Thanks to reader Hugo Cunningham for spotting this in a new Boston Globe report on the failure of the Massachusetts state medical board to post physicians’ disciplinary problems and other performance issues online:
Another major omission has resulted from a Catch-22-like requirement in state law. Russell Aims, the … chief of staff
[of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine], said the board used to post digital copies of its disciplinary orders [for medical malpractice]. But an online accessibility law requires that documents be available in a text-to-speech format for the visually impaired.
Because the PDF format of the disciplinary records is not compatible with text-to-speech software, Aims said, the law dictates that such records cannot appear in the database. If the visually impaired cannot access the information, then no one can.
Tagged as:
Massachusetts,
medical,
web accessibility
A Newburyport, Mass. attorney formerly with the big personal injury firm of Kreindler and Kreindler has been suspended from practice for two years “after Suffolk County judges ruled she falsely claimed she was also a medical doctor.” The firm reportedly was unaware of the imposture (no one checked, then? ) and cited her nonexistent credential in its promotional materials. [Newburyport News]
Tagged as:
lawyers,
Massachusetts,
medical
- A federal fishing raid, the Pew Charitable Trusts and a biased Business Week account [Nils Stolpe on Gloucester, Mass. fisheries, via Stoll]
- Intimidating the judiciary? “Group Opposing Citizens United Pushes ‘Occupy the Courts’ Protest” Jan. 20 [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] Mob rallies at Michigan governor’s private home [Meegan Holland, MLive] “Occupy” forces Gingrich to cancel event [Daily Caller] Earlier here, here, here, etc.
- “Paper Airplane? Late for School? Shouting Too Loud? You’re Under Arrest!” [Free-Range Kids, Texas]
- Spielberg in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” paid homage to earlier movie sequences without sweating permissions. Oh, for those days [Joho] “Cultural gems that should be in the public domain today” [Atlantic Wire, Tabarrok]
- UPS settlement exaggerates benefits to class members [Ted Frank; related, CCAF] “Federal Judges Have Harsh Words, Rulings for Class Action Plaintiffs’ Lawyers” [Lammi/WLF]
- “Justice Breyer Calls Recusal Controversy a ‘Non-Issue’” [ABA Journal]
- “Add Plaintiff-Lawyer Fees To The Cost Of Most Mergers” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes on Cornerstone Research report]
Tagged as:
class action settlements,
environment,
Massachusetts,
movies film and videos,
police,
recusals,
schools,
securities litigation,
Texas
- Illinois prisoner sues for land to start his own country [AP]
- “Have you got a piece of this lawsuit?” Important Roger Parloff piece on litigation finance [Fortune, now out from paywall] “Hedge Funds Finance Medical Malpractice Claims” [Jeff Segal, Michael Sacopulos and Wayne Oliver, Forbes via White Coat]
- Criminalizing bad parenting: more scrutiny of “Caylee’s Law” proposals [Steve Chapman, L.A. Times and Boston Globe editorials, New Scientist]
- Deal with ADA complainant averts closure of popular Popponesset Marketplace in Mashpee, Mass. [Cape Cod News]
- Because it’s not as if NYC needs electricity or anything: Bloomberg gives $50 million to Sierra Club campaign to stop coal burning by utilities [WaPo] “Environmental justice” arguments deployed against pipeline that would bring Alberta tar sands oil to U.S. [John Kendrick, WLF]
- Unimpaired have permanent right to sue: Fla. high court throws out asbestos-reform law [PBP]
- Red tape demanded by quality-of-life progressivism suffices to strangle poorer urban economies [Walter Russell Mead]
Tagged as:
asbestos,
Chevron,
disabled rights,
environment,
Florida,
litigation finance,
Massachusetts,
medical malpractice,
Michael Bloomberg,
prisoners,
regulation and its reform
Massachusetts: “Robert C. Cirba, a member of the Spencer-East Brookfield Regional School Committee and former candidate for state representative, has resigned from the committee after the state Department of Labor Relations found that comments he made on his blog interfered with teacher negotiations.” Cirba had written disrespectfully on his blog about the Spencer-East Brookfield Teachers Association and says the teacher’s union had threatened to sue him personally as well as pursue a legal complaint against the board over the writings. [Worcester Telegram]
Tagged as:
bloggers and the law,
labor unions,
libel slander and defamation,
Massachusetts,
schools
A new Massachusetts law that went into effect last year allows neighbors and other unrelated complainants to seek restraining orders against each other, a legal remedy formerly confined mostly to use between family members. But there’s been a surge of filings seeking the new “harassment prevention orders,” and according to the clerk of the Boston municipal court, the law has wound up empowering “every kook in the world” to “file a harassment order against their neighbor or landlord or someone who just annoys them.” Among cases: “One man took his neighbor to Malden District Court for allegedly blowing leaves on his property, and a woman in Boston Municipal Court insisted that actor Chuck Norris used high frequency radio transmissions to harass her at home.” [Boston Globe]
Tagged as:
domestic violence,
harassment law,
Massachusetts
A “new change to [Massachusetts] law now requires companies to notify employees about any potentially negative information added to their files. The amendment, which Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law on August 5, was tucked away in an ‘economic development’ bill laden with higher-profile items like the recent sales-tax holiday. …. this new personnel-records rule is going to lead to more employee lawsuits.” [Gruntled Employees via Susan Cartier Liebel]
Tagged as:
Massachusetts,
workplace
In 2008 a one-car accident killed a Mansfield, Mass. 19-year-old and her 20-year-old friend; their car hit a tree. Now a lawyer for the passenger’s family has sued the town of Foxboro and the Kraft Group, saying the operators of the New England Country Music Festival did not do enough to deter underage drinking in the parking lot outside Gillette Stadium. [Boston Globe]
Tagged as:
alcohol,
Massachusetts,
recreation
- Hilton Head dispute over pet turkeys leads to $4.25 million verdict [Island Packet via Lowering the Bar]
- “Lucasfilm lightsaber legal threat letter sells for $3,850″ [BoingBoing, earlier]
- Raw milk: “If The Government Says That It’s Not About Freedom, Then It’s Just NOT” [Ken at Popehat vs. L.A. Times]
- Dell “failed to stress” accounting disclosure. SEC: that will be $100 million [TJIC]
- Dodd-Frank dubbed “Lawyers’ and Consultants’ Full Employment Act of 2010″ [Mark Perry, WSJ Law Blog]
- “Did liberal judges invent the standing doctrine? An Empirical Study of the Evolution of Standing, 1921-2006″ [Ho/Ross, Stanford Law Review]
- Office of Connecticut AG Blumenthal doesn’t emerge with glory from fertility doctor case [Pesci]
- Massachusetts high court tosses 125-year-old rule: owners now face wider liability for snow/ice hazards [Globe]
Tagged as:
food safety,
Massachusetts,
nastygrams,
Richard Blumenthal,
Securities and Exchange Commission,
slip and fall,
South Carolina
The Boston Globe reports that plaintiff’s securities law firms have become cash cows for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and Treasurer Timothy Cahill, who oversee the pension funds that strike representation deals with the lawyers. “Spokeswomen for Cahill and Coakley said the contributions played no part in the selection of the law firms, which were chosen in a competitive process five years ago.”
Tagged as:
Massachusetts,
politics,
securities litigation
A Massachusetts woman isn’t getting a huge amount of local sympathy after suing the town of Danvers over the $300 ticket its officers wrote her for briefly parking her Mercedes SUV in a handicapped zone. She says the ticket was soaked by the rain and she was sort of disabled that day anyway, having her arm in a sling and being on medication following surgery. [WHDH]
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
Massachusetts,
traffic laws
- Town counsel of Southborough, Mass. considering legal action against online critic [Evan Lips/MetroWest Daily News, Jacob Sullum/Reason, Aspen Daily News]
- “Drowning in laughter”: pic of ill-advised safety sign [Turley]
- Canadian lawyer accused of fabricating evidence of jury tampering [Times Colonist h/t @ErikMagraken]
- One union (SEIU) wins $1.5 million verdict against another (NUHW) [Fox, Jottings]
- “Anti-Law School Blogs Seek to Keep Others from Making ‘Same Mistake We Did’” [Legal Blog Watch, WSJ Law Blog] Instruction at University of Texas law school has room for improvement [Blackbook Legal] Chief Justice Roberts: law review articles aren’t particularly helpful for practitioners or judges [WSJ Law Blog]
- “Illinois Hospital Loses Tax-Exempt Status for Not Being Charitable Enough” [NLJ]
- “Cyber-bullying” proposal in Suffolk County, N.Y. could criminalize repeated insults [Volokh]
“Where’s the State Action in Tort Awards Based on Speech?” [same]
- George Will: administration “can imagine the world without the internal combustion engine but not without Chrysler” [WaPo/syndicated]
Tagged as:
autos,
bullying,
Canada,
Chrysler,
labor unions,
law schools,
libel slander and defamation,
Massachusetts,
taxes
And a train wreck results, after a Massachusetts lawyer “allowed the client to dictate a misguided strategy involving excessive and improper discovery requests that did not materially advance the client’s cases but did generate large hourly-based fees for the respondent.” [Legal Profession Blog]
Tagged as:
discovery,
legal discipline,
Massachusetts
- Woman “discreetly” leaning over to use cellphone during movie says armrest smacked her on head, sues theater [Chicago Breaking News, Sun-Times] Plus: more links at ChicagoNow;
- For a really cogent analysis of the effects of lawsuits over independent contractor classification, ask someone whose livelihood is at stake, like this Massachusetts stripper [Daily Caller]
- Menaced by lawsuit, WordPress.com yanks a blog attacking a cancer therapist, then restores it [MWW]
- Baby slings, cont’d: a CPSC recall, and already Sokolove and Lieff Cabraser are advertising [Stoll, more, earlier]
- Law student’s suit demanding pass/fail grading in legal writing class results in “fail” [ABA Journal]
- More details on new federal mandate for restaurant and vending machine calorie counts [update to earlier post]
- “As suits pile up, plaintiff labeled ‘vexatious litigant’” [Virginian-Pilot]
- Tweet a summary of your favorite Supreme Court case (& cc in comments below if you like) [Daniel Schwartz, hashtag #cbftech, what others have done]
Tagged as:
CPSC,
law schools,
Massachusetts,
strippers and exotic dancers,
Supreme Court,
wage and hour suits,
WordPress
