Fresh on our letters page, we’ve managed to post another four reader letters from our backlog. Among topics this time: the bizarre prison death of a serial killer in Missouri; a generous assessment of what we do here from a plaintiff’s trial lawyer in Chicago; we get called disingenuous, cynical, and other bad things because of our comment on a lawsuit demanding that school bus windows be redesigned; and a reader wonders whether accounting crimes which destroy life savings ought not to be seen as comparable to violent crimes which destroy lives themselves.
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We’ve posted four more reader letters on our letters page. Topics this time: a lawyer who won a $50 million award over the city of Chicago’s slow response to a 911 call (later settled for less) writes to take issue with our perspective on the case; a Texan who worked for 35 years in the Social Security disability program believes that as the process has become more legally contentious it has grown both slower and less fair; Missouri employment lawyer George Lenard discusses the recent, widely publicized “popcorn butter” workplace-injury verdict; and a North Carolina lawyer shows some exasperation with us.
Fifteen years after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concluded that the explanation for supposed “sudden acceleration” in cars was that the drivers were mistakenly pressing the accelerator rather than the brake, trial lawyers continue to sue automakers, and now NHTSA has agreed to open an investigation into claims of unintended acceleration in Toyota and Lexus models. While an earlier wave of suits tended to blame cruise control malfunctions, the new favorite culprit is electronic throttle control systems. In lawsuits over the accidents, the car’s brakes, which can ordinarily bring a car to a stop even when its throttle is fully open, will typically be said to have mysteriously failed as the same time as the acceleration defect was manifesting itself, although nothing will be found physically wrong with the brakes afterward.
“For more than a decade, decisions usually favored car companies and blamed drivers in unintended acceleration cases, but some recent trials and court decisions reversed that. Ford Motor and General Motors each recently lost a high-profile case. … A Missouri jury last year ordered GM to pay Constance Peters and her husband $80 million for the crash of her 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass, which accelerated 120 feet in reverse and into a tree while she was backing up. They blamed faulty cruise control. GM is appealing.” And: “The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in 2002 reinstated a $1.1 million judgment against Ford in the crash of a 1991 Ford Aerostar. Jurors had found that the crash was caused partly by a ‘negligently designed’ cruise control system.” (Jayne O’Donnell and David Kiley, “Technology puts unintended acceleration back in spotlight”, USA Today/Detroit News, Apr. 13)(via Reason Hit and Run). For more on the issue, see Jun. 6, 2000.
On October 9, 1999, a construction zone on Interstate 70 near Warrenton, Missouri, was slick after a hard rain. An eastbound tractor-trailer hydroplaned, hit the median, and flipped over, blocking the westbound lanes. John and Shirley Mathes, driving a Ford pickup pulling a camper trailer with propane tanks, slammed into the 30-ton trailer at 60 miles per hour, and were then sandwiched by another pickup truck driving 50 miles per hour. The Matheses and their grandson died in the crash, though it was a matter of dispute whether they survived the initial impacts; medical examiners on both sides of the case found no evidence that they had.
The deep pocket in the case was Ford, and a Jackson County jury decided that, in a case where three vehicles were traveling too fast, and all three leaked fuel and ignited, it was Ford that should be legally responsible for $12.5 million in damages because the pickup truck’s fuel tank — which met a crash test three times more severe than the federal safety standard — was “defective” for not remaining intact in such a dramatic collision. (Dan Margolies, Kansas City Star, “Ford told to pay $12.5 million”, Mar. 5; AP, Mar. 4).
Disclaimer: I represent Ford in different litigation.
A Florida lawyer has filed suit against the city of New York on behalf of some plaintiffs who feel that deaths of family members in the World Trade Center were the fault of the city, and hope to maintain the lawsuit and simultaneously collect from the Federal Victims Compensation Fund. A plaintiff blames sinister forces for her inability to find a lawyer closer to home.
One of the plaintiffs, Catherine “Sally” Regenhard, said she spent two years trying to find a New York City lawyer who would file the lawsuit.“I couldn’t get one New York City law firm to touch this legal issue with a 10-foot pole,” Regenhard said. “You ever hear the saying ‘You’ll never eat lunch in this town again?’ I guess the lawyers have to keep eating lunch in New York City. It’s political.”
The real reason, one suspects, is that the New York lawyers might be aware that submitting a claim to the Fund waives all lawsuits against other entities (with the exception of the terrorists themselves and collateral claims on insurance policies), a fact that her lawyer, Barry Cohen, disputes in an interview with the Tampa Tribune. Apparently neither Mr. Cohen nor the newspaper could be bothered to check the Federal Fund’s web site for a definitive answer. (Joshua B. Good, “Tampa, Fla., Lawyer Sues New York on Behalf of Sept. 11 Families”, Tampa Tribune, Dec. 24; Graham Brink, “Tampa attorneys file 9/11 lawsuit”, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 24). Fortunately for Mr. Cohen’s malpractice carrier and his clients, the effect of any conflict would be to nullify his lawsuit rather than his clients’ rights to receive compensation from the government.
Lest you think that takes the cake, the SoCalLawBlog informs us of an even nuttier lawsuit that blames the September 11 attack on a RICO conspiracy involving, among others, the first President Bush, Condoleeza Rice, the Council for Foreign Relations, and Kenneth Feinberg. (complaint; press release, Nov. 26). The non-lunatic media’s refusal to cover this before now is, no doubt, part of the conspiracy.
Lack of malpractice insurance is threatening to close the only obstetrics practice in Virginia’s rural and economically depressed Northern Neck region. The closure of Rappahannock General Hospital’s OB unit, which delivers about 250 babies a year, would be “absolutely devastating” to community health, says Albert C. Pollard Jr., who represents the region in the Virginia House of Delegates: “we’d lose a lot of babies if somebody has to drive to Richmond or Newport News.” (Frank Delano, “Crisis presses OB docs”, Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star, Dec. 21). “While the governor and Legislature dither over fixing the state’s medical malpractice system, the [Philadelphia] region’s doctors have been voting with their feet,” reports the Philadelphia Daily News. “And they are choosing states that cap damages in malpractice lawsuits — or have other strong reforms to keep malpractice insurance premiums low.” (Michael Hinkelman, “Pa. docs are moving to ‘cap’ states”, Philadelphia Daily News, Dec. 8). Hard numbers on malpractice payouts are often in short supply, but the Missouri state department of insurance has some: it says insurance companies operating in the state “reported paying $135 million to cover 524 claims closed last year”. Self-insured entities, mostly hospitals, “reported paying $6.6 million to close 42 claims, but the actual number of claims and the amount paid may be understated in the data, department spokesman Randy McConnell said. … The average malpractice claim takes more than four years to reach resolution, so the 2002 claims data capture injuries sustained over a period of years. Only 15 of the 566 claims went to a court verdict.” Most of the paid cases involved claims that medical misadventure led to permanent injury or death. (Judith Vandewater, “566 medical malpractice claims were settled in Missouri in 2002″, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 4). The American Medical Association rates Missouri a “crisis” state. (M. Steele Brown, “Malpractice ‘crisis’ drives docs from Missouri”, Kansas City Business Journal, May 5).
For two decades and more, civil rights groups have been filing lawsuits claiming that the supposed underfunding of urban schools is unconstitutional. How successful have these suits been, even on their own terms? “In one of the most notable such cases, decided in 1984, a federal judge in Missouri ordered a doubling of Kansas City’s property tax, an income tax surcharge and extra state contributions to finance $2 billion in spending on Kansas City’s schools. What followed was a decade of lavish excess — new schools boasting television and animation studios, a planetarium, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, even a zoo, a Cato Institute study found. By 1991 Kansas City was shelling out $9,412 per student, compared with $2,854 to $5,956 in the suburbs. Despite this flood of dollars, white enrollment dropped from 27% to 20%, and the test scores of black students in Kansas City didn’t improve.
“State courts have gotten into the act, too. So far, courts in 19 states have found violations of state constitutions in the way schools are funded, according to the Education Commission of the States. Some of these rulings are pretty creative. In June New York’s highest court ruled that the state is violating a constitutional requirement to provide ‘a system of free common schools’ to New York City students, despite the fact that $10,795 per student was spent in the city’s schools in 2000-01. That was slightly lower than the New York state average of $10,922, but greater than the average spent in any other state.
“Rather than wait for independent plaintiffs, school districts themselves now sometimes bring these suits as a revenue grab.” (Ira Carnahan, “Desegregation’s Broken Promises”, Forbes, Nov. 10) See Paul Ciotti, “Money And School Performance: Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment”, Cato Policy Analysis, Mar. 16, 1998.
“A St. Louis County judge has dismissed a lawsuit the city of St. Louis brought against the gun industry seeking reimbursement for costs associated with gun-related injuries. St. Louis County Judge Emmett O’Brien said he found no basis for the claim. O’Brien dismissed the lawsuit against gun manufacturers on Oct. 15. Then on Friday, he dismissed it against the remaining defendants: gun distributors and trade organizations. In a five-page opinion, O’Brien wrote that such lawsuits would open ‘a floodgate to additional litigation.’ He also said that ‘issues of both logic and fairness’ favored dismissing the case.” (”Judge dismisses lawsuit against gun industry”, AP/Southeast Missourian (Cape Girardeau), Oct. 29). And this from last month: “The Missouri Legislature overrode on Friday Gov. Bob Holden’s veto of a bill that bars cities, counties and other political subdivisions from suing gun dealers and manufacturers for the social costs of their products. … The legislation was prompted in part by St. Louis’ lawsuit against gun manufacturers, which [state Rep. Larry] Crawford said aimed to bankrupt gun and ammunition companies.” (Bill Bell Jr., “Gun makers get shield from suits as 3rd veto is rejected”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 12).
The mother of Jonathon Russell, who killed three people and wounded five before shooting himself in a July shooting spree at the Modine Manufacturing Co. in Jefferson City, Missouri, has filed a workers? compensation claim that seeks a death benefit from the company. The late Russell died on company time, according to her filing. The company and its workers’ comp insurer have rejected the claim on the grounds that Russell’s homicidal and suicidal activities were deliberate and were not undertaken in the course of his employment, which means the claim is most likely headed to an administrative judge. (Nate Carlisle, “Shooter’s mom seeks job-injury benefit”, Columbia Tribune, Oct. 5).
The Missouri Supreme Court has refused to entertain a legal challenge to the $111-million fee bonanza awarded to private attorneys who represented the state in its relatively late tagalong lawsuit against the tobacco industry. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had decried the fee award as a “political gravy train” which “grossly overpays the lawyers involved”, who had plenty of friends in high places in Missouri politics (see our coverage of Sept. 21, 2000 and Jun. 5, 2001). (”Court turns down appeal of tobacco attorney fees”, AP/Jefferson City News Tribune, Oct. 2) (via Lori Patel, Law.com). Ethical Esq.? (Oct. 3) comments on the case, citing a pertinent passage from the Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct, as well as our previous coverage.
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This is a trifle off-topic, but a pair of posts by Amanda Butler highlight some intriguing issues about the way the law treats children, an issue I touched on briefly in a previous post on voting ages. Here is one post on Patrick Kennedy, sentenced to death for raping a child, and here is another, about a decision by the Missouri Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional to execute murderers under the age of 18.
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Against a backdrop of growing political difficulties for Missouri Governor Robert Holden, “how did Holden’s campaign pile up an impressive $623,245 in contributions? Who are the governor’s backers and why are they opening their wallets? … Reports filed last week show that the biggest identifiable chunks of money the last three months came from two groups: trial lawyers and labor unions.” Holden just vetoed a bill that would have limited damages in lawsuits. Besides giving more than $80,000 to his campaign in the last quarter, lawyers also gave $240,000 to the Missouri Democratic Party. (Virginia Young, “Lawyers, unions give big to Holden war chest”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jul. 21.)
June 20-22 – Fast food: give me my million. From an interview aired in Australia with the plaintiff in the McDonald’s obesity lawsuit:
CAESAR BARBER: I’m saying that McDonald’s affected my health. Yes, I am saying that.
RICHARD CARLETON: So what do you want in return?
CAESAR BARBER: I want compensation for pain and suffering.
RICHARD CARLETON: But how much money do you want?
CAESAR BARBER: I don’t know … maybe $1 million. That’s not a lot of money now.
(Richard Carleton, “Food fight”, 60 Minutes (Australia), Sept. 25, 2002). Only three years ago the possibility of suits blaming food companies for obesity furnished The Onion with material for humor (Aug. 3, 2000). “The parody has become reality.” (James Glassman, “From parody to reality”, TechCentralStation, May 21; Michael I. Krauss, “Today’s Tort Suits Are Stranger Than Fiction”, Virginia Viewpoint (Virginia Institute), May). A House panel heard testimony yesterday on a bill that would stop such lawsuits in their tracks (Maggie Fox, “Is It Your Fault I’m Fat? Congress Hears Debate”, Reuters, Jun. 19; Bruce Horovitz, “Fast-food restaurants told to warn of addiction”, USA Today, Jun. 17). A CNBC poll, with 2000 votes as of midnight Friday morning, was running 92 to 8 percent against holding fast-food restaurants responsible for expanding waistlines. (DURABLE LINK)
June 20-22 – Investors’ Business Daily interviews our editor. Now at a stable URL, last Friday’s interview mostly concentrated on our editor’s new book The Rule of Lawyers (David Isaac (interviewer), “Frivolous Lawsuits Creating New Power Class — Lawyers”, Jun. 13, reprinted at Manhattan Institute site). (DURABLE LINK)
June 20-22 – Batch of reader letters. Special all-critical edition — nothing but letters taking issue with us. Topics include the MTV “Jack Ass” suit, Ann Arbor substitute teachers, the ADA, high verdicts as an inspiration to young lawyers, and medical malpractice. (DURABLE LINK)
June 18-19 – Keep playing in our conference or we’ll sue you. Five schools in the Big East football conference — Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Rutgers and Connecticut — have filed suit to stop Miami and Boston College from departing for the Atlantic Coast Conference. (Eddie Pells, “Big East accuses Miami, BC and ACC of conspiracy”, AP/Kansas City Star, Jun. 6; Sam Eifling, “Requiem for the Big East”, Slate, Jun. 12; Steve Wieberg, “Conference changes becoming more hostile than ever”, USA Today, Jun. 15). Politicians have gotten into the act in support of the suit, including (inevitably) Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal as well as the state’s Gov. John Rowland (Andy Katz, “ACC lawyer: Lawsuit will not distract from expansion”, ESPN, Jun. 12). Virginia AG Jerry Kilgore, too (”Virginia Tech, the Big East and the ACC”, Roanoke Times, Jun. 17; see S.W.Va. Law Blog, Jun. 17). S.M.Oliva comments (Initium, Jun. 6) (via Dan Lewis). (DURABLE LINK)
June 18-19 – A judge bans a book. “A tax protester may not sell his book that contends paying income tax is voluntary, a federal judge ruled Monday. U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George wrote in an order banning the book that Irwin Schiff is not protected by the First Amendment because he has encouraged people not to pay taxes. ‘There is no protection … for speech or advocacy that is directed toward producing imminent lawless action,’ George wrote in support of the preliminary injunction on the book, ‘The Federal Mafia: How It Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Income Taxes.’” (”Federal judge in Las Vegas bans anti-tax book”, Reno Gazette-Journal, Jun. 16). (DURABLE LINK)
June 18-19 – Texas’s giant legal reform. With the support of Gov. Rick Perry, the Texas legislature this month passed what looks to us to be the most serious and comprehensive package of litigation reforms achieved at one stroke anywhere in recent memory. Among other features, it: adopts an offer-of-settlement-driven variant of loser-pays; reforms class action certification and requires that lawyers’ fees be paid in coupon form to the extent that class relief is provided that way; tightens forum non conveniens safeguards against court-shopping; protects defendants from having to pay damages attributable to other responsible parties’ fault; establishes innocent-retailer and regulatory-compliance defenses in product liability law, along with a 15-year statute of repose; curbs artificially high interest on judgments; limits appeals bonds; restrains medical liability in a long list of ways including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages; and much more. (”Ten-gallon tort reform” (editorial), Wall Street Journal, Jun. 6, reprinted at Texans for Lawsuit Reform site; summary of legislation at same site; John Williams, “Proponents cheer tort reform”, Houston Chronicle, Jun. 11). (DURABLE LINK)
June 18-19 – Around the blogs. Virginia Postrel (Jun. 5) has some comments from civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate criticizing 18 U.S.C. sec. 1001, which the feds are using to go after Martha Stewart. This law makes it unlawful to lie to a federal agent — even if you’re not under oath, and even though the agents may be free to lie to you. See also the comment from reader James Ingram. Mickey Kaus (Jun. 16) echoes speculation by “some media lawyers” quoted in the Washington Post (James V. Grimaldi, “Blair Analogy Reaches Courtroom Far From N.Y.”, Jun. 16) that the New York Times may have forced out top executives Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd in part because if it hadn’t done so, defamation plaintiffs might have been able to use its forbearance “to devastating effect” in future litigation. And MedPundit catches up at some length (Jun. 3) on the controversy over thimerosal, the mercury-containing vaccine preservative which has given rise to bitter litigation and legislative battles. (DURABLE LINK)
June 16-17 – Probate’s misplaced trust. Washington Post investigation into guardianship in the D.C. courts finds that the D.C. Superior Court’s probate division, “mandated to care for more than 2,000 elderly, mentally ill and mentally retarded residents, has repeatedly allowed its charges to be forgotten and victimized …. Chaotic record-keeping, lax oversight and low expectations in this division of the court have created a culture in which guardians are rarely held accountable. They are often handed new work even when they have ignored their charges or let them languish in unsafe conditions.” The Post “found hundreds of cases where court-appointed protectors violated court requirements. Since 1995, one of five guardians has gone years without reporting to the court. Some have not visited their ailing charges. In more than two dozen cases, guardians or conservators have taken or mishandled money. Neglectful caretakers are rarely disciplined, D.C. bar records show. Even when they have been caught stealing or cheating clients, attorneys can go as long as nine years before they are punished.”
Why have the courts gone on giving new work to lawyers charged with misconduct or incompetence in earlier cases? “[Senior Judge Eugene] Hamilton said he would hesitate to ban lawyers from future appointments simply because they’ve been removed from a case. ‘You have to be careful about barring someone from cases, said Hamilton, who oversaw the probate division from 1991 until 1993. ‘It may be the person’s only source of practice.’” (Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen, “Under Court, Vulnerable Became Victims”, Washington Post, Jun. 15) (via David Bernstein)(& see Ethical Esq.). More: Second part of article: Sarah Cohen, Carol D. Leonnig and April Witt, “Rights and Funds Can Evaporate Quickly”, Jun. 16). (DURABLE LINK)
June 16-17 – He’s gotta have it. A Manhattan judge has granted a temporary injunction sought by filmmaker Spike Lee against the launch of Spike TV, a cable channel aiming to provide television programming of interest to men. (Samuel Maull, “Spike Lee wins temporary injunction”, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, Jun. 12). However, “State Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub ordered Lee to post a $500,000 bond to cover Viacom’s losses in case the company wins.” (”Spike Lee outmans Spike TV”, Newsday, Jun. 13; Mark Perry, “Spike Lee Gains Upper Hand In Legal Battle With TNN”, Impact Wrestling, Jun. 13). At FindLaw, columnist Julie Hilden (”Spike Lee v. Spike TV”, Jun. 9) is nondismissive about Lee’s case, while conceding it raises questions about whether other well-known persons with the same nickname, such as director Spike Jonze, could also sue. Sentiment in the blog world, on the other hand, seems to be running heavily against Lee (né Shelton). Examples: Catbird.org, Idler Yet, Horrors of an Easily Distracted Mind, Doedermara.net, LedUntitled. (DURABLE LINK)
June 16-17 – A tangled Mississippi web. “A web of connections exists between the judges, lawyers, politicians and investigators involved in a Mississippi judicial-corruption probe, raising questions about the fairness and thoroughness of the investigation and about possible conflicts of interest.” Among prominent figures in the probe are “[plaintiff's attorney Dickie] Scruggs as a cooperating witness and [state Attorney General Michael] Moore as a co-investigator of some sort. And their friendship has raised eyebrows, most recently after The Sun Herald witnessed Moore giving Scruggs a lift to the courthouse before Scruggs testified before the grand jury. … Scruggs has said he does not have an immunity agreement with prosecutors and that he doesn’t need one.” A federal grand jury is expected to reconvene next month to consider the allegations. (Margaret Baker, Tom Wilemon and Beth Musgrave, “Web of connections”, Biloxi (Miss.) Sun-Herald, Jun. 8)(see May 7 and links from there).
MORE ON INVESTIGATION: Thomas B. Edsall, “Mississippi Trial Lawyers Under Inquiry”, Washington Post, May 18; “FBI agent reassigned after questioning ties in judge-attorney probe”, AP/Grenada (Miss.) Star, May 29; Tom Wilemon, Margaret Baker and Beth Musgrave, “Lott, Moore deny influencing probe”, Biloxi Sun Herald/San Jose Mercury News, May 30; “Moore says he has no role in judges probe”, AP/Jackson Clarion Ledger, May 30; “Paper: Lott, judge probers talked”, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Jun. 3. (DURABLE LINK)
June 16-17 – “The rise of the fourth branch”. Our editor’s book The Rule of Lawyers is reviewed in Enter Stage Right by ESR editor Steven Martinovich (Jun. 9). And on Friday Investor’s Business Daily published correspondent David Isaac’s interview with our editor; when we get a stable URL, we’ll post it. (DURABLE LINK)
June 16-17 – “McDonald’s sues food critic”. “McDonald’s has sued one of Italy’s top food critics for raking its restaurants over the coals, but the critic says he has no intention of going back on saying its burgers taste of rubber and its fries of cardboard.” McDonald’s of Italy called the comments by Edoardo Raspelli, food critic of the newspaper La Stampa, “clearly defamatory and offensive”. (Reuters/CNN, Jun. 2; BBC, May 30; Guardian (UK), Jun. 4; “McDonald’s Turns to the Dark Side”, Center for Individual Freedom, Jun. 12). David Farrer at Freedom and Whisky suggests a better approach the company might take (”Shooting themselves in the foot”, May 31). (DURABLE LINK)
June 12-15 – Docs leaving their hometowns. As liability woes worsen, this genre of article is running in papers across the country. Philadelphia, of course: Michael Hinkelman, “Like older docs, young M.D.s fleeing Pa., too”, Philadelphia Daily News, May 28. An example from Corpus Christi, Tex.: Robert M. (Marty) Reynolds, “Why this doctor is leaving his hometown”, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Apr. 23, reprinted at Texans for Lawsuit Reform site. From Independence, Mo., best known as Harry Truman’s hometown: M. Steele Brown, “Malpractice ‘crisis’ drives docs from Missouri”, Kansas City Business Journal, May 2. And neurosurgery in Seattle faces a crisis as ten local surgeons lose their coverage, forcing hospitals to send patients elsewhere; the ten say they have good records but the chief operating officer of the Doctor’s Company, an insurance provider, “said about half of all neurosurgeons nationwide are sued each year”, which makes it plain enough that plenty of good ones get sued. (Carol M. Ostrom, “A neurosurgeon ‘crisis’: Insurer drops doctors’ group”, Seattle Times, Jun. 7). Meanwhile, the incoming head of the American Bar Association, North Carolinian Alfred P. Carlton Jr., a partner with Kilpatrick Stockton LLP, claims in an interview with The Hill — no fair laughing aloud, now — that “I don’t think there’s any credible evidence that connects anything going on in the justice system to the rise of malpractice insurance rates. My malpractice rates are going up. Everybody’s insurance rates are going up, for all kinds of insurance.” Now there’s a checkable proposition: have insurance rates for life, health, fire, storm, crop and marine risks jumped by 60 or 80 percent on renewal in the past couple of years, the way so many doctors’ liability rates have? (”‘There are abuses at the edges’” (interview), The Hill, Jun. 11). (DURABLE LINK)
June 12-15 – U.K. roundup. “George Blake, the KGB spy who fled to Moscow in 1966, has accused the Government of breaching his human rights by confiscating £90,000 he was expecting to make from his memoirs.” Blake, who escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison after serving five years of a 42-year sentence for highly damaging work as a Soviet double agent, has petitioned the European Court of Human Rights for the right to the money from the autobiography. (Joshua Rozenberg, “Spy Blake tries to sue Britain for his lost £90,000″, Daily Telegraph, May 16). “Meet Britain’s most prolific race discrimination litigant. Omorotu Francis Ayovuare, a Nigerian-born surveyor, may not have held a steady job for five years: he has, however, earned a certain celebrity in the world of industrial relations after launching 72 employment tribunal cases alleging racial discrimination.” (Adam Lusher and David Bamber, “Give me a job – or I’ll sue”, Daily Telegraph, Jun. 8). (Update Dec. 13: at request of attorney general, court restrains him from further filings). “The Scottish Parliament, fresh from outlawing hunting with dogs, is to force fish-lovers to buy pet licences for exotic species in their garden ponds and aquaria. … Anyone who owns exotic fish without a licence will face fines of up to £2,500.” (Rajeev Syal, “Have you got a licence for that exotic minnow?”, Daily Telegraph, Apr. 6). Enthusiasm about lawsuits to recoup costs of global warming has reached Britain, although as one Oxford physicist told the BBC, “Some of it might be down to things you’d have trouble suing — like the Sun”. (”Suing over climate change”, BBC, Apr. 3). (DURABLE LINK)
June 12-15 – To tame Madison County, pass the Class Action Fairness Act. By ensuring that large nationwide class actions are heard in federal court, the bill would curb the influence of “magic jurisdictions” in which “the judiciary is elected with verdict money”, as one big-league trial lawyer has put it. (Jim Copland, “The tort tax”, Wall Street Journal, Jun. 11; Mr. Copland is associated with the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Legal Policy, as is this site’s editor.). The Madison County, Ill. courthouse “is on pace to have another record year for class-action lawsuits”, reports a local newspaper. (Brian Brueggemann, “Number of lawsuits is 39 and climbing”, Belleville News-Democrat, May 26). Two plaintiff’s law firms, St. Louis-based Carr Korein Tillery and the Wood River, Ill.-based Lakin Law Firm, dominate the filing of class actions in the county (Andrew Harris, “At the head of the class actions”, National Law Journal, Jun. 9). And Madison County personal injury lawyer John Simmons, 35, of Edwardsville, whose law firm in March obtained a $250 million jury verdict for a retired steelworker in an asbestos case against U.S. Steel, “has announced his intention to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald”. (”Downstate lawyer to enter Democratic primary”, AP/Northwest Indiana Times, May 27). (DURABLE LINK)
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Florida class action (Engle), 2003: “A $710 million loose end“, Jun. 24; ““Trial lawyers get spanked’“, May 24-26; “Court overturns $145 billion Engle award“, May 22-23. 2001: “Angles on Engle“, May 24. 2000: “‘Not even thinking about’ fees“, Aug. 11-13; “Smoking and responsibility: columnists weigh in“, Jul. 28-30; “‘Poll: majority disapprove of tobacco fine’“, Jul. 24-25; “Florida verdict: more editorial reaction“, Jul. 24-25; “Smoking and responsibility: columnists weigh in“, Jul. 28-30; Editorial roundup“, Jul. 19-20; “Florida tobacco verdict“, July 18; “Tobacco: why stop at net worth?” (punitive damage rulings by judge), Jul. 10; “Another Mr. Civility nominee” (Stanley Rosenblatt), Jun. 2-4. 1999: “$49 million lawyers’ fee okayed in case where clients got nothing” (secondhand smoke class action), Sept. 28; “Personal responsibility takes a vacation in Miami“, Jul. 8; “The Florida tobacco jurors: anything but typical“, Wall Street Journal, Jul. 12, 1999.
Tobacco fees reconsidered, 2003: “Senate panel nixes tobacco-fee clawback“, May 9-11; “Feds indict former Texas AG“, Mar. 8-9; “‘Not a pretty picture’“, Jan. 10-12. 2002: “Judge overturns $1.3 billion tobacco fee award” (Castano Group), Sept. 27-29; “Welcome Fox News viewers/ readers“, Aug. 2-4; “Tobacco fees: one brave judge” (New York), Jul. 30-31 (& Aug. 2-4, Jun. 21-23, Oct. 16-17, Oct. 25-27, 2002; Feb. 11 & Jun. 6-8, 2003; May 11, 2001).
“‘Lawyers who won $10 bil. verdict had donated to judge’“, Apr. 30, 2003; “A bond too far“, Apr. 4-6; “Appeals bonds, again“, Apr. 2-3; “Mad County pays out again” (”light” cigarette class action), Mar. 24, 2003.
“‘Nanny Bloomberg’” (NYC smoking ban), Oct. 22, 2002.
Tobacco fees, state by state, 2003: “‘Law firms in tobacco suit seek $1.2b more’” (Mass.), May 19 (& Jan. 2-3, 2002, Dec. 22, 1999); “Feds indict former Texas AG“, Mar. 8-9 (& May 22, Sept. 1-3, 2000; Jun. 21, Aug. 29-30, Nov. 12, 2001, Jul. 15, Jul. 30-31, 2002; Jan. 10-12, 2003). 2002: “Judge overturns $1.3 billion tobacco fee award” (Castano Group, California), Sept. 27-29; “Tobacco fees: one brave judge” (N.Y.), Jul. 30-31 (& Aug. 2-4, Jun. 21-23, 2002, Oct. 16-17, 2002, Feb. 11, 2003, May 11, 2001); “Dewey deserve that much?“, Mar. 6; “Mass., Ill., NYC tobacco fees“, Jan. 2-3. 2001: “Michigan tobacco fees“, Sept. 19-20; “Tobacco-fee tensions” (Fla. resumes investing in tobacco cos.), Jun. 21 (& letter to editor, Jul. 6); “Missouri’s tagalong tobacco fees“, Jun. 5 (& Sept. 21, 2000); “‘Lungren now a paid advocate for his former foes’” (Calif.), Apr. 5; “(Another) ‘Monster Fee Award for Tobacco Fighters’” (Calif. cities and counties), Mar. 21-22; “Reclaiming the tobacco loot“, Mar. 15; “Lawyers get tobacco fees early“, Mar. 5; “Tobacco arbitrator: they all know whose side I’m on“, Feb. 16-19. 2000: “Beehive of legal activity: Utah tobacco fees“, Nov. 6; “South Carolina tobacco fees: how to farm money“, Oct. 25; “Gore amid friendly crowd (again)” (Fla.), Apr. 12 (& “Dershowitz’s Florida frolic?“, Jul. 17; also see Dec. 8-10, 2000, Aug. 8-9, 2000, Dec. 27-28, 1999); “Sooner get rich” (Oklahoma), Jun. 7; “‘Lawyers’ tobacco-suit fees invite revolt’” (Ohio), May 23; “North Carolina (& Kentucky & Tennessee) tobacco fees“, May 2; “Connecticut AG has ‘no idea’ whether lawyers he hired are overcharging“, Feb. 3 (& update Feb. 16); “Pennsylvania tobacco fees: such a bargain!“, Jan. 10 (& Oct. 24, 2002). 1999: “Maryland’s kingmaker” (Peter Angelos), Oct. 19 (& Dec. 9, 1999, Oct. 16-17, 2000, June 21, 2001, Apr. 10, 2002); “Illinois tobacco fees“, Oct. 16-17; “My dear old tobacco-fee friends” (Kansas AG, like Connecticut’s, gave tobacco business to her old law firm), Oct. 11 (see also Sept. 21, 2000); “Boardwalk bonanza” (N.J.), Oct. 1-3; “News judgment“, Aug. 6; “Puff, the magic fees” (Wisc.), Jul. 13.
Tobacco-fee tycoons, 2003: “Class action lawyer takes $20 million from defendant’s side” (Joseph Rice), Mar. 15-16; “‘Not a pretty picture’“, Jan. 10-12; 2002: “Rumblings in Mississippi” (Scruggs, Minor), Oct. 9-10 (& Nov. 6); “Judge overturns $1.3 billion tobacco fee award” (Castano Group), Sept. 27-29. 2001: “Settle a dispute today” (O’Quinn vs. Jamail), Sept. 18; “Ness monster sighted in Narragansett Bay” (Rhode Island, Ness Motley), Jun. 7 (& see Oct. 6-9, 2000, July 17, 2000, Nov. 1, 1999). 2000: “Punch-outs, Florida style” (Robert Montgomery), Nov. 17-19 (& see Aug. 8, April 12, 2000; Aug. 21-22, 1999); “Friend to the famous” (Williams Bailey), Oct. 12; “Senator Lieberman: a sampler” (voted to curb tobacco fees), Aug. 8-9; “Trial lawyer candidates” (Minnesota’s Ciresi), Jul. 6 (& update Sept. 15-17; loses primary bid); “‘Lawyers’ tobacco-suit fees invite revolt’” (USA Today editorial), May 23. 1999: “Who’s afraid of Dickie Scruggs?“, Dec. 2; “Maryland’s kingmaker” (Peter Angelos), Oct. 19 (& Dec. 9, 1999, Oct. 16-17, 2000, June 21, 2001); “The Marie Antoinette school of public relations” (tobacco lawyers pose for photo shoot on their yachts, horse farms, etc.), Aug. 21-22; and see lawyers’ campaign contributions.
Humor: “Dave Barry on tobacco settlement, round III“, Sept. 16-17, 2002; “Dave Barry on tobacco suits, round II“, March 16, 2000; “Dave Barry on federal tobacco suit“, Oct. 26, 1999; “Cartoon that made us laugh” (”….We can’t take those off the market! Dangerous products are a gold mine for the government!”), Jan. 21-23, 2000.
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Terms of state tobacco settlement, 2003: “Appeals bonds, again“, Apr. 2-3. 2002: “We did it all for the public health, cont’d” (Alabama devotes more proceeds to tobacco farmers than to smoking reduction), Aug. 22; “Tobacco settlement funds go to tobacco promotion” (N.C.), Jun. 28-30; “‘Bush budget surprise: $25M for tobacco suit’” (Martha Derthick, Up in Smoke), Feb. 20. 2001: “Tobacco-fee tensions” (Fla. resumes investing in tobacco cos.), Jun. 21 (& letter to editor, Jul. 6); “Reclaiming the tobacco loot“, Mar. 15; “Push him into a bedroom, hand him a script” (Bill Clinton testimonial for tobacco lawyers), Mar. 9-11; “Lawyers get tobacco fees early“, Mar. 5; “Tobacco arbitrator: they all know whose side I’m on“, Feb. 16-19; “Safer smokes vs. the settlement cartel“, Feb. 7-8. 2000: “Missouri tobacco fees“, Sept. 21, 2000; “Tobacco- and gun-suit reading” (Stuart Taylor, Jr.), Aug. 21-22, 2000; “Challenging the multistate settlement“, Jul. 17, 2000. 1999: “‘Few Settlement Dollars Used for Tobacco Control’“, Dec. 27-28; “Tobacco bankruptcies, and what comes after” (state gov’ts, trial lawyers would become cigarette producers), Dec. 13; “How the tobacco settlement works” (the more cigarettes sold, the more money states get), Nov. 2; “Addictive tobacco money” (states sued over alleged burden on their taxpayers — so are they using the proceeds to cut taxes?), Sept. 7; “Collusion: it’s an AG thing” (terms of settlement cartelize cigarette industry), Jul. 29. Also see Walter Olson, “Puff, the magic settlement“, Reason, Jan. 2000.
“‘Tough tobacco laws may not deter kids’“, Jun. 7-9, 2002; “Blind newsdealer charged with selling cigarettes to underage buyer“, Sept. 16, 1999.
“Sin-suit city” (Banzhaf), Jun. 10, 2002.
“Ad model sues tobacco company“, May 1-2, 2002.
“Australian party calls for banning smoking while driving“, Jun. 3-4, 2002; “‘Positive nicotine test to keep student from prom’” (over-18 student, off-premises consumption), Apr. 26-28, 2002 (& update May 10-12: school backs down); “Judge orders woman to stop smoking at home“, Mar. 27-28, 2002; “‘Smokers told to fetter their fumes’” (smoking in homes that bothers neighbors), Nov. 26, 2001; “Utah lawmakers: don’t smoke in your car” (when kids present), Oct. 5-7, 2001; “Apartment smoking targeted“, Jan. 3, 2000.
“Australian party calls for banning smoking while driving“, Jun. 3-4, 2002 (document retention case); “International tobacco suits: not quite such easy pickings“, Feb. 1-3, 2002; “‘Saudi Arabia finally gets tough on terrorism!’“, Dec. 10, 2001; “More from Judge Kent” (Bolivian suit), Aug. 3, 2001; “Smoker’s suit nixed in Norway“, Dec. 18-19, 2000; “They call it distributive justice” (government of Saudi Arabia sues tobacco cos.), Nov. 16, 2000; “Spreading to Australia?“, Dec. 29-30, 1999; “Israeli court rejects cigarette reimbursement suit“, Oct. 7, 1999.
“Veeps ATLA could love” (Durbin, D-Ill., as guardian of tobacco lawyers’ fees), July 7, 2000 (& see Apr. 25, 2002).
“Competing interests: none declared”. “The unconflicted Prof. Daynard“, April 21-23, 2000 (& update: letters, Jan. 2001, June 2001; Aug. 2, Dec. 17, 2001).
Federal tobacco suit: our views: “‘Bush budget surprise: $25M for tobacco suit’“, Feb. 20, 2002; “Judge throws out half of federal tobacco suit“, October 2, 2000; “Good news out of Washington…” (House votes to cut off funding for suit), June 21, 2000 (& update June 26: action reversed, funds approved); “Feds: dissent on smoking = racketeering“, Sept. 23, 1999; “Guest column in Forbes by Overlawyered.com’s editor“, Oct. 25, 1999.
“Prison litigation: ‘Kittens and Rainbows Suites’” (cellmate’s smoking violates rights), Jan. 11-13, 2002.
Boeken v. Philip Morris: “Boeken record“, June 19, 2001; “$5,133.47 a cigarette“, Jun. 11, 2001; “Tobacco plunder in Los Angeles” ($3 billion damage award), Jun. 8-10, 2001.
Federal tobacco suit: others’ views: “Columnist-fest” (Jacob Sullum), Jun. 22-24, 2001; “Blatant end-runs around the democratic process” (former Labor Secretary Robert Reich), Jan. 15-16, 2000; “Dave Barry on federal tobacco suit” (plus novelist Tom Clancy’s critique), Oct. 26, 1999; “‘This wretched lawsuit’” (Jonathan Rauch in National Journal ), Oct. 13, 1999; “Feds’ tobacco shakedown: ‘A case of fraud’“, Sept. 29, 1999 (roundup of editorial pages); “Feds as tobacco pushers” (columnist Andrew Glass recalls encouragement of smoking in U.S. Army), Sept. 24, 1999; “Hurry up, before the spell breaks” (leading plaintiff’s lawyer wants feds to sue fast since public losing interest), Sept. 24, 1999.
Regulation by litigation: “Tobacco- and gun-suit reading” (law prof Michael Krauss), Aug. 21-22, 2000; “Convenient line at the time” (tobacco is unique, said state attorneys general — sure), May 15; “Stuart Taylor, Jr., on Smith & Wesson deal” (”Guns and Tobacco: Government by Litigation”), Apr. 11, 2000; “Arbitrary confiscation, from Pskov to Pascagoula” (Michael Barone in U.S. News on threat to rule of law), Jul. 24-25, 1999; “Guns, tobacco, and others to come” (Peter Huber in Commentary on the new mass-tort cases as “show trials”), Jul. 20; “‘A de facto fourth branch of government’” (prominent trial lawyer Wendell Gauthier’s view of plaintiff bar’s role), Jul. 4, 1999.
“Dewey deserve that much?“, Mar. 6, 2002; “Health plans rebuffed in bid to sue cigarette makers“, Jan. 11, 2000.
“Terrorists, American business execs compared“, Sept. 28-30, 2001.
“Columnist-fest“, Jun. 22-24, 2001 (Amity Shlaes on asbestos synergy case); “Best little forum-shopping in Texas” (state’s Medicaid suit got filed in Texarkana, contributing $6.1 million to local economy), Aug. 27, 1999.
“The Kessler agenda” (former FDA chief calls for cigarette ban), Jan. 12-14, 2001; “Kessler rebuked” (FDA claim of authority over tobacco), March 27, 2000.
“Updates” (baby Castano suit nixed in N.Y.), Dec. 26-29, 2000.
“Wal-Mart’s tobacco exposure“, Sept. 25-26, 2000; “The Wal-Mart docket” (sued over tobacco sales), July 7, 2000.
“Another billion, snuffed” (antitrust lawsuit between snuffmakers), May 10, 2000.
“Hollywood special: ‘The Insider’“, Mar. 30, 2000.
“Because they still had money” (Hausfeld’s price-fixing suit), Mar. 2, 2000.
“Tobacco lawyers’ lien leverage“, Feb. 29, 2000.
“Feds’ tobacco hypocrisy, cont’d: Indian ’smoke shops’“, Jan. 25, 2000; “Do as we say, please” (Indian tribes, after profiting immensely from tax-free smoke shops, turn around and sue suppliers), Jul. 14, 1999.
“The joy of tobacco fees“, Jan. 20, 2000.
“Calif. state funds used to compile ‘enemies list’“, Jan. 5, 2000.
“‘Trial lawyers on trial’” (Trevor Armbrister, Reader’s Digest), Dec. 23-26, 1999.
“Philadelphia Inquirer Tech.life: ‘Web Winners’” (this page is recommended), Dec. 15, 1999.
“Ohio tobacco-settlement booty“, Nov. 8, 1999.
“Public by 2-1 margin disapproves of tobacco suits“, Nov. 5-7, 1999.
“Not-so-Kool omen for NAACP suit“, Nov. 1, 1999.
“Minnesota to auction seized cigarettes“, Oct. 21, 1999.
“Reform stirrings on public contingency fees“, Oct. 15, 1999.
“Big guns” (tobacco example shaped gun litigation), Oct. 5-6, 1999.
“Plus extra damages for having argued with us” (”lesson of tobacco”: you can get punished for defending your product), Aug. 19, 1999.
“‘Settlement bonds’: are guns next?” (how Wall Street finances expropriation of industries), Aug. 5, 1999.
Do the tobacco wars that began in the mid-1990s represent an unprecedented triumph for public health? Are they an inevitable response to legislative gridlock on smoking policy? Or are they our legal system’s own updated version of the Gilded Age scandals that brought American government into disrepute a century ago, siphoning billions of dollars of publicly obtained money into the hands of politically connected attorneys? Commentaries on Overlawyered.com (above) may help you decide. In the mean time, the following links offer a way into the wider tobacco controversy:
Anti-tobacco groups, most of which are supportive of litigation as well as other coercive government actions aimed at curtailing tobacco sale and use, are well represented on the web. They include Tobacco.org, federally funded antitobacco activist Stanton Glantz’s Tobacco Control Archives, Americans for Non-Smokers’ Rights, Action on Smoking and Health, and the American Council on Science and Health. Tobacco.org’s links list is especially comprehensive. The empire associated with Prof. Richard Daynard, participant in tobacco suits, oft-quoted expert, and professor at Northeastern U., includes the Tobacco Products Liability Project and Tobacco Control Resource Center, as well as the State Tobacco Information Center. The Castano Group, a vast joint venture of trial lawyers cooperating to file tobacco class actions, maintains a website that is distinctly uninformative (unless you’re a lawyer/member or a cooperative pressie).
Relatively neutral sites include Yahoo Full Coverage.
Critics of the anti-tobacco crusade often note that it curtails individual liberty, freedom of contract and freedom of association. As part of its Breaking Issues series (”Fining Smokers“), Reason magazine includes a list of online articles skeptical of the government’s role in the tobacco field, while Reason senior editor Jacob Sullum is the author of 1998’s For Your Own Good : The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health. At the libertarian-oriented Cato Institute, Robert Levy has criticized “The Tobacco Wars“, written that “States Share Blame for Tobacco Lawyers’ Greed“, and called tobacco settlements “Dangerous to Your Liberty“; the state Medicaid suits, he argues, are “Snuffing Out the Rule of Law“. Cato’s Jerry Taylor describes the battle as “The Pickpocket State vs. Tobacco“. “The Anti-Tobacco Crusade” by Joseph Kellard, Capitalism magazine, March 1998, argues from a viewpoint supportive of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. In Colorado, the Independence Institute maintains a Center for Personal Freedom run by Linda Gorman which draws the connection to other paternalist crusades on issues like drinking, seatbelt use and mandatory helmet laws. The Heritage Foundation’s Todd Gaziano makes the case that a proposed federal lawsuit against tobacco companies is “elevating politics over law” (July 30, 1999 Backgrounder). Overlawyered.com’s editor has taken exception to the retroactivity of the crusade, to its manipulative treatment of children, and to the hardball or demagogic tactics used in the Castano and Engle cases. Rep. Chris Cox (R-Calif.) delivered a notable critique of the tobacco litigation at a Congressional hearing held Dec. 10, 1997 (no longer online).
An extensive site offering an aggressive defense of smoking and smokers, along with a large collection of links, is Forces International (”Fight Ordinances and Restrictions to Control and Eliminate Smoking”).
April 30 – “Lawyers who won $10 bil. verdict had donated to judge”. Okay, so it’s among the year’s least surprising headlines: “Illinois campaign records show 19 lawyers or relatives connected to a law firm [Korein Tillery] that recently won a record tobacco judgment gave almost $10,000 in political donations to the presiding state judge last year, according to a published report”. Perhaps a bit more surprising: Judge Nicholas Byron’s campaign had also gotten $6,000 from the law firm that represented the defendant, Philip Morris. “Illinois law doesn’t prevent judges from accepting money from attorneys who argue cases in their courts, and there are no limits on the number or amount of contributions that politicians and judges can accept.” (AP/Chicago Sun-Times, Apr. 14; “Tobacco Case Judge Got Campaign Funds From Lawyers: Report”, Wall Street Journal, Apr. 11). An analysis for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch “found that judges running for election or retention in Madison County last year averaged more than $100,000 each in campaign receipts. That’s three times the roughly $29,000 average the newspaper found for judges statewide and 10 times the $10,000 average in Cook County’s crowded judicial system. The average take for Madison County judges is about four times more than for judges in neighboring St. Clair County, which has roughly the same population.” Most of the donations came from practicing lawyers. (Kevin McDermott, $218,000 for one judge”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 27)(see Mar. 24, Apr. 2, Apr. 4).
State governments — and the municipal-finance lawyers that have helped them “securitize” streams of future tobacco booty — heaved a sigh of relief when Judge Byron earlier this month agreed to reduce Philip Morris’s appeals bond (to a still extraordinarily onerous level), thus averting a possible bankruptcy filing and interruption of payments to the states (Brenda Sandburg, “Tobacco Decision Gives Bond Lawyers Breathing Room”, The Recorder, Apr. 15). Judge Byron also decreed in the original verdict that the tobacco company should pay the plaintiff’s team legal fees approaching $1.8 billion, which works out to $13,100 per hour even if you swallow the lawyers’ contention that they spent a staggering 135,500 hours of work on the case over the past three years. If you’re curious to see the audit trail documenting those hours, your curiosity may be in vain. “Charles W. Chapman, a retired Illinois appellate court judge who testified in support of such fees for the plaintiffs’ attorneys, “said that it was not his duty to verify the hours Tillery worked. ‘It’s basically an honor system,’ Chapman said. ‘I don’t have any way of knowing if he worked those hours.’” (Trisha L. Howard and Paul Hampe, “Record legal fee averages to $13,100 an hour”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 6). (DURABLE LINK)
April 28-29 — Latest Rule of Lawyers publicity. At Forbes.com, reviewer Robert Lenzner pens a rave for our editor’s new book: “Anyone in the market for a truly gripping read about tort lawyers should skip [John] Grisham’s [latest] novel and instead pick up Walter K. Olson’s nonfiction book The Rule of Lawyers, a brilliant expose of the way courts are being overwhelmed by mass tort actions. … Grisham’s indictment of the tort bar can’t hold a candle to Olson’s thorough journalistic impeachment of the dangers posed by these lawyers.” (Robert Lenzner, “The Rule of Lawyers”, Forbes.com, Apr. 21). The blurb/summary for the review provided by the Forbes.com editors is reasonably flattering as well. In Paris, meanwhile, Le Monde discusses our editor’s “dernier livre” and also provides a link to this website, which it describes as “très documenté”. (Claire Ané, “Dommages et intérêts collatéraux de la justice américaine”, Le Monde, Apr. 22). The March/April issue of the American Spectator features a substantial excerpt from the book’s chapter on trial lawyers and politics (Walter Olson, “The Lawsuit Lobby”, not online). In the print version of National Review, the book is favorably reviewed by Doug Bandow (”Shyster Heaven”, Apr. 21). And the Boston Globe’s Charles Stein mentioned the book and quoted our editor in a recent column on the states’ interest in preventing tobacco companies from going under (”States confront a necessity: ‘evil’”, Apr. 13). (DURABLE LINK)
April 28-29 – Had no idea you can’t launder campaign contributions. “A lawyer for Tab Turner, the head of a Little Rock law firm under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, suggested Thursday that his client had not been aware of an election law that prevents him from reimbursing employees who contribute to U.S. Sen. John Edwards’ presidential campaign.” (John Wagner, “Edwards donor will cooperate”, Raleigh News & Observer, Apr. 25). “Twenty people who were identified on Edwards’s report as ‘paralegal’ employees each gave $2,000, as did nine persons described as ‘legal assistants.’” Most of those contacted by the Washington Post claimed that they had chosen to donate their own money, but two employees at Turner’s firm indicated that they expected to be reimbursed by their employer. “Federal election laws prohibit a person from funneling donations through someone else to conceal their source. Such practices would enable the reimburser to exceed the legal contribution limit for individuals, recently raised to $2,000 from $1,000 per election.” Turner is among the best-known attorneys specializing in product liability suits against automakers. (Thomas B. Edsall and Dan Balz, “Edwards Returns Law Firm’s Donations”, Washington Post, Apr. 18). (DURABLE LINK)
April 28-29 – “Solicitor billed for 81-hour day”. Pennsylvania: “The lawyer for Upper Darby’s financially pressed schools paid back $19,361 in fees after The Inquirer showed him evidence that he had billed the district for more than 24 hours’ work on each of four days. …Barry Van Rensler, who was paid $421,327 last year and more than $2.8 million in his last 14 years as district solicitor, said the billings in question were innocent mistakes involving misplaced decimal points. … District officials say they are satisfied that the errors in Van Rensler’s billings were innocent.” One bill was for an 81-hour day. (Barbara Boyer and Tina Moore, Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 27). (DURABLE LINK)
April 28-29 – Wouldn’t want to look unsafe. City officials in Oakland, Calif. would like to crack down on businesses’ right to use “exterior security devices” to protect their premises. Aside from unsightliness, “It gives a sense that our community is not a very safe city,” said City Manager Robert Bobb. Last month a City Council committee “backed a plan … to prohibit barbed wire fences in commercial districts but stopped short of supporting a more far-reaching proposal to eliminate burglar bars, roll-down doors and retractable security gates, common fixtures throughout the city.” Many small business owners aren’t impressed: “‘There is a lot of crime in Oakland. Who’s trying to kid who?’ Josefina Lopez, owner of Corazon Del Pueblo, said at her Mexican imports store and art gallery on International Boulevard, near High Street. … When riots broke out after the Super Bowl in January, Lopez watched from her store as vandals and looters broke nearly every window of the Kelly-Moore Paint store across the street. Her shop, with a wrought-iron gate in front of its doors and metal roll-down doors over the windows, escaped unharmed.” (Janine DeFao, “Oakland trying to avoid that ‘war zone’ look: Ban on metal bars, roll-down doors considered”, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 26). (DURABLE LINK)
April 25-27 – Price of bad hairdo: $6,000. “The bad hairdo blamed by a woman for her emotional tailspin was worth $6,000, a St. Louis County jury decided Wednesday in a verdict that delivered far less than she sought.” Geremie Hoff sued the local Elizabeth Arden salon after an Aug. 2001 hair straightening job was followed by brittleness and fall-outs. Hoff’s attorney had said “his client was so distressed that she retired early from the University of Missouri at St. Louis, where she taught, and also stopped guiding tours to Italy.” A defense lawyer, however, “noted that Hoff didn’t retire until nearly a year later, after her hair returned. He said her tour business would have suffered anyway, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.” (William C. Lhotka, “Jury awards Creve Coeur woman $6,000 in suit over hairdo”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 9; Cynthia Billhartz, “What’s the price of a really bad hair day?”, Apr. 14). (DURABLE LINK)
April 25-27 – Gun lawsuit columns. Did the U.S. House of Representatives ignore proper principles of federalism when it recently passed a bill that would pre-empt some lawsuits in state court seeking to saddle gun manufacturers with the costs of crimes? Columnist Jacob Sullum takes up the question, quoting our editor’s recent Capitol Hill testimony on the subject (”Federalist Case”, syndicated/Reason, Apr. 18). Also citing our work on gun lawsuits recently have been columnists Chuck Colson (”Standing on Dangerous Ground”, syndicated/TownHall, Apr. 16); Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, in his second monthly column in a row (”Standing Guard”, American Hunter, May, not online); and Paul Craig Roberts (”Gun control: the criminal lobby”, syndicated/Town Hall, Apr. 23). (DURABLE LINK)
April 25-27 – “Reforming Class-Action Suits”. “[C]ompanies operating nationwide get haled into local courts that plaintiffs’ lawyers have found particularly willing to accept class actions — and to hit out-of-state firms with costly judgments. This situation allows state judges at the county level to issue rulings that ‘federalize’ their decisions — effectively writing rules for the whole country. In recent years, for example, an Illinois court imposed Illinois law on the insurance laws or regulations of New York, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. Class-action suits have also become an ATM for unscrupulous lawyers, who win millions of dollars for themselves but sometimes leave clients empty-handed.” The Christian Science Monitor lends its editorial endorsement to the Class Action Fairness Act, which has passed the House and is now pending in the Senate (Apr. 17). And Baseball Crank, which we have been tardy in thanking for its kind link to us, has a highly recommended post (Apr. 16) on “Federalism’s Edge: the point at which an exercise of state power (by a state or group of states) infringes on the right to self-government of the citizens of the other states”, an issue that underlies both the CAFA and gun-suit-preemption controversies. (DURABLE LINK)
April 25-27 – Manufacturer sued after bullet fails to take down lion. Professional big-game hunter Rolf Rohwer is suing bullet manufacturers after an unfortunate occurrence on safari in Africa in which he shot a charging lion from about 30 yards away but was mauled anyway. According to his lawyer’s allegations, the Federal Cartridge Co.’s Trophy Bonded Bear Claw bullet, even if suitable for hunting such big game animals as rhinoceros, elephant, buffalo and hippopotamus, was insufficiently lethal when aimed at a lion because the smaller animal’s thinner skin permitted the bullet to pass through with minimal damage. (Howie Padilla, “Injured big-game hunter takes aim at bullet manufacturers”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Apr. 16). Update Jan. 15, 2005: judge dismisses complaint. (DURABLE LINK)
April 24 – Posting to resume tomorrow. Following two weeks in which our editor, called away by a death in his family, was without web-posting capability, we expect to pick up where we left off momentarily.
April 14-23 – (On hiatus).
November 8-10 – By reader acclaim: “Father files suit after son fails to win MVP award”. “A Canadian father is suing the New Brunswick Amateur Hockey Association after his 16-year-old son failed to win the league’s most valuable player award. Michael Croteau is seeking about $200,000 in psychological and punitive damages from the association. He also demands that the MVP trophy be taken from the winner and given to his son, Steven.” (”Father sues team for not naming son MVP”, AP/ESPN, Nov. 7; Shawna Richer, “Father files suit after son fails to win MVP award”, Globe and Mail, Nov. 7). (DURABLE LINK)
November 8-10 – Welcome Weekly Standard readers. The magazine’s “Scrapbook” feature generously refers to us as “One of [its] favorite sites” (”The Scrapbook: DeWayne Wickham, Wellstone, and more”, Nov. 11)(requires print sub + reg) in the course of hailing a Miami federal judge’s recent ruling that the Americans with Disabilities Act does not require website operators to redesign their offerings for the convenience of blind customers (see Oct. 22). (DURABLE LINK)
November 8-10 – Asbestos opinions. The Supreme Court has just heard oral argument on Norfolk & Western Railway Co. v. Ayers, a case raising the question whether railroad workers who have not in fact developed cancer from exposure to asbestos can nonetheless sue under federal law for fear of same (Dahlia Lithwick, “Supreme Torts: How to get paid a million dollars for your phobias.”, Slate, Nov. 6; Marcia Coyle, “Litigating Over the Fear of Cancer”, National Law Journal, Oct. 30). The recent massive combined asbestos suit in West Virginia has served to expose the rift between plaintiffs’ counsel whose clients are seriously sick, and those whose strategy leads them to recruit other kinds of clients (Lisa Stansky, “Unusual Clash in Asbestos Case”, National Law Journal, Oct. 31). In the latest of several scorching columns he has written on the controversy, Stuart Taylor, Jr., charges that “lawyer-plutocrats continue to obscenely enrich themselves by using massive asbestos lawsuits and a disgracefully dysfunctional litigation system to extort billions of dollars from American consumers every year. The lawyers blackmail mostly blameless companies, while cheating the real victims of asbestos. This scandal in turn dramatizes how our lawsuit industry often operates as an engine of injustice — and as a drain on the economy, an inadequate vehicle for compensating people actually harmed by corporate wrongdoing, and a transparent fraud in its pretensions to punish those responsible for such wrongdoing.” (”Greedy Lawyers Cheat Real Asbestos Victims”, National Journal/The Atlantic, Oct. 1). See also James A. Lacey, “Asbestos Suits: Worse Than Enron”, New York Post, Oct. 9. (DURABLE LINK)
November 8-10 – Munched zoo animals, gets six months severance. “A German zookeeper, fired last month for eating animals in a town zoo, has been awarded six-months severance pay after reaching a settlement in a labour court. The town of Recklinghausen, north of Cologne, fired the zookeeper after he was caught barbecuing five Tibetan mountain chickens and two Cameroonian sheep at the zoo, popular with children who were allowed to stroke the animals. … Germany’s laws make it extremely difficult for employers to fire workers.” (”Animal feast zookeeper win pay claim”, Yahoo/UK Reuters, Nov. 7) (DURABLE LINK)
November 8-10 – “Lawyers Fight Over Louima Case Fees”. Continuing the tawdry saga last aired in this space July 24, 2001: “The Abner Louima police brutality case resurfaced in federal court Wednesday, as attorneys disputed the distribution of nearly $3 million in attorney fees amid accusations of slipshod lawyering, client poaching and greed. Johnnie L. Cochran, Peter Neufeld and Barry S. Scheck have filed a motion to prevent Louima’s first two lawyers — Carl W. Thomas and Brian Figeroux — from receiving any portion of the fees associated with the record $8.75 million settlement Louima received from New York City.” (Tom Perrotta, New York Law Journal, Oct. 18; “Louima’s first team of lesser-known attorneys seek share of $3 million”, AP/CNN, Oct. 18). “According to Scheck’s testimony, the relationship between the two groups of lawyers was tense from the very beginning, with members of both teams launching racial slurs.” (”Lawyers Fight Over Fees From Louima Settlement”, (WNBC-TV, Oct. 17). (DURABLE LINK)
November 7 – Some election results. The Senate results, as will be surmised, were a spectacular rout for organized trial lawyer interests, which had spent heavily to defend Democratic control of the upper chamber. (Another key litigation lobby ally, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) (Jul. 7, 2000) did not face serious challenge and won easy re-election.) Of the three extremely wealthy trial attorneys who ran for U.S. House seats in West Virginia and Florida (Oct. 11-13), all lost by margins of 60-40 or worse (Humphreys, Jacobs, Hogan). And all of the nationally publicized state supreme court races seem to have been resolved in a manner favorable to litigation reformers. Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Chuck McRae, widely viewed as symbolizing his court’s runaway-litigation faction (Sept. 9-10), lost badly, actually coming in third in a three-way race with 23 percent of the vote. (Antoinette Konz, “Dickinson takes high court position”, Hattiesburg American, Nov. 6). Despite a nasty ad campaign against them (Nov. 1-3), Maureen O’Connor and Evelyn Stratton won convincing victories for seats on the Ohio high court, whose balance of power may shift as a result. Judges Robert Young (Michigan) and Harold See (Alabama), who have drawn trial lawyer fire in the past, were both re-elected, albeit narrowly in See’s case.
In governor’s races, on the other hand, there was little to cheer about, with trial-lawyer-backed candidates pulling out mostly narrow victories in Michigan, Oregon and Tennessee. We never expect much good news to come out of attorney general races, and were unsurprised to see New York’s Eliot Spitzer and Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal glide to re-election; we’re also expecting the worst from Illinois’s incoming Lisa Madigan (Jan. 7). But we note GOP takeovers of the AG’s office in Michigan and Florida, as well as retention of the crucial Texas post. (full list at NAAG site)
A footnote: one of the engineers of the great 1998 tobacco heist, Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, was term-limited and deigned to run instead for a state senate seat in Broward/Palm Beach, but lost to the Republican candidate (WSVN-TV, Nov. 6). This continues the series of political pratfalls by which key players in the tobacco affair — the list includes former attorneys general Hubert Humphrey III of Minnesota, Dan Morales of Texas and Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts, and Minnesota private attorney Michael Ciresi — have come up short when they tried to run for other offices. (DURABLE LINK)
November 7 – Scourge of the Super-Size order. The hullabaloo over suing fast-food chains has been great publicity for Washington-based law prof John Banzhaf, who finds himself the subject of a profile in the Washington Post (Libby Copeland, “Snack Attack”, Nov. 3), not to mention all the publicity furthered by his own website and its obesity links. Less respectful views are offered by syndicated columnist Doug Bandow (”Lawyers run amok”, TownHall, Nov. 5) and Southern restauranteur Robert St. John (”In state’s legal climate, ‘I could sue, … retire to Hawaii’”, Hattiesburg American, Oct. 15). (DURABLE LINK)
November 6 – Notation on Scruggs’ court file: to be “kept away from the press”. “Even as famed Pascagoula trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs testified in Hattiesburg Tuesday in a lawsuit over legal fees from asbestos litigation, records of the lawsuit were being withheld from the media by Jackson County officials. The file for the case … contains the original complaint in the lawsuit between Scruggs’ firm and Merkel & Cocke, a Clarksdale law firm that also handled asbestos cases in the 1990s. Scruggs believes that Merkel & Cocke owes him money for a case that the firm and Scruggs worked on together. … A handwritten note attached to the court file in Jackson County, found by a Sun Herald reporter, said, ‘This file is being kept away from the press/media, etc., but is not under seal per Court Order…’ The word ‘not’ was underlined twice for emphasis.” (Beth Musgrave and Karen Nelson, “Scruggs’ case file being kept away from media”, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Oct. 30). The next day county officials relented and agreed to let the newspaper see the file (”Court opens Scruggs file to newspaper”, Oct. 31). The paper’s editorialists call the withholding of the file “brazen” and “no innocent mistake”. (”Public records are not private property of government officials” (editorial), Oct. 31). (DURABLE LINK)
November 6 – Choirgirl vs. cathedral. In Britain, a judge has dismissed the complaint that 13-year-old choirgirl Pollyanna Molloy filed against the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln Cathedral (consecrated 1092) after she was passed over for a “cope”, a senior chorister position. Molloy says she was “utterly destroyed” to learn that a less experienced girl had been chosen for the honor, and her lawsuit claims damages for mental anguish. Molloy’s parents say they plan to appeal the judge’s order. (”Judge throws out choirgirl’s writ”, Lincolnshire Echo, Oct. 30; Jonathan Petre, “Girl sues cathedral for choir honour ’snub’”, Daily Telegraph, Sept. 10). (DURABLE LINK)
November 6 – “Google sued over search ratings”. “Top billing in Google search results has become so coveted that one Web hosting company is suing for it. Search King, an Oklahoma City-based Web site network and advertising seller,” claims in its federal complaint that the popular search service “purposefully reduced Search King’s value, as well as that of Web sites hosted by Search King,” by downgrading its rankings. “According to the complaint, the Web hosting company in August started the PR Ad Network — an advertising network in which it sold text links on the popular Web sites to get them a better listing in Google’s results.” Google has recently been reported to have cracked down on “link farm” techniques by which sites are artificially induced to link to each other for purposes of boosting the beneficiaries’ search results. (Stefanie Olsen, ZDNet, Oct. 22). (DURABLE LINK)
November 4-5 – Campaign roundup. As we prepare to vote:
* Election Day is just the start: “both major parties have recruited unprecedented armies of lawyers — at least 10,000 on the Democratic side — for possible recount battles but also to keep an eye on voting procedures. …The campaign’s tone also shows the indelible mark of the 2000 election. The [Florida] recount battle signaled that lawyers can be as important as voters in shaping the outcomes of tight races.” Elections expert Larry Sabato says we “may not know for sure who controls the House and Senate until December or January.” (Gail Russell Chaddock, “As vote arrives, lawyers are ready”, Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 4). More: John Fund, “Have You Registered to Sue?”, OpinionJournal, Nov. 6.
* Medical malpractice reform has flared as an issue in races across the country. A very small sampling: the Tennessee governor’s race (Bill Poovey, “Hilleary says malpractice suit awards need a limit”, Knoxville News-Sentinel, Nov. 1); the Texas attorney general’s race (Jim Belew, “Abbott touts solution for healthcare”, Conroe Courier, Oct. 31); the Oregon governor’s race (”Governor hopefuls respond to readers”, Salem Statesman-Journal, Oct. 28 — scroll to near end); the Ohio high court races (”Taft says a GOP high court will fix malpractice problems”, Toledo Blade, Oct. 31; the Maryland governor’s race (”Maryland medical society turns against Townsend”, Baltimore Sun, Oct. 31); Pennsylvania’s 13th District U.S. House race (John Anastasi, “Doctors group backs tort reform supporters”, PhillyBurbs.com, Nov. 3); the Florida governor’s race (Mary Ellen Klas, “Candidates clash on medical liability”, Palm Beach Post, Oct. 16); and Mississippi state legislative races (Matthew Coleman, “Lawyers’ group targets Lincoln County senator”, Brookhaven (Miss.) Daily Leader, Oct. 9).
* In Connecticut, attorney Martha Dean has taken up the thankless task of running against the Northeast’s most successful political demagogue, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, and has been making a spirited job of it (Edmund H. Mahony, “Attorney Takes On A General”, Hartford Courant, Oct. 19; Ray Hackett, “GOP challenger: Blumenthal’s high-profile cases waste tax dollars”, Norwich Bulletin, Oct. 28; “Dean says Blumenthal should stop Microsoft suit”, AP/WSFB-TV, Nov. 3). In news coverage no longer online, Dean has assailed Blumenthal for his continued denials that there was anything wrong with the way he picked his former law partners for the fabulously lucrative job of representing the state in the tobacco litigation (see Feb. 3 and Feb. 16, 2000).
* Of donations to federal candidates this election cycle by California’s 40 biggest law firms, which mostly represent corporations and other large institutions, 62 percent of the money has gone to Democrats, 35 percent to Republicans. (Jason Dearen, “Big-Firm Backing”, The Recorder, Oct. 29; “By the Numbers”). What, you thought it would be any different?
* In West Virginia’s hotly contested House race, asbestos plaintiff’s lawyer James Humphreys, “who made $10 million from his successful law practice last year, has spent $5.2 million of his own money in his quest to unseat Republican Shelley Moore Capito. Two years ago, the Charleston Democrat spent $6.1 million of his own cash in a narrow loss to Capito.” Make him spend it all, Shelley! (Karin Fischer, “Humphreys’ top contributor is himself”, Charleston Daily Mail, Oct. 24; “Bush pre-election drive stops in W.Va.”, Huntington Herald-Dispatch, Nov. 1; “Elections 2002: West Virginia House rematch”, UPI, Oct. 22).
More: A Washington Times editorial reminds us that trial lawyers have staked many, many chips on Michigan AG and gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Granholm; her GOP opponent, Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus, “as the majority leader of the state senate tenaciously pushed the 1995 tort reforms through the legislature, and has been the personal-injury lawyers’ Public Enemy No. 1 ever since.” (”Lawsuit abuse”, Nov. 4; see Oct. 9). Those following Missouri politics will want to check out retired judge Ralph Voss’s website calling for voters to reject several incumbent judges. And here’s a list of local webloggers who will be following key races across the country (courtesy DailyPundit). (DURABLE LINK)
November 4-5 – “Lawyers who sue to settle”. L.A. Times profiles local attorney Morse Mehrban, a major user of California’s bounty-hunting charter Proposition 65, whose exploits include filing 400 separate claims against candle makers and more than a dozen against fireplace log makers, claiming their products emit toxic fumes when burned. “A group of Los Angeles-area hardware stores paid Mehrban $27,500 last year to settle a lawsuit claiming that discarded metal filings from key-duplicating machines posed a threat of lead contamination.” A Los Angeles judge who dismissed one of Mehrban’s cases — against a hotel for failing to post signs warning that cigarette smoke in public areas of the hotel was toxic — “likened the lawsuit to ‘racketeering.’ … Though [Mehrban] bills his time at as much as $400 an hour and drives a Mercedes roadster, he says he’s not in it for the money.”
“The plaintiff in many of Mehrban’s suits is Consumer Cause Inc., which describes itself as a statewide advocacy group. Its mailing address is the Brentwood home of Mehrban’s mother, Rafat Efraim, who for a time was listed on state incorporation records as the group’s only officer. According to Mehrban, Consumer Cause now has five officers, including his mother and fiancee. He declined to identify the other officers.” In one case Mehrban filed, “the manufacturer’s lawyer called Mehrban’s mother to the witness stand during a pretrial hearing in an effort to show that Consumer Cause was a mere front for Mehrban’s legal practice. Efraim speaks only Farsi and testified through an interpreter. Asked the name of the consumer group, she replied: ‘Help the customers.’ Efraim said she did not know whether it had any other officers.”
However, the Times reports that Mehrban has also represented clients whose independent existence will be familiar to some of our readers, including the National Coalition of Free Men (on whose behalf he filed suit recently against Los Angeles County, saying it was being discriminatory by maintaining a commission on women’s issues but not one for men’s) and the National Council Against Health Fraud (on whose behalf Mehrban went to court over the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies; numerous favorable mentions of Mehrban turn up on QuackWatch and he is listed on QuackWatch’s Legal Advisory Board). According to the Times, Mehrban is currently in court suing dentists on the claim “that the mercury in silver fillings could cause birth defects and diseases”. We wonder how that sits with his friends over at the NCAHF, which recently voiced agreement with the view of the American Dental Association that a different lawyer’s West Coast suit against mercury fillings constitutes “an egregious abuse of the legal system.” (see Jul. 16). (Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 26). For more on Prop 65 litigation, see Daniel Blackburn, “The be-all, catch-all”, San Luis Obispo New Times, Mar. 7. (DURABLE LINK)
November 4-5 – Self-defense, of course. Former policeman Eddie Myers fired 36 shots at Emma Horton from three different guns, hitting her 14 times. Last month a jury acquitted Myers on grounds of — what else? — self-defense. “This is a runaway jury and crazy verdict,” said Holmes County District Attorney James Powell III. Defense attorney Chokwe Lumumba disagreed, saying Myers was reasonably in fear of his life: Horton, who was an assistant police chief and Myers’s sister-in-law, was armed and Myers said she had reached for her gun. When found, “Horton was armed, but her gun was found strapped in its holster on her body.” (Jimmie E. Gates, “Ex-cop offers apology to family”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Oct. 23). (DURABLE LINK)
November 4-5 – You breached my privacy, says serial killer. Australia: “Serial killer Ivan Milat could receive up to $40,000 in compensation over alleged breaches of [New South Wales] privacy laws, State Parliament heard yesterday. Milat has lodged a complaint with the NSW Privacy Commission over the public release of x-rays taken last year when he swallowed three razor blades, 24 blade staples and a nail-clipper chain. Milat claimed he did this in protest at his solitary confinement but prison authorities believe the killer was hoping for a transfer to a medical facility from which to escape…. Milat, who is serving seven life sentences for the murder of seven backpackers between September 1992 and November 1993, stood to gain up to $40,000 in compensation if his complaint was upheld, he said. … ‘Milat believes as a result of those x-rays becoming public, that his personal rights have been impinged,’ [Corrective Services Minister Richard Amery] told Parliament.” (Linda Silmalis, “Milat’s compo bid could pay $40,000″, Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 30). (DURABLE LINK)
November 4-5 – “Resounding victory” for Microsoft. Last Friday’s ruling was a rebuke to activist state attorneys general and others who’d wanted to pursue the technology company to the bitter end. “U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly embraced, with minor changes, the settlement struck last winter aimed at addressing Microsoft’s violations of antitrust laws. …And she all but ridiculed the states for the legal theories they put forth to justify tougher restrictions on the Redmond, Wash., company.” (Jonathan Krim, “Judge Accepts Settlement in Microsoft Case”, Washington Post, Nov. 2; Dennis J. Opatrny, “Reaction Mixed on Microsoft Decision”, The Recorder, Nov. 4). (DURABLE LINK)
November 1-3 – WHO demands pretzel de-salting by law. “Far from just encouraging people to leave aside the salt pot to prevent high blood pressure, governments should resort to legislation to cut the amount of salt in processed foods, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Wednesday.” The transnational agency for years has been pushing governments to restrict tobacco, which seems to have whetted its activist spirit. (”East Less Salt — By Law, Says WHO”, AFP/Discovery Health Channel, Oct. 30). In Australia, “Take-away [take-out] chains may face pressure to end cheap deals on super-sized meals under a radical plan to be proposed to the Federal Government to combat obesity. Commercial television networks could also face new restrictions on screening fast-food and confectionery advertisements, especially to children.” (Fia Cumming, “New laws target fast food”, Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 13). See also Andrew Ferguson, “Tobacco Lesson for McDonald’s in Fat War”, Bloomberg.com, Sept. 10 (interview with John Banzhaf); Iain Murray, “Slaughtering the Fatted Calf”, TechCentralStation, Aug. 19. (DURABLE LINK)
November 1-3 – Mudslinging in Ohio high court races. Trial lawyers and labor unions have been funding attack ads against two Republican candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court, incumbent Justice Evelyn Stratton and Lt. Gov. Maureen O’Connor, in a campaign so ugly that it has drawn a formal condemnation from the Ohio State Bar Association. “The ad, produced by the Citizens for an Independent Court political action committee, depicts laughing businessmen in suits inside a limousine, as a narrator states Justice Stratton and Ms. O’Connor are on ‘their side.’” (Jim Provance, “State bar assails ad in Ohio court race”, Toledo Blade, Oct. 22; Emily Heller, “Attack ads, big money set tone again this year”, National Law Journal, Oct. 28). Ohio GOP chairman Bob Bennett identifies an element of hypocrisy: “The same trial lawyers who funded this ad were outraged only two years ago when similar tactics were used against Justice [Alice Robie] Resnick,” one of their own favorites. (Liz Sidoti, “Group’s ad links GOP Supreme Court candidates to big business”, AP/Akron Beacon Journal, Oct. 16)(see Oct. 30, 2000). On judicial races in other states, see “Courting the Vote”, National Law Journal, Nov. 1 (fewer big fights between trial lawyers and their opponents than two years ago, Mississippi and Ohio aside). (DURABLE LINK)
November 1-3 – “Mom who drugged kids’ ice cream sues”. “A Phoenix mother who admitted lacing her daughters’ ice cream with prescription tranquilizers is suing a health care provider and others, saying they are responsible for her drug-induced delirium at the time. Jodi Lynn Henry, 38, who was acquitted in July of attempted murder charges, filed a medical malpractice claim in Maricopa County Superior Court against Jewish Family Services, a nurse practitioner and ValueOptions, a mental-health care provider.” (Carol Sowers, Arizona Republic, Oct. 30). (DURABLE LINK)
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October 9-10 – Rumblings in Mississippi. Two big stories out of the Magnolia State: the legislature on Monday passed, and Gov. Ronnie Musgrove indicates that he will sign, a compromise malpractice reform bill intended to relieve the state’s worst-in-the-nation medical liability crisis. Among its terms: capping non-economic damages at $500,000, restricting venue to the county where alleged wrongdoing occurred, and requiring that plaintiffs line up an expert before a suit can proceed. (Patrice Sawyer and Julie Goodman, “Legislature passes civil justice reform”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Oct. 8). It also curtails but does not eliminate joint and several liability in medical cases and shortens some time limits for suing. (”Other provisions”, sidebar; Jackson Clarion-Ledger editorial, Oct. 8).
In a separate story that will bear close watching as it unfolds, “Federal authorities are investigating whether state court judges took out loans that were repaid by nationally prominent trial lawyers from South Mississippi whose cases the judges handle. Investigators believe the judges, including state Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. of Biloxi, borrowed thousands of dollars from The Peoples Bank, which has headquarters in Biloxi, and Merchants & Marine Bank in Jackson County. Plaintiffs’ attorneys who try multimillion-dollar cases before the judges subsequently repaid the loans, investigators believe. Paul Minor of Ocean Springs and Richard ‘Dickie’ Scruggs of Pascagoula are being investigated by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Jackson, according to a source close to the investigation.” Scruggs, of course, is among the most powerful lawyers in the country and did more than any other figure to engineer the $200-billion-plus settlement between the tobacco industry and state governments; he is also the brother-in-law of Sen. Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) Scruggs “has said that he expects to earn about $844 million from tobacco settlements” while Minor expects to receive something like $70 million from tobacco settlements. (Anita Lee, Tom Wilemon and Beth Musgrave, “Loans to Judges Probed”, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Oct. 7; Jerry Mitchell, “Judges’ loans focus of probe”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Oct. 8; “Coast newspaper reports lawyer-judge link to loans being checked”, AP/Alabama Live, Oct. 7). Scruggs “denies that he repaid loans for Diaz or any other judge.” (”Investigation Targets Lawyers, Judges & Loans”, WLOX, Oct. 7). Update Oct. 11-13 more allegations; May 7, 2003 investigation widens. (DURABLE LINK)
October 9-10 – Trial lawyers and politics: Michigan, Texas. Two legal reform groups have released studies documenting the flow of trial lawyer money into their states’ politics. Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch reveals that the state’s personal injury lawyers “have contributed a total of $426,280 to [Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jennifer] Granholm’s campaign. This is more than the $394,209 she has received from the PACs of all other Michigan special interest groups backing her. Personal injury lawyers have given just $2,900 to Granholm’s opponent, Dick Posthumus.” And Texas Trial Lawyer Watch has a new report out on the gargantuan sums spent by lawyers in that state, with special emphasis on the lengths to which the attorneys are willing to go to conceal their generosity (”Hiding Their Influence“, PDF format) (DURABLE LINK)
October 9-10 – Latest sacked-Santa suit. In Edinburgh, Scotland an actor “hired to play Santa Claus at a shopping centre who was sacked for his allegedly lugubrious manner is suing his former employers for more than £1,500.” Television actor Colin Brown, 50, says he had fulfilled the role for many years past with no complaints of insufficient jolliness. “He is also seeking £10 compensation for a 12-inch square cushion he supplied for the padding and £30 for his size nine wellington boots.” (Edward Black, “Sacked Santa sues ex-employers”, The Scotsman, Oct. 8). For further annals of Santa employment litigation, see Oct. 12 and Dec. 13-14, 2000. (DURABLE LINK)
October 7-8 – Malpractice-crisis latest: let ‘em become CPAs. Detailed report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of malpractice woes in Missouri and (especially) in adjoining counties of Illinois known for litigiousness, Madison and St. Clair, where “doctors are handing off more patients needing risky procedures to St. Louis medical centers. Doctors in the two counties pay double the premiums of most surrounding Illinois counties because of the flurry of claims filed there,” according to the head of underwriting at the doctors’-mutual insurer that writes more than half of Illinois policies. Insurance is becoming unaffordable for many doctors with records considered less than pristine, such as those with past claims that were resolved for token payments or even for no payment at all.
In litigious Belleville, Ill., patients can obtain a long list of medical services only by heading over to St. Louis. “Several years ago, Belleville physicians decided to transfer all critically ill children to St. Louis Children’s Hospital or Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital. Anne Thomure, public relations director for Memorial Hospital in Belleville, said many of these young patients could have gotten comparable care in the community, but liability risks were deemed too great”. “Trauma is routinely sent to St. Louis because of the medical-legal climate,” said one doctor. Other Belleville doctors have stopped handling high-risk pregnancies, administering clot-busting TPA to stroke patients, and performing surgery on complex elbow fractures, which often lead to complications. Many neurosurgeons are shunning brain surgery in favor of relatively safe spinal procedures. Dr. Kathy Maupin “said almost every doctor involved in trauma care gets sued, because outcomes are unpredictable and patients do not have a pre-existing relationship with the doctors.” Don’t miss this priceless quote from the other side, from “Bruce Cook, a personal injury lawyer in Belleville” who “has little sympathy for doctors lamenting liability coverage costs.” “Perhaps the doctors retiring early are the doctors who are sued too much,” he said. “Perhaps they should have been accountants.” (Judith VandeWater, “Insurance rates pinch doctors, care”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 6).
The Bloviator (Sept. 27) summarizes the terms of the federal malpractice-reform bill, H.R. 4600 Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2002″, which passed the House Sept. 26 but is considered unlikely to make it past the litigation lobby’s grip on the U.S. Senate. Last Thursday, Pennsylvania doctors held rallies in Philadelphia and Scranton to protest the state legislature’s inaction on malpractice reform (AP/New York Times, undated; MedRants, Oct. 4; Politically Active Physicians Association, organization of Pa. doctors). New York doctors may not be holding demonstrations yet, but according to William Tucker in the New York Post, they pay the highest malpractice premiums in the country. From “1994 to 1999, the average New York jury verdict tripled, from $1.7 million to $6 million. Empire State physicians settled $633 million in malpractice claims in 2000, 80 percent more than second-place Pennsylvania ($352 million) and triple third-place California ($200 million, for twice the population)”. California, unlike New York and Pennsylvania, has a strong cap on noneconomic damages. (New York Post, Sept. 26).
The disarray in Mississippi’s malpractice system “extends to the state’s ambulance companies and their workers”, reports AP. (Matthew Volz, “Paramedics face malpractice suits, too”, AP/Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Sept. 19). A past president of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association pooh-poohs the concerns, saying he “cannot recall off the top of my head a single substantial or even moderate verdict against an ambulance company in the state of Mississippi” — note how by framing the issue as one of verdicts only, he gets to sidestep the question of how often ambulance operators are named in complaints resolved before that point. On the Mississippi legislature’s lack of seriousness in pursuing tort reform, see the Clarion-Ledger’s editorial, Sept. 25.
A study from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and other neurosurgery groups finds that liability woes have plunged that specialty into a state of emergency across the country. (Sept. 25 study in PDF format, press release, resource page). And while litigation lobby stalwarts such as the misnamed “Center for Justice and Democracy” have tried to scapegoat malpractice insurance providers as the source of the crisis (Sept. 25), a report last month from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services thoroughly refutes that contention, pointing out that: 1) states that have enacted serious liability limits are not undergoing a crisis; 2) actuarial data show a sharp upturn in the past few years in large medical claims in unreformed states, as well as in the high verdicts which influence the magnitude of settlements; 3) medical malpractice insurers have not generally suffered major losses due to speculative or volative investments, and a relatively small share of their investment is in the stock market; 4) the decreasing competitiveness of the insurance market is itself a reflection of the liability-driven increase in claims expense; and 5) liability reforms in states like California have not made it impossible to sue — the number of claims has not been declining there lately — but have kept medical care affordable, notwithstanding the influence of the much-cited “insurance cycle”. (”Update on the Medical Litigation Crisis: Not the Result of the ‘Insurance Cycle’”, HHS, Sept. 25). (DURABLE LINK)
October 7-8 – “Judge Throws Out ‘Harry Potter’ Copyright Suit”. “”A federal judge has sanctioned an author $50,000 for submitting false evidence in an unsuccessful copyright lawsuit against the publisher of the blockbuster ‘Harry Potter’ series of children’s books. Southern District of New York Judge Allen G. Schwartz found that Nancy Stouffer had knowingly submitted fraudulent documents to the court in an attempt to bolster claims that the author of the ‘Harry Potter’ series, J.K. Rowling, copied several ideas from Stouffer’s unsuccessful children’s stories.” In addition to the $50,000 sanctions, Judge Schwartz ordered Stouffer to pay Rowling’s and her publisher’s attorneys’ fees and costs. Stouffer’s lawyer says he is considering appellate options. (Tom Perrotta, “Judge Throws Out ‘Harry Potter’ Copyright Suit”, New York Law Journal, Sept. 19). (DURABLE LINK)
October 7-8 – Cutting edge of discrimination law. Near Seattle, the Puyallup School District has agreed to settle a two-year-old civil rights suit by paying $7.5 million and instituting diversity training, administrative and curriculum changes to encourage racial diversity. Four black families had sued the school district in 1999 saying it “tolerated and encouraged a racially hostile environment. ‘One specific complaint was against the use of racial slurs in exams and class discussion of books like ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘The Grapes of Wrath.”" (Mike Roarke and Candace Heckman, “Civil rights suit settled in Puyallup schools”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sept. 18 (via Scott Norvell, FoxNews.com, Sept. 23). And the Denny’s restaurant chain says it is looking into contentions that one of its outlets in Springfield, Ill. is behaving in a racially discriminatory manner by not staying open all night. The restaurant in question “recently started locking its doors between 3 and 5 a.m. Sundays, reportedly because a large number of patrons, many of whom have been at nearby clubs that close at 3 a.m., were descending on the restaurant and causing problems, including not paying for food.” The president of the local NAACP branch is hinting at a lawsuit: “Denny’s [on the East Side] will stay open, or other Denny’s worldwide will close from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.,’ he said. ‘If there’s one Denny’s out there that is closing from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., then either they’re going to do it worldwide, or they’ll remain open 24 hours.” (Jayette Bolinski, “Denny’s accused of discrimination”, State Journal-Register (Springfield, Ill.), Sept. 12). (DURABLE LINK)
October 7-8 – Blue-ribbon excuses. New York City: “A lawyer representing a couple accused of taking part in three-way sex on a train says they were helping road safety.” Vincent Siccardi says his clients “should be praised for taking the train instead of driving while drunk. Mr Siccardi told the New York Post: ‘Here are two responsible people. They were at a party. They were drinking. It shows that they are responsible. If more people did that, we’d have fewer problems on the road.’” (”Lawyer says couple accused of sex on train were helping road safety”, Ananova.com, Oct. 1). (DURABLE LINK)
October 4-6 – Breaking: L.A. jury docks Philip Morris $28 billion. The plaintiff had been smoking since age 17 and developed lung cancer; the sum awarded by the jury approximately equals the annual gross domestic product of Lithuania. The smooth lawyer who represented Mrs. Bullock, named Michael Piuze, has coaxed a whole series of bizarrely high verdicts out of West Coast juries. (Fox News, Oct. 4). (DURABLE LINK)
October 4-6 – Pets Warehouse owner sues Google. Robert Novak, owner of PetsWarehouse.com, has filed two earlier rounds of pro se lawsuits arising from his claim that his business was defamed in online discussion forums (see May 22 and May 27, 2002 and links from there). Now, in a third round, he is suing search engine Google and several other defendants. His complaint (PDF format) charges that Google failed to remove Usenet archive postings even after being informed that they were defamatory. It also demands damages for Google’s and other search engines’ use of keyword-based “sponsored links”, by which a user’s search on the phrase “pets warehouse” calls up advertising for another online pet store that has paid for the privilege. (Slashdot thread) (overview of case by defense attorney) Further update: Oct. 5, 2003. (DURABLE LINK)
October 4-6 – Commentary-fest. Henry Mark Holzer believes he’s identified the appropriate social response to the campaign for slave-reparations lawsuits: it’s called “Rule 11 sanctions”. (”The Achilles’ Heel of the Reparations Lawsuits”, FrontPage, Oct. 3). The Onion reports that record companies are suing radio stations to stop them from infringing their intellectual property by playing music over the air for free — oh wait, it’s just a parody (we think)(”RIAA Sues Radio Stations for Giving Away Free Music”, Oct. 2). And: “With the assistance and backing of trial lawyers, small and extreme groups are finding it increasingly easy to bypass and subvert the democratic process and impose their agenda on the rest of society by abusing litigation and manipulating the courts,” writes former Wyoming Sen. Malcolm Wallop (”Litigation: The Death of Democracy”, TownHall, Sept. 25). (DURABLE LINK)
October 4-6 – Lawsuit threats vs. campaign speech. “Television station managers in small communities across the nation are being forced this fall to adjudicate a barrage of demands from Democratic and Republican Party lawyers pressuring them to pull political advertisements in closely fought Congressional races — or face the risk of a defamation suit.” (Adam Nagourney and Adam Clymer, “Local Television Stations Become the New Arbiter of Political Fair Play,” New York Times, Oct. 2) (reg). (DURABLE LINK)
October 3 – Lawyers fret about bad image. Bar associations are resorting to all sorts of measures to try to counter the profession’s perceived unpopularity: the Wisconsin Bar has hired consultants “to institute a branding campaign based on focus group response”, while the Florida Bar has budgeted a contemplated $750,000 for its new “Dignity in Law” program (see Jul. 10) which targets 1,000 journalists and government officials described by the group’s president as “influential decision-makers” who will be sent “blast e-mails describing the great work that lawyers and judges do for our clients, in our courtroom and in our communities.” (We hope those 1,000 journalists and influentials have all previously opted into those “blast e-mails” — spam doesn’t make friends, you know.) “Prior to launching the campaign, the Florida Bar surveyed 880 journalists about their attitudes toward the legal profession and rated their stories as positive or negative. As the campaign continues, it will monitor their changing attitudes toward lawyers to measure the campaign’s effectiveness.” If we were Florida journalists, we’re not sure we’d be thrilled to learn that a group of dissatisfied newsmakers who wield writs had decided to “rate” and then “monitor” the tone of our coverage of them.
Meanwhile, on a national level: “Disenchanted with the public outcry against attorneys and the legal profession, Robert Clifford, who heads the American Bar Association’s Litigation Section and is a founding partner of Clifford Law Offices, a personal injury firm in Chicago, personally financed a $250,000 national telephone survey for the ABA of 750 households.” The results could hardly have been welcome. “Only 19 percent of the respondents expressed confidence in lawyers’ work compared with a 50 percent confidence rating for doctors.” (Physician readers, take note, and heart.) The survey effort “also included 10 focus groups in five cities including Chicago and Los Angeles whose respondents repeatedly described attorneys as ‘greedy, manipulative and corrupt.’ … The public lambasted criminal defense, personal injury and divorce lawyers”, praising only real estate and civil rights attorneys. (& see letter to the editor, Oct. 23)
To its credit, the National Law Journal’s roundup of the matter airs not only the legal establishment’s view — which is that the profession is merely misunderstood and suffering from bad public relations — but also the views of critics both inside and outside the profession who think the best way to improve lawyers’ image would be, well, to start cleaning up the bad things that go on in legal practice. Tallahassee Democrat columnist Bill Cotterell, a critic of the Florida bar program, notes: “People don’t like lawyers gaming the system for personal profit — enormous profit — and not caring who gets hurt.” Cotterell “recommended adopting ‘a loser pays‘ system under which the losing plaintiff in a meritless suit would pay the defendant’s legal expenses.” And Catherine Crier, the Court TV host and former judge whose book “The Case Against Lawyers” is forthcoming momentarily, says bar p.r. campaigns “don’t do anything to address the underlying areas. I’d rather see a campaign that introduces ethics classes.’ Crier would prefer to see the law ‘eliminate contingency fees except in cases aimed at the poor and institute loser pays in all categories. In that way, good lawyers can proceed with dignity and pursue cases that are meritorious, and those pressing frivolous actions corrupting our system will no longer have a forum.’” Hear, hear! (Gary M. Stern, “Polishing the Image”, National Law Journal, Sept. 16). (DURABLE LINK)
October 1-2 – FTC cracks down on excessive legal fees. Here’s an important story that’s flown mostly under the radar: the new leadership of the Federal Trade Commission is taking pioneering steps to protect consumers from exploitative legal fees, under the same mandate by which it cracks down on deceptive or unfair overcharging by businesses generally. “So far this year, the FTC has challenged attorney fees in three proposed class action settlements, winning in two cases. It also has urged the Judicial Conference, which oversees the federal court system, to amend its class action rules in a way that could limit attorney fees, particularly in cases that rely on information already uncovered by government agencies. And the agency recently published a guide for consumers, ‘Need a Lawyer? Judge for Yourself,’ giving advice on how to pick a lawyer — and seek a lower fee. … Trial lawyers and their allies aren’t happy about the FTC initiative.” (Caroline E. Mayer, “FTC Seeks to Limit Attorney Fees in Class Action Suits”, Washington Post, Sept. 30). (DURABLE LINK)
October 1-2 – Australia: seized by the Spirit, wants church to compensate her. Loraine [elsewhere reported Lorraine] Daly, 40, is suing an Assemblies of God-affiliated church in Sydney, saying she was injured one Sunday in 1996 when, gripped by religious enthusiasm, she fell over onto a carpeted floor and was not caught by anyone. “The court was told by Ms Daly’s lawyer that the Sydney Christian Life Centre had been negligent in failing to ensure there were enough ‘catchers’ — people appointed by the church to cushion the fall of those experiencing what is referred to within the Pentecostal movement as being ’slain in the spirit’. It was also claimed that the church had failed to ensure that the catchers were in position before the Rev Tim Hall started the prayer service which usually brought on such fainting episodes. And the church had not provided falling members of the congregation with a sufficiently padded area to prevent injury.” Ms. Daly wants up to A$750,000 in damages, including future loss of earnings and compensation for “disabilities including headaches, nausea, memory loss, impaired concentration and a feeling of vagueness. …The court also heard, however, that Ms Daly had previously suffered similar ailments after two car accidents in 1986 and 1993.” (Kelly Burke, “Fallen Christian puts faith in the law”, Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 27). Update Oct. 25-27: judge rules against Ms. Daly. (DURABLE LINK)
October 1-2 – Updates. Judges pull the plug on various bright ideas discussed previously in these pages:
* A judge has dismissed attorney Peter Angelos’s effort to bring the cellphone industry to trial on the theory that using its wares causes brain tumors, ruling that the proffered scientific evidence for that proposition is insufficient (see Apr. 23 and Jan. 11, 2001) (Gretchen Parker, “Judge Dismisses $800M Cell Phone-Brain Tumor Suit “, AP/Washington Post, Sept. 30) (opinion in PDF format)
* In a unanimous decision written by Judge Alex Kozinski, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit has ruled that Judge Vaughn Walker should not have interpreted the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act as a mandate to take an active lead in selecting plaintiffs’ counsel to run lucrative securities fraud cases. The decision, which may put the kibosh on “auction” methods by which courts induce plaintiff’s counsel to accept work at lower fees, was a victory for Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach in its quest to represent security holders in a suit against Copper Mountain Networks Inc. (Jason Hoppin, “9th Circuit Strikes Down Class Action Fee Experiment”, The Recorder, Sept. 17) (opinion in PDF format)(see Sept. 25, 2001)
* Well, that’s a relief: “A British Telecommunications Inc. patent issued prior to the advent of the Internet does not cover hyperlinking, a New York federal judge ruled … Tossing out British Telecom’s infringement suit against Prodigy Communications Corp., U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York said no jury could find that Prodigy infringes the patent by providing hyperlinks, the coded, highlighted text that links one Web page to another.” (see Feb. 13) (Brenda Sandburg, “Closely Watched Hyperlink Patent Case Tossed”, The Recorder, Aug. 23). (DURABLE LINK)
September 9-10 – Mississippi doctors win a round. “[L]egislators passed new restrictions today [Friday] on lawsuits against doctors in Mississippi, the latest spasm in a national convulsion over sharply increasing medical malpractice insurance rates.” (Adam Nossiter, “Miss. Lawmakers Set Limits on Medical Lawsuits”, Washington Post, Sept. 7). “Mississippi’s legislature is the third in less than a year to be called into special session over the issue, an ‘extraordinary trend,’ said Cheye Calvo, an insurance specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures.” The fate of the legislation remains uncertain, however. (Patrice Sawyer, “Plenty of talk, but no action”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Sept. 8).
It’s far too early for doctors to jubilate, anyway: if the measure makes it to into law, the trial lawyers will predictably commence efforts to convince the Mississippi Supreme Court to strike it down as unconstitutional, as they have gotten other state courts to do with many liability reforms of the past. (e.g. Ohio: Aug. 18, 1999). Some expect the re-election bid this fall of state supreme court justice Charles McRae, to serve as a kind of referendum on whether the court’s pro-plaintiff tilt has gone too far. McRae, a past president of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association, is the author of some of the court’s decisions most hostile to defendants. (Bobby Harrison, “McRae a lightning rod for business groups”, Daily Journal, Jul. 23; Jimmie E. Gates, Clarion-Ledger, Jul.29, Ben Bryant, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Aug. 15). (DURABLE LINK)
September 9-10 – Hiring apple pickers = racketeering. “A federal appellate court has revived a racketeering lawsuit filed by Washington state farm workers who claim apple growers and packers intentionally hired undocumented workers to depress wages. The suit says that Zirkle Fruit Co. and Matson Fruit Co., both based in Washington state, created an employment agency to recruit illegal immigrants, mainly from Mexico, knowing that many of the workers were providing false documentation. At the same time, the suit says, the companies rejected job candidates known to be legal aliens or U.S. residents.” Which naturally leads to the question: should those who knowingly hire undocumented gardeners, nannies and house painters be deemed racketeers as well? The pending suit demands monetary damages from the apple growers and packers, and is being pressed by superrich Seattle attorney Steve Berman, well known to readers of this column (Aug. 21, 1999; Oct. 16, 1999; Jan. 19, 2000; May 11, 2001). (”Racketeering suit vs. apple growers, packers is revived”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sept. 6). (DURABLE LINK)
September 9-10 – Free legal services! (except when they aren’t). The Association of Trial Lawyers of America has derived great publicity mileage by saying it will help victims of last year’s terrorist attacks obtain legal representation for free, but it and its members have also worked quietly behind the scenes to defeat legislation that would in any way curb the amounts that lawyers could keep for themselves from 9/11 awards. “Senator [Charles] Schumer [D-N.Y.] is drafting legislation that would let attorneys collect between 8 and 12% of a family’s payout from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a victims’ advocate said. The Schumer plan is a compromise between Senator [Don] Nickles [R-Okla.], who did not want lawyers to take any money from the fund, and the trial lawyers themselves, who want no limit on their contingency fees.” (Timothy Starks, “Schumer Pushes Fees”, New York Sun, Aug. 5). (DURABLE LINK)
September 9-10 – Ignominious wind-down to Norplant campaign. At one time, trial lawyers must have had high hopes that their campaign against the contraceptive Norplant, which is administered in the form of under-the-skin silicone arm implants, would bring down drugmaker Wyeth the way their breast implant campaign bankrupted silicone maker Dow Corning. The litigation dragged on for years and cannot have been encouraging to firms pursuing contraceptive research, but it now appears to be winding down with a whimper, reports Texas Lawyer. In an August 14 ruling, “a federal judge in Texas granted partial summary judgment to the makers of Norplant and dismissed the claims of most of the remaining 3,000 women, leaving only 10 plaintiffs to pursue their cases.” Earlier, a large class of plaintiffs “settled out of court for a payment of $1,500 each”, a paltry sum by the standards of what must originally have been expected. “Notably,” wrote U.S. District Judge Richard Schell, “in the three years since Defendants filed this motion for partial summary judgment, Plaintiffs have not produced a shred of evidence or expert testimony that supports an association between Norplant and” such conditions as polyarthralgia, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. (Pamela Manson, “Federal Judge Dismisses Norplant Damage Claims”, Texas Lawyer, Aug. 27)(see Aug. 11 and Aug. 27, 1999). (DURABLE LINK)
September 6-8 – “Doctors hope fines will curb frivolous lawsuits”. Lawyers are seldom made to pay any tangible price when they wrongly accuse a doctor, but South Texas doctors are hoping District Judge Ronald M. Yeager of Corpus Christi will set a precedent by granting a motion for $50,000 sanctions against local attorney Thomas J. Henry for filing false claims against Dr. Steven Smith and Dr. Robert Low. “The case Henry originally brought to court alleged that the doctors had prescribed the drug Propulsid to Henry White, a patient at Northbay who eventually died of complications from a stroke. Propulsid is an acid reflux medicine that has been taken off the market. According to court documents, neither of the doctors had issued the prescription. Henry, who declined comment on the fines, filed a notice of appeal Friday. … Low said he will never forget the embarrassment the case caused and hopes the fines will deter similar suits in the future. … ‘It takes time away from your practice and these things can be emotionally devastating to a physician,” Low said. Attorney Henry is a high-profile local advertiser: “Many in the community know him by the prominent ad on the back of the local phonebook”. (Jesse Bogan, San Antonio Express-News, Aug. 5). (DURABLE LINK)
September 6-8 – Slippery slope on terrorism compensation. Just as skeptics predicted would happen, survivors of earlier terrorist attacks and outrages are looking at the generous payments forthcoming from the taxpayer-staked 9/11 compensation fund and asking: why shouldn’t we get retroactive compensation for our losses too? And so legislators are busily introducing bills to compensate victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, the first World Trade Center bombing, Pan Am Flight 103, the sailors on the U.S.S. Cole, and others. (Michael Freedman, “Compensatory Damages”, Forbes.com, Sept. 16)(reg). (DURABLE LINK)
September 6-8 — Update: government can be sued for not warning of Yellowstone thermal-pool dangers. “A Wyoming federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a Utah teenager who was severely burned when he and two others jumped into a thermal pool in Yellowstone National Park. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Roberts had asked the U.S. District Court in Cheyenne to reject Lance Buchi’s complaint, which alleges the federal government failed to adequately warn of dangers posed by thermal pools in the park.” (see Jun. 26, 2001) (”Judge won’t dismiss Yellowstone burn victim’s lawsuit”, AP/Billings Gazette, Aug. 30)
(DURABLE LINK)
September 5 – “Disabled Entitled to Same Sight Line in Theaters”. Departing from decisions handed down by other courts, a federal judge in Albany, N.Y. “has held that a movie theater providing handicapped patrons with an unobstructed sight line to the screen has not necessarily complied with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Rather, U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd found, the law implicitly requires a qualitative element demanding an analysis into whether the lines of sight available to ambulatory and wheelchair customers are comparable.” Although Judge Hurd held that it might constitute an ADA violation for wheelchair-using patrons to be given less desirable viewing angles, he found that Hoyts Theaters had sufficiently complied with the mandate in the case at hand. (John Caher, New York Law Journal, Aug. 28). (DURABLE LINK)
September 5 – Missouri: a judge speaks out. Ralph Voss, recently retired from the Missouri bench, has launched a website that minces no words about what he sees as wrong with the local civil courts. “My story begins around 1985. By that time it was possible to see major inroads the plaintiffs’ lawyers were making in asserting control over the civil justice system. They exercised tremendous influence in the Missouri legislature, but also in the judiciary. Their influence came from their money and their money came in large part from huge and relatively easily-obtained victories in the courts of St. Louis and Kansas City. … The contingent fee has gotten so out of hand something needs to be done. I am told by one judge that 50 and 60 percent contingent fees in Kansas City are not uncommon. This same judge reports that the fee comes on top of charging the client for the expenses of depositions taken at 5-star resorts.” There’s much more, including critiques of forum-shopping, of lawyers who pocket big contingent fees on sure-thing insurance settlements, and of some fellow judges whom he names elsewhere on the site as (in his view) undeserving of re-election this November. (RalphVoss.com, “Opening Statement”, Aug. 16). (DURABLE LINK)
September 5 – A Gotham lawyer’s complaint. Outside the courthouse in Brooklyn, the New York Press’s Johnny Dwyer transcribes the gripes of a local personal injury attorney who “only wants his first name used — Dan”. Not only are verdicts down and settlements harder to get in the formerly bounteous borough, but clients aren’t willing to accept the bad news. “Plaintiffs have a skewed view on what a case is worth. I’ve never seen a more obsessional group of people. The case becomes their whole life. And it’s the newer immigrants that are suing the most — at least in Brooklyn. …That’s become the new American dream.” (”Lawsuits: A Lawyer’s Dilemma”, New York Press, vol. 15, #36 (recent)). More: “Jane Galt” and her readers weigh in. (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – By reader acclaim: “Airline sued for $5 million over lost cat”. “A couple sued Air Canada for $5 million, claiming the airline lost their tabby cat during a flight from Canada to California. … ‘It’s not about the money,’ [Andrew] Wysotski said.” (AP/CNN, Aug. 29). (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – “Federal authorities say judge offered illegal payoff”. Pittsburgh: “In a meeting secretly taped by federal authorities, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph A. Jaffe told a lawyer how he could use his judicial powers to pay back $13,000 in cash that the lawyer had given him in an envelope.” Judge Jaffe, who is presiding over thousands of asbestos cases, “said the attorney could file 26 motions in settled asbestos cases, and he would order insurance companies to pay the lawyer’s firm $500 per motion in legal fees, or $13,000.” He also said that by holding a mass settlement conference he could “put pressure on defendants to favorably settle the claims. …Jaffe evidently did not know that the lawyer, Joel Persky, was cooperating with federal investigators after receiving what he considered an improper request for money from the judge.” Persky’s firm, Goldberg, Persky, Jennings & White, represents thousands of asbestos complainants. Who says plaintiff’s attorneys don’t sometimes figure as heroes in these chronicles? (Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 29). Update: Mar. 25-30, 2003. (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – “Crime pays for teenage lout”. Australia: In a decision that “stunned the legal community and victim’s groups”, a “teenager who broke into a nightclub was yesterday awarded nearly $50,000 damages for injuries he received in an attack by the publican. Joshua Fox was a ‘grossly stupid, totally irresponsible drunken lout’, according to a court assessment. But a [New South Wales] judge said the force used against him was excessive. Mr. Fox’s mother was awarded $18,000 for nervous shock upon seeing her son’s injuries.” (Steve Gee and Patrick O’Neil, Melbourne Herald-Sun, Aug. 30). (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – 2002’s least surprising headline. [Sen. John] “Edwards has been on a fundraising frenzy over the last three months, raising nearly $2 million in ’soft money’ — the type of donation soon to be banned, with three-quarters of it coming from trial lawyers.” (Jim VandeHei, “Trial Lawyers Fund Edwards”, Washington Post, Sept. 3). (DURABLE LINK)
September 3-4 – A breast-cancer myth. For years many have held it as an article of faith that synthetic chemicals in the environment are an important contributor to American cancer rates, the best-known example being the supposedly inexplicably high rates of breast cancer occurring on New York’s Long Island. But as a new $8 million study from National Cancer Institute researchers concludes, science has not found evidence to document the thesis. (”Federal study shows no link between pollution and breast cancer”, AP/MedLine, Aug. 6; Gina Kolata, “Looking for the Link”, New York Times, Aug. 11; “Epidemic That Wasn’t”, Aug. 29)(both reg)). See Ronald Bailey, “Cluster Bomb”, Reason Online, Aug. 14. This weekend, in a perhaps surprising development, the New York Times’s editorialists joined the chorus (”Breast Cancer Mythology on Long Island”, Aug. 31)(reg).
Who should be embarrassed by these developments? Well, for starters, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (Margaret Costello, “Elmirans to testify about cancer”, Elmira (N.Y.) Star-Gazette, June 11, 2001); Ms. magazine (Sabrina McCormick, “Breast Cancer Activism”, Summer); activist groups like the Breast Cancer Fund and the Nader-orbit New York Public Interest Research Group (Stony Brook chapter). And perhaps more than any other well-known group, the Sierra Club, which notwithstanding its sometimes warm-huggy image has published spectacularly wrongheaded and irresponsible coverage of the issue (Sharon Batt & Liza Gross, “Cancer, Inc.”, Sierra Magazine, Sept./Oct. 1999). For similar myths about “cancer alley” in Louisiana, see Nov. 8, 2000. (DURABLE LINK)
