Last year (Jun. 25, 2007) a furor broke out when a YouTube video revealed lawyers from the firm speaking frankly about skirting provisions of immigration law that require that a qualified domestic applicant be sought before hiring certain foreign workers. Now the U.S. Department of Labor has “announced that it has begun placing pending permanent labor certification applications filed by [the Pittsburgh-based law firm] into department-supervised recruitment. Supervised recruitment requires the employer to receive advance approval from the labor department for all recruitment efforts to ensure that U.S. workers are fully considered for available positions.” The move will undoubtedly make it harder for the law firm to compete for employer business in the immigration field. (”Recruitment filings by Pittsburgh law firm under U.S. Labor scrutiny”, Pittsburgh Business Times, Jul. 8; ABA Journal links to DoL press release).

• Ninth Circuit, Kozinski, J., rules 8-3 that Roommates.com can be found to have violated fair housing law by asking users to sort themselves according to their wish to room with males or other protected groups; the court distinguished the Craigslist cases [L.A. Times, Volokh, Drum]
• Class-action claim: Apple says its 20-inch iMac displays millions of colors but the true number is a mere 262,144, the others being simulated [WaPo]
• U.K.: compulsive gambler loses $2 million suit against his bookmakers, who are awarded hefty costs under loser-pays rule [BBC first, second, third, fourth stories]
• Pittsburgh couple sue Google saying its Street Views invades their privacy by including pics of their house [The Smoking Gun via WSJ law blog]
• U.S. labor unions keep going to International Labour Organization trying to get current federal ground rules on union organizing declared in violation of international law [PoL]
• Illinois Supreme Court reverses $2 million jury award to woman who sued her fiance’s parents for not warning her he had AIDS [Chicago Tribune]
• Italian family “preparing to sue the previous owners of their house for not telling them it was haunted”; perhaps most famous such case was in Nyack, N.Y. [Ananova, Cleverly]
• Per their hired expert, Kentucky lawyers charged with fen-phen settlement fraud “relied heavily on the advice of famed trial lawyer Stan Chesley in the handling of” the $200 million deal [Lexington Herald-Leader]
• Actor Hal Holbrook of Mark Twain fame doesn’t think much of those local anti-tobacco ordinances that ban smoking on stage even when needed for dramatic effect [Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times]
• Six U.S. cities so far have been caught “shortening the amber cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners.” [Left Lane via Virtuous Republic and Asymmetrical Information]

Over decades, the class-action titan paid secret kickbacks to pliant “representative” plaintiffs, then systematically falsified the nature of his relations to those plaintiffs the better to deceive judges, opponents, competing class action lawyers, and class members. He and his defenders are now portraying his offenses — even the systematic lying to courts — as minor and victimless. For some indications of why our legal system takes a very different view, see my WSJ op-ed of a year and a half back. Per Peter Lattman’s story/interview in today’s WSJ, “Mr. Lerach has requested, and the judge will recommend, that he be sent to Lompoc, a low-security federal penitentiary in Southern California often called a ‘country-club prison’ or ‘Club Fed.’”

Yesterday’s L.A. Times piece by Molly Selvin takes note of Lerach’s “trademark vitriol — he famously threatened to “destroy” companies that balked at settling”. Selvin also quotes NYU legal ethicist Stephen Gillers expressing concern that the spate of Milberg Weiss prosecutions “has to worry [lawyers] even if they’re doing nothing wrong because the Justice Department has shown its willingness to look into how they do business”. Gillers offers no examples of any Milberg lawyers who have been prosecuted despite “doing nothing wrong”, nor does he explore the question of how lawyers might exploit the impunity they would enjoy if the Justice Department permanently refused to “look into how they do business”. Indeed, if Lerach is right when he says kickbacks to named plaintiffs were industry practice in the class-action biz, it would seem that DoJ should have started “looking into how they do business” long before it did.

With fine understatement, Andrew Perlman at Legal Ethics Forum observes that it would “send the wrong message to students” for Lerach to be permitted to set up teaching legal ethics to law students at the University of Pittsburgh as part of his sentence. And taking a contrarian view, Larry Ribstein (via Bainbridge) says an appropriate comparison for Lerach would be to Michael Milken (Drexel Burnham) or Jeff Skilling (Enron) — but in the good sense.

More: This morning’s New York Times, a paper in whose columns Milberg Weiss long enjoyed cordial if not deferent coverage, buries the Lerach sentencing on an inside page of the business section. The paper’s “Dealbook” blog covers the story here. And The Economist recalls a “shouting match” in 2006 between Lerach and a leading British corporate governance advocate over whether litigation was the best way to address shareholder/manager conflicts. Plus: Charles Cooper, CNet.

• Remember those class actions against tech manufacturers for allegedly misstating the capacity of hard drives? Another one just settled, with buyers in for coupons and discounts, lawyers for $1.78 million [The Register, Cho v. Seagate Technologies settlement website]
• Watch what you say about lawyers, cont’d: Erie, Pa. paper thus far has fended off libel suit by Pittsburgh attorney over coverage of his run-ins with authorities over client treatment [Post-Gazette via Ambrogi]
• New at Point of Law: suicide risk of anticonvulsants?; Ohio AG Dann rebuked on foreclosure activism; simultaneous asbestosis and silicosis happens all the time at some law firms; Bush nominates an ATLA/AAJ member to a federal judgeship; and much more.
• Has a prominent investor with close ties to President Bush set up shop as an East Texas patent troll? [Troll Tracker, The Recorder]
• Embattled Tom Lakin and Lakin Law Firm, once high on the Madison County heap, fight to overturn $3.7 million legal-malpractice judgment [MC Record]
• Brent Coon suing former colleagues at Beaumont’s Provost Umphrey over division of billions in tobacco-fee booty [Texas Lawyer]
• UK judge criticizes “barking mad” human rights rules after prisoner refuses to leave his “comfy” jail cell to attend hearing [Times Online, Telegraph]
• “Six years after Enron, executives face greater risks—but investors are no safer.” [Gelinas/City Journal]
• United Farm Workers union threatens to sue over unflattering coverage [two years ago on Overlawyered]

• Joe Nocera’s recent column on the Vioxx settlement infuriated loyalists of the plaintiff’s bar, and they won’t like his new one on lead paint litigation much better [NY Times]
• Trial of Overlawyered favorite Jack Thompson over ethical charges leveled by Florida bar wraps up, but judge won’t rule right away [GamePolitics earlier, more recent posts]
• Two joggers hit by driver alongside Pacific Coast Highway will share $49 million from city of Dana Point — allegedly the bike lane was too wide — so now here come the concrete barriers [LA Times]
• Do makers of anti-PC documentary “Indoctrinate U.” owe cash to Indiana U. for infringing on its logo? [Maloney, OpinionJournal, Coleman] Update Dec. 11: settled.
• Casselberry, Fla. cop who sued parents after boy’s near-drowning in pool has now lost her job following public outcry over the incident [Orlando Sentinel; earlier]
• Lawyer who says he was defamed by commenters on DontDateHimGirl.com is back in court [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ambrogi, On Point; earlier here, here, etc.]
• Outspoken blog of BU prof Dr. Michael Siegel ticks off “tobacco control” activists [Beam, Globe]
• Warning label alert: old Sesame Street episodes unsafe for children? [Stier, Wash. Times]
• Furor mounts in and out of Canada over “human rights” complaint against Maclean’s over Mark Steyn book excerpt [Wente, Globe and Mail; Eteraz, UK Guardian; Steyn, NRO; Kimball]
• Judge rejects lawsuit by animal rights group challenging UCSF animal testing [SF Chronicle]
• New at Point of Law: How do all those big cases wind up in Judge Jack Weinstein’s court, anyway?; latest Richard Epstein podcast is on antitrust, Microsoft, AT&T, etc.; abuse of the Family and Medical Leave Act; welcome new contributor Marie Gryphon; Yale Law clinic sues Yale-New Haven Hospital; bar official dismisses concerns about cy pres slush funds; breastfeeding accommodation on the job, via lawsuit?; just what New York needs, a new state law school at Binghamton; and much more.

According to an indictment handed down by a federal grand jury, Erie, Pa.-based state appellate judge Michael T. Joyce, a ten-year Republican veteran of the bench,

received $440,000 in settlements for injuries he claimed “affected his professional and personal life in a very significant way” after an SUV rear-ended his state-leased Mercedes Benz at a traffic light in Erie.

Joyce claimed the accident made him unable to play golf, scuba dive or exercise. He also claimed the injuries prevented him from pursuing higher judicial office, according to the indictment.

The judge complained of constant neck and back pain, headaches, difficulty sleeping, anxiety and short-term memory loss, according to the indictment. He claimed he was in such pain from May to July 2002 that he could not play a round of golf or hold a cup of coffee in his right hand, the indictment said.

During the same period Joyce made these claims, he played several rounds of golf in Jamaica, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania, went scuba diving in Jamaica and renewed his diving instructor’s certificate, prosecutors said.

The indictment also alleges Joyce used some of the settlement money to buy a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a share in a single-engine Cessna airplane, property in Millcreek Township, Pa., and to pay down a personal line of credit.

(Peter Hall and Asher Hawkins, “Federal Indictment Looms Over Pa. Superior Court Judge’s Retention Race”, Legal Intelligencer, Aug. 17).

At first Joyce vowed to hold onto his seat, but after a public outcry, and a quick move by the state supreme court to suspend him from his duties pending resolution of the charges, he agreed not to stand for re-election in November. (”Indicted Superior Court Judge” (editorial), Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 22; Paula Reed Ward, “Indicted judge won’t seek retention”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 21; “The Joyce indictment: A matter of integrity”, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Aug. 21).

Too bad the courts have decided to leave the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause on the shelf, it might otherwise be helpful to everyone from Virginia motorists to sexual harassment defendants (Ralph Reiland, “The ignored amendment”, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Aug. 27). More resources here, here, and here (noting Supreme Court’s ruling in Browning-Ferris that the clause restrains excessive fines only when payable to the government, not private parties).

• Resolving dispute over author Pearl Buck’s lost manuscript was easier once we locked the lawyers out of the negotiating room, heirs say [Phila. Inquirer]


• After U.K.’s Channel 4 ran explosive show documenting pro-beheading, anti-Western rants at some leading mosques, government mulled race-incitement prosecution against… the network [Guardian via Reason "Hit and Run"]


• Breach-of-contract claim: 1-800-FLOWERS told his wife about the flowers he bought for his mistress, after promising not to [Lat, Houston Chronicle]


• “What are you going to do about lawyer jokes?” bar association demands of press-agent hopeful [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]


• You can buy fake doctor’s excuses on the web these days, not that anyone would ever abuse the Family and Medical Leave Act of course [Associated Press]


• Federal judge flays Qualcomm for “gross litigation misconduct” in defending patent suit, orders it to pay opponent’s fees [WSJ Law Blog]


• Jersey regulators keen to shutter eatery whose cook was dealing cocaine without owner’s knowledge, reminding Ralph Reiland of the fate of a restaurant whose manager “should have known” of sex harassment [Press of Atlantic City; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]


• Dropped out of Congressional race after domestic-violence arrest, now suing former father-in-law for lost salary she’d have earned on Capitol Hill if elected [Dayton Daily News]


• New at Point of Law: Atul Gawande says our malpractice system’s a “disaster”; Katrina canal-breach sense restored; Ohio Supreme Court rules against governor on product-liability veto; Paul Minor sentencing hearing (see also); and much more;


• Sacramento law firm that boasted of women’s advancement was itself a den of sleazy male behavior, complainants say [The Recorder]


• Craigslist roommate classifieds tripped up by “fair housing” law [two years ago on Overlawyered]

“An en banc Superior Court panel has ordered a new trial in a case in which a western Pennsylvania trial judge awarded $102.7 million in 2003 to one of the owners of a property company identified as being at the center of a mid-1980s Ponzi scheme.” Two couples, Thomas and Barbara Reilly and Edward and Karen Krall, each jointly owned half the stock in Canterbury Village Inc., a property development that was oversold in what was later described as a Ponzi scheme that bilked thousands of investors. When Canterbury Village landed in bankruptcy proceedings, an Ernst & Young predecessor was called in to organize the books, which were in great disarray. According to a judge’s footnote, “the male halves of Canterbury Village’s two couple-owners pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from the Ponzi scheme.” Mr. Reilly served about four years on fraud and tax evasion charges. The eventual reorganization plan approved by the court barred the Reillys and Kralls from any stake in the emerging business entity.

The Reillys then proceeded to sue Ernst & Young, alleging that its report had contained inaccuracies which had injured their business interests. When the Reillys filed requests for admissions in support of their allegations, Ernst first missed a deadline to respond and then, granted a do-over, omitted to include a required verification from its lawyer. The judge in response deemed Ernst to have agreed to all the requested admissions — in effect, preventing the firm from contesting the key elements of the Reillys’ case. A verdict was then entered on behalf of Barbara Reilly that “included $34 million for her ownership interest in Canterbury Village — half of the $68 million appraised value — plus an additional $50,945,222 in interest, based on a rate of 6 percent per annum beginning in 1986, for a total compensatory damage award of $84,018,989. Yeager also awarded her $18.17 million in punitive damages for a total verdict of $102,718,989.” The appeals panel has now decided, however, that loss (in effect) of its right to mount a substantive defense is too harsh a sanction for Ernst’s procedural fumblings, so a retrial is on its way. (Asher Hawkins, “Retrial Ordered in Nine-Figure Fraud Case”, Legal Intelligencer, Jul. 27; Karen Kane, “Seven Fields developer faults Ernst & Young in lawsuit”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 25, 2002).

So claims Joshua Marquis, vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, commenting on the Nifong-Duke lacrosse case. (Adam Liptak, “Prosecutor Becomes Prosecuted”, New York Times, Jun. 24). The reaction of Washington-based writer Carey Roberts: “Not by a long shot,” as witness a list with familiar names on it like Wenatchee, Wash. and the Scheck/Neufeld Innocence Project, as well as investigations by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Chicago Tribune, and more. (”The Nifong case - how rare?”, Washington Times, Jul. 29).

• Can’t possibly be true: Tampa man sentenced to 25 years for possession of pills for which he had a legal prescription [Balko, Hit and Run]


• Plaintiff’s lawyers “viewed [Sen. Fred Thompson] as someone we could work with” and gave to his campaigns, but they can’t be pleased by his kind words for Texas malpractice-suit curbs [Washington Post, Lattman; disclaimer]


• Pace U. student arrested on hate crime charges after desecrating Koran stolen from college [Newsday; Volokh, more; Hitchens]


• Little-used Rhode Island law allows married person to act as spouse’s attorney, which certainly has brought complications to the divorce of Daniel and Denise Chaput from Pawtucket [Providence Journal]


• Lott v. Levitt defamation suit kinda-sorta settles, it looks like [Adler @ Volokh]


• Trial lawyer Mikal Watts not bowling ‘em over yet in expected challenge to Texas Sen. Cornyn [Rothenberg, Roll Call, sub-only via Lopez @ NRO]


• Frankly collusive: after Minnesota car crash, parents arrange to have their injured son sue them for negligence [OnPoint News]


• Canadian bar hot and bothered over Maclean’s cover story slamming profession’s ethics [Macleans blog]


• Five Democratic candidates (Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Biden, Richardson) auditioned at the trial lawyers’ convention earlier this month in Chicago [NYSun]


• Donald Boudreaux’s theory as to why Prohibition ended when it did [Pittsburgh Trib-Rev via Murray @ NRO]


• Speaker of Alaska house discusses recent strengthening of that state’s longstanding loser-pays law [new at Point of Law]

Getting wide exposure on YouTube, and providing fodder for Lou Dobbs:

The video shows attorneys for Cohen & Grigsby, one of the largest law firms in Pittsburgh, explaining at a conference on immigration how to obey laws that require Americans be given top priority for jobs while still ensuring foreigners are hired.

“The goal here of course is to meet the requirements, number one, but also do so as inexpensively as possible, keeping in mind our goal. And our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker,” Lawrence Lebowitz, the firm’s vice president of marketing, told the audience in May.

(”Pa. law firm’s immigration talk hits YouTube; U.S. senator demands investigation”, AP/Arizona Star, Jun. 23; Sister Toldjah; Doug Ross). More: Kim’s Play Place says the lawyers were serving their clients’ legitimate interests and that if they can arrange compliance with the letter of an irrational law there’s no reason for them to show allegiance to its claimed spirit. Further: Gina Passarella, “Immigration Law Seminar Generates Unwanted Publicity for Firm”, Legal Intelligencer, Jun. 25 (& welcome Opinionator readers).

• Dontdatehimgirl.com lawsuit suffers another setback. A court ruled today that the Pittsburgh-based lawyer-plaintiff can’t sue the Florida-based website in Pennsylvania. (Howard Bashman). The suit against the website is frivolous in any case; it is well-established that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunizes the website. (The suit against the posters, on the other hand, is a legitimate defamation claim.) Previously covered on Overlawyered: Jul. 2006, Jan. 2007.

• In Easton, Pennsylvania, a police officer accidentally shoots and kills another police officer after cleaning his gun; now the widow is filing a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit against the city, the mayor, city administrator, the police chief, the shooter, the head of the SWAT team of which the players were both members, a fellow officer who was standing nearby, and the retired former head of the SWAT team. I’m sure one of them has the money.
• Philadelphia city councilwoman — and some tourism officials — wants to require licensing of city tour guides, including history tests, so that they don’t provide inaccurate history to tourists.
• In 1999, a 19-year old college student named Richard Beers was killed while working construction over the summer. He had stopped the backhoe he was using on a hill, left the motor running, and walked behind it. It rolled down and ran him over. So his family blamed… Caterpillar, which had manufactured the backhoe, and sued for $25 million plus punitive damages. Last week, an Ohio jury found Caterpillar not liable — and it only took eight years (six years after the suit was filed) to resolve the matter.

In August 2004, a security guard at a Pittsburgh restaurant roughed up Deven Werling, a patron who had insulted him. So Mr. Werling sued the restaurant, the security guard, and, of course… the city of Pittsburgh. It turns out that the security guard was actually a Pittsburgh police officer — an off-duty police officer — which made this assault a federal case. Now the city is paying $200,000 as part of a settlement the defendants reached with Werling just before trial (Post-Gazette; WTAE). Apparently,even though the officer was off-duty, he was working security in his official police uniform, and that may have been sufficient to put taxpayers on the hook.

Before you start feeling too much sympathy for the innocent city that was dragged into this suit, though, check out this nugget:

The city’s Office of Municipal Investigations found that Sgt. Eggleton contradicted himself under oath, and he was fired.

In October, the dismissal was reduced to a five-day suspension by then-Operations Director Dennis Regan. Mr. Eggleton continues to work as a sergeant.

So excessive force and lying under oath = five-day suspension. That will be red meat for the next plaintiff’s lawyer who sues the city over police brutality.

Many large bookstores carry sections devoted to works of African-American interest, and a number of book clubs and other specialized selling channels do a thriving business by specializing in black themes and authors. In October, however, Florida-based author Nadine Aldred, who writes under the pen name “Millennia Black“, filed a pro se lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan against her publisher, Penguin Group, on the grounds that Penguin (she alleges) insisted on steering her work into black-interest channels although she would rather have been marketed as a general-interest author. On the Wrong Side of the Alligator has reprinted excerpts from the complaint (Jan. 6).

The estimation of whether a particular author’s work will sell better if marketed to a niche or to a more general audience is inescapably going to depend on case-by-case judgment (assuming that marketing dollars and available cues of cover design, etc. are limited and cannot be dispatched in both directions at once). It is not immediately apparent why Penguin would not have an interest in taking a path that maximized its author’s sales. Aldred’s suit asks $250 million. See also Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, “Why book industry sees the world split still by race”, Wall Street Journal/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dec. 6.

P.S. Disclosure, for whatever it’s worth: Penguin was my publisher on my first book (The Litigation Explosion).

More: Charles E. Petit of Scrivener’s Error writes to say:

The real problem in this instance is not with Penguin. The real problem is an antitrust nightmare: the book distribution system, which is probably the paradigmatic example of “one man’s antitrust is another man’s economy of scale”–at least until you look into the financing and terms of doing business, which makes me ask “What economies of scale?” The _distributors_ are the ones who demand “pigeonholing” of books, and Penguin’s best defense will be to point out that books that are released _without_ a category tend to stay in distributors’ warehouses unshipped. In other words, “We had to put _some_ category on it as a business necessity, and this is the one that in our commercial judgment was the best fit.”

In antitrust; Pittsburgh; pro se; publishers; The Litigation Explosion

The sudden slamming of brakes on the housing boom seems to be coinciding with a rise in litigation against condominium developers, according to the Wall Street Journal. Most peculiar-sounding lawsuit mentioned: one against a Miami developer that has canceled an unbuilt 49-floor condo tower and, it says, has refunded prospective buyers’ deposits with interest. It’s still being sued by 58 buyers demanding the profits they expected to reap had the condos been built — though the plunging South Florida real estate market makes such profits sound, um, speculative at best. Maybe they should thank the developer for canceling. (Troy McMullen, “Condo buyers take developers to court over promises”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Nov. 11).

“Large universities now employ the equivalents of small law firms on staff, and it’s worth pondering what this Perry Masonification of our schools says about how they operate. …As Ed Stoner, a retired Pittsburgh lawyer who, over a 30-year career, represented numerous schools in Western Pennsylvania, told me: ‘People [today] are much less inclined to think, “I wouldn’t sue the university, it’d be like suing my mother.” People tend to look at the university as one more institution that might have a lot of money.’” (Mark Oppenheimer, “College Goes to Court”, OpinionJournal, Jul. 14).

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes a look at the system of plea bargaining and the pressure it can place on defendants to forgo their right to a jury trial of the charges against them. (Paula Reed Ward, Mar. 27)(via Balko).