- Because judges should decide cases the way clamoring crowds want them to: “Occupy the Courts” [Althouse, Somin, earlier] Pittsburgh lawprof: bank’s office park has become public forum and is ours to seize [Daily Caller]
- Some reactions to Megaupload indictment [Julian Sanchez, Ken at Popehat]
- Kozinski, others trade quips at oral argument in Disneyland Segway ADA case [Courthouse News via Disabilities Law, earlier] “Ouch! Judge Posner eviscerates both a damages expert and the trial judge who let him testify against FedEx” [Technology Law Notes]
- Victim of NYC gun laws: “Free Meredith Graves” [NRO] “NYC Business Bled To Death Over Toy Guns” [Moonbattery]
- “Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Swipe: A Critique of the Infancy Rule in the Federal Credit Card Act” [Andrew Schwartz (Colorado), SSRN, via Ted Frank]
- Federal drug cops unapologetic about role in Adderall shortage [Rob Port] A failure of central planning [Reuters, Jacob Sullum and more ("Does the DEA know what 'quota' means?")] Some trial lawyers pushing to ban the drug [via Ted Frank].
- Go, my child, and steal no more: TSA agents who pilfered $40K from luggage get six months [AP via Balko]
Tagged as:
Alex Kozinski,
crime and punishment,
debtor-creditor law,
Disney,
guns,
NYC,
pharmaceuticals,
Pittsburgh,
Richard Posner
Said Judge Posner, of an alleged serial spammer’s courtroom presentation. “It’s not only incompetent, it’s grotesque. You’ve got damages jumping around from $11 million to $130 million to $122 million to $33 million. In fact, the damages are probably zero.” [Timothy Lee, Ars Technica]
Tagged as:
damages,
Richard Posner
An uninvited-fax case gives the judge a chance to express some views on the typicality, credibility and adequacy of class representatives. [Trask]
Tagged as:
class actions,
Richard Posner
- “Dad Settles Suit Against Crocs Over Daughter’s Escalator Injury” [ABA Journal, Knoxville News]
- Almost unheard-of: “California state bar to investigate 130 prosecutors” [LEF]
- Judge flays U.S.-based lawyer in Chevron-Ecuador suit [Law.com, more, Dan Fisher/Forbes]
- “Federal Government Acknowledges Constitutional Limits on Housing Discrimination Law” [Eugene Volokh on HUD dismissal of "Christian-roommate" complaint, earlier]
- “Brave and brilliant decision” from Judge Posner points way to provide relief from class action plaintiffs who won’t accept defeat [McConnell and Beck, Trask]
- “Referring to Former Boss as Slimebag Does Not Constitute Disparagement, At Least in Ohio” [Robert Fitzpatrick]
- “Couldn’t get elected dogcatcher” — actually, dogcatching’s harder than being a Senator [Christopher Beam, Slate]
- Midterm election wipeout — for Republicans, that is [four years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
apparel,
California,
Chevron,
class actions,
prosecutorial abuse,
Richard Posner
Heads are still shaking over what would appear to be a non-satirical proposal from Judge Richard Posner:
…Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.
More: Jeff Jarvis notices other dubious ideas on enforceable “exclusivity” floating about. And more thoughts from Carolyn Elefant at Legal Blog Watch and David Post @ Volokh.
Tagged as:
copyright,
online speech,
Richard Posner
- Judge Posner’s patience snaps in a class action: the case “is an example of the typical pathology of class action litigation, which is riven with conflicts of interest… The lawyers for the class could not concede the utter worthlessness of their claim because they wanted an award of attorneys’ fees.” Complete with a quotation from Leo Rosten about chutzpah [Mirfasihi v. Fleet Mortgage Corporation; NMC @ Folo, Courthouse News and again]
- Erosion of mens rea prerequisite in criminal law should alarm all of us across left-right lines [Doug Berman on John Hasnas WLF paper]
- “Federal drain law forces pool closings” [Boston Globe]
- Gambling habit was no excuse for Woodbridge, Va. lawyer to forge clients’ signature on lawsuit settlements which he pocketed; Stephen Conrad drew a 11-year sentence after doing $4 million damage to clients. Also in Virginia, former Christiansburg attorney Gerard Marks pleaded guilty Nov. 13 to forgery [Va. Lawyers Weekly; earlier here, and, on Marks, first links here]
- Plaintiff family in Anaheim, Calif. police-shooting lawsuit have an unusual demand: that statue of deceased victim be put up on Disneyland’s Main Street [Orange County Register]
- Connecticut state lawyer who assumed bogus identity to send anonymous letter that got her boss fired, then claimed whistleblower protection, is let off with reprimand and nine hours of ethics training [Schwartz, earlier]
- “Patent troll sues Oprah, Sony over online book viewing” [The Register; Illinois Computer Research, Scott Harris, etc.]
- JetBlue incident at JFK: “240,000 dollars awarded to man forced to cover Arab T-shirt” [AFP/Yahoo, Raed Jarrar]
Tagged as:
class action settlements,
Disney,
JetBlue,
patent trolls,
Richard Posner,
Virginia
If you’re not visiting my other site — or subscribing to it in your RSS reader, or following its Twitter feed — here’s some of what you may have missed lately:
Tagged as:
arbitration,
Barack Obama,
card check,
class actions,
judicial elections,
Manhattan Institute,
New York state,
Richard Epstein,
Richard Posner,
Twitter,
West Virginia
- Easterbrook: “One who misuses litigation to obtain money to which he is not entitled is hardly in a position to insist that the court now proceed to address his legitimate claims, if any there are…. Plaintiffs have behaved like a pack of weasels and can’t expect any part of their tale be believed.” [Ridge Chrysler v. Daimler Chrysler via Decision of the Day]
- Retail stores and their lawyers find sending scare letters with implausible threats of litigation against accused shoplifters mildly profitable. [WSJ]
- Kentucky exploring ways to reform mass-tort litigation in wake of fen-phen scandal. [Mass Tort Prof; Torts Prof; AP/Herald-Dispatch; earlier: Frank @ American]
- After Posner opinion, expert should be looking for other lines of work. [Kirkendall; Emerald Investments v. Allmerica Financial Life Insurance & Annuity]
- Judge reduces jury verdict in Premarin & Prempro case to “only” $58 million. And I still haven’t seen anyone explain why it makes sense for a judge to decide damages awards were “the result of passion and prejudice,” but uphold a liability finding from the same impassioned and prejudiced jury. Wyeth will appeal. [W$J via Burch; AP/Business Week]
- Judge lets lawyers get to private MySpace and Facebook postings. [OnPoint; also Feb. 19]
- Nanny staters’ implausible case for regulating salt. [Sara Wexler @ American; earlier: Nov. 2002]
- Doctor: usually it’s cheaper to pay than to go to court. [GNIF BrainBlogger]
- Trial lawyers in Colorado move to eviscerate non-economic damages cap in malpractice cases [Rocky Mountain News]
- Bonin: don’t regulate free speech on the Internet in the name of “campaign finance” [Philadelphia Inquirer]
- “Executives face greater risks—but investors are no safer.” [City Journal]
- Professors discuss adverse ripple effects from law school affirmative action without mentioning affirmative action. Paging Richard Sander. Note also the absence of “disparate impact” from the discussion. [PrawfsBlawg; Blackprof]
- ATL commenters debate my American piece on Edwards. [Above the Law]
Tagged as:
campaign regulation,
Chrysler,
Colorado,
Facebook,
fen-phen,
Frank Easterbrook,
free speech,
Kentucky,
Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud,
legal extortion,
MySpace,
nanny state,
nastygrams,
online speech,
Philadelphia,
racial preferences,
remittitur,
Richard Posner,
salt,
Wyeth
- Tennie Pierce update: only 6 out of 15 members vote to override mayor’s veto of $2.7M dog-food settlement (Nov. 11). [LA Times]
- Reforming consumer class actions. [Point of Law]
- Judicial activism in Katrina insurance litigation in Louisiana. [Point of Law; Rossmiller; AEI]
- What will and won’t the Seventh Circuit find sanctionable? Judge Posner’s opinion gets a lot of attention for snapping at the lawyers, but I’m more fascinated about the parts where the dog didn’t bark, which isn’t getting any commentary. [Point of Law; Smoot v. Mazda; Volokh; Above the Law]
- Montgomery County doesn’t get to create a trio-banking system. [Zywicki @ Volokh and followup]
- “The Hidden Danger of Seat Belts”: an article on the Peltzman Effect that doesn’t mention Peltzman. [Time; see also Cafe Hayek]
- Pending Michigan “domestic violence” bill (opposed by domestic violence groups) criminalizes ending a relationship with a pregnant woman for improper purposes. [Detroit News via Bashman; House Bill 5882]
- Did Griggs causes distortion in higher education? I’m not sure I’m persuaded, though Griggs is certainly problematic for other reasons (e.g., POL Aug. 12, 2004). [Pope Center via Newmark]
- The Kramer cash settlement. [Evanier]
- Jonathan Wilson gives Justinian Lane a solid fisking on loser pays. [Wilson]
- Speaking of Justinian Lane, for someone who says he was “silenced” because I didn’t post a troll of a comment on Overlawyered, he’s sure making a lot of whiny noise. Hasn’t corrected his honesty problem, though. [Lane]
- The stuff Gore found too inconvenient to tell you in “An Inconvenient Truth.” [CEI]
- Islam: the religion of peace and mercy, for sufficiently broad definitions of peace and mercy. [Volokh]
- One year ago in Overlawyered: photographing exhibitionist students at Penn. Jordan Koko doesn’t seem to have gone through with the threatened lawsuit. [Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
domestic violence,
harassment law,
Justinian Lane,
Katrina,
Los Angeles,
Louisiana,
Michigan,
Richard Posner,
sanctions,
Tennie Pierce
“Two physicians fed up with medical expert witness testimony gathered lawyers and doctors and founded the Coalition and Center for Ethical Medical Testimony this summer. … Their goal is to expose physicians who falsify credentials or mislead juries about standards of care, and they’re planning to arm physicians with the tools necessary to do the job.” (Tanya Albert, “Group aims to weed out deficient medical expert witnesses”, American Medical News (AMA), Aug. 18). Meanwhile, in a trend that outrages the organized plaintiff’s bar, medical societies are establishing tribunals to review and discipline doctors over expert witness testimony that they present in court. “Doctors whose testimony does not pass muster can be suspended or expelled from the societies.” Critics from the plaintiff’s bar say the medical societies will not conduct objective evaluations because of their members’ interest in retaliating against those of their number who testify against fellow doctors. “The giving of expert testimony should be considered the practice of medicine, and it should be the subject of peer review,” counters AMA president Donald J. Palmisano. “If someone comes into court and gives junk science, we don’t want fraudulent testimony in court.” Although attorney Robert Peck, who works closely with ATLA, is menacing the associations with charges of antitrust violation and witness intimidation, an opinion by the Seventh Circuit’s influential Judge Posner in 2001 upheld medical testimony peer review as socially valuable self-regulation that “furthers rather than impedes the cause of justice.” (Adam Liptak, “Doctors’ testimony under scrutiny”, New York Times, Jul. 6).
[click to continue…]
Tagged as:
antitrust,
expert witnesses,
junk science,
medical,
Michigan,
procedure,
Richard Posner
