Two Milwaukee-based law firms, Hupy & Abraham and the McNally Law Offices, have been gathering up vehicle-crash police reports in the famously litigation-friendly Illinois counties east of St. Louis, and then soliciting persons named in the reports to file injury claims. “Some local police departments, including Belleville, Edwardsville, O’Fallon and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department,” have resisted the demands, based on worries about citizen privacy and identity theft, or have sought to charge for per-report access, which would discourage mass scooping up of names. The McNally firm, however, “sends a copy of a letter from Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office, which states the police have to allow viewing of the reports, at no charge.” (Brian Bruegemann, “Ambulance chasing? Lawyers zero in on metro-east clients”, Belleville News-Democrat, Sept. 28). Ron Miller at Maryland Injury Lawyer says the practice contributes toward giving the plaintiff’s bar a bad name, and corresponds with attorney Michael Hupy whose firm figures in the story. We covered the phenomenon earlier here and here.

“In the war on piracy, consumer privacy is often the first casualty. But on Monday, a federal court imposed some limits on the collateral damage content owners can inflict, blocking a satellite TV provider’s effort to subpoena the names and personal information of thousands of people who purchased ‘free-to-air’ satellite receivers that can be hacked to decrypt signals meant for paid subscribers.” A brief from EFF had argued that “Echostar’s [parent company of Dish Network's] subpoenas were ‘especially troubling in light of past litigation’ where another satellite TV provider, DirecTV, had similarly obtained customer information in the course of a civil suit against a device manufacturer. The company then sent out 170,000 letters pressuring customers to agree to a $3,500 ’settlement’ or face litigation.” (Julian Sanchez, Ars Technica, Oct. 1). On the earlier DirecTV litigation campaign, see posts here, here, here, and (reader letter) here.

• Watch where you click: “Kentucky (secretly) commandeers world’s most popular gambling sites” [The Register/OUT-LAW]
• Erin Brockovich enlists as pitchwoman for NYC tort firm Weitz & Luxenberg [PoL roundup]
• U.K.: “Millionaire Claims Ghosts Caused Him to Flee His Mortgage, I Mean Mansion” [Lowering the Bar]
• Prosecution of Lori Drew (MySpace imposture followed by victim’s suicide) a “case study in overcriminalization” [Andrew Grossman, Heritage; earlier; some other resources on overcriminalization here, here, and here]
• Exonerated Marine plans to sue Rep. John Murtha for defamation [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
• Snooping on jurors’ online profiles? “Everything is fair game” since “this is war”, says one jury consultant [L.A. Times; earlier]
• Allentown, Pa. attorney John Karoly, known for police-brutality suits, indicted on charges of forging will to obtain large chunk of his brother’s estate; “Charged with the same offenses are J.P. Karoly, 28, who is John Karoly’s son, and John J. Shane, 72, who has served as an expert medical witness in some of John Karoly’s cases.” [Express-Times, AP, Legal Intelligencer]
• School safety: “What do the teachers think they might do with the Hula-Hoop, choke on it?” [Betsy Hart, Chicago Sun-Times/Common Good]

If you apply for a job handling million-dollar financial exposures or life-and-death safety risks, your prospective employer generally won’t be allowed to ask at the interview what prescription medications you may be taking. On the other hand, if you’re called as a potential juror on a case, the lawyers may enjoy carte blanche to probe and dig to their heart’s content, and you may be obliged to answer the questions proposed by their jury consultants. “A secondary reason for asking is strategic — to bounce jurors they don’t want and use medications as an excuse.” How about requiring the voir dire inquisitors to restrict themselves to the same formulas employers are supposed to use to avoid ADA liability, e.g., “Is there any reason why, with suitable accommodation, you would not be able to concentrate, sit for long periods of time, apply unclouded judgment, and do the other things expected of jurors?” (Julie Kay, National Law Journal, Aug. 26).

The high-level Hollywood lawyer plans an appeal. A Los Angeles lawyer says his colleagues will have to “be more careful than in the past” about employing private investigators who use unlawful means to dig up dirt on opponents. A private investigator confirms his lawyer-clients are beginning to ask things like “I need you to keep it on the up-and-up”. Won’t that cramp their style? [L.A. Times]

Seems there’s no surfeit of collegiality among L.A. lawyers whose names figure in the Terry Christiansen connivance-at-wiretapping trial. (Amanda Bronstad, “A Tale of the Tape in Christensen Wiretapping Trial”, National Law Journal, Jul. 16; “In Opening of Wiretap Trial, Christensen Claims He Was the Victim”, Jul. 21).

The upcoming trial of Los Angeles attorney Terry Christiansen, charged with knowingly paying Anthony Pellicano to wiretap adversaries, is already focusing overdue attention on lawyers’ methods of working with the shadowy private investigators they often hire. Ethics rules supposedly make them responsible for the conduct of those hired snoops, but it seems winks and meaningful silences have often passed for adequate oversight:

“It was very common for a lawyer to say, ‘Just find it,’” said Jimmie Mesis, editor-in-chief of PI Magazine, a trade magazine for private investigators, and public relations chairman for the National Council of Investigation and Security Services in Baltimore. “They really didn’t care what [investigators] did, whether [it was] garbage dumpster diving or pretexting. It was just a statement of: ‘Just do what you have to do to get it.’”

(Amanda Bronstad, “Christensen Case a ‘Wake-Up’ Call for Lawyers on Use of Private Eyes”, National Law Journal, Jul. 11).

• More on that New Mexico claim of “electro-sensitive” Wi-Fi allergy: quoted complainant is a longtime activist who’s written an anti-microwave book [VNUNet, USA Today "On Deadline" via ABA Journal]
• Your wisecracks belong to us: “Giant Wall of Legal Disclaimers” at Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor at Disneyland [Lileks; h/t Carter Wood]
• New at Point of Law: AAJ commissions a poll on arbitration and gets the results it wants; carbon nanotubes, tomorrow’s asbestos? California will require lawyers operating without professional liability insurance to inform clients of that fact (earlier here and here); and much more.
• Actuaries being sued for underestimating funding woes of public pension plans [NY Times via ABA Journal]
• City of Santa Monica and other defendants will pay $21 million to wrap up lawsuits from elderly driver’s 2003 rampage through downtown farmers’ market [L.A. Times; earlier]
• Sequel to Giants Stadium/Aramark dramshop case, which won a gigantic award later set aside, is fee claim by fired lawyer for plaintiff [NJLJ; Rosemarie Arnold site]
• Privacy law with an asterisk: federal law curbing access to drivers license databases has exemption that lets lawyers purchase personal data to help in litigation [Daily Business Review]
• Terror of FEMA: formaldehyde in Katrina trailers looks to emerge as mass toxic injury claim, and maybe we’ll find out fifteen years hence whether there was anything to it [AP/NOCB]
• Suit by “ABC” firm alleges that Yellow Book let other advertisers improperly sneak in with earlier alphabetical entries [Madison County Record]
• Gun law compliance, something for the little people? A tale from Chicago’s Board of Aldermen [Sun-Times, Ald. Richard Mell]
• Think twice about commissioning a mural for your building since federal law may restrain you from reclaiming the wall at a later date [four years ago on Overlawyered]

I’ve often linked in the past to the work of New Hampshire blogger Kathleen Seidel, whose weblog Neurodiversity presents a fearless, systematically researched, and frequently brilliant ongoing critique of autism vaccine litigation. A prominent plaintiff’s lawyer in that litigation, Clifford Shoemaker of Vienna, Virginia, has just hit Seidel with an astoundingly broad and sweeping subpoena (PDF) demanding a wide range of documents and records relating to her publication of the blog. Seidel has been sharply critical of Shoemaker’s litigation, and indeed the subpoena arrived only hours after she posted a new Mar. 24 entry, “The Commerce in Causation“, critical of his legal efforts.

The subpoena contains no indication that Seidel herself is accused of defaming anyone or violating any other legal rights of any party. Instead it seems she is being dragged in as a third-party witness in Shoemaker’s suit on behalf of his clients, Rev. Lisa Sykes and Seth Sykes, against vaccine maker Bayer. Although Seidel has been a remarkably diligent blogger on autism-vaccine litigation, I can find no indication that she is in possession of specialized knowledge that Shoemaker would not be able to obtain for his clients through more ordinary means.

Instead, the first phrase that occurred to me on looking through the subpoena was “fishing expedition”, and the second was “intimidation”. Several clauses indicate that Shoemaker is hoping to turn up evidence that Seidel has accepted support from the federal government, or from vaccine makers, which she says she hasn’t. Also among the documents demanded: Seidel’s correspondence with other bloggers. As she puts it in her response:

The subpoena commands production of “all documents pertaining to the setup, financing, running, research, maintaining the website http://www.neurodiversity.com” - including but not limited to material mentioning the plaintiffs - and the names of all persons “helping, paying or facilitating in any fashion” my endeavors. The subpoena demands bank statements, cancelled checks, donation records, tax returns, Freedom of Information Act requests, LexisNexis® and PACER usage records. The subpoena demands copies of all of my communications concerning any issue which is included on my website, including communications with representatives of the federal government, the pharmaceutical industry, advocacy groups, non-governmental organizations, political action groups, profit or non-profit entities, journals, editorial boards, scientific boards, academic boards, medical licensing boards, any “religious groups (Muslim or otherwise), or individuals with religious affiliations,” and any other “concerned individuals.”…

Plaintiffs and their counsel seek not only to rummage through records that they suspect pertain to themselves, but also through my family’s bank records, tax returns, autism-related medical and educational records, and every communication concerning all of the issues to which I have devoted my attention and energy in recent years.

Seidel has responded with a self-drafted motion to quash the subpoena, and expresses confidence that a judge will rule in her favor, and perhaps go so far as to agree with her contention that it constitutes sanctionable abuse. Should the subpoena somehow be upheld and its onerous demands enforced, it could signal chilly legal times ahead for bloggers who expose lawyers and their litigation to critical scrutiny (& welcome Instapundit, Pure Pedantry, P.Z. Myers, I Speak of Dreams, Law and More, Open Records, Matt Johnston readers. And Orac/Respectful Insolence, with what he terms an “important rant“. More reactions here and here).

“Anthony Pellicano, the so-called private eye to the stars, masterminded a ‘thriving criminal enterprise’ that used illegal wiretapping and bribery to squash the legal problems of Hollywood’s rich and famous, a prosecutor told a Los Angeles court yesterday. … Pellicano has worked for lawyers who represented Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor.” (Catherine Elsworth, “Pellicano’s Hollywood criminal enterprises”, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Mar. 7). Earlier here.

You often hear about the plaintiffs’ bar and their solicitous concern for the privacy of citizens, and how they’ll be happy to bring class actions to protect that privacy. Of course, as we have repeatedly noted (e.g., Jun. 20, 2005 and Feb. 9), that concern for privacy extends only as far as it doesn’t interfere with trial lawyers’ desire for a payday. The California Supreme Court has ruled that consumers who contact a vendor are subject to having their names given to plaintiffs’ attorneys (in this case, the super-ethical firm of Milberg Weiss) in California-state-court discovery unless such consumers explicitly take the trouble to opt out to each and every opportunity for such notification, reversing an appellate court’s ruling that names should only be given out if consumers opt in to such notification. Bruce Nye has more details about Pioneer Electronics v. Superior Court. The opinion doesn’t appear to create any limits on the ability of plaintiffs’ attorneys to use that information. We look forward to the usual suspects commenting on the need for protective legislation to prevent such privacy breaches. Right?

In the sort of cases covered by this site, public relations overshadow substance all too often.  For a glimpse of how even public servants — in this case the prosecutors of the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office — are keeping a constant eye on the P.R. possibilities of their cases, consider this report from former Los Angeles Times reporter-turned-blogger, Kevin Roderick (LA Observed, "Rocky’s office defines what makes news," Dec. 22):

A recent email reminded all the lawyers in City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s criminal branch never to talk to reporters without clearance — and how they should recognize a newsworthy legal case.  Public safety?  Important public issue at stake?  Nah, this is L.A.

Number one is any case involving a celebrity — ‘no matter how minor’ — followed closely by a politician.  Death, mutilation, child molestation or animal cruelty are also sure bets.

Terrorism shows up as the tenth item on the list, slightly behind cases representing a "major personal accomplishment for the prosecutor" and not far ahead of cases involving "a truly weird fact pattern."

Roderick reproduces the entire long e-mail — repetitiously entitled "Improving Communications with the Communications Department" — which prescribes an elaborate protocol for keeping "’primary points of contact"’ within the Communications Department" [formerly the "Press Office"] informed as cases proceed, and concludes with a reminder that it pays to plan ahead, even before bringing charges:

[I]f you have a case that is very likely to attract media attention, such
as a celebrity justice case, you may want to obtain guidance from the
Communications Department in advance of the filing, arraignment, trial,
etc. regarding how to deal with expected press inquiries.

What a wonderful phrase: "Celebrity justice."  Welcome to L.A.

Contemplating a splitup? Grab the family hard drive and get it into your lawyer’s hands ASAP. Such a stratagem “can be best explained to the client as an important first glimpse into the overall actions and conduct of the adverse party in the litigation”. (Scott Andino, “Digging Deeply Into Matrimonial Data Mining”, The Matrimonial Strategist/Law.com, Nov. 10).

That was former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines’ response to an Aspen Institute audience member’s question about media leaks, as quoted by Greg Schreier in the Aspen Times (”Raines reflects on journalism, loss and lawyers”, Jul. 21).

“The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, ABC News, and the Associated Press pooled $750,000 last Friday to buy their way out of a civil suit in which they weren’t even defendants….the money isn’t the issue. A greater danger is that the Wen Ho Lee settlement may signal to plaintiffs’ attorneys that newsrooms are becoming soft touches when it comes to subpoena defenses.” (Jack Shafer, “Wen Ho Ho Ho Lee Gets Last Laugh”, Slate, Jun. 7). Another view: Michael Kinsley, “Two Bad Cases for Anonymity”, Washington Post, Jun. 11.

The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled that a defamation plaintiff is not automatically entitled to compel an internet service provider to lay bare the blogger’s identity, absent a showing of sufficient facts supporting the defamation case to defeat a motion for summary judgment. (J.L. Miller, “Del. court protects blogger’s identity”, WIlmington News-Journal, Oct. 6; Francis Pileggi, Oct. 6). Prof. Bainbridge (Oct. 6) calls it “a major win for bloggers and the First Amendment.”

Once again the application of class action procedure to the world of exotic dancing is raising privacy issues not encountered in your ordinary everyday class action. In recent Texas litigation (see May 3), the concern is the sending of notices in the mail to past lap-dance customers informing them of their rights to recovery over alleged fee overcharges (which notices will in some cases be opened by their outraged spouses and significant others). And now in a San Francisco wage-and-hour class action, former managers of one club are arguing that many of the exotic dancers themselves don’t want their real names known and face potentially harmful intrusions into their privacy under any notification plan likely to be effective (”Dear Former Exotic Dancer…”). A lawyer pressing the class action, which concerns alleged misclassification of the dancers as independent contractors, dismisses the management argument as merely tactical. (Pam Smith, “Privacy Worries Don’t Shake Up Stripper Class Action”, The Recorder, Jun. 14).

“The Walt Disney Company prevailed on Monday in a 13-year legal dispute over royalties related to its Winnie the Pooh franchise when a judge dismissed the case, contending the plaintiff altered confidential memorandums and covered up the theft of documents obtained by a private investigator who sifted through the company’s trash. Judge Charles W. McCoy of Los Angeles Superior Court wrote in his decision that the misconduct of the Slesinger family, which sued Disney in 1991 after contending the company cheated it out of royalty fees, was ’so egregious that no remedy short of terminating sanctions’ would adequately protect Disney and the justice system from further abuse.” The family is vowing to appeal (Laura Holson, “After 13 Years, Judge Dismisses Case on Pooh Bear Royalties”, New York Times, Mar. 30). Earlier in the case, Disney had drawn sanctions “for deliberately destroying 40 boxes of documents that could have been relevant to the case, including a file marked ‘Winnie the Pooh-legal problems’”; see “The Document-Shredding Facility at Pooh Corner”, Aug. 24-26, 2001. For more on the propensity of some investigators retained in litigation to rifle adversaries’ garbage and commit other invasions of privacy, see Nov. 11, 2003 (FBI probe of Hollywood lawyers); Jul. 28-30, 2000 (Terry Lenzner, Oracle). More: Southern California Law Blog has followed the case.