Overlawyered » Saudi Arabia

Long-arm blasphemy prosecution

Walter Olson — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:03:36 +0000

Islamists are demanding the execution of Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari over tweets, since retracted, that they say are blasphemous toward their religion. Malaysia has detained Kashgari and may extradite him to face the charges; according to reports, the international police organization had put out an order for his arrest at the behest of the Saudi government [Guardian, Nina Shea/NRO, Daily Beast, Reason, Facebook support page, blog, #FreeHamza]

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Tags: international human rights, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Twitter

“Lawyer wants jinn to testify in court”

Walter Olson — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:05:11 +0000

That’s genie “jinn” not potable “gin,” though the latter would work as a headline for a different story. The spirit in question was said to have seized a Saudi judge arrested on corruption charges. [Emirates 24/7]

Tags: Saudi Arabia

December 31 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:10:57 +0000

“No refusal” DUI checkpoints spread and can result in mandatory blood tests for drivers; MADD cheers infringement of liberty [WTSP]
Teleworking regulations: a new way to sue your (federal) boss? [welcome Mickey Kaus/Newsweek readers]
“The federal government has been in the business of micro-managing our kids’ lunches for 30 years” [David Gratzer/Examiner] St. Paul, Minn. schools ban sweets, even when brought from home [Star-Tribune] Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and the Happy Meal lawsuit [John Steele Gordon, Commentary]
Top ten insurance law decisions of 2010 [Randy Maniloff, Insurance Journal; also congrats on his new book (with Jeffrey Stempel)]
“Mitch Daniels and Criminal Sentencing Reform in Indiana” [Orin Kerr] Daniels isn’t backing down from call for truce on social issues [GOP12]
Happy 100th birthday, Ronald Coase [Gillespie, Reason]
Damage to Gulf from spill now looks much less than feared [Robert Nelson, Weekly Standard]
Saudi court decides that text message is valid method of divorce [Emirates 24/7]

Tags: BP Transocean oil spill, insurance, obesity, Saudi Arabia, schools, traffic laws, workplace

Saudi lawyers demand Mohammed cartoon apology

Walter Olson — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:11:31 +0000

Not for the first time, the lawyers are getting involved: “Faizal A.Z. Yamani of the Jeddah-based legal firm A.Z. Yamani sent a letter to about a dozen newspaper editors, insisting that they print apologies in Danish, English, Arabic and French, and to undertake never to print the cartoon again. He also ordered all the cartoons to be removed from the internet in perpetuity.” [MWW]

Tags: free speech, Saudi Arabia

“Saudi family sues genie, alleges harassment”

Walter Olson — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:51:48 +0000

CNN: “The lawsuit filed in Shariah court accuses the genie of leaving them threatening voicemails, stealing their cell phones and hurling rocks at them when they leave their house at night, said Al-Watan newspaper.” If they think the genie is harassing them now, wait till it gets a lawyer….

P.S. Above the Law: “The article doesn’t mention damages sought, but we hope it’s three wishes.” “Will the genie appear when summoned?” (@susanwake). “Good luck getting service. Is Robin Williams or Barbara Eden the registered agent?” (@JerseyTodd). And more details on the case from Lowering the Bar.

Tags: Saudi Arabia

“The U.S. Can’t Be the World’s Court”

Walter Olson — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:22:19 +0000

So argued former State Department legal adviser John Bellinger III in the WSJ last week, with special reference to the overreaching, extraterritorial Alien Tort Statute. But it’s not as if the efforts to turn the U.S. into the courtroom for the world are slackening at all:

As Curtis Bradley and Jack Goldsmith note in the Washington Post, a federal court recently allowed to proceed a lawsuit seeking to blame the evils of South African apartheid on Western multinationals, even despite strong opposition to the suit from both the U.S. government’s executive branch and today’s duly elected multiracial South African government. Unfortunately, the State Department’s up-to-now-staunch opposition to this and similar lawsuits is imperiled by the installment of Harold Koh as legal adviser at Foggy Bottom: “Koh is an intellectual architect and champion of the post-1980 human rights litigation explosion. He joined a brief in the South Africa litigation arguing for broad aiding-and-abetting liability.”
If asked what should happen to frozen Cuban-government assets under U.S. control, reasonable possibility #1 might be “hold them against the eventual day when a non-tyrannical regime emerges there, it will need help.” Reasonable possibility #2 might be “divide the assets among Castro’s many victims in some deliberate and step-by-step way, knowing that their injuries are so numerous and severe that even very deserving victims will get only small payments”. The answer you’d think makes no sense at all is “encourage first-come-first-served tort lawsuits, so that the first couple of cases to maneuver their way through the legal process get handsome compensation, while no money is left for either #1 or #2″. So naturally, the latter is what our legal system is doing, previously in $188 million and $253 million verdicts involving single incidents or families, and now in a new case in which the family of Gustavo Villoldo has been awarded $1.179 billion. One of the plaintiff’s lawyers in the case actually boasts that the new award may obstruct a warming of relations between the U.S. and a post-Castro successor regime: “with the opening of relations between the U.S. and Cuba to come, there are debts to society to be paid before that happens” (more on Che Guevara, via).
On the brighter side, the Obama administration has joined its Bush predecessors in correctly drawing a line against litigation by some September 11 victims and insurance companies: under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, the courts are no place to pursue theories trying to link the rulers of Saudi Arabia to the terrorist attacks.

(cross-posted from Point of Law)

Tags: Alien Tort Claims Act, Cuba, extraterritoriality, Saudi Arabia, South Africa

Microblog 2008-11-16

Walter Olson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:59:59 +0000

Tenth anniversary of Great Tobacco Robbery settlement of 1998 [NPR series all week h/t @billchilds; Carter Wood at PoL series linked here] #
No need for “socialism” with endless bailouts instead [George Will, David Brooks] #
Rude name for “age-restricted” (no-kids) housing developments: “vasectomy zoning” [Dr. Wes] #
Iceland’s national financial calamity [Robert Jackson, Financial Times; Jon Danielsson, VoxEU] #
World gone mad dept.: Saudi Arabia sponsors UN event on religious tolerance [Anorak, h/t @jeffnolan; Steven Groves, Heritage, on UN "defamation of religion" resolutions] #

Tags: international human rights, Saudi Arabia, tobacco settlement

Medical malpractice in Saudi Arabia

Walter Olson — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:18:41 +0000

Enough to make our way of law look civilized: Raouf Amin el-Arabi, a longtime doctor to the royal family charged with prescribing narcotics to a Saudi princess, drew a sentence of 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes. (AP/Texarkana, Tex. Gazette, Nov. 12 via KevinMD).

Tags: medical malpractice, Saudi Arabia

September 3 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:05:21 +0000

Eeeeeeuw: House of Meats employees show reporter “they have all ten of their fingers” after customer reports human digit in her dish of oxtails [BayNews 9 Tampa]
Press keeps digging into Joe Biden ties to asbestos bar [American Lawyer, more links in PoL roundup]
Black eye for big law site FindLaw with reports that it’s been selling law firms links in editorial material, a practice sure to raise Google wrath [Oilman, Kevin O'Keefe/Real Lawyers Have Blogs, ABA Journal, Search Engine Land, National Post] More: WSJ on FindLaw’s denial; O’Keefe.
Overlawyered favorite Fred Baron, of Rielle Hunter generosity, much in evidence at Democratic convention [Dallas Morning News, ABC News] Texas trial lawyer Steve Susman is only individual lawyer listed as convention sponsor [AmLaw Daily, scroll]
As if legislative expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act weren’t worry enough, 1,000 pages of new DoJ regulations will add billions in costs, as by requiring that 50 percent of miniature golf holes be wheelchair-accessible [Las Vegas Review-Journal via ABA Journal]
“Bond reduced for two fen-phen attorneys” in Kentucky [Lexington Herald-Leader, more]
Cozen O’Connor and insurers dealt big setback as Second Circuit’s Judge Jacobs rules they can’t sue Saudi government over 9/11 [Philadelphia Inquirer, more; related on FOIA, Legal Intelligencer; earlier here and here]
Jury awards $500,000 in malpractice suit against D.C.-based plaintiffs’ firm Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll [Legal Times]
Australia: “A serial protester who injured a policewoman during the G20 riots wants her conviction overturned so she can still practise as a lawyer.” [Melbourne Herald Sun, Julia Dehm]

Tags: asbestos, Australia, Biden, Cozen O'Connor, disabled rights, finger in the chili, Fred Baron, insurers, Joe Biden, Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud, Michael Hausfeld, miniature golf, politics, Rielle Hunter, Saudi Arabia, September 11, stephen susman

August 19 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 04:05:59 +0000

Two topics of recent interest on the site — cremation and service monkeys — together in one post [The Urn Garden]
Please don’t tell us an aggressive stance by music copyright holders is going to kill Pandora radio, one of the bright stars of the Internet [WaPo, more]
“Citizens in Chains: The High Cost of Prisoner Lawsuits to California Taxpayers” [CALA, PDF]
Navajo plaintiffs: spraying artificial snow on our sacred mountain is spiritually injurious [Volokh]
Remember those anti-poverty non-profit groups that were going to represent the culmination of John Edwards’ life work, aside from running for you-know-what? Him neither [Silverstein, Harper's via Folo]
Toxic tort class action in Saudi Arabia proves unsuccessful [Arab News]
Fending off patent trolls has been expensive for high-tech Massachusetts firm Cognex [NLJ]
Arizona law professor’s creative denials in paternity suit have furnished faculty-lounge chuckles for years [Caron/TaxProf, Jack J. Rappeport]
New at Point of Law: big ruckus over proposal to compel accounting projections of lawsuit exposure; guestblogger Peggy Little on Connecticut vs. Countrywide, the ABA in judicial selection and more; cy pres litigation slush funds assailed as constitutionally dubious; Trial Lawyers Inc. series tackles the state of Ohio; MBIA mulls suing hedge fund that’s sniped at its stock; more on med-mal “loss of a chance”; and much more.

Tags: accounting, Arizona, copyright, Countrywide, cy pres, Indian tribes, John Edwards, law schools, music and musicians, Ohio, patent trolls, prisoners, Saudi Arabia

Overlawyered » Saudi Arabia

Long-arm blasphemy prosecution

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