Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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In a move likely to be welcome to his Left base, the president is naming New York’s business-bashing attorney general to head up a probe into banks’ mortgage misconduct. Capital New York’s headline says it all: “Obama elevates Eric Schneiderman, Who Was Too Liberal for Andrew Cuomo.” Another view: Felix Salmon (& Roger Donway, Atlas Business Rights Center).
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A distinctively unfair bit of favoritism toward public sector unions, it legally locks in benefits after a contract expires, thus encouraging and rewarding union intransigence in negotiating the next. [Michael Allegretti, Public Sector Inc.; Empire Center for New York State Policy]
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Following the horrific murder-suicide of a woman who intentionally drowned herself and three of her four children, the woman’s estranged boyfriend is suing the city of Newburgh, N.Y. and its surrounding county for failing to prevent the crime. Joint and several liability reform would help, if only Albany were more sympathetic to the cause. [Thomas Stebbins, Poughkeepsie Journal; Daily News]
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My new op-ed at the New York Post looks at the history of Spitzer-to-Cuomo-to-Eric Schneiderman prosecutorial overreach and asks: how exactly did the New York Attorney General come to have so much power with so little constraint? (& welcome Instapundit, Real Clear Markets, Timothy Carney/Examiner, CEI readers)
More: I and others have written about the act here and at Point of Law.
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“According to State Health Facts, a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the total amount paid in medical-malpractice claims in 2009 was almost eight times higher in New York than Texas, with the average New York payment nearly three times higher.” Physicians keep voting with their feet to escape the New York model. [Joseph Nixon, NY Post; Coyote]
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“Daniel Schuler, whose wife, Diane Schuler, killed herself and seven others in a wrong-way crash on the Taconic State Parkway is suing the state and his brother-in-law, whose three daughters were victims. Daniel Schuler filed a lawsuit Monday against the state in the New York Court of Claims, arguing that the highway was poorly designed and lacked proper signs.” [White Plains, N.Y. Journal-News] More on the catastrophic crash, which is the subject of a new HBO documentary by Liz Garbus: Bloomberg.
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White Coat examines the case of King v. St. Barnabas, in which a New York appellate court approved a suit against first responders who failed in attempts to revive a prison guard who collapsed while playing basketball and was found unresponsive and not breathing. [Emergency Physicians Monthly] A different view: Max Kennerly.
Follow the bouncing blame: “Pleasantville police officer Aaron Hess, who shot and killed Pace University football player Danroy Henry, Jr., is suing a local liquor store for allegedly providing Henry with alcohol. … Hess has been cleared of any wrongdoing by a grand jury but the U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing the case and Henry’s family has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Hess and the police department.” [News12, NY]
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“Some lawmakers in Albany want a state law to prohibit doctors from wearing neckties in hospitals.” They cite a study showing that infectious bacteria might be “carried on ties and other loose-fitting clothing.” [AP/WHEC] More: Scott Greenfield.
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An opinion from New York’s highest court last month begins as follows:
Petitioner, a New York City police officer, retired in 2004 and was awarded accident disability benefits. In the following years, the police department received information indicating that petitioner was not disabled; that he had made false representations to the Pension Fund; and that he had ingested cocaine, thus becoming ineligible to return to duty. The City, understandably, claims that it should not have to continue paying him a pension.
Under New York law, however, the City is wrong, the court reluctantly concludes. Meanwhile (via Philip Howard’s Common Good) a New York law forbidding the closure of a unionized facility without a year’s notice has meant that a disused juvenile detention center upstate is being kept going with no clients: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says “We’re paying 30 staff people to baby-sit an empty building,” and calls it “bizarre.” And another state law requires that school districts field buses with capacity to seat every eligible child every day, which means that in districts like Port Washington, L.I., where many eligible children come to school by other means, buses routinely travel half full, at an unneeded cost the Port Washington superintendent estimates at $2 million a year.
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Get your copy today! My new book tackles the question of why so many bad ideas come from the law schools. "Cutting-edge commentary, hard-hitting, witty, astute." -- Publisher's Weekly. "Excellent... A fine dissection of these strangely powerful institutions" -- Wall Street Journal.
Individual liberty, free markets, and peace: the world's premier libertarian think tank. Publishes Cato at Liberty, where I blog on contemporary policy issues.