• “Friend named superlawyer five years after she quit practice” [@vpynchon] #
• Unreality meets unreality: inmate Jonathan Lee Riches files third-party brief in World of Warcraft case [Duranske, Virtually Blind] #
• Uh-oh: new White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is on record as a supporter of “universal citizen service” [Lindgren @ Volokh] #
• Ralph Nader is vile (but you knew that) [Weigel, Reason "Hit and Run"] #
• U.K.: new pet welfare regs could mean jail for owners who fail to put obese dogs and cats on a diet [Daily Mail via Bookworm Room] #
• Frum: GOP future should be in going after educated voters [National Post] #
• Idea for re-use of McCain-Palin yard signs [Steve Hayward, NRO Corner] #

Ralph Nader’s “big campaign stop at Dartmouth College on Monday drew an audience of eight. The Connecticut Valley Spectator reported the news on its obituaries page.” (Mark Steyn, NRO “Corner”, Oct. 9). But note: other coverage of what was presumably the same event gives the total attendance at 40, specifying that under ten persons “appeared to be Dartmouth students”, which may be where the “eight” came from.

“A prominent class-action lawyer facing sentencing today for secretly paying plaintiffs to file securities lawsuits, William Lerach, is suggesting that the under-the-table practice was widespread and was not isolated to the firm he helped run for decades, Milberg Weiss. … Despite the highly publicized travails of what was once America’s leading class-action law firm, there has been little public discussion of whether other firms may have emulated the secret payment scheme Lerach and other Milberg lawyers devised.” Notwithstanding a request by Lerach’s lawyers that the letters from his friends and supporters asking clemency be sealed from public inspection, most of the letters have become public, revealing the identities of such entirely unsurprising Lerach backers as Ralph Nader (who in this one particular case did not favor prison for white-collar criminality) and Ben Stein, known to readers of these pages (though apparently not to many readers of his New York Times column) as an expert witness hired repeatedly by Lerach to help portray sued companies’ conduct in the harshest possible light. (Josh Gerstein, “Lerach Says Payoffs Were Widespread”, New York Sun, Feb. 11). Another letter writer: Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) And the list of letter-writers (PDF) includes “two redacted names in between Gordon Churchill and Charles Cohen”, leading to speculation that one or both surnames might be “Clinton”. It seems unlikely, though, that either prominent ex-White House resident would have risked the sort of negative publicity involved even as a gesture to acknowledge Lerach’s past favors. (CalLaw “Legal Pad”, Feb. 8)(corrected shortly after posting to reflect release of most letters by stipulation of parties, not judicial order). Update 4 p.m. EST: sentence is 24 months.

By reader acclaim: “A New York Jets season-ticket holder filed a class-action lawsuit Friday against the New England Patriots and coach Bill Belichick for ‘deceiving customers.’” Carl Mayer of Princeton Township, N.J., is suing over revelations that the Patriots unlawfully videotaped signals from Jets coaches in a Sept. 9 game. Mayer and his attorney, Bruce Afran,

calculated that because customers paid $61.6 million to watch eight “fraudulent” games, they’re entitled to triple that amount — or $184.8 million — in compensation under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act and the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act.

Mayer and Afran, who consider themselves public interest lawyers, have been thorns in the side of New Jersey politicians for years, filing lawsuits and demanding investigations to advance their grievances. They are well known in the state but generally have had little success in their causes.

Both have lost bids for elected offices, and Mayer once served as a presidential campaign adviser to Ralph Nader.

(Dennis Waszak Jr., “Jets fan sues Pats, seeks $184 million”, AP/Boston Globe, Sept. 28; ProFootballTalk “Rumor Mill”, Sept. 28). More: Sadly, No!.

A prominent and much-admired figure in conservative journalism for decades, Ralph de Toledano died last month at the age of 90. (Dave Zincavage, Feb. 6). The Washington Post in its obituary recounts a sequence of events that did much to darken de Toledano’s later years:

In 1975, consumer activist Ralph Nader filed a lawsuit against De Toledano in connection with a De Toledano suggestion — denied by Nader — that Nader had “falsified and distorted” evidence about the Corvair automobile. The case lingered in court for years and cost De Toledano his life savings. Paul Toledano [son of the author] said it was settled out of court.

(Joe Holley, “Ralph de Toledano, 90; author and ‘nonconformist conservative’”, Washington Post/L.A. Times, Feb. 10).

De Toledano in fact had published an entire critical biography of Nader, entitled Hit and Run: The Rise — and Fall? — of Ralph Nader, used copies of which remain available online — even Nader himself can’t prevent that. The entire episode — in which Mr. Litigation, then at the height of his public fame and influence, inflicted vindictive and personal financial ruin on a well-known journalist who’d had the temerity to criticize him — is one that you’d think would have provoked expressions of concern and solidarity from leading writers and civil libertarians of the day, and yet it didn’t (scroll to #8). The episode tends to get no mention these days in accounts of Nader’s life (which, whatever their varying opinions of his actions as a spoiler presidential candidate, tend toward cloying hagiography of his earlier career). And one consequence of its lingering chilling effect (who wants to volunteer to be the next de Toledano?) may be that no one will be willing to write another genuinely unsparing biography of Nader, at least for publication during the subject’s lifetime.

For a sampling of our posts about Nader, see Jun. 13, 2000; Feb. 22, 2004; and this set of 2000-2003 links.

Stephanie Mencimer, in a trolling post I really should just ignore, suggests that reformers are just “overprivileged white guys” who have “never flipped a burger” or driven an American car and whose “private schooling and Ivy League bona fides” mean we just want to stick it to the little guy.

Continue Reading »

Maryland PIRG complains about the toy industry:

Some toy manufacturers are over-labeling toys by placing choke hazard warnings on items that do not contain small parts. This could dilute the meaning of the warning labels, making them less useful to parents.

One looks forward to the day where a Ralph Nader-founded organization intervenes as amicus in a failure-to-warn lawsuit to make the argument that liability should not be found because holding a manufacturer liable will create incentives to over-label and dilute the meaning of warnings.

Ralph Nader is arguing that the Philadelphia Eagles’ decision to suspend star wide receiver Terrell Owens (for, inter alia, publicly criticizing the team and quarterback, shouting at coaches, a physical altercation with a teammate, and then failing to apologize) is consumer fraud because season-ticket holders had an expectation that Owens would play for the team, which barely lost the Super Bowl last year, and was an early favorite this year. (But what about all those New York Times subscribers who expected to read Judy Miller?) The suggestion rises to self-parody, though it exhibits the absurdity of modern consumer fraud law in that it isn’t crazier than suits that actually succeed. But I’m somewhat sanguine about Nader’s latest foray; if he’s tilting at the windmill of trying to make football coaching decisions litigable (Can a fan sue the Washington special teams coach for costing the team the game against Tampa Bay because it reduced the chance the team would go to the Super Bowl and the resale value of his season tickets?), it means he’s not spending time trying to wreck more important industries.

(Yes, I know that one shouldn’t blame the Washington special teams coach for losing the game. But it would be actionable under the Nader regime if a lawyer can find a fan who purchased tickets after hearing coaches say they were trying to avoid senseless penalties this season.)

“Ralph Nader says an architectural firm is now ‘putting final touches on the plans’” for his long-envisioned Museum of American Tort Law in his hometown of Winsted, Ct. “So far, says Nader, he’s raised half of the $4 million needed to open the museum — adding that he expects the rest to come from the trial-lawyer industry.” A New York Post editorial (Jun. 4) says all that needs to be said about the matter. See also John Leo’s 1998 column on the museum proposal, and our posts for Sept. 27, 1999 and May 16, 2000. P.S. Readers Troy Hinrichs and Walter E. Wallis write in to foretell the headaches the museum’s designers and groundskeepers will face as they try to prepare for opening day; the impending arrival of the world’s most litigious clientele will test to the limit their ability to anticipate slip-fall hazards, handicap compliance problems, potential injuries to burglars trying to sneak into the building after hours, and so forth.

Over at our sister website Point of Law, Jim Copland memorializes one of the more entertaining moments of this election season: arch-litigation advocate Ralph Nader’s denunciation of Sen. John Edwards as a “sniveling coward” for not more forcefully countering Vice President Dick Cheney’s support for malpractice reform at their debate. Jim also comments on trial lawyers’ role in the recent Sinclair Broadcasting brouhaha. Finally, there’s a link to a provocative George Will column on the presidential race from earlier this month.

“A good sign that Mississippi has passed fair tort reform is Ralph Nader not liking it.”

– Pete Smith, spokesman for Governor Haley Barbour.

(Lynda Edwards, AP, Jun. 18; previous coverage on Mississippi on Jun. 11 and Nader Mar. 1).

“The qualities that liberals have observed in him of late — the monomania, the vindictiveness, the rage against pragmatic liberalism — have been present all along. Indeed, an un-blinkered look at Nader’s public life shows that his presidential campaigns represent not a betrayal of his earlier career but its apotheosis.” (Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, Mar. 8). And Peter Brimelow, who with Leslie Spencer wrote a noteworthy piece of investigative journalism on Nader for Forbes more than a decade ago (”Ralph Nader Inc.”, Forbes, Sept. 17, 1990) has now reprinted that article at his VDare.com site. For more on Nader, see Feb. 22; Jun. 13, 2000; etc.

Reports from Capitol Hill indicate that Congress may be ready to pass a version of the filibustered Class Action Fairness Act (Oct. 21, Sept. 28, etc.) early next year after alterations to bring aboard three Democratic Senators who had supported the filibuster, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Chuck Schumer of New York. We haven’t had a chance to check the details of how good the resulting bill is, but one circumstance speaks strongly in its favor: Ralph Nader is really upset. (Charles Hurt, “Revised lawsuit-reform bill wins Democratic converts”, Washington Times, Nov. 27; Joseph Straw, “Nader slams Dodd?s class action reform act”, New Haven Register, Dec. 3; Bruce Alpert, “House, Senate avoid gridlock” (Landrieu), New Orleans Times-Picayune, Dec. 1). See also John Godfrey, “US Senate Democrats Seek To Revive Class-Action Bill”, Dow Jones/Yahoo, Nov. 17 (Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., also said to be open to compromise).

Trial lawyers are hoping to turn California’s endlessly abused and abusive s. 17200 “unfair competition” law (Oct. 26, etc.) to rich new account by using it to sue pharmaceutical companies over a variety of marketing practices that the U.S. Congress and Food and Drug Administration have not seen fit to ban. The Ralph Nader operation is helping out, while the litigation effort is being handled by Seattle trial lawyer and tobacco-caper veteran Steve Berman of Hagens & Berman (see Sept. 9-10, 2002 and links from there). (Bernadette Tansey, “Citizens use law to pursue drug firms”, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 23; plaintiff’s site (”Prescription Access Litigation”). Update: see Point of Law, Nov. 8, 2004.

Recount battles, 2002: “Campaign roundup“, Nov. 4-5. 2000: “O’Quinn a top Gore recount angel“, Dec. 15-17 (& letters, Dec. 20); “Supreme Court: forget that recount“, Dec. 13-14; “What was the Florida court thinking?” (Boies-submitted affidavit), Dec. 11-12; “Florida lawyers’ day jobs, cont’d“, Dec. 11-12; “Florida’s legal talent, before the Chad War“, Dec. 8-10; “Welcome Mother Jones readers“, Nov. 30; “Follow instructions, please“, Nov. 27; “Votes only lawyers can see“, Nov. 26; “Gore lawyers mishandled Illinois precedent“, Nov. 24-26; “Gore’s point man argued against dimples in 1996“, Nov. 22-23; “Descent into the lawyerclysm” (parody), Nov. 22-23; “The O.J. trial of politics“, Nov. 21; “Flow control“, Nov. 20; “Punch-outs, Florida style“, Nov. 17-19; “Palm Beach County ‘under control’“, Nov. 16; “Foreign press on election mess“, Nov. 15; “Election hangs by a chad“, Nov. 13; “Elections special: litigating our way into a constitutional crisis?“, Nov. 10-12; “Lawyers descend on Florida“, Nov. 9.

White House 2000, campaign: “Mickey Kaus on constitutional activism“, Nov. 10-12; “Election roundup“, Oct. 23; “George W. Bush on lawsuit reform“, Oct. 16-17; “Presidential debate“, Oct. 4; “I know [you] will give $100K when the president vetoes tort reform, but we really need it now“, Sept. 14, 2000 (& more coverage of call-sheet affair: Sept. 15-17, Sept. 19, Sept. 27-28); “The Veep that got away” (Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.), Aug. 15; “Bush-Lieberman vs. Gore-Nader?“, Aug. 14; “Litigation reform: the Texas experience“, Aug. 11-13; “Senator Lieberman: a sampler“, Aug. 8-9; GOP convention coverage (Aug. 4-7, Aug. 3); “CSE event in Philly” (”Sharkman”), Aug. 3; “Clinton’s trial-lawyer speech, cont’d“, Aug. 1 (& “a footnote”, Aug. 2); “Clinton’s date with ATLA“, Jul. 31; “No diaries for Cheney“, Jul. 31; “Veeps ATLA could love“, July 7-9; “Not with our lives you don’t” (gun suits as campaign issue), May 9; “Gore among friendly crowd (again)“, April 12; “Emerging campaign issue: ‘brownfields’ vs. Superfund lawyers“, Apr. 4; “Al Gore among friendly crowd“, Mar. 30; “Bush unveils legal reform plan“, Feb. 18; “Bill Clinton among friendly crowd“, Feb. 14; “GQ on Gov. Bush, Karl Rove and litigation reform“, Jan. 7; and see Ralph Nader coverage.

“Monitor vote fraud, get sued for ‘intimidation’“, Oct. 24, 2000.

Archived entries before July 2003 can be found here, where the following brief essay originally appeared:

The finest achievement of American trial lawyers, to hear many of them tell it, has been their success in identifying unsafe models of automobile and forcing them off the road. The Ford Pinto case is invariably put forth as an example of how a big company knowingly designed and sold an obviously defective vehicle for which it was properly chastised by means of large jury awards. (Ralph Nader has promised to put a Pinto exhibit in his proposed Museum of American Tort Law.) Almost as well known has been litigation over claims of “sudden acceleration” in Audi 5000s, in which the German-made sedans were said to dart inexplicably out of control even though their owners were pressing the brake pedal with all their might.

To be sure, the Audi case presents an inconvenient complication, namely that the cars weren’t inexplicably accelerating — a series of conclusive government investigations found that the drivers were in fact mistakenly pressing the accelerator thinking they were on the brake. Likewise with the controversy over “sidesaddle” gas tanks on some GM full-size pickup trucks, said to be inexcusably unsafe in side-impact collisions but revealed in real-world crash statistics to be considerably safer than the average vehicle on the road (which did not keep lawyers from winning at least one huge verdict against them).

Trial lawyers offer up the auto safety issue to public audiences and juries as a simple, satisfying morality play of wicked automakers versus helpless victims. It is seldom clear, however, what they would consider to be adequate safety performance. Every mass maker of vehicles for the U.S. market — even Volvo, even Lexus, even BMW — has faced lawsuits in American courts alleging that its designs are impermissibly unsafe. The explanation is not that all models are defectively designed, but that drivers of all models get into accidents — and when crash victims’ injuries are serious and the other driver underinsured, lawyers will often stretch quite a ways to find some theory or other that allows them to pull in the maker of the car as a defendant. Many such theories are available because auto design is a complex subject, because the circumstances in which accidents take place are often factually muddled and open to dispute, and because the design of all vehicles, even the full-size Mercedes, involves trade-offs between safety vs. expense, safety vs. convenience/enjoyment, and safety vs. safety (protecting passengers from front impacts versus protecting them from side impacts, for instance). But some trial lawyers seem to be willing to get up in front of a jury and downplay even well-known, longstanding safety trade-offs in vehicle design — such as the greater rollover hazard that drivers face in convertibles and in off-road vehicles with high ground clearance — in favor of the theory of a sinister conspiracy in executive suites to kill customers.

——————————————————————————–

The Audi case is written up at length in Chapter 4 of Peter Huber’s magisterial Galileo’s Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom (Basic Books, 1991), which is not online but is available through the Overlawyered.com bookstore. It is also discussed more briefly in his article “Junk Science in the Courtroom“. A short but vivid account appears in P. J. O’Rourke’s humorous account of the workings of government, Parliament of Whores (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991, pp. 86-87). The notorious “60 Minutes” show attacking the Audi comes in for a drubbing in our editor’s 1993 National Review expose of dubious crash journalism, “It Didn’t Start With Dateline NBC“, adapted and reprinted in The Rule of Lawyers, and is the subject of a valuable retrospective in the August 1998 Brill’s Content by Greg Farrell (”Lynched: Lurching Into Reverse”), which in turn provoked a fairly hysterical response from CBS executives.

In 1993, “Dateline NBC” was caught in one of the great television scandals of all time: filming a supposed “crash test” of a GM full-size pickup being hit and bursting into flames without telling viewers that the truck had been rigged with hidden incendiary devices and tampered with in various other ways to make a fire more likely. But in fact TV newsmagazines had been running highly dubious “crash test” footage for many years; the main difference was that in this case NBC happened to get caught. In the Dateline case, as in many previous instances of fakery, the network was guided and advised by crash “experts” who happened simultaneously to be working for the plaintiff’s lawyers in suits over the defects being alleged in the TV coverage. Not by coincidence, NBC aired its bogus report not long before an Atlanta jury was to hear a major liability suit against GM, the target of the show; they proceeded to vote an award of $105 million.

Overlawyered.com’s editor weighed into the controversy with pieces on the truck’s safety record (”‘The Most Dangerous Vehicle on the Road’“, Wall Street Journal, February 9, 1993), on the media’s reliance on plaintiff’s experts (”Exposing the ‘Experts’ Behind the Sexy Exposes“, Washington Post, February 28, 1993), and on the earlier history of questionable crash-test journalism at American networks (”It Didn’t Start With Dateline NBC“, National Review, June 21, 1993).

On the Ford Pinto case, the best resource is unfortunately not online, but is well worth a trip to the local law library now online: the late Gary Schwartz’s 1991 Rutgers Law Review article “The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case” (43 Rutgers L. Rev. 1013-1068). Schwartz, a law professor at UCLA and prominent expert on product liability, showed that (as our editor summed up his findings in 1993): “everyone’s received ideas about the fabled ’smoking gun’ memo are false. The actual memo did not pertain to Pintos, or even Ford products, but to American cars in general; it dealt with rollovers, not rear-end collisions; it did not contemplate the matter of tort liability at all, let alone accept it as cheaper than a design change; it assigned a value to human life because federal regulators, for whose eyes it was meant, themselves employed that concept in their deliberations; and the value it used was one that they, the regulators, had set forth in documents. In retrospect, Schwartz writes, the Pinto’s safety record appears to have been very typical of its time and class.”

In July 1999, rekindling a public debate about the irrationality of jury decisions in product liability cases, two California juries returned enormous verdicts within three days of each other: a Los Angeles jury voted $5 billion against GM for the allegedly defective design of its 1979 Chevrolet Malibu, and a jury in rural Ceres, Cal. returned a $290 million verdict against Ford in a case against its Bronco truck. The cases are discussed on Overlawyered.com in the entries for July 10, August 27 and September 10 (GM) and August 24 (Ford). In the General Motors case, plaintiffs successfully prevented GM from telling the jury that the accident had been caused by a drunk driver who had been convicted of a felony and imprisoned over the accident; or that the Malibu’s real-life crash statistics showed it to be safer than the average car of its era; or that the alternative crash design proffered by plaintiffs raised safety concerns of its own and was not widely used by other makers. In the Ford case, a long series of emotionally manipulative trial tactics by the plaintiff’s lawyers paid off when one juror told her colleagues that the reason they had to vote for liability had come to her in a dream.

In April 2000, after a two-month trial, the tables were turned when a federal jury found that the magazine Consumer Reports, frequently aligned with the trial-lawyer side in legislative fights, had made numerous false statements in its October 1996 cover story alleging a dangerous propensity to roll over in the 1995-96 Isuzu Trooper sport utility vehicle, but declined to award the Japanese carmaker any cash damages. The jury found that CR’s “testing” had put the vehicle through unnatural steering maneuvers which, contrary to the magazine’s claims, were not the same as those to which competitors’ vehicles had been subjected. Jury foreman Don Sylvia said the trial had left many jurors feeling that the magazine had conducted itself arrogantly, and that eight of ten jurors wanted to award Isuzu as much as $25 million, but couldn’t see their way to overcoming the high threshold to proving “malice”. The jury found eight statements in the article false, but in only one of these did it determine CR to be knowingly or recklessly in error, which was when it said: “Isuzu … should never have allowed these vehicles on the road.” However, it ruled that statement not to have damaged the company, despite a sharp drop in Trooper sales from which the vehicle later recovered.

January 31-February 2 – “Cities Pay Big in Faulty Lawsuits”. Fox News picks up on the theme explored by columnist Deroy Murdock a few days ago of how persons hurt while committing crimes or trying to commit suicide now often show up in court demanding compensation for others’ negligence in letting them be injured. This site’s editor went on camera to take a less-than-enthusiastic view of such suits. (Jan. 30) (DURABLE LINK)

January 31-February 2 – FBI probes Philadelphia’s hiring of class-action firm. “An FBI investigation is focusing on why current and former city officials gave potentially lucrative legal work to a top Democratic donor and resisted a judge’s efforts to seek competitive bids for the work.” The administration of Ed Rendell, since elected Pennsylvania governor, hired prominent class-action firm Barrack, Rodos & Bacine to represent the city as lead plaintiff in a large class action in California representing investors in Network Associates, a software firm. Through its senior partner, the law firm says it plans to cooperate with the investigation. (Cynthia Burton, Mark Fazlollah and Joseph Tanfani, “FBI investigates Philadelphia’s Pension Board”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 30). Update and more coverage: Mar. 21-23. (DURABLE LINK)

January 31-February 2 – “Valentine’s Card Burglar Sues Police”. From the U.K.: “A convicted burglar has been given legal aid to sue the police for sending him a Valentine’s card last year. Gary Williams, who has a 12-year criminal record, was one of 10 known burglars and car criminals who received cards from Brighton police. But when he opened the card, his girlfriend thought it must be from another woman. She was so cross that, before he could explain, she hurled an ashtray at him, and it went whistling past his head.” (David Sapsted, Daily Telegraph, Jan. 29) (DURABLE LINK)

January 31-February 2 – Fair housing law vs. free speech. On more than one occasion, when local residents have spoken out against the siting of low-income housing projects or group homes in their neighborhoods, they’ve faced (unsuccessful) lawsuits and attempted fines on the grounds that their speech constituted a civil rights violation. Now the Sixth Circuit has approved a more subtle way of discouraging residents from speaking their minds: impute their prejudiced views to the government that has allowed them to speak at a public hearing. It’s a good way of getting government bodies to stop holding public hearings for fear of liability, according to columnist Robyn Blumner (”Fair Housing Act cannot be used to gag residents’ displeasure”, St. Petersburg Times, Jan. 19). (DURABLE LINK)

January 31-February 2 – Manhattan Institute turns 25. The New York-based policy institute, with which our editor is associated, celebrates its quarter-century anniversary. Read more about it (Tom Wolfe, “Revolutionaries”, New York Post, Jan. 30; “Ideas Matter” (editorial), Jan. 30). Then visit the Institute’s website and sign up for its invaluable mailing list. (DURABLE LINK)

January 30 – “ADA Goes to the Movies”. The AMC chain pioneered stadium-style seating in movie theaters, which much improves sight lines for audiences and quickly became the industry standard. Then civil-rights activists swooped down, saying the new layouts (the earlier versions, at least) were unlawful because they provided too narrow a set of seating choices for patrons in wheelchairs. Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard takes up the story (Jan. 24). (DURABLE LINK)

January 30 – Targeting Wall Street. More than 200 mass tort lawyers recently met at Las Vegas’s Bellagio Hotel to discuss suing investment firms, at an event put on by the Mass Torts Made Perfect organization. Veterans of the breast-implant and fen-phen campaigns “are hoping to profit from the fallout of the $1.4 billion global regulatory settlement over stock-research conflicts, seeking to file claims on behalf of investors.” Law partners James Hooper and Robert Weiss “concede they don’t really know their way around Wall Street” but have already spent more than $1 million in television advertising in search of retired Florida clients who lost money in the market. “The pair is teaming up with Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Echsner & Proctor PA, a large mass-tort firm based in Pensacola, Fla., known for its filings against the tobacco industry, among others.” Messrs. Hooper and Weiss “recently filed 71 cases against Citigroup Inc.’s Salomon Smith Barney on behalf of investors who lost less than $25,000 apiece.” The newcomers have not met with a friendly reception from the existing plaintiff’s securities bar, however, who tend to sniff at their lack of a track record in the area. (Susanne Craig, “Lawyers Target Wall Street Following Regulatory Payoff”, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 29) (online subscribers only). (DURABLE LINK)

January 29 – State of the Union. “To improve our health care system, we must address one of the prime causes of higher costs — the constant threat that physicians and hospitals will be unfairly sued. Because of excessive litigation, everybody pays more for health care and many parts of America are losing fine doctors. No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit. I urge the Congress to pass medical liability reform.” (President Bush, State of the Union speech Jan. 28, reprinted, Quad City Times). Charles Krauthammer’s take: “Sick, Tired and Not Taking It Anymore”, Time, Jan. 13 (MedRants comments). And see James M. Taylor, “States Take Lead on Medical Malpractice Reform”, Heartland Institute Health Care News, Jan.(DURABLE LINK)

January 27-28 – Latest Rule of Lawyers publicity. Following appearances in New York and Washington, our editor is speaking on the book to a lunchtime audience Tuesday in Chicago; details here. Trips to Texas, California and elsewhere are in the works, as well as many radio programs. Famed InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds gave us a nice lift Friday in his MSNBC column (Jan. 24). Fox News Channel has now put online a partial transcript of our editor’s appearance last Thursday on “The Big Story” (posted Jan. 24). A CNN appearance is still pending. Eric Schippers of the Center for Individual Freedom gave the book a favorable review in the Federalist Society publication Engage, reprinted here. And Reason’s recent cover story/excerpt included a mini-author profile which we neglected to link earlier. (Jan.)

There’s more: Barnes & Noble Online gave the book one of its rotating “We Recommend” designations (Law category); both the Conservative Book Club/National Review Book Service and Laissez-Faire Books have picked the book as a selection and given it good write-ups; and e-versions are available for download from Franklin.com (requires proprietary software) and Palm Digital Media. (DURABLE LINK)

January 27-28 – “No suits by lawbreakers, please”. Syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock says a good place to start with tort reform would be to cut off lawsuits where the complainant’s own crime or suicide attempt was the preponderant cause of his injury. Among eyebrow-raising cases: “Disturbed, Angelo Delgrande shot and wounded his parents and himself in a June 1995 dispute. He then received surgery at a Westchester County, N.Y. hospital. That night, he yanked the tubes and monitoring devices from his body, then leapt off the second story of an adjacent parking garage in a suicide bid. He is now paraplegic. Delgrande sued the hospital for failing to treat his depression and keep him indoors. Last October, he won $9 million.” Also quotes our editor (Scripps Howard News Service/Sacramento Bee, Jan. 23) (& see Jan. 31) (DURABLE LINK)

January 27-28 – “Woman Attacked By Goose Sues County”. “A woman who says she was attacked by a 3-foot-tall goose is suing Palm Beach County, claiming the county should not have allowed the bird to roam in a public park.” Darlene Griffin, 30, says she was attacked on Feb. 5 in Okeeheelee Park. The county contends that it has no duty to protect parkgoers from “obvious” dangers. (Local6/WKMG, Jan. 24; CNN, Jan. 24). (DURABLE LINK)

January 27-28 – Don’t break out the shakes yet. Judge Sweet’s ruling last week in favor of McDonald’s has been widely hailed as a blow for common sense and individual responsibility, but the judge “generously gave the plaintiffs a chance to try their luck again” and “take a second bite from the burger”. Lawyers are likely to refile both the case at issue and new ones, after due study of Sweet’s opinion which may even provide a “jurisprudential roadmap” to liability. “Make no mistake: This case is not about fat kids. It’s about fat paydays. For lawyers.” (”Mickey D’s Hollow Victory” (editorial), New York Post, Jan. 23; see also “Lawyers Run Marathons, Not Sprints”, Center for Consumer Freedom, Jan. 23). More: some well-known plaintiff’s lawyers pooh-pooh the fat suits (James V. Grimaldi, “Legal Kibitzers See Little Merit in Lawsuit Over Fatty Food at McDonald’s”, Washington Post, Jan. 27). On the other hand, a Fortune cover story argues for taking them seriously (Roger Parloff, “Is Fat the Next Tobacco?”, Jan. 21). (DURABLE LINK)

January 24-26 – Malpractice-cost trends. Many mainstream journalists, accepting arguments pressed on them by defenders of the litigation business, have uncritically repeated the notion that the crisis in medical malpractice insurance owes more to insurers’ unwise Wall Street investments than to galloping litigation costs. But in fact, according to an expert on insurer portfolio management, “asset allocation and investment returns have had little, if any, correlation to the development of the current malpractice problem. The crisis is rather the result of a generally unconstrained increase in losses and, over several years, inadequate premium income to cover those losses.” (Raghu Ramachandran, “Did Investments Affect Medical Malpractice Premiums?”, Brown Brothers Harriman Insurance Asset Management Group, Jan. 21; see also post and comments at Megan McArdle’s site and earlier Jan. 1 post and comments). Doctors’ increasing willingness to walk off the job to protest the law’s expropriation — and politicians’ heavy-handed hints that they will face punishment if they do so — recall the producers’ strike in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, according to Edward Hudgins of the Objectivist Center (”Doctors Shrug”, Washington Times, Jan. 12). Ramesh Ponnuru argues that the Bush administration has not come up with an adequate grounding in federalism for a Congressional override of state malpractice law, given that it is a state’s own citizens who are the main losers from irrational verdicts (”Federal Malpractice”, National Review Online, Jan. 24). See also President Bush’s speech in Scranton, Jan. 16; White House “Policy in Focus: Medical Liability“; Michael Arnold Glueck and Robert J. Cihak, “It’s Not Just ‘Sue the Docs’ Anymore”, MedJournal.com blog, Jan. 14; RangelMD, Jan. 18; MedRants, Jan. 20; MedPundit, Jan. 19; Sydney Smith (MedPundit), “Dangerous Lies”, TechCentralStation, Jan. 21. (DURABLE LINK)

January 24-26 – Race-bias cases gone wrong. “The Florida Supreme Court has disbarred a Fort Lauderdale attorney accused of filing a string of racial discrimination lawsuits against employers such as Ocean Spray and BellSouth, which a federal judge labeled as extortion. Norman Ganz was disbarred for allowing his paralegal, a convicted felon, to engage in the unlicensed practice of law, charge an excessive fee and represent clients with adverse interests. … They were accused of filing a string of lawsuits against employers such as Ocean Spray, BellSouth, Broward County, Fla., and the Broward County School Board, then threatening to bring in the NAACP as a plaintiff. In return, the lawyers gave NAACP chapters some of the settlement money. … The cases also led to the ouster of Roosevelt Walters, former head of the Fort Lauderdale NAACP.” (Julie Kay, “Florida Lawyer Who Filed Controversial Racial Bias Suits Disbarred”, Miami Daily Business Review, Dec. 6). (DURABLE LINK)

January 23 – Judge tosses McDonald’s obesity case. “A federal judge in Manhattan today threw out a lawsuit brought against the McDonald’s Corporation by two obese teenagers, declaring as he did so that people are responsible for what they eat and that the teenagers’ complaints could spawn thousands of ‘McLawsuits’ if they were upheld. … Samuel Hirsch, the Manhattan lawyer who represents the plaintiffs … noted that Judge Sweet said the two teenagers were not barred from filing an amended complaint, and Mr. Hirsch promised to do just that, asserting that he still had a ‘credible and viable lawsuit.’” New York Times (reg); opinion in PDF format; GoogNews compilation; Reuters/FoxNews; AP/Court TV; Yahoo Full Coverage). And — rather undercutting the much-bruited notion that the increase in portion sizes at restaurants constitutes some sort of sneaky maneuver by restauranteurs having nothing to do with consumer preferences — “In a new study, researchers looked at such foods as hamburgers, burritos, tacos, french fries, sodas, ice cream, pie, cookies and salty snacks and found that the portions got bigger between the 1970s and the 1990s, regardless of whether people ate in or out.” (Deanna Bellandi, “Study Finds Meal Portion Sizes Growing”, AP/Washington Post, Jan. 21). (DURABLE LINK)

January 23 – Justices nix vicarious personal housing-bias liability. More good news: vacating a Ninth Circuit ruling, the Supreme Court has unanimously decided that under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 the owner of a real estate agency cannot in most cases be made to pay personally for the discriminatory acts of an underling without some further direct showing of fault. The agency’s liability was not in question; the question was instead whether the owner’s personal assets should be at risk if the agency lacked money to pay a judgment. A sobering aspect of the case: the Bush Administration entered it against the agency owner, arguing that he should be held personally liable but on a different legal theory (that the agency was legally an alter ego of his). The high court did not resolve that possible theory of liability. (Linda Greenhouse, “Justices Limit Housing Bias Lawsuits”, New York Times, Jan. 22)(reg) (DURABLE LINK)

January 23 – Our editor on TV. On Tuesday, kicking off a media swing to promote The Rule of Lawyers, our editor was a guest of Court TV’s Catherine Crier, who said some extremely kind things about the book (which rose to #265 on Amazon, helped by the WSJ’s great review the same day). Today (Thursday) afternoon, watch for him to be interviewed by Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox News Channel’s The Big Story with John Gibson. And although bookings are always subject to last-minute change, don’t be surprised if he turns up Friday evening on CNN. (DURABLE LINK)

January 21-22 – Not my partner’s keeper. No joint and several liability for us, please: “In a sign of increased caution in the post-Enron world, two of New York’s most prominent law firms have elected to become limited liability partnerships. Sullivan & Cromwell and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison both acquired Limited Liability Partnership status effective Jan. 1, thus ending a combined 250 years of operation as general partnerships.” The effect is to insulate partners from having to pay for each others’ negligence or other wrong, even if greater vigilance by the firm as a whole might have reduced the likelihood of wrongdoing. (Anthony Lin, “Prominent Law Firms Move to Limit Liability”, New York Law Journal, Jan. 10). (DURABLE LINK)

January 21-22 – ATLA’s hidden influence. From the Capital Research Center, which keeps tabs on activist groups: “The movement for tort reform has been stalled by an unholy alliance of trial lawyers and consumer advocates eager to preserve the power to sue. But few Americans understand the ties linking Ralph Nader-inspired groups to the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.” Includes considerable information about ATLA’s generosity to various private groups which lobby against limits on medical malpractice litigation. Also quotes this site (Neil Hrab, “Association of Trial Lawyers of America: How It Works with Ralph Nader Against Tort Reform”, January (summary; “Foundation Watch” report in PDF format)). (DURABLE LINK)

January 21-22 – “Tort turns toxic”. Overview of how litigation is wreaking havoc in diverse sectors of the society, from medicine to terrorism insurance, includes particular attention to the problems it’s creating for affordable housing. Construction of condominiums and apartments in California and other Western states has become much more expensive to insure because of burgeoning litigation over allegedly defective construction, some of the allegations well grounded but others drummed up by eager solicitation of condo associations by lawyers. By the year 2000, insurers in California were paying out nearly $3 for every premium dollar collected from builders, and imposing big premium hikes. Multi-unit housing construction has now plunged, and major builders have shifted efforts from affordable condos to pricier freestanding homes, perceived as a lower litigation risk. (Steven Malanga, “Tort Turns Toxic,” City Journal, Autumn 2002). (DURABLE LINK)

January 21-22 – Welcome Wall Street Journal readers. Highly favorable review of our editor’s new book The Rule of Lawyers: “an entertaining, but disturbing, chronicle of class-action abuses … Mr. Olson’s engaging prose, for all its charm, is propelled by a sense of outrage at the abuses he describes: He slams his opponents onto the mat, lets them rise slightly in a daze and then slams them down again, round after round.” Also mentions this website (David A. Price, “In a Class By Themselves”, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 21 (online subscribers only)). (DURABLE LINK)

May 31-June 2 – Welcome Fox News viewers/readers. Our editor is interviewed on air and quoted in print in this piece on the quest to make casinos and lottery operators the next Big Tobacco (Alisyn Camerota, “Trial Lawyers Target Gambling”, Fox News, May 31) (see May 20-21). (DURABLE LINK)

May 31-June 2 – “After stabbing son, mom sues doctors”. Pennsylvania: “Janice Taylor, who stabbed her 4-year-old son two dozen times outside their Lake Ariel home in 2000, is suing her doctors for not adequately responding to her psychosis as she neared the end of a pregnancy.” (Scranton Times Tribune, May 29). (via WSJ OpinionJournal “Best of the Web“, May 30). (DURABLE LINK)

May 31-June 2 – Activist judges north of the border. In the United States judicial activism has been falling into gradual disrepute for a quarter century, but in Canada many highly placed jurists seem eager to boogie like it’s 1975: the Ontario Court of Appeal has just struck down as unconstitutional one of the central planks in welfare reform, the principle that recipients with live-in boyfriends should not draw benefits accorded to single mothers. It’s only the latest in a long string of decisions in which judges seem to be writing their own preferences into law, according to columnist Christina Blizzard. Earlier this year the Supreme Court of Canada struck down as unconstitutional a Conservative government’s repeal of a law authorizing unionization of workers on family farms, although the effect of the repeal would only have been to revert to the state of the law as of a couple of years previously. Next up: a challenge to another plank of welfare reform, a lifetime ban on payment of benefits to persons caught cheating the system. Paging Mickey Kaus — they need you up there! (Christina Blizzard, “Disorder in the court”, Toronto Sun/Canoe, May 18). On U.S. judicial activism, see John Leo, “Running away with the law”, U.S. News/Jewish World Report, May 13. (& see letter to the editor, Jun. 14). (DURABLE LINK)

May 31-June 2 – Folk medicine meets child abuse reporting. The Vietnamese and Hmong folk remedy cao gio, or coining, “involves the rubbing of warm oils or gels across a person’s skin with a coin, spoon or other flat object. It leaves bright red marks or bruises, but many Asian families believe the marks represent bad blood rising out of the body and allow improved circulation and healing.” The lesions are typically not of medical significance, according to many Western medical observers, but they sometimes lead school and social service workers to report suspected child abuse, in part owing to the influence of laws mandating that possible instances of abuse be reported even if borderline. In Omaha, following such reports, police swooped down and removed ten children from their parents; following an outcry, charges against the parents were dropped and the children were returned to their homes. (Omaha World-Herald coverage including Joe Dejka, “Asian couples work to get children back”, May 3; Jeremy Olson, “Asian remedy raises few alarms elsewhere”, May 3; Joseph Morton, “2nd coining case dropped; Asian family expresses relief”, May 14; Karyn Spencer and Angie Brunkow, “Officials not sanctioning all ‘coining’”, May 17). (DURABLE LINK)

May 30 – “Oxy Morons”. “Last fall,” reports Forbes, North Carolina law firm Lutzel & Associates “sent a letter soliciting users of [time-release pain medication] Oxycontin and several other drugs. Claiming that the Food & Drug Administration had ‘banned’ the medications, the letter advised them to ’stop using’ the drugs immediately.” But in fact Oxycontin was neither banned nor threatened with removal, and for a patient suffering pain suddenly to discontinue its use without a doctor’s recommendation can result in medically serious consequences as well as needless agony. (Ian Zack, “Oxy Morons”, Forbes.com, Apr. 29). Despite vigorous efforts by some plaintiff’s lawyers to stoke mass tort litigation over the drug (see Apr. 10 and links from there), the National Law Journal reports that drugmaker Purdue Pharma has “had a string of confidence-building victories in early litigation.” (Bob Van Voris, “OxyContin Maker Not Yet Feeling Much Pain”, National Law Journal, April 30). (DURABLE LINK)

May 30 – “Privileged chambers”. Earlier this year the Albany Times Union ran a five-day editorial series (”Unequal Justice” — scroll down to find it) on judicial misconduct in New York state. It concluded that discipline is generally lax when Empire State judges behave badly and that it can take years to remove a jurist from the bench even after charges of serious misconduct (”Privileged chambers”, Feb. 3; “Justice denied”, Feb. 4; “Conduct unbecoming”, Feb. 5; “Starving the watchdog”, Feb. 6; “The need for reform”, Feb. 7). (DURABLE LINK)

May 29 – Our editor interviewed. John Hawkins at Right Wing News interviewed our editor by email about this site and our ideas on legal reform, and publishes the results this morning (”An Interview with Walter Olson“). Earlier interviewees in the series include Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit, Wendy McElroy of iFeminists and FoxNews.com, and Australian journalist Tim Blair. Update: nice things said about this by Protein Wisdom, VodkaPundit, and Eve Tushnet.

May 28-29 – The scandal of the Phoenix memo. It warned FBI higher-ups that Islamic radicals including followers of Osama bin Laden were training at American flight schools. So why wasn’t it followed up? FBI director Robert Mueller told Senators May 8 that it would have been a “monumental undertaking” to investigate the 20,000 or so students at domestic flight schools. “What a load of nonsense,” writes Christopher Caldwell. “Any small-town newspaper reporter could have narrowed down that 20,000 to under a hundred in an afternoon, just by focusing on names like … oh, I don’t know … try Mohamed, Walid, Marwan, and Hamza. Couldn’t the entire FBI have done the same?

“As it turns out, no. And the reason is, whoever got Williams’s memo would understand that there is one commonsensical way to implement it: Look for Arabs. And given congressional pressure on racial profiling and the president’s own outrageous pandering on the subject during the 2000 election campaign, Williams’s lead was something no agent with an instinct for self-preservation would want to touch with a barge pole.” (Christopher Caldwell, “Low Profile”, Weekly Standard, May 24) (via WSJ Best of the Web, May 24). See also John Fund, “Willful Ignorance”, WSJ OpinionJournal.com, May 22; “Key Lawmaker: Probe of FBI Warrant Will Look at ‘Racial Profiling’ Concerns”, AP/Fox News, May 26). Update: perfect Mark Steyn column (”Stop frisking crippled nuns”, The Spectator, May 25). (DURABLE LINK)

May 28-29 – “Rocketing liability rates squeeze medical schools”. “The University of Nevada School of Medicine in Reno could be forced to close if it can’t find affordable liability insurance by June 30. In West Virginia, Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington has cut its pathology program and is trimming resident class size. Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey is cutting faculty salaries, which will make it hard to land top researchers. ‘The sudden, very large increase in expenses that were not anticipated or budgeted is creating a great deal of anxiety,’ says Jordan J. Cohen, MD, president of the Assn. of American Medical Colleges.” (Myrle Croasdale, American Medical News, May 20). (DURABLE LINK)

May 28-29 – “Barbed wire might hurt burglars, pensioner warned”. In Northampton, England, 94-year-old Ruby Barber has finally gotten permission from the borough council to put barbed wire on her garden walls after suffering four break-ins to her bungalow over the past year and a half. The council granted permission “as long as she uses warning signs and agrees to take full responsibility if a would-be intruder is injured“. Her son Burt, who lives nearby, said: “It is bordering on the ridiculous to say that if they hurt themselves getting in here I am responsible. The Queen has got it all around Buckingham Palace and if it is good enough for her it is good enough for my mother. She is the Queen to me.” (Ananova, May 24). (DURABLE LINK)

May 28-29 – Must-know-Spanish rules defended. Recently it was reported that a Miami social services agency was requiring an Anglo worker to learn Spanish on pain of losing her job. Some commentators were upset, but Eugene Volokh, of the Volokhii, argues that “speaking a foreign language is a valuable skill, and … employers may legally discriminate against employees who lack this skill”. (Volokh blog, May 8, May 11; Jim Boulet Jr., “Mandatory Spanish”, National Review Online, May 10, and running commentary by Boulet at English First site). And the factual background of the case turns out to be considerably less simple than first reports indicated; not only does the county deny that failure to learn Spanish was the reason for the worker’s firing, but it seems she held herself out as having “proficiency” in that language when she accepted the job (Jay Weaver, “Poor work, not language barrier, got employee fired, court says”, Miami Herald, May 11). (DURABLE LINK)

May 28-29 – Goodbye, Wendell Barry. Eve Tushnet administers a well-deserved thrashing to the overrated localist (”Hayseeds and Straw Men”, Eve Tushnet blog, May 27) (DURABLE LINK)

May 27 – McArdle on food as next-tobacco. “If you can’t be held responsible for what you put in your mouth, what are you responsible for?” (Megan McArdle, “Can We Sue Our Own Fat Asses Off?”, Salon, May 24). See also Duncan Campbell, “Junk food firms fear being eaten alive by fat litigants”, The Guardian, May 24; Jacob Sullum, “Food Fight”, Reason Online, May 10 (& see Jun. 3-4). (DURABLE LINK)

May 27 – “Lawsuit stifles Internet critics”. The Richmond Times-Dispatch and Long Island Business News have new stories out on the PetsWarehouse case (in which a pet store owner has sued aquatic plants hobbyists on charges of online defamation based on their postings on mailing lists and websites — see Aug. 6, 2001 & May 22, 2002). Both interview several parties, including defendant Dan Resler (a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University), plaintiff Robert Novak, and (in the Richmond paper) free-speech law commentator Rodney Smolla. A key factor working to defendants’ disadvantage: liberal jurisdictional rules which allow a plaintiff to file an Internet libel case in his local court (in this case the Eastern District of New York) and force defendants who live in distant states to shoulder the cost of litigating there from a distance. (Gordon Hickey, “Online speech not free”, Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 26). In Long Island Business News, owner Novak is quoted as being aware of this cost asymmetry: “‘It’s only five miles for me,’ he said. ‘All these people have to come here at their own expense.’” (Ken Schachter, Long Island Business News, “PetsWarehouse.com founder dries out aquarists in courts”, May 24-30). More on Internet jurisdiction: Carl S. Kaplan, “A Libel Suit May Establish E-Jurisdiction”, New York Times, May 27 (reg). Update Oct. 4-6: Novak sues Google and other defendants. Further update: Oct. 5, 2003. (DURABLE LINK)

May 24-26 – Nader credibility watch. In France, the litigation advocate called fast-food restaurants “weapons of mass destruction”. (”Ralph Nader met en garde les Français contre les ‘fast food’”, Yahoo/AFP, May 17; via Matt Welch, May 18; see comments at Tim Blair blog, May 26). More on Nader’s credibility or lack thereof: Matt Welch, “Speaking Lies To Power”, Reason, May; Thomas Oliphant, Boston Globe, Apr. 21. (DURABLE LINK)

May 24-26 – “Counseling center may face closure”. Chickasha, Okla.: “The largest civil verdict in Grady County history may mean the county’s largest mental health center will have to close for financial reasons, officials said Wednesday. A $1.5 million jury verdict awarded last week against Chisholm Trail Counseling Service was a bittersweet victory for the family of James Phillips, who committed suicide a few hours after being interviewed and released by one of the agency’s counselors.” (Penny Owen, The Oklahoman, May 23). (DURABLE LINK)

May 24-26 – Australia’s litigation debate. “Some of Australia’s most famous beaches face closure after a huge damages award to a man paralysed while swimming at Bondi Beach, local authorities have warned.” (BBC, “Closure ‘threat’ to Australia’s beaches”, May 14). Former chief justice of the High Court of Australia Harry Gibbs “said the culture of litigation had been fostered by some lawyers, while some judges seemed to strive to find a reason for finding in favour of an injured plaintiff and award damages in cases where a reasonable and informed person would not have thought the defendant was at fault. He said the deficiencies of the law of negligence had now become apparent. ‘It favours generosity to the plaintiff at the expense (in many cases) of justice to the defendant’.” Gibbs suggested that Australia might want to consider emulating the New Zealand model under which most negligence actions are replaced with a system of no-fault compensation. (”Lawyers blamed for crisis” (editorial), Queensland Courier-Mail, May 16). See Susanna Lobez, “Snails, Consumer Power and the Law”, ABC national radio transcripts, The Law Report, June 1, 1999)

“The latest figures available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that as of June 30, 1999, there were 10,819 barrister and solicitor practices in Australia, an increase of 11 per cent over three years, and these practices generated an income of $7.04 billion, a robust 27 per cent increase over three years. Income from personal injury cases grew still faster, by 31 per cent.” What strikes us as remarkable about these figures is not just the rapid growth in sums redistributed, but that the figures are obtainable at all. Virtually no data is available, reliable or otherwise, on how much money American lawyers receive in the aggregate from personal injury cases. Why not? If the answer that occurs to you is “because our legal profession doesn’t want it to be collected”, you may be on to something. (Paul Sheehan, “Laws made by lawyers — well they would like that, wouldn’t they?”, Sydney Morning Herald, May 6). (DURABLE LINK)

May 22-23 – Convicted hospital rapist sues hospital. “A Sandusky man serving a 10-year sentence for raping a patient at the former Providence Hospital is suing both the hospital and his former attorney for negligence, according to Erie County Common Pleas Court records. Edward Brewer filed suit Monday against Providence Hospital, now part of Firelands Regional Medical Center, for ‘inadequate security in protecting visitors as well as their patients’ which caused him pain and suffering, according to court documents. Brewer, 47, was found guilty in October of raping a 44-year-old acquaintance in her hospital bed in June 1998. … Brewer claims negligence by the hospital, including a poorly trained nursing staff, negatively affected his criminal case, according to the suit.” The suit, which Brewer filed on his own behalf, asks for $2 million in damages; separately, Brewer is suing his former criminal attorney. (Emily S. Achenbaum, “Convicted rapist sues hospital”, Sandusky [Ohio] Register, May 21). Update: court dismisses case, see Mar. 5-7, 2003. (DURABLE LINK)

May 22-23 – Reparations suits “pure hooey”. The “slave-reparation plaintiffs have articulated neither standing nor a cognizable claim. In the final analysis, these cases are not really about pushing the envelope and making new law. Rather, they are part of a strategy to inflict public relations damage in order to coerce political and economic concessions. The federal courts should stand firm against this gathering storm, dismiss the lawsuits and leave the complex issues of social policy they raise to the political process.” (Steven P. Benenson, “Reparations Suits Are Too Little, Too Late”, National Law Journal, May 20). “Any judge not assessing sanctions for the filing of frivolous litigation should be ashamed. … So much for laches, the statute of limitations and all the other legal devices that assure that disputes are resolved in a timely manner. No wonder the world laughs at our love of litigation.” (Norm Pattis, “The Color of Money: It’s Red for Reparations”, Connecticut Law Tribune, Apr. 15).

“The villain Calvera said, ‘Generosity, that was my first mistake,’ as he peered ominously from beneath his mega-sombrero at the gringo gunman in the classic scene from the 1960 film The Magnificent Seven. … Honchos at Aetna Inc., the insurance company named in a recent lawsuit seeking reparations for slavery, must be remembering that quote right about now.” (Gregory Kane, “Generosity goes unnoticed in slavery reparations lawsuit”, Baltimore Sun, Apr. 20). Kane says Aetna has responded to the suit with “infuriating wussiness” and says “what Aetna bigwigs should tell [plaintiff-activist Deadria] Farmer-Paellmann and her lawyers [is]: ‘Get a life!’” (DURABLE LINK)

May 22-23 – PetsWarehouse.com defamation suit, cont’d. Last year we reported on the ongoing litigation filed by Robert Novak, founder and owner of PetsWarehouse.com, against members of an internet discussion list that he said had defamed him and his company (see Aug. 6, 2001; letter to editor from Novak, Aug. 10). Many aquarium enthusiasts, alarmed by the legal action, have at various times posted information on their sites about the suit, sometimes posting banners that solicit donations on the defendants’ behalf. (”$15,000,000 lawsuits suck the life out of online discussions. Please support the APD Defense Fund,” reads one.) According to Katharine Mieszkowski, writing last month in Salon, a number of these site operators have been given reason to regret that they ever took such rash steps. In particular, according to Mieszkowski, Novak has proceeded to add more defendants to the suit, including supporters of the APD Defense Fund who put up its banner solicitations, and the webmaster of a site that had posted information on the case, charging them with violating his PetsWarehouse copyright and engaging in a conspiracy against him. Among evidence of copyright infringement offered in his suit was webmasters’ use of Pets Warehouse as a “metatag”, that is to say, a keyword directed at search engines but not normally seen by ordinary users (more on metatag litigation: Sept. 25, 1999).

A number of defendants have settled out of the case, including a Colorado webmaster who says she spent thousands on her defense and who turned over the rights to her domain to Novak as part of the settlement, having shut it down after being sued. “Other defendants had to run banners on their sites promoting Pets Warehouse.” “According to [defendant Dan] Resler, at one point, the money in the defense fund ran out, and when the defendants had to start paying out of their own funds, they got scared. (Novak is representing himself ‘pro se’ in the case.)” Resler himself agreed to pay $4,150. “Beyond the lawsuit itself, other supporters of the case say they have received cease-and-desist letters for using the words ‘Pets Warehouse’ on their sites.” Among them: the webmaster of a site that “features a banner advertisement that mentions the case with this headline: ‘Pets Warehouse Sues Hobbyists’ and links to the aquarists’ site about the case. ‘I’m just literally reporting that the case exists and linking to another site,’ he says.” (Katharine Mieszkowski, “Free speech and the Internet; a fish story”, Salon, Apr. 4). (DURABLE LINK)