC Star, KC Business Journal]
- Dispute over Burt Neuborne’s Holocaust fees is finally over, he’ll get $3.1 million [NY Sun]
- So long as we’re only fifty votes behind in the race for this “best general legal blog” honor, we’re going to keep nagging you to vote for Overlawyered [if you haven't already]
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More malpractice insurers are requiring doctors to take personality tests or their equivalent: “Doctors who fare ‘poorly’ on the assessment [at Iowa-based United Medical Liability Insurance Co.] have to go through a coaching session, at no cost to them, on how to improve their communication skills if they want coverage.” (Amy Lynn Sorrel, “Medical liability insurers adding personality tests to application process”, American Medical News, Oct. 1)(via KevinMD). Related: Apr. 12.
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- Lawyers in Iowa suit against Microsoft bag $75 million [ComputerWorld, ABA Journal; earlier antics in case here, here, here, and here]
- Not a parody: Santa Cruz, Calif. says smoking in the park’s OK so long as its pot, not tobacco [Mercury-News via Bader]
- L.A.’s big payout in Tennie Pierce case (firehouse dog food prank) deemed “completely outrageous”, “‘best possible’ outcome” (or both?) [Patterico, more, John and Ken, LoneWacko, Holy Coast; earlier]
- Suit by Paris, Tex. hospital seeks to uncover name of anonymous blogger [Houston Chronicle](& Coyote)
- Global-warming litigation roundups [Associated Press, Daily Report, NJLJ/PoL, Horner @ NRO]
- Sues American Cancer Society after slipping on step at charity fund-raiser [Madison County Record, more]
- Have Islamic Society of Boston lawsuits chilled local media? [Boston Phoenix via Romenesko]
- Four guilty pleas so far in case of West Orange, N.J.’s Seligsohn, Goldberger & Shinrod, which paid runners to bring in staged and non-existent auto accidents [NJLJ first, second reports]
- New at Point of Law: war on terror “lawyered to death“?; Florida insurance craziness; subprime lending crusade; France’s “model” health care system would offer few chances to attorneys like John Edwards; Mississippi AG Hood says “the system is working” on outside contracts; Sen. Ted Kennedy’s new “Equal Remedies Act of 2007” would boost payouts in workplace suits; and much more;
- Browser add-ons that help squelch ads may be headed for litigation [Broache & McCullagh, CNet]
- Lottery winner’s curse? Among other woes since winning nearly $315 million in Powerball, Jack Whittaker says he’s been involved in 460 legal actions [Chicago Tribune]
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San Diego lawprof John “Jack” H. Minan’s “The Little Green Book of Golf Law”, published by the ABA and hitting bookstores about now, treats of errant balls and many other legal issues that arise in the Wodehouse-beloved outdoor game. I would note that “Iowa golfer Walter Olson”, portrayed unflatteringly in one of the stories, is guaranteed a different person from and unrelated to me. (Tod Leonard, “Law doesn’t control way ball bounces”, San Diego Union-Tribune, Sept. 11).
Ah, but knowing which material to plagiarize — that’s the skill the client is really paying for, right? But an Iowa court wasn’t pleased with West Des Moines lawyer Peter Cannon’s conduct, and ordered him to surrender fees and take an ethics course. (TaxProf, Sept. 10).
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For all his newfound capitalist prowess, it seems Sen. John Edwards still isn’t familiar with some fairly basic geopolitical facts on the ground:
“I’m going to be honest with you — I don’t know a lot about Cuba’s healthcare system,” Edwards, D-N.C., said at an event in Oskaloosa, Iowa. “Is it a government-run system?”
(ABCNews.com “Political Radar”, Aug. 17)(via Weigel)(disclaimer).
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- Judge Ramos disallows settlement of Citigroup directors derivative suit: deal had met defendants’ needs, plaintiff’s lawyers’ too, but not shareholders’ [PDF of decision courtesy NY Lawyer]
- Drove a golf cart into the path of his car as it was being repossessed, jury decides he deserves $56,837 [MC Record]
- Per ACOG, 92 percent of NY ob/gyns say they’ve been sued at least once [NY Post edit; more]
- New British online-gambling law could trip up some virtual-world/massively multiplayer online games [GamesIndustry.biz]
- Good news for bloggers: Iowa-based site can’t be sued in New York just because it answered questions from NY reader and accepted NY donations [Best Van Lines v. Walker, Second Circuit; McLaughlin]
- Another great idea from Public Citizen: let’s not use new drugs till they’ve been on the market for seven years [Pharmalot via KevinMD]
- After conviction of Mississippi trial lawyer Paul Minor in judicial corruption scandal, squabbling drags on over sentencing [Jackson Clarion-Ledger]
- Conservative public interest law firms “can win some big cases [but] are notorious for lacking follow-through” [Tushnet, L.A. Times]
- Contestants in Australian business dispute probably wound up spending more on the litigation than had been at stake in the first place [Sydney Morning Herald]
- New at Point of Law: New Hampshire governor vetoes trial lawyers’ bill; global warming litigation to be bigger than tobacco?; the Times notices HIPAA;
- It’s my emotional-support dog, and my lawyer says you have to let it into your store [eight years ago on Overlawyered, before these stories started getting common]
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