In the New York legislature, bowling alleys are hoping to win a law protecting them from slip-fall liability arising after their customers wear store-rented shoes outside the building and either slip there or track snow or other slippery matter back inside. Weather hazards have been tripping up more customers of the ordinarily indoor sport, it seems, since the state enforced a complete indoor smoking ban. The trial lawyer association is dead set against the bill; its president claims that the bill “undercuts the constitutional right to a trial by a jury” — presumably on the theory that it somehow undercuts trial by jury for a legislature to roll back any instance of liability for anyone anywhere. That’s sheer nonsense, of course — otherwise, it’d have been unconstitutional for legislatures around most of the country to have abolished the old heartbalm torts of breach of promise to marry and alienation of affection. [Albany Times-Union via Future of Capitalism]
Tagged as:
alienation of affection,
breach of promise to marry,
New York,
recreation,
slip and fall,
smoking bans
Floating staircases, indoor rock formations, open firepits, moss-slicked ledges: if you try to raise a family in a Mid-Century Modern home, don’t be surprised if someone calls Child Protective Services on you. [Projectophile]
Tagged as:
Child Protective Services,
slip and fall
- Harold Lasswell and Myres McDougal’s influential article on legal education figures prominently in Schools for Misrule; Henry Manne says their scheme of actual classroom pedagogy did less well [Bainbridge]
- Deanship of local plaintiff’s attorney at St. Louis U. is short, colorful [NLJ]
- GW lawprof trips, falls at Denver Law event, now in court [Above the Law]
- Law reviews requiring authors to sign indemnity clauses. Reason for alarm? [Dan Markel, Prawfs]
- Out-of-touch law academy, vol. 18: Duke prof dismisses floodgates arguments on principle [Ted Frank]
- “Should Law Reviews Consider Race When Selecting Articles?” (and do they?) [Josh Blackman]
- Insurance is an undercovered topic in the law school curriculum, so Randy Maniloff decides to do an intervention [Coverage Opinions, PDF, lead article]
Tagged as:
insurance,
law schools,
slip and fall
Lowering the Bar on the complaint in a San Francisco trip-fall case:
Sure, you could write “plaintiff tripped on the curb,” but that almost makes it sound like it might have been plaintiff’s fault. Writing instead that “the curb disrupted the motion of plaintiff’s foot” makes it clear that the curb was the bad actor here. …
The curb’s co-defendant, Gravity, settled before trial.
Tagged as:
San Francisco,
slip and fall
Through garden tours and charitable dinners, Chrissie D’Esopo has raised some $175,000 over the years at her beautiful home in Avon, Ct., near Hartford. Following a lawsuit over a slip and fall — not to mention the claim filed by the visitor’s uninjured husband — she’s decided to call it quits, but might reconsider on hearing of a recently passed Connecticut recreational-immunity law that extends legal protection to property owners who do not profit from a visitor’s presence. Notes a commenter: “This is why we can’t have nice things.” [Hartford Courant]
Tagged as:
Connecticut,
recreation,
slip and fall,
volunteers
Jonesboro, Ga.: the defense lawyer called it “a fun fact pattern” involving “quite a cast of characters,” while the plaintiff’s lawyer acknowledged taking the case to trial even while knowing “that there was a less than 10 percent chance of winning on liability. … I never turn down the chance to take a case to trial when there is a real injury involved, no matter how tough the liability picture.” Does that imply that he represents other clients whose injury isn’t as “real”? [Fulton County Daily Report]
Tagged as:
Georgia,
personal responsibility,
slip and fall
A British Columbia court has allowed a suit to proceed arguing that a government lending program which included inspection of the property to be renovated could incur a duty to third persons who might later fall on a staircase whose faults allegedly would have been detected had inspection not been negligent. [Erik Magraken; Benoit v. Banfield]
Tagged as:
Canada,
mortgages,
real estate,
slip and fall
A judge has ruled that an elderly Manhattan woman can sue her landlord and a guide-dog provider over a fall she suffered on a step at her building. Gloria Clark argues that her earlier guide dogs had always guided her around a dangerous step over 26 years of living in the building but that while she was auditioning a new guide dog the dog’s trainer did not properly take care against the hazard. [New York Daily News]
Tagged as:
service animals,
slip and fall
- Seeking to address widespread pharmaceutical shortages, Obama executive order downplays government role in causing them [Fair Warning, WSJ editorial, earlier here, here, here, here, etc.]
- “The school has a strict no-hugging policy….” [WKMG Orlando]
- Retired Justice John Paul Stevens isn’t buying the “Thomas should recuse” meme [USA Today via Legal Ethics Forum]
- Not COPPA-cetic: among other unintended consequences, Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act has encouraged parents to help kids to falsify ages online [Danah Boyd via Jim Harper, Suderman, Reason, Stewart Baker, earlier]
- Lawmaking from the bench: Maryland high court strikes down law limiting landlords’ lead paint liability [Ronald Miller] “Maryland court sides with plaintiffs in slip-and-fall cases” [Emily Babay, Examiner]
- Trial lawyers help bail out Bexar County Democratic party [San Antonio Express-News]
- Supreme Court agrees to hear case arguing that aggressive enforcement of local housing code violates federal Fair Housing Act [Magner v. Gallagher, SCOTUSBlog, Illinois Municipal League, Daniel Fisher, Inverse Condemnation]
Tagged as:
Clarence Thomas,
fair housing,
lead paint,
Maryland,
Mikal Watts,
pharmaceuticals,
privacy,
slip and fall
- “Woman Sues Adidas After Fall She Blames on Sticky Shoes” [Lowering the Bar]
- Texas lawmakers file loser pays proposals [SE Tex Record] Actual scope of proposals hard to discern through funhouse lens of NYT reporting [PoL] Marie Gryphon testimony on loser-pays proposals in Arkansas [Manhattan Institute, related]
- Google awarded patent on changing of logo for special days [Engadget via Coyote]
- “Civil Gideon in Deadbeat Dad Cases Would Be ‘Massive’ Change, Lawyer Tells Justices” [Weiss, ABA Journal, Legal Ethics Forum]
- Amateur-hour crash-fakers in Bronx didn’t reckon on store surveillance camera [NY Post]
- “Plaintiffs’ Lawyers in Cobell Defend $223M Fee Request” [BLT]
- Show of harm not needed: FDA kicks another 500 or so legacy drugs off market, this time in the cold-and-cough area [WaPo]
- “Wal-Mart v. Dukes: Rough Justice Without Due Process” [Andrew Trask, WLF]
Tagged as:
Arkansas,
civil gideon,
crash faking,
FDA,
Google,
loser pays,
patent quality,
product liability,
slip and fall,
Texas,
Wal-Mart v. Dukes
- Hilton Head dispute over pet turkeys leads to $4.25 million verdict [Island Packet via Lowering the Bar]
- “Lucasfilm lightsaber legal threat letter sells for $3,850″ [BoingBoing, earlier]
- Raw milk: “If The Government Says That It’s Not About Freedom, Then It’s Just NOT” [Ken at Popehat vs. L.A. Times]
- Dell “failed to stress” accounting disclosure. SEC: that will be $100 million [TJIC]
- Dodd-Frank dubbed “Lawyers’ and Consultants’ Full Employment Act of 2010″ [Mark Perry, WSJ Law Blog]
- “Did liberal judges invent the standing doctrine? An Empirical Study of the Evolution of Standing, 1921-2006″ [Ho/Ross, Stanford Law Review]
- Office of Connecticut AG Blumenthal doesn’t emerge with glory from fertility doctor case [Pesci]
- Massachusetts high court tosses 125-year-old rule: owners now face wider liability for snow/ice hazards [Globe]
Tagged as:
food safety,
Massachusetts,
nastygrams,
Richard Blumenthal,
Securities and Exchange Commission,
slip and fall,
South Carolina
