On the medicalization of nearly everything: “Bitterness, Compulsive Shopping, and Internet Addiction” [Christopher Lane, Slate]
Lawyer representing Sarah Palin to blogger: do you want to be served with our defamation suit at the kindergarten where you help out? [Alaska Report via Rachel Weiner, HuffPo]
“The 7 Most Baffling Criminal Defenses (That Sort of Worked)” [Cracked via Popehat]
Canada: crash victim gets C$2M, sues deceased lawyer for omitting a defendant who’d have chipped in another C$1.3 million [Calgary Sun]
Privacy breach notifications mostly a costly waste of time but do keep lawyers busy [Lee Gomes, Forbes]
“News Websites in Texas and Kentucky Invoke Shield Laws for Online Commenters” [Citizen Media Law]
North Carolina suit against TVA “a sweet gig for the state’s attorneys” [Wood, Point of Law]
North Carolina’s alienation of affection law strikes again. [WRAL via Lawyers USA; earlier]
More from commenter “spudbeach”: “I am _sooo_ glad that I live in Wisconsin. Not only are alienation of affection lawsuits not allowed, it is actually illegal to even threaten one! Wisc. Stats. 768.03 makes it illegal to threaten, and 768.07 sets the penalty to $10,000 fine and/or 9 months in jail.” AndXRLQ observes that these laws (still on the books in Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah, as well as North Carolina) could impose liability not just on paramours, but on plain old friends or acquaintances who’d encouraged an unhappy spouse to leave a marriage. Yet more: Robinette, 2007 (via); The Briefcase.
No, discarding 500 once-loved stuffed animals doesn’t really amount to much of a story amid scenes of billion-dollardisruptions caused by this law elsewhere around the country. But if you’re one of the people who run the Second Fling consignment shop in Goldsboro, N.C., it might still seem kind of sad.
“I don’t know if that [quotation] is accurate, but I believe it and I support it,” said Mr. Kennedy, who has been involved in a vigorous legal effort against the meat industry for some years, arguing that manure and other products associated with large livestock producers emit toxic wastes that threaten the environment.
Mr. Kennedy also has said that a single hog consignment can put out more pollution than a city of a million people.
He has also said that every public official in North Carolina has been corrupted by the pork industry. He cited as evidence an editorial in a Raleigh newspaper, although he also said there may be some exceptions. …
Mr. Kennedy has said that he plans to go after all large farms in the country, not just pork producers. He has also said that the “right” lawsuit against livestock producers could bring damage awards of up to $13 billion.
While I don’t plan to promote my own blog here, because there’s not much to promote, this is a story that I think needs wider circulation. Police and prosecutorial abuse is a problem that’s gotten more attention in the past year thanks to a certain District Attorney, but it hasn’t gotten enough to suit me.
Suppose we have a jailhouse lawyer, who sues the local sheriff and district attorney for alleged civil rights violations. Suppose, just after filing that suit, the jailhouse lawyer gets into a fight with deputy sheriff jailers, and comes out on the losing end. As in, “a trip to the hospital for broken bones” losing end. Then suppose he’s charged as a felon for assaulting his jailers, and, in the office of the District Attorney who charged him, the same District Attorney he sued, a poster appears with photos of the inmate’s face before and after the trip to the emergency room, along the lines of a certain well known anti-drug commercial involving a frying egg.
North Carolina: “The town of Marshall agreed to pay $275,000 for banning [Rebecca] Willis from a community dance hall on allegations her moves were too risqué.” (Jon Ostendorff, “Woman walks with $275k in dance hall case”, Asheville Citizen-Times, Nov. 14 and Nov. 13; Jonathan Austin, “Lawyer says ‘dirty dancing’ case finally settled”, News-Record and Sentinel, Nov. 13).
A reminder to readers in the Raleigh-Durham area that I’ll be speaking at lunchtime today to the Federalist Society chapter at the law school in Chapel Hill, room 4082.
I haven’t been doing much traveling to speak over the past few years because of responsibilities close to home, but I’m planning a trip to the University of North Carolina on Wed., Nov. 12 to speak to the law school’s Federalist Society chapter. I might be able to combine it with another event the day before or after, presumably at some town or campus with direct flights to/from Raleigh/Durham. If you’re interested in hosting, let me know at editor – at – [this domain name] – dot – com.
Lawyers’ contingency fee is temptation to ethical corner-cutting in consumer debt collection, too [Miami Daily Business Review, Popehat; Orlando's Palmer Reifler & Associates, mass mailing of demand letters to accused shoplifters]
Should we and other commentators avoid mentioning litigants’ real names so as not to intrude on their Google legacy? [comments at Ron Miller/Md. Injury]
Environmental authorities won’t press charges against man who shot protected rattlesnake that had just attacked and bitten him [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
Thursday’s New York Times investigates Fred Baron’s role (Serge F. Kovaleski and Mike McIntyre, “Lawyers’ Ties Hint at Extent of Hiding Edwards’s Affair”, Aug. 14; AP/L.A. Times; commentary at Deceiver, Jeralyn Merritt/TalkLeft, Greg Pollowitz/NRO Media Blog, DBKP; earlier). And more from DBKP here and here. P.S. And I didn’t realize until reading USA Today’s profile that scandal figure Andrew Young has served not only as a loyal Edwards foot soldier, but also as a lobbyist for the North Carolina trial lawyers’ association.
Durham, N.C. lawyer Keith Hempstead says he’s dropping his suit against the Raleigh News & Observer (Jul. 14, Jul. 20), the one that charged that the paper’s quality had gone downhill because of staff cuts. Hempstead said his point had been made by the wide publicity accorded the lawsuit, during which he was interviewed by many major news organizations. (Leah Friedman, “Subscriber drops suit against The N&O”, N&O, Jul. 28). A nameless WSJ law blog commenter takes the view that announcing this rationale for dropping the suit sets up a “prima facie” counterclaim of abuse of process, should the newspaper choose to pursue one. Does it?
Update: Edwards persuades me that the story might be true when he gives a lawyerly non-denial denial filled with negative pregnants: “That’s tabloid trash. They’re full of lies. I’m here to talk about helping people.” Someone needs to ask a more targeted question of a purported candidate for vice president or attorney general.
So that this man can make his point, North Carolina taxpayers — and people with legitimate cases in that state’s courts — are just going to have to put up with a little extra burden:
A News & Observer subscriber is suing the newspaper for cutting staff and the size of the paper.
Keith Hempstead, a Durham lawyer, filed the suit last month in Wake Superior Court. He says he renewed his subscription in May just before the paper announced on June 16 the layoffs of 70 staff members and cuts in news pages.
The paper, he says, is now not worth what he signed up for and therefore the cuts breached the paper’s contract with him….
In a phone interview today, Hempstead, 42, said he could cancel his subscription but filed the suit to make a point.
Hempstead, a former reporter himself at a different paper who says he “loves” the N&O, has duly gotten a fair bit of publicity, certainly more than if he had just sent out a complaining press release or something. (Leah Friedman, “N&O subscriber sues the paper for cutting staff”, News & Observer, Jul. 10).
First you get hauled in by compulsory process, then you start having to look at the emergency room photos: “North Carolina is considering allowing jurors access to counseling services to cope with post-traumatic stress that can occur after exposure to graphic images and disturbing testimony during a trial.” (Molly McDonough, “Jurors ‘Haunted’ By Time in Courtroom,” ABA Journal, May 16).
According to a lawsuit filed by Chase, two Coral Springs attorneys are scamming their clients by promising to eliminate their debts, and then diverting debt payments for legal fees to file meritless lawsuits challenging credit card debts. The attorneys general of Florida, North Carolina, and West Virginia are also involved, and the Florida bar has moved to suspend the license of Laura Hess. “Defendants’ ulterior goals are to extract fees from card members who should be paying the money to Chase to satisfy their debts and to maliciously harass Chase in an improper (albeit unsuccessful) attempt to coerce the elimination of their clients’ legitimate debts.” (Bud Newman, “Chase Bank Accuses Florida Law Firms of Running Debt-Relief Scam”, Daily Business Review, Mar. 6).
Update: See also Mar. 6 Business Week; on-line at the self-reported Rip-Off Report; and WATE (Tennessee), Apr. 2. “‘The programs typically require financially strapped consumers to pay fees up front, so they make money whether or not any useful services are performed,’ says Philip Lehman, an assistant attorney general in North Carolina.”
Another bunch of things not to do if you’re a member of the legal profession.
Don’t get caught pursuing forged fen-phen claims. (Robert Arledge, Vicksburg, Mississippi, sentenced to 6.5 years, the only lawyer to date to be sentenced in a much larger fen-phen scandal.) [ABA Journal]
Don’t try to dissuade a witness from testifying at a deposition. (Cleary Gottlieb, which said it would appeal the judge’s order of sanctions.) [WSJ Law Blog]
Don’t inflate your GPA and include fake awards on your resume. (Gregory Haun, DC, recommended for suspension, resigned his six-digit BigLaw associate job.) [Legal Times]
Don’t end your jury service by casting a vote to break a deadlock and then sign a statement drafted by the plaintiffs’ attorney asking for a new trial saying that you did so so you can return to work. (California bar has recommended disbarment for Francis Fahy.) [ABA Journal; Recorder ($); Law.com ($)]
Don’t steal money from your clients by forging their signatures on insurance company releases to get their settlement money. (Richard Boder, New York, caught as part of a larger scandal involving the illegal use of paid runners to bribe hospital employees about auto accident injuries, sentenced to a year in prison.) [NY Law Journal]
Don’t read Maxim in the courtroom. (Todd Paris, held in contempt by North Carolina judge.) [WSJ Law Blog]
Don’t have an affair with a judge you’re practicing in front of, or vice versa. (Federal Way, WA, Municipal Court judge Colleen Hartl resigned after bragging about an affair with public defender Sean Cecil, who still has 5 Avvo stars for professional conduct, but has been the subject of a formal complaint to the bar.) [AP/Post-Intelligencer; Federal Way News; Lat]
There is a critical distinction between Mitt Romney’s and John Edwards’s wealth. Mr. Romney, as a businessman, made investments that created wealth. Mr. Edwards, as a trial lawyer, made his money through lawsuits that merely took from one pocket and gave to another, and probably destroyed wealth in the process. (Mr. Edwards’s multimillion-dollar medical malpractice verdicts almost certainly hurt the quality of health care in North Carolina.)
Little wonder that Mr. Romney understands that to improve the economy, one needs to expand the pie, while Mr. Edwards’s policy proposals focus entirely on the redistribution of the existing pie without thought for the future adverse consequences to the size of the pie.
Theodore H. Frank
Washington, Dec. 23, 2007 The writer is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
Tide turning against drug-pricing suits? Glaxo SmithKline beats back Kentucky case [Longstreth, AmLaw Daily] Court in Australia deems litigation funding pact improper as "unregistered managed investment scheme" [New Lawyer] Should docs be careful what they ask for? Michelle Mello... […]
An "uproar" has broken out over the state employee pension fund's prospective hiring of lawyers to file securities suits. "At least six firms from around the country have been courting the board of the Missouri State Employees Retirement System, or... […]
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has introduced H.R. 4115, the Open Access to Courts Act of 2009, to restore notice pleadings, i.e., the status quo ante Twombly and Iqbal. Nadler's news release announced the bill, "Nadler, Johnson, and Conyers Introduce Bill... […]
I got tired of hauling so many books around on plane flights, and decided to try downloading some Kindle books to my Ipod Touch. I don’t yet have a Kindle, although apparently if I am very, very good ... I know that Glenn Reynolds prefers the Ipod to read Kindle over the Kindle, but then [...] […]
Any thoughts on what the rule should be here? My sense is that numbers written using digits are much easier to quickly absorb, so I tend to write them that way whenever they refer to something that people might want to use in calculations or comparisons. I’d say, for instance, that “These books [...] […]
Last week, former OLC deputy John Yoo argued in the WSJ that the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York was a major mistake. Trying KSM in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda and the hostile nations that will view the U.S. intelligence methods and sources that such a trial [...] […]
This week’s National Journal poll of political bloggers started off by asking them to rank the importance of various media that the political blogger himself uses to stay informed. On both the Right and the Left, “websites/blogs” came in first. However, on the Left, daily print newspapers were second, while on the Right, they were [...] […]
No, discarding 500 once-loved stuffed animals doesn’t really amount to much of a story amid scenes of 
