Overlawyered » sanctions

May 7 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 07 May 2012 04:05:15 +0000

NY lawyer sanctioned $10K for behavior at deposition [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal]
Obvious dangers and the W.V. frat-house rear-launched bottle rocket case [Popehat, earlier here, here]
Review of Liberty’s Refuge, new book on freedom of assembly by Washington U. lawprof John Inazu [Anthony Deardurff, Liberty Law]
If forfeiture and asset freeze can be deployed in a copyright enforcement case, where will they strike next? [Timothy Lee, Cato]
Hard-hitting Kim Strassel column on Al “Crucify Them” Armendariz [WSJ, earlier] Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson: “If you want to live by the precautionary principle, then crawl up in a ball and live in a cave.” [Coyote] Washington Post on the case for the Keystone pipeline [Adler]
Losing two looks like carelessness: second Durham County D.A. removed from office for misconduct [Volokh, KC Johnson]
Why won’t the Eighth Circuit recognize fraudulent misjoinder? [Beck]

Tags: discovery, Eighth Circuit, Exxon, forfeiture, prosecutorial abuse, sanctions

May 7 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Judge Slaps Motley Rice With Fees Over ‘Frivolous’ Lawsuit”

Walter Olson — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:47:50 +0000

“A federal judge in Indiana ordered lawyers including the prominent firm of Motley Rice to pay ITT Educational Services almost $400,000 in legal fees for pursuing a ‘frivolous’ lawsuit the judge said was ‘based on a completely false story.’” In line with the reluctance of American judges to award Rule 11 sanctions, the judge awarded only a small fraction of the defendant’s actual outlay in attorney’s fees, which ran into many millions. Motley Rice is a chief beneficiary of the ongoing income stream of the tobacco litigation fees, which return $500 million a year to an assortment of plaintiff’s firms. [Dan Fisher, Forbes]

Tags: colleges and universities, Motley Rice, sanctions, whistleblowers

“Judge Slaps Motley Rice With Fees Over ‘Frivolous’ Lawsuit” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Obama ‘HOPE’ poster artist pleads guilty to contempt”

Walter Olson — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 05:02:31 +0000

Locked in litigation with the Associated Press over whether his famous poster improperly infringed on the copyright of the news photograph on which it was based, Shepard Fairey did not conduct himself well. According to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Fairey “went to extreme lengths to obtain an unfair and illegal advantage in his civil litigation, creating fake documents and destroying others in an effort to subvert the civil discovery process.” [AP]

Tags: art and artists, discovery, sanctions

“Obama ‘HOPE’ poster artist pleads guilty to contempt” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Hard times for “DIAL L-A-W-Y-E-R-S” founder

Walter Olson — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:55:43 +0000

Longtime Twin Cities attorney John Murrin lost money in a dodgy business deal, and started out by pressing what critics agree were some meritorious complaints arising from it. But courts began to look askance as he added more and more actions, pleadings and (nearly four dozen) defendants. Now a sanctions order has resulted in a bankruptcy proceeding. ["Lawyer's tactics leave him bankrupt," Minneapolis Star-Tribune].

Tags: Minnesota, sanctions, shotgun defendant selection

Hard times for “DIAL L-A-W-Y-E-R-S” founder is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Sanctioned: P2P lawyer fined $10,000 for ‘staggering chutzpah’”

Walter Olson — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:32:19 +0000

To quote the court: Texas lawyer Evan Stone, mass-suing file-sharers and seeking to uncover their identities, “asked the Court to authorize sending subpoenas to the ISPs. The Court said ‘not yet.’ Stone sent the subpoenas anyway.” [ArsTechnica, Volokh]

Tags: discovery, sanctions

“Sanctioned: P2P lawyer fined $10,000 for ‘staggering chutzpah’” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Adult children’s lawsuit charges “bad mothering”

Walter Olson — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 05:05:17 +0000

A court has dismissed the Illinois action, saying that to let such cases proceed “could potentially open the floodgates to subject family childrearing to … excessive judicial scrutiny and interference.” [Chicago Tribune/SLT; Volokh]

Tags: family law, sanctions

Adult children’s lawsuit charges “bad mothering” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

An end to impunity

Walter Olson — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:05:37 +0000

The Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act (LARA), versions of which have been discussed in this space for years, would reverse the 1993 gutting of Rule 11, the federal rule providing sanctions for baseless lawsuits, and would thus establish that lawyers, like other professionals, should expect to be responsible for compensating those they injure by negligence or worse. Early this month LARA won the approval of the House Judiciary Committee, but is unlikely to prevail (this term, at least) in the more Litigation-Lobby-friendly Senate. [Stier, ShopFloor; earlier here, etc.]

Tags: sanctions, U.S. House of Representatives

An end to impunity is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Judge rules Righthaven lacks standing to sue, threatens sanctions over misrepresentations”

Walter Olson — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 06:04:55 +0000

A federal judge in Las Vegas today issued a potentially devastating ruling against copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC, finding it doesn’t have standing to sue over Las Vegas Review-Journal stories, that it has misled the court and threatening to impose sanctions against Righthaven. … [U.S. District Court Judge Roger] Hunt’s ruling today came in a 2010 Righthaven lawsuit against the Democratic Underground, operator of a big political website.

One of DU’s message board posters had reprinted without permission, but with link and credit, four paragraphs’ worth of an article under copyright to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is one of a number of newspapers with working agreements with RightHaven. And this part’s interesting:

In their counterclaim [which Judge Hunt allowed to proceed], attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital free speech group based in San Francisco, hit Righthaven and Stephens Media with allegations of barratry (the alleged improper incitement of litigation); and champerty (an allegedly improper relationship between one funding and one pursuing a lawsuit)….

Some fans of entrepreneurial lawyering in the academy and elsewhere have sought to portray rules against barratry and champerty as wrongheaded survivals of a much older approach to the role of the legal profession. But it looks as if EFF — no one’s idea of a Blackstone-reading antiquarian club — just put those rules to powerful use. [Las Vegas Sun]

P.S. Bloggers who settled wonder: can we get our money back?

Tags: champerty, chasing clients, RightHaven, sanctions

“Judge rules Righthaven lacks standing to sue, threatens sanctions over misrepresentations” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Texas considers strong measures against lawsuits intimidating speech

Walter Olson — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 22:59:30 +0000

The First Amendment notwithstanding, wealthy and powerful litigants in this country often exercise the tactical power “to bully those who publicly criticize them into silence by filing frivolous lawsuits that the critics can’t afford to litigate,” with defamation lawsuits being a particularly favored means of such bullying. The majority of states have moved to enact “anti-SLAPP” laws aimed at curtailing this tactical exercise through the application of sanctions or otherwise, but such laws are often quite weak, sometimes applying only, for example, to speech aimed at petitioning the government on public matters. Now Texas lawmakers are considering what would be one of the nation’s strongest laws, protecting “communication made in connection with a matter of public concern” and including statements made in non-public forums, such as emails. The website SLAPPED in Texas has compiled a list of speech-chilling lawsuits in the Lone Star State, including the oft-criticized suit by a real estate developer against author and eminent domain critic Carla Main. [Arthur Bright/Citizen Media Law, Paul Alan Levy/CL&P]

Tags: free speech, libel slander and defamation, online speech, sanctions

Texas considers strong measures against lawsuits intimidating speech is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

April 18 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 05:11:58 +0000

Time to put teeth back into sanctions: more on reintroduction in Congress of LARA, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act [Wajert, Wood, more, earlier]
RFK-Jr.-&-friends watch: Environmentalists wrangle in court over “keeper” monicker [Coleman]
More on Chicago school that bars home-brought lunches [Adler, Welch, earlier]
Definition of “cyber-bullying” in newly passed Arkansas bill could imperil legitimate speech [Volokh] Related: Harvey Silverglate video.
Thoughts on a new Hungarian constitution [Ilya Shapiro, Cato at Liberty]
Court reveals Righthaven’s operating agreement with client newspaper chain [Legal Satyricon, PaidContent, Las Vegas Sun]
Cops: Ohio man stole gavel from judge [Lorain Chronicle-Telegram, Smoking Gun]

Tags: Arkansas, bullying, constitutional law, RightHaven, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sanctions

April 18 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system