• As governor, Huckabee signed a good tort reform package capping punitive and non-economic damages, and reforming joint and several liability and venue law, but the rest of his economic record is big-government. And David Harsanyi is critical of Huckabee’s claimed opposition to nanny-statism. [Insurance Journal; Human Events; Harsanyi; RCP; Michael Tanner @ FoxNews]
• Update to the popular Bridezilla flowers lawsuit; florist files opposition. Lots of comments ensue. [Lattman]
• South Dakota Supreme Court: no, you can’t sue a pharmacy for being a “drug dealer” when plaintiff steals prescription medicine for a disabled friend and injures himself OD’ing on it. [On Point]
• Former litigator hired to invest $100m in court cases for UK hedge fund. [Times Online]
• Atkins fallout in Texas and California, as professional anti-death-penalty experts there happily minimize subject IQs to call their intelligent clients retarded. Earlier: Feb. 2005; Sep. 2003. [Science Evidence blog; and again]
• Heartbalm tort of alienation of affection withstand constitutional challenge in Mississippi. Earlier: Jul. 5; Nov. 2006, etc. [Torts Prof]
• Bob Woodruff biography: I would have died if my injury happened in the United States because of fear of liability. [Murnane]
• I’ve updated my paper on Thomas Geoghegan’s new book. [SSRN]
• Overlawyered holds slim lead at ABA Blawg 100 popularity contest. But why aren’t any of you voting for Point of Law? [ABA Journal]

Let’s be clear: one can take the position that there needs to be more judicial accountability and that too many judges overstep their bounds, and still think that Amendment E—the likely-unconstitutional South Dakota ballot proposal to end civil immunity for judges and jurors and establish an unanswerable “special grand jury” to oversee these things—is positively insane cuckoo bonkers. Opponents of the measure have set up a good website discussing the issues.

Back in 1987, Florida set off a national trend by enacting a law which allows adults with a clean record, who pass a safety class, to obtain a permit to carry a concealed handgun for lawful defense. Although some states already allowed concealed carry, Florida’s 1987 law led to the concept spreading nationally, so that today 38 states have handgun carry laws similar to Florida’s. Now, a new Florida trend is spreading: “Stand your ground” laws.


Last year, Florida enacted a statute stating that victims of a violent felony attack do not have to retreat from the aggressor (even in a public place), and can use deadly force. Now, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has signed a Stand Your Ground law in his state, and the South Dakota legislature has enacted a similar law.

Because most Americans intuitively agree with the principle of self-defense, opponents of the law, such as the Brady Center, have resorted to making silly claims, such as asserting that the laws allow “a person who just feels something bad is going to happen to open fire in public.” A careful look at the Florida model, which I blogged about last year, leads to the conclusion that the Brady Center’s claims are unmerited.

Welcome to Blawg Review #33, the latest installment of the weekly carnival assembling some of the best recent weblog posts about law.

If this is your first visit to Overlawyered, we’re among the oldest legal sites (launched in July 1999, practically the Eocene era), and over the years we’ve built a vast collection of information (with links/sources) on strange, excessive and costly legal cases, examples of the over-legalization of everyday life, pointers on litigation reform, policy stuff of generally libertarian leanings, and much more. We’re a fairly high-volume site; 6-8,000 unique visitors on a weekday is pretty typical. And although our work is regularly critical of trends in the legal profession — or maybe because of that fact — practicing lawyers around the world are among our most valued and loyal readers.

More specifically, there are two of us posting here. One of us (Walter Olson) has been writing about these topics for twenty years as the author of several books (The Litigation Explosion, The Excuse Factory, The Rule of Lawyers) and a great many shorter articles. He’s a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who lives and works in Chappaqua, N.Y., north of New York City. More recently Ted Frank, who’s in Washington with the American Enterprise Institute, joined as a regular blogger. Unlike Walter, Ted is a lawyer, having practiced until lately with O’Melveny & Myers. Both of us also blog at the (somewhat more serious-toned) website Point Of Law, which unlike this one is sponsored by our respective institutes and boasts numerous other contributing writers.

Enough about us. Here’s Blawg Review #33, written by Walter with

indented sections by Ted.

* * *

The week in headlines

The talk of the blawg world last week? The New Yorker’s unmasking of the girlish “Article III Groupie” who’s blogged anonymously about federal judges at “Underneath Their Robes”, as, in fact, a (male) Assistant U.S. Attorney in Newark. Much more on that from Ted, below.

The pace of commentary on Samuel Alito Jr.’s Supreme Court nomination has slowed a good bit, despite the release of a 1985 memo detailing Alito’s views on abortion (which occasioned this post by Will Baude taking exception to a Dahlia Lithwick Slate column) and, more tantalizingly, on the Warren Court’s reapportionment cases (see posts by Nathan Newman and Steve Bainbridge). Alito is now heavily favored among bettors to win confirmation, notes San Diego lawprof Tom Smith.

Possibly the week’s strangest headline, discussed by J-Walk: “1,100 Lawyers Leave Saddam Defense Team”. 1,100?

And the Fifth Circuit is coming back to New Orleans (Tom Kirkendall).

* * *

Splendors and miseries of legal practice

Find out:

* What makes a talented 39 year old attorney burn out of a criminal defense practice? (Norm Pattis, Crime and Federalism)

* What sorts of squirm-inducing compliments do criminal defense lawyers hear from their clients after scoring legal points on their behalf? (Ken Lammers, CrimLaw)

* Is it smarter for big law firms to compensate their partners on an “eat what you kill” model, a “lockstep” model, or something between the two? (Bruce MacEwen, Adam Smith, Esq.)

* How do licensing professionals decide what’s a reasonable royalty rate? (Patent Baristas)

* What sorts of bad things can happen to a law firm when one of its individual lawyers behaves rudely to a stranger? (Jim Calloway)

* * *

Controversies galore

Read, ponder, and make up your own mind:

Did Texas execute an innocent man, Ruben Cantu? (Doug Berman)

Conservatives are still griping about the Ninth Circuit, but the new twist is that they think its judges aren’t activist enough. (Eugene Volokh)

Every so often, through luck or pluck, the “fair use” side manages to win one in copyright litigation (Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion).

A group is “pushing for a ballot referendum that would strip South Dakota judges of their immunity from suit for actions taken in their capacity as judges.” Atlanta attorney Jonathan B. Wilson calls it “one of the worst reform ideas ever”.

Michael Newdow, of Pledge of Allegiance suit fame, has filed a new legal action demanding that the motto “In God We Trust” be removed from U.S. currency. Jon Rowe winces.

Our own Ted Frank takes a look at the much-talked of “Dodgeball” document and concludes that it by no means proves Merck’s guilt in the Vioxx matter. (Point of Law). Also at Point of Law, James Copland of the Manhattan Institute and Dr. Bill Sage of Columbia have been engaged in a spirited debate on med-mal litigation.

In a Providence courtroom, the state of Rhode Island is demanding that companies that once manufactured lead paint be held liable for the cost of lead abatement programs. Speechwriter/ghostwriter Jane Genova is liveblogging the case’s retrial, and suggests that the defense side has been making its points more effectively.

A court has ordered the Armour Star meatpacking concern to pay $3 million for using a strength test to screen applicants for a job requiring much lifting. George Lenard’s Employment Blawg originally covered the case last month, Overlawyered picked it up, and now George has returned to the subject, observing that those dissatisfied with the suit’s outcome should realize that sex discrimination law’s distrust of strength tests isn’t something the EEOC just came up with the other day and in fact dates back at least a couple of decades. (I quite concur, having written at length on the subject back in the 1990s.)

The British government recently published a white paper entitled “The Future of Legal Services: Putting the Consumer First”. Dennis Kennedy at Between Lawyers provides a link.

In other consumer news, State Farm conceded earlier this year that when it disposed of many wrecked-and-repaired vehicles it failed to ensure that they were given appropriate “salvage titles”. E.L. Eversman at AutoMuse has been following the issue.

The head of the NY state bar association is advising prospective clients not to be swayed by lawyers’ advertising. David Giacalone, who frequently discusses legal advertising on his blog f/k/a, isn’t impressed.

San Diego lawprof Gail Heriot discovers a convicted rapist is living a few doors down from her, which gets her to thinking about the interaction of “Megan’s Law” statutes and statutory rape.

New York AG Eliot Spitzer has gone after former NYSE head Richard Grasso but not the board that approved Grasso’s plans. Larry Ribstein suspects the worst, charging that Spitzer “gets securities industry political support if he handles this so only Grasso gets hurt.”

* * *

Student division

Scheherezade at Stay of Execution, who wrote a classic post last year giving advice on whether or not to go to law school, now fields a reader’s question: Should I transfer to a higher-ranked law school?

Called for jury duty, Jeremy Blachman gets shown a somewhat hokey video entitled “Your Turn: Jury Service in New York State.” “I wanted to really mock the video, but in all honesty it was a better explanation of the jury system than anything we got in law school”.

Michael Froomkin offers a surprising and counterintuitive quiz on the U.S. Constitution in the form of a “scavenger hunt”. He also suspects that a national ID card might abet price discrimination.

And this from Ted:

Congratulations to Amber, G, Marissa, Grigori, Eve, Jeremy, and others who passed the bar. Third Attempt failed for the second time, and is opening a blog on the subject of his third try, with links to other passers and failers. Only 13% of those who repeated the California bar passed.

On the lighter side, law student Kurt Hunt quotes his prof’s maxim that “Cahoots is not a crime” but wonders what would happen if “tomfoolery, cahoots, no-gooding, antics and shenanigans were redefined as ‘Crime-Lite’”. And Colin Samuels of Infamy or Praise is among the many human beings who don’t manage to eat as well as (UCLA lawprof) Steve Bainbridge’s dog.

* * *

Buzz about blogs

Now I’ll turn the floor over to Ted again to discuss the UTR affair:

The blawgosphere likes nothing more than navel-gazing, and the New Yorker’s outing of anony-blawger “Article III Groupie” as Newark AUSA David Lat and resulting implosion of “her”/his popular “Underneath Their Robes” blawg has generated lots of curiosity and posts with Austin Powers references; the story even made Drudge and the New York Times. Blawg Review has a retrospective look at the blawg. Howard Bashman has done the most original reporting, interviewing Jeffrey Toobin, who revealed Lat’s identity, and publishing the reminiscences of a former co-worker of Lat’s. Denise Howell provides an obituary for the blawg. The Kitchen Cabinet’s “Lily” comments from the perspective of another anonymous blawger, as does Jeremy Blachman, who got a book deal from his anony-blogging. Ann Althouse muses on the nature of humor; Professor Solove and Howard Bashman comment on blogger anonymity, as does Half Sigma, who pulled a similar hoax using the photo of a Russian mail-order bride earlier this year as the image of “Libertarian Girl.” Another blawgger claiming to be a libertarian female, this one with the implausible name of “Amber,” meta-comments on the various shattered blog-crushes exhibited in the garment-rending Volokh Conspiracy reader comments on the subject; JD expresses his own disappointment. (Judge Kozinski claims to have known all along, but Judge Posner has proof of his foresight.) And Ian has sound commentary on A3G’s “status anxiety.” (And speaking of status anxiety, a Harvard Law School admissions dean snarks on Yale and gets snarked back. One can understand the sniping: HLS and YLS are good schools, and there’s a lot of competition for who’s #2 behind Chicago Law.)

Some fallout: anony-blogger “Opinionistas” got an e-mail accusing her of really being a man, and Will Baude and Heidi Bond make a bet over the gender of anony-law-prof Juan Non-Volokh, who promises to come out of the closet soon.

Taking second place in interblog buzz is the IP sticky wicket that awaited the former Pajamas Media (discussed by Blawg Review here) when shortly before launching it decided to switch to the more dignified monicker of Open Source Media. Turned out there was already a well-known public radio show by the name of Open Source which hadn’t been consulted even though it occupied such URLs as opensourcemedia.net. Ann Althouse has been merciless (here, here and here) in needling the OSM organizers, while Prof. Bainbridge piles on with a law and economics analysis of OSM’s market.

Monica Bay passes along the views of legal-tech consultant and frequent CLE presenter Ross Kodner, who charges that law blogs are “narrow-minded” and display “elitist exclusionism”. “I am sick and tired of being repeatedly asked why I don’t have a blog,” he declares. Okay, Mr. Kodner, we promise never to ask you that.

* * *

In conclusion

Finally, intellectual property lawyer Doug Sorocco, of the ReThink(IP) and phosita blogs, arrives “fashionably late to the BlawgThink ball” (in Chicago last week). Sorocco’s Oklahoma City firm also figures prominently (as the acquiring party) in what Dennis Kennedy says may amount to a milestone: “the first move of one legal blogger to the law firm of another legal blogger.” Stephen Nipper has more details about this “move” at ReThink(IP).

By coincidence, and giving us a nice way to wrap things up, phosita is going to be the home of next week’s Blawg Review #34. Blawg Review has information about that and other upcoming matters, as well as instructions how to get your blawg posts considered for upcoming issues.

P.S. As Bob Ambrogi notes, you can now check out — and tag your own location in — Blawg Review’s reader map feature.

The U.S. Senate has been the graveyard of federal liability reform legislation for years now, but yesterday’s election may start upheaving the tombstones in an entertaining manner. The new Senate should be perceptibly more favorable to litigation reform than the old — by three or four votes, at least. Gone, for example, will be the Carolinas’ Ernest Hollings and John Edwards, two lions of the trial bar.

The most obvious impact will be on measures which already commanded a substantial majority of Senators, including many Democrats, but had nonetheless been blocked by parliamentary gamesmanship — specifically, the bill to pre-empt lawsuits against lawful gun sellers over the illegal later use of their products, and the bill to redirect most national class actions into federal courts. Also significant will be the defeat of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, whose tendency to talk like a litigation reformer back home in South Dakota, while working closely with trial lawyer interests in Washington, has been the subject of scrutiny in this space (Apr. 12, Aug. 19, Dec. 18).

Daschle’s defeat may cause prudent Democratic colleagues to rethink the policy of filibustering all major liability measures rather than letting them come to a vote. Also significant is the greatly strengthened hand of organized gun owners in the next Senate, on which see Dave Kopel’s roundup. If the Republicans know what they’re doing, they’ll call up and pass gun-suit pre-emption at an early point, with some version of class action reform not far behind.

The recent (Aug. 4) fund-raising visit of Sen. Tom Daschle to Oxford, Mississippi took place “under the political radar … Not even the local daily newspaper in Oxford received advance notice of the event and there was zero news coverage of the event.” Why would the Senate Minority Leader go out of his way to raise money far from South Dakota in one of the nation’s poorest states? Well, Mississippi has some of the nation’s wealthiest trial lawyers, many of whom were in attendance, starting with Oxford’s own Dickie Scruggs, who hosted the event. “The fund-raiser sought checks made payable to ‘A Lot of People Supporting Tom Daschle’ — Daschle’s campaign committee in Washington. Daschle is in an unexpectedly tight race with Republican challenger John Thune. Thune accused Daschle of ‘ducking a debate’ to attend the Oxford fund-raising event. Trial lawyers represent Daschle’s largest group of individual contributors at $1.5 million and his second largest overall sector of givers at $1.7 million during the current cycle.” (Sid Salter, “Daschle luncheon was quiet gathering”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Aug. 15)(& welcome readers from Jon Lauck’s Daschle v. Thune blog and from Jason Van Beek at South Dakota Politics, who points to a similar under-the-radar Daschle fundraiser in Jacksonville, Fla. in December hosted by attorney Wayne Hogan). More: the Daschle v. Thune blog reports that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has run an ad in South Dakota assailing the Senator for blocking liability reform, drawing a testy reaction from his camp (Aug. 20, first and second posts). The first of the two posts quotes Crain’s Insider, Apr. 28:

Daschle will accept an award from the NY Trial Lawyers Assn. at a 4/29 dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria. “He is being honored for his work in opposing tort reform. Political strategist James Carville will serve as the keynote speaker”.

Not that this exactly qualifies as news, but Sen. Tom Daschle says things to pro-tort-reform constituents back home that are rather different from what he says in Washington, notices the South Dakota Politics blog (Apr. 4, Apr. 7). And the departure of a surgeon in MedPundit Sydney Smith’s home town, coinciding with a particularly obdurate sound bite from ATLA-admired Sen. Patrick Leahy, prompts her (Apr. 10) to give the Vermont Democrat an Open Secrets look-up (see also MedRants, Apr. 8, with comments section). Dr. Smith also notes (Apr. 6) that the med-mal crisis in famed Madison County, Ill., may play a role in the contemplated closure of Scott Air Force Base in Belleville.

A Senate Minority Leader’s gotta drum up money, after all: he popped down to Jacksonville last Thursday for a fund-raiser hosted by plaintiff’s lawyer Wayne Hogan, part of the $3.4-billion-in-fees Florida tobacco team (see Apr. 12, 2000), and then yesterday attended an event at the Providence, R.I., home of Ness Motley’s Jack McConnell (see Jun. 7, 2001) (David DeCamp, “Party not big on bid from Weinstein”, Jacksonville Times-Union, Dec. 15; Liz Anderson, Scott MacKay and Katherine Gregg, “State House’s quick Thanksgiving food drive is no turkey”, Providence Journal, Dec. 1) (hat tip: South Dakota Politics blog)

April 10-13 – Posting slowdown. Updates will be sparse for a while as our editor responds to a family emergency. See you, most likely, early next week. (DURABLE LINK)

April 10-13 – Public Citizen’s bogus numbers. The supposed consumer group now concedes that it put out erroneous numbers which made Pennsylvania doctors look artificially bad (”Watchdog group backs off claim that Pa. doctors top nation’s repeat malpractice payouts”, AP/Scranton Times, Apr. 2; see our Mar. 15-16 report). In January, in a move timed to undercut President Bush’s Scranton speech calling for malpractice reform, Public Citizen claimed that 10.6 percent of Keystone State doctors had paid out on more than one malpractice allegation; it now admits it can verify only a figure of 5.4 percent. The false numbers were widely reported in the press, and the AP last week published an unusual correction (AP/Kansas City Star, Apr. 4). Pennsylvania Medical Society spokesman Chuck Moran called for Public Citizen to apologize: “It’s ironic that they initiated a report called ‘Medical Misdiagnosis: challenging the malpractice claims of the doctor’s lobby’, when, in fact, they are the ones that misdiagnosed the situation.” The accuracy of the group’s figures have also been challenged in Colorado (”Monitoring malpractice” (editorial), Denver Post, Mar. 10).

There is at any rate a more fundamental problem with the litigation lobby’s contention that the current crisis is caused by a small number of bad doctors who attract most malpractice suits and should simply be driven out of practice. As Binghamton, N.Y. neurologist Dr. Jeffrey Riben points out, the number of malpractice lawsuits doctors face often have less to do with their competence than with their specialty and geographic location. “If you look around at physicians that get sued a lot, they tend to be highly prestigious names, people who get difficult cases in difficult specialties where the results are predestined not to be as good as those of people who handle simpler cases, Riben said. ‘Those are the people who have litigation. So it you want to eliminate those people with multiple suits, you would have to eliminate all of our neurosurgeons, all of our orthopedic surgeons, all of our obstetricians, anybody working in an emergency room and everybody reading mammograms,’ he said. ‘I think you would agree if we eliminated those specialties we would not improve health care.’” (Eric Durr, “Docs, public interest groups battle over malpractice issues”, Albany Business Review, Mar. 14). (DURABLE LINK)

April 10-13 – Employers liable for not filtering raunchy spam? At least if workers have complained, employers may be at risk of liability under sexual harassment law if they fail to install blocking software on email inboxes, say various legal experts. Quotes our editor (Declan McCullagh, “Por nspam: Are employers liable?”, CNET News, Apr. 7) (DURABLE LINK)

April 10-13 – Best and worst state courts for business. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce releases the results of a detailed Harris poll of business respondents. The “top five states today as evaluated by corporate America at doing the best job at creating a fair and reasonable litigation environment are: Delaware, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and Indiana whereas in 2002 Delaware, Virginia, Washington, Kansas, and Iowa were listed as the top 5. The worst perceived states today are: Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, exactly the same as in 2002.” California scores low marks for punitive damages and treatment of class actions; Hawaii is criticized for onerous discovery and the difficulty of getting weak cases thrown out quickly; New York and Minnesota win plaudits for their handling of scientific and technical evidence. Where does your state rank? (overview) (press release in PDF format) (poll results as Word document) (press conference) (DURABLE LINK)

April 9 – Schools roundup. In Camden, N.J., second grade teacher Eileen Blau has sued student Daniel Allen for running into her in a school hallway at an “excessive rate of speed”, thus inflicting “severe and multiple injuries, some of which are permanent in nature,” according to her suit. Young Allen, who at the time of the incident was 11 and weighed about 90 pounds, didn’t know his family was the target of a claim until the sheriff’s deputy showed up at the door. “He didn’t understand why someone would want to do this to him,” said his mother. “He said ‘Why does she hate me? Why is she doing this. I said I was sorry.’” (Bill Duhart, “Teacher sues student over hall collision”, Cherry Hill, N.J., Courier-Post, Mar. 29). The American Bar Association Journal presents an overview of suits arising when girls aren’t picked for the cheerleading squad (Stephanie Francis Cahill, “Bring It On”, Apr. 4; see Jun. 4, 2001). And “[a] group of attorneys who sued Mississippi schools for millions of dollars on behalf of custodians, bus drivers and cafeteria workers has turned to Alabama, filing more than 60 similar lawsuits”. (Scott Parrott, “Local school systems sued”, Tuscaloosa News, Apr. 4). More on the Jackson, Miss.-based School Litigation Group, which according to one of its principals, former congressman and secretary of agriculture Mike Espy, “takes a contingency fee of between 40 percent and 50 percent, depending on the complexity of the case”: Gary Young, “Overtime Suits 101″, National Law Journal, Mar. 19. (DURABLE LINK)

April 7-8 – Bag of treasures. Cornell Curry, 57 and homeless in New York City, says the Partnership for the Homeless’s drop-in center on W. 23rd St. negligently lost a duffel bag of his belongings last fall; he had been unable to stop by to retrieve the belongings because he was spending three weeks in jail after being arrested for public urination. The shelter “admits it did toss one of Curry’s bags in the garbage, but said that one contained only three soiled pieces of clothing.” Au contraire, says Curry in his lawsuit: he avers that the contents of the lost duffel bag included “an $18,000 star sapphire ring, a $4,000 gold watch, $200 in cash and ‘extremely valuable’ photographs, including his parents’ 1937 wedding photo”, entitling him to $2 million in compensatory and $2 million in punitive damages. Last month Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Rosalyn Richter denied a motion to throw out the claim: “It is simply too early to resolve whether the plaintiff did, in fact, leave the bag in the defendant’s possession and whether the plaintiff also shares some responsibility for the alleged loss,” Richter said. (Helen Peterson, “Homeless, or Mister money bag?”, New York Daily News, Mar. 20). (DURABLE LINK)

April 7-8 – Malpractice crisis hits sports-team docs. Some of organized sports’ most memorable highlights have come when athletes played through pain and injury, but increasingly the result is to create a risk of litigation against team physicians, who are exposed to monetary damages that are potentially enormous given their patients’ potential loss of earning power. Some doctors are withdrawing from the care of professional athletes, and organized football is discussing schemes to indemnify team doctors for their escalating insurance bills. (Jason Cole, “With malpractice rates skyrocketing, many doctors are hesitant to care for professional athletes”, Miami Herald, Apr. 2). Our editor’s Feb. 27 Wall Street Journal piece on lawsuits blaming obstetricians for cerebral palsy is now online, thanks to the folks at Texans for Lawsuit Reform. And welcome readers from Sydney Smith’s excellent medical weblog MedPundit, which has run posts in recent weeks on California’s MICRA and insurance rates, what happens to patients who win awards (plus North Carolina crisis notes), the problem with physician “report cards”, Public Citizen, and a link to this Tallahassee Democrat op-ed (Mar. 3) on how Florida’s malpractice crisis is harming its medical schools. (DURABLE LINK)

April 7-8 – Edwards leads in fund-raising. The North Carolina senator aces his Democratic rivals in the White House money race: “The key to Edwards’ success may have come from trial lawyers, a group of which Edwards is a part and from whom he received 80 percent of political action committee money in recent years.” (”Dem Presidential Hopefuls Compete for Cash”, FoxNews.com, Apr. 2; Richard A. Oppel, Jr., “With $7 Million in Donations, Kerry Trails Democratic Rival”, New York Times, Apr. 3). However, a January poll conducted for the Raleigh News & Observer found the senator none too popular in his home state: “The poll found that 47 percent of active Tar Heel voters disapprove of Edwards’ decision to seek the presidency, while 37 percent approve”. (”Poll: Edwards wouldn’t beat Bush in North Carolina”, AP/Charlotte Observer, Jan. 18) (via “Robert Musil“). (DURABLE LINK)

April 7-8 – U.K.: “Killer wrongly sacked for axe attack”. “A convicted murderer who tried to attack a colleague with an axe was wrongly sacked from his job, an employment tribunal ruled yesterday.” The tribunal in the British Midlands ruled that Preston city council was wrong to fire James Robertson, 50, without notice from his health inspector post after he “brandished the [axe] in an Indian restaurant in Preston after an argument”. However, the tribunal ordered the council to pay only “two weeks’ wages, or £807, for breach of contract,” rejecting a plea for more extensive compensation by Robertson, who “gave evidence while handcuffed to a prison guard.” The council “had employed him when he was released from jail on licence after being convicted of kicking a man to death in Glasgow in 1971.” (Daily Telegraph, Apr. 3) (& welcome Dave Barry readers — the great humorist generously calls us “the always fascinating Overlawyered.com” (archives not working, Apr. 7)). (DURABLE LINK)

April 4-6 – Gun lawsuit preemption moves forward. On Wednesday a House Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on H.R. 1036, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which would “prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages resulting from the misuse of their products by others.” Our editor testified in favor of the measure (his prepared statement). The proceedings were televised live on C-SPAN III and rebroadcast overnight on C-SPAN II (schedule, Apr. 2). Yesterday the full House Judiciary Committee gave its approval to the legislation, with Virginia Democrat Rick Boucher joining all panel Republicans in support of the measure. John Tierney’s New York Times account (”A New Push to Grant Gun Industry Immunity From Suits”, Apr. 4) quotes our editor on the subject and mentions The Rule of Lawyers (see second page of article). (DURABLE LINK)

April 4-6 – C-SPAN again. Speaking of C-SPAN II, the network’s “BookTV” feature will be rebroadcasting our editor’s Manhattan Institute speech on The Rule of Lawyers at 3:30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, April 5. (DURABLE LINK)

April 4-6 – A bond too far. Even the editorialists of the New York Times agree that it’s “absurd” and “the kind of ruling that erodes the credibility of our legal system” to require Philip Morris to post a ruinous $12 billion bond before it can appeal the class action ruling of a judge in plaintiff-friendly Madison County, Ill. (”Too Costly an Appeal”, New York Times, Apr. 4)(see Wednesday’s post; more). “As for Judge [Nicholas] Byron, it’s difficult to divine if he was playing jurist or friendly croupier. He sought to sweeten the pot by awarding the State of Illinois $3 billion in punitive damages, out of the total $10.1 billion judgment.” (”A Madison County jackpot”, Chicago Tribune, Apr. 2). Perhaps influenced by the prospect that the state will be thrown this slice of the booty, the Illinois Senate is refusing (for now) to lift a finger to reduce the bonding requirement (”Panel nixes bill to help Philip Morris”, Chicago Sun-Times, Apr. 4)(Update Apr. 30: judge agrees to reduce bond somewhat). (DURABLE LINK)

April 2-3 – Appeals bonds, again. Once again the business end of an otherwise outlandish mega-verdict turns out to be the requirement that a defendant post a bond before it can appeal: Philip Morris says it is unable to put up the requisite $12 billion needed to appeal the recent Madison County, Ill, verdict against it (see Mar. 24). Officials of the fifty states are running around in near-hysteria: they’re bothered not by the possible injustice or community-and-investor disruption involved in bankrupting the giant company, whose holdings include Kraft Foods and Oscar Mayer, but instead by the prospect that an insolvency will jeopardize the flow of billions of dollars into their own coffers under the tobacco settlement. So the AGs, supposedly second to none in their loathing of the tobacco companies, are making noises about intervening to try to get the appeals bond requirement lowered. This is the second time around (at least) for this issue: state governments also mobilized after the Engle tobacco case in Florida threatened bonding requirements high enough to destroy the industry. See also the Loewen case (Ameet Sachdev, “States line up against smoking case bond”, Chicago Tribune, Apr. 1; Neil Buckley, “Philip Morris ‘cannot afford’ $12bn bond”, Financial Times, Apr. 1; “Philip Morris woes hurt stock”, AP/Seattle Times, Apr. 1; “Appeals bond a symptom of need for tort reform”, Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph, Apr. 1; related). (DURABLE LINK)

April 2-3 – After the R.I. club fire. “Ignoring calls from peers to hold off on lawsuits for now, a Providence lawyer [earlier this month] fired the second salvo in what is expected to become a barrage of litigation resulting from the fire at The Station. The lawsuit was filed in Providence Superior Court on behalf of Lisa Kelly of Swansea, a 27-year-old single mom who was among the 99 people killed in the Feb. 20 blaze at the West Warwick, R.I., nightclub. The lawsuit was filed by Ronald Kingsley, the father of Kelly’s daughter, Zoe Jean Kingsley. Kelly’s mother, Barbara Nagle of Attleboro, yesterday said she knew nothing about the suit and that Kingsley hadn’t had any contact with his daughter in three years as far as she knew….

“The latest lawsuit names 19 individuals and companies as defendants, including the St. Louis-based beer giant Anheuser-Busch Inc., whose Budweiser brand accompanied some advertising for the ill-fated show. Anheuser-Busch Inc. yesterday denied any role in promoting or sponsoring the concert in a statement sent to the Herald. ‘The company that distributes Anheuser-Busch Inc. products in Rhode Island is an independent business that has the right to use our beer brand name in its advertising,’ wrote Stephen Lambright, a company lawyer.” (Thomas Caywood, “Second suit filed over fire at Station”, Boston Herald, Mar. 11)(see Mar. 10-11). See also Roger Parloff; “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Ire”, Fortune, Mar. 19; Deroy Murdock, “Lawyers turn tragedy to farce”, Scripps Howard/Naples, Fla. Daily News, Mar. 28. (DURABLE LINK)

April 2-3 – “Mayor: WTC Personal Injury Suits Could Bankrupt NYC”. “New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday warned that personal injury lawsuits filed by people who claim their long-term health was damaged by the clean-up of the World Trade Center site could bankrupt the city in the next 20 years.” (Reuters/Yahoo, Mar. 31). See also Paul Howard (Manhattan Institute), “A 9/11 Tort-Fest”, New York Post, Aug. 10, 2002, and New York Law Journal coverage: Mark Hamblett, “9/11 Victims’ Suits Flood Court to Meet One-Year Time Limit”, Sept. 11; Tom Perrotta, “New York City Creates Unit for Suits From Sept. 11″, Sept. 12; Daniel Wise, “Sept. 11 Fund Master Found to Give ‘Fair Compensation’”, Oct. 2). (DURABLE LINK)

April 1 – Maybe crime pays dept.: not an April Fool’s joke. Gerald Skoning’s annual National Law Journal roundup of the year’s weirdest cases in labor and employment law includes the following gem: “Richard N. Shick — while employed as a caseworker in the Illinois Department of Public Aid — robbed a convenience store in Joliet, Ill., armed with a sawed-off shotgun. Afterward, he sued the department, claiming that he was discriminated against because of his disabilities and his sex, the trauma of which caused him to commit the robbery. The jury awarded him $5 million in damages and $166,700 in back pay. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois partially vacated and dismissed the judgment, but awarded $303,830 in front pay, even while he serves a 10-year sentence. Thankfully, the 7th Circuit reversed.” (”Legal Weirdness at Work”, Mar. 26; Gail Diane Cox, “Here’s the tort reform poster boy for 2002″, National Law Journal, Oct. 28). Also on Skoning’s list: voodoo signs ruled not an unfair labor practice; employer dodges harassment charge after conduct is ruled “even-handedly offensive” rather than discriminatory; hemorrhoids not a protected disability under ADA. (DURABLE LINK)

June 20 – The judge chips in. From suburban Washington, a story that ends with not your usual kind of wealth redistribution: moved by the plight of a couple facing eviction for falling $250 behind on their rent, Fairfax, Va. judge Donald P. McDonough simply handed his own money to the landlord’s stunned attorney and said, “Consider it paid.” “Not something you see much,” said bailiff Erin Cox, who was present. “Not something you see ever.” Odder and odder: four attorneys on hand for other cases, seeing the judge’s example, pulled out their own checkbooks and offered donations to the couple. (Michael Leahy and Leef Smith, “A Beneficent Bench”, Washington Post, June 10).

June 20 – “New York City moves to slash Cendant fees.” “New York City [recently] submitted legal papers challenging as “astronomical” the $262 million fee request — set under a court auction procedure — that was submitted by the law firms that negotiated the record breaking $3.1 billion settlement in the Cendant case.” The class action firms of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman in New York and Barrack, Rodos & Bacine in Philadelphia had been named by the court to represent investors seeking to recoup losses suffered in 1998 when the parent company of the Avis and Ramada Inn franchises conceded that its books showed massive accounting irregularities. (Daniel Wise, New York Law Journal, June 1) (update Sept. 4: judge approves fee).

June 20 – “A Civil Action” and Hollywood views of lawyers. In Boston this spring, the Federalist Society convened a panel discussion on Hollywood’s portrayal of lawyers and litigation, specifically the movie “A Civil Action”(our take on it) as well as clips from several other films. Featured on the panel were several of the attorneys involved in Anderson v. W.R. Grace, the case highlighted in “A Civil Action”, including Jerome Facher of Hale and Dorr (Beatrice Foods), Kevin Conway (plaintiffs), and Michael Keating and Marc Temin of Foley, Hoag & Eliot (W.R. Grace). The moderator was Evan Slavitt of Gadsby Hannah LLP (1 hour, 50 minutes — NetRoadShow).

June 20 – “Litigation grows in ailing nursing home industry”. Lawyers say rising rates of court action are understandable since there’s so much neglect and abuse in long-term care (a spokeswoman from “the Coalition to Protect America’s Elders, a group funded by trial lawyers,” agrees) while administrator Marty Goetz at the River Garden Hebrew Home in Jacksonville says good and bad home operators alike are being “sued to death”. After making nursing home suits a big business in Florida, lawyers have fanned out to nearby states such as Alabama and Tennessee. (Julie Appleby, USA Today, June 19). Three long-term-care operators have filed for bankruptcy recently: Louisville-based Vencor, the largest such chain; Albuquerque-based Sun Healthcare Group, and Atlanta-based Mariner Post-Acute Network, the second-biggest operator with more than 400 homes nationwide. Medicare reimbursement cutbacks are generally cited as the main reason, but Mariner chairman Francis Cash said “explosive litigation costs” were also a factor.

SOURCES: Healthcare Management Advisors HMA Strategy Advisor, Jan. 28; “Nursing Home Files For Chapter 11″, Jan. 18; Debra Sparks, “Nursing Homes: On the Sick List”, Business Week, July 5, 1999; Lindsay Peterson, “Industry Tries Another Battle Tactic,”, Tampa Tribune, March 22, link now dead; Coalition to Protect America’s Elders (pro-liability); ProtectOurParents.com (pro-legal reform, Florida Health Care Association).

June 19 – Welcome CNNfn, Intellectual Capital, CEI readers. Reed Karaim’s advice article for workers thinking of suing their bosses mentions this site and quotes our editor; we like the piece, but who gave it that headline? (Reed Karaim, “Work issues? Go to court”, CNNfn/WomenConnect, June 16). Intellectual Capital bestows on us a mention/ quote/ link in an article on disabled access and web design, and IC’s readers have joined in a discussion of the subject (K. Daniel Glover, “The Disability Divide”, June 15). And Max Schulz mentions this site in the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s latest Update (June).

June 19 – “‘Legislative Subpoenas’ Give Cities An Unfair Head-Start in Lawsuits”. “Should a city council be able to demand private books and records from a company it is considering suing simply to evaluate the city’s likelihood of succeeding in a lawsuit and how much it may be able to recover? The California Supreme Court is currently being urged to give carte blanche to any city, no matter how small, to demand financial and other information from its potential litigation opponents.” The asserted power “threatens every potentially unpopular business in the country.” (Daniel E. Troy (Wiley, Rein & Fielding and American Enterprise Institute), San Francisco Chronicle, June 13).

June 19 – Oh, to be in England. On ABC’s Politically Incorrect last Monday, host Bill Maher brought up the case (see June 12) of the deaf man who’s suing “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” because he can’t participate in its telephone screening process (”it seems like in this country you are not alive unless you are suing someone.”) Comedian Dennis Miller, star of HBO’s “Dennis Miller Live” said the case showed the need to make it easier to collect legal fees from those who file weak cases. Simon LeBon of Duran Duran: “That’s how it is in the U.K. If you’re wasting people’s time, you pay the cost, simple as that.” Miller: “Well, that makes sense. We have come over here … to get away from England because we found the laws repressive. I get over here and I find out their laws are better than ours.” (June 12 transcript; other show transcripts).

June 19 – Shoot-’em-ups: hand over your files. Per the Hollywood Reporter, federal investigators have asked the major studios “to turn over media and marketing plans for certain movies to determine whether the entertainment industry is peddling violent fare to young audiences,” citing sources “familiar with” the Federal Trade Commission probe of popular entertainment ordered by President Clinton after Columbine. “Sources said stacks of boxes of evidence” had been handed over to the federal agency, though with contents heavily redacted to remove proprietary data. The Commission is currently pursuing the probe under its Section 6 informal authority, under which it does not exercise formal subpoena power, but it could turn the proceedings into a probe under Section 5 authority, in which it would have such power. “While tobacco is federally regulated and movies, music and videogames are not, a veteran of the long court fights with the tobacco industry sees parallels between how the FTC probed cigarette marketing and how the FTC now seeks an education in entertainment marketing, especially to children.” (David Finnegan and Brooks Boliek, “Studios asked to show media (sic) their plans for violent films”, Hollywood Reporter/Norwalk (Ct.) Hour, May 8, not online).

Plus: the attorney general of Illinois has seen fit to conduct a “sting” operation on store owners’ sale of violent videogames to minors, though in general it’s not unlawful for them to sell minors those games. “Members of my staff also are researching alternative enforcement strategies if voluntary compliance is not forthcoming,” quoth the AG, Jim Ryan, whose website is emblazoned with the slogan, “For Children, For Families, For Illinois”. (David Hudson, “Illinois attorney general urges end to sales of violent video games to minors”, Freedom Forum, April 20). See also “No basis for liability” (editorial), Boston Herald, April 9 (expressing relief at court’s dismissal of Paducah lawsuit, see April 13); Damon Root, “The blame game”, Liberzine, April 11; Paul McMasters, “Target practice on the First Amendment”, Freedom Forum, Feb. 28).

June 16-18 – New subpage on Overlawyered.com: Overlawyered skies. Our newest subpage collects tidbits of every sort on what happens when law becomes airborne, including material on sport aviation, aerospace product liability, airline labor wrangles, and even UFO suits, along with of course crashes and their aftermath.

June 16-18 – No right to kick him out. Delaware real estate developer Louis J. Capano Jr. is suing the Wilmington Country Club after it expelled him for having made false statements to a grand jury. Last year, in a sensational case reported nationwide, a jury convicted Capano’s brother, former Wilmington attorney Thomas Capano, of murder in the 1996 disappearance and death of 30-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, who had been a secretary to the state’s governor. A judge later sentenced Thomas Capano to death. “During his brother’s trial, Louis Capano acknowledged that he lied to a federal grand jury in an effort to help his brother establish an alibi in connection with Fahey’s disappearance. He also admitted to helping dispose of some evidence connected to the slaying.” The country club subsequently voted out Louis Capano after learning of his admissions; its bylaws allow dismissal of members for conduct that is “disorderly or injurious to the club’s interest or reputation.” Last month he sued in the Court of Chancery seeking reinstatement and damages. (”Louis Capano Sues Wilmington Country Club for Reinstatement”, Delaware Law Weekly, May 11).

June 16-18 – Penalty for co.’s schedule inflexibility: 30 years’ front pay. “A federal jury in Pennsylvania awarded $1.5 million in a suit brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act by a woman who said her bosses at first accommodated her Crohn’s disease by letting her work from home on a flexible schedule but later reneged on that promise by insisting that she work specific days in the office.” Denise Davis, an insurance underwriter, said it was impossible for her to commit to being in the office any particular days because she never knew when her condition might flare up. “The eight-member jury awarded Davis the highest estimate of economic damages presented by the plaintiffs — $1.3 million — and $200,000 in compensatory damages. An economist testified at trial that Davis, who is currently 37, has already suffered losses of more than $40,000 in wages. And since no employer is likely to hire her while needing an accommodation, he said that a present-value estimate of her future lost wages up to age 67 is more than $1.2 million.” (Shannon P. Duffy, “Jury Awards Woman With Crohn’s Disease $1.5 Million in ADA Case”, The Legal Intelligencer (Philadelphia), June 1).

June 16-18 – Animated advocacy. Cross Circuit, a site decidedly in favor of the Second Amendment, carries a number of cartoon animations that may raise a smile, including an interactive game you can play (”Smith & Wesson Clinton Pacifier“) to get a feel for why so many firearms owners grow nervous when they hear about lawsuits intended to prevent the legal sale of any but “smart guns”. We also admit to having laughed at the London-nanny tale “Janet Poppins“, though we warn in advance that it is disrespectful to the presently serving Attorney General (requires Shockwave plug-in).

June 14-15 – The doctor strikes back. The courts make it next to impossible for a vindicated physician to turn the tables and sue the lawyer who filed a losing malpractice case, but Dr. John Guarnaschelli, a Louisville neurosurgeon, has managed to beat the odds. “Guarnaschelli charged that lawyer Fred Radolovich had sued him without any evidence that he was negligent, without consulting an expert, and without doing much of anything to determine whether he had a case. Radolovich later conceded in a deposition that the only doctor he consulted before filing the lawsuit [which was summarily dismissed] was one of his own clients — a family practitioner accused of fondling patients during gynecological exams. That doctor told Radolovich to go to a medical library instead….After a six-day trial, a Jefferson Circuit Court jury concluded on April 25 that Radolovich had maliciously prosecuted Guarnaschelli and ordered him to pay $72,000 in damages, including $60,000 in punitive damages.” Too many other good details to summarize here — don’t miss it (Andrew Wolfson, “Doctor strikes back at lawyer who sued him”, Louisville Courier-Journal, June 7; “Doctor sues lawyer for alleging malpractice”, AP/Lexington Herald-Leader, June 8).

June 14-15 – One gunmaker’s story. Freedom Arms is a small company in the town of Freedom, Wyoming, run by Bob Baker after being started by his father. It “makes collector guns, precise, modernized versions of the old western six-shooter that are sold to a small but multinational market.” “Freedom Arms customers must wait up to eight months for a handgun — far beyond the 24 to 72 hour waiting period debated by politicians — because the company only produces about 2,000 a year.” It has not, however, been spared the same litigation that has engulfed mass-market gun producers. In the much-discussed 1999 case of Hamilton v. Accu-Tek, it was one of 15 gunmakers a Brooklyn jury deemed negligent in their marketing practices, but not among those ordered to pay $500,000. “So far, Baker says he has spent more than $200,000 on legal bills and laid off 12 of his 35 employees to fight the lawsuits.” (”Gun Debate Hits Home for Opponents in Lawsuit”, AP/Salt Lake Tribune, April 20; Firearms Litigation Clearinghouse account of Hamilton v. Accu-Tek).

June 14-15 – “Trial lawyers give $500,000 as legislation heads to Senate floor”. With two major liability-curbing bills pending in the Senate, “trial lawyers in April contributed $508,000 to Democratic Senate campaigns,” reports AP. “The Houston law firm of Williams Bailey [a beneficiary of Texas tobacco fees] donated $250,000 of the total raised from trial lawyers in unregulated soft money during April by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.” A fund-raiser in Savannah during an Association of Trial Lawyers of America conference brought in $300,000: “Trial lawyers could chat with Democratic Sens. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader; John Edwards of North Carolina, a former trial lawyer himself; Charles Robb of Virginia and John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia.” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman David DiMartino “said there was no connection between the legislation and fund-raiser.” Trial lawyers have lobbied against both bills currently before the Senate: H.R. 2366 would limit punitive damages and the application of joint and several liability (paying an entire award when others were also responsible) for businesses with fewer than 25 employees, while H.R. 1875 would give defendants a right to have some class action lawsuits heard in federal rather than state court. Both bills are priorities of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: “The trial lawyers have a lot of money, but the small-business community has a lot of votes,” said James Wootton, who directs the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform. (AP/FindLaw, June 2).

June 14-15 – The judge wasn’t asleep. A unanimous Second Circuit appeals panel has upheld a judge’s ruling that two lawyers and their clients should pay sanctions for the submission of dubious affidavits in an authorship dispute over the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight“. In the lawsuit, four members of the 1950s musical group The Tokens said they had been fraudulently deprived of ownership rights for the 1961 hit (adapted from an earlier song on the Folkways label under the title “Wimoweh”, itself an adaptation of a traditional African song). The members testified in pretrial depositions that they first learned about the fraud in late 1992, but it developed that their 1996 lawsuit would therefore be barred by a three-year statute of limitations on this type of action. Attorneys Mitchell A. Stein and Stephen J. King then sought to present evidence that their clients had been mistaken in the depositions and had actually learned about the denial of authorship rights considerably later, which would salvage a chance to proceed. Judge Michael Mukasey of the federal court in Manhattan said that to credit the new version “would be to affect a level of naivete about human affairs that is not required even of judges,” and ordered Stein and King to pay $15,000, and their clients $7,680, to help “defray fees generated by their unreasonable conduct”. (Mark Hamblett, “Time-Barred Claim Leads to Sanction”, New York Law Journal, May 25) (versions of song, from Huga’s Pad) (Tokens fan site, Tom Simon).

June 13 – Can’t sue over affair with doctor. “A Grand Island woman who had sex with her gynecologist can’t sue him for negligence and emotional distress, the Nebraska Supreme Court said Friday.” Affirming a lower court opinion, the state high court “said the woman’s lawsuit failed partly because the relationship apparently was consensual.” The affair lasted for nearly six years, but the woman grew despondent after the doctor ended it. (Butch Mabin, “Court: Woman can’t sue doctor for negligence”, Lincoln Journal-Star, June 12).

June 13 – From the U.K.: watch your language. Stockport College in Manchester, England, has banned the use of more than forty “offensive” words and phrases, including “postman”, “chairman” and even “history” (sexist), “mad”, “manic”, “crazy” (demeaning to mentally impaired), “the deaf”, “the blind”, “slaving over a hot stove” (”minimizes the horror and oppression of the slave trade”), “normal family”, “ladies and gentlemen” (said to have “class implications”), The 15,000-student college says it “will make it a condition of service and admission that employees and students adhere to this policy”. (Martin Bentham, “College guide bans ‘lady’ and ‘history’ as offensive words”, Sunday Telegraph (London), June 11). And a public employment bureau in Staffordshire, England, recently told an employer that it could not place a recruitment advertisement that included the words “hardworking” and “enthusiastic”, which it deemed discriminatory. The bureau’s parent agency explained that in its opinion such terms, as well as terms like “reliable” and “smart”, are overly subjective and could foster discrimination against the disabled. However, the education and employment minister in the Blair government, David Blunkett, who is himself blind, ordered the policy reversed and the words permitted; his office issued a statement declaring that he “regards it as an insult to him personally to suggest that a disabled person cannot be reliable, hardworking and enthusiastic.” (Maurice Weaver, “Hardworking job seeker? Do not apply within”, Daily Telegraph (London), June 7; Andrew Mullins, “Over-enthusiastic jobcentre boss champions the cause of the lazy”, The Independent (London), June 7).

June 13 – Nader, controversial at last. As a presidential candidate scoring high enough poll numbers to affect the potential outcome in some close states, Ralph Nader seems on the verge of securing the thoroughgoing unpopularity in moderate liberal circles that has so long eluded him. Although the Associated Press still accepts his self-characterization as a “longtime advocate for the ‘little guy’”, the New Republic has been blasting away at the close ties Nader has formed with some not-so-little guys who share his antipathy to free trade, such as conservative textile magnate Roger Milliken: “Says Chip Berlet, an analyst at Political Research Associates who charts right-wing influence on lefty groups: ‘It’s a little strange — you come down to visit Nader and Milliken’s lobbyist picks you up.” (Ryan Lizza, “Silent Partner”, The New Republic, January 10; letters exchange between Joan Claybrook and Lizza, May 1, is not yet online). Still largely unaired in campaign coverage — but explored in pathbreaking articles by Forbes’s Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer a decade ago — are Nader’s much more longstanding ties to a far bigger set of big guys, the plaintiff’s trial bar, for which see links and quotes below.

SOURCES: On trade controversy, and general background: “Daily Notebook: Breaking the Silence” (third item), New Republic, May 22; John Judis, “Seeing Green”, May 29 (Nader “elevates the struggle with corporations into an apocalyptic conflict between good and evil” and turns business into a “bogeyman”); “Nader: Big Guys Invigorate Me”, AP/CBS News, undated, April (noting that Nader faces a handful of challengers for the Green Party nomination, including “Jello Biafra, former lead singer of the punk rock band the Dead Kennedys”); James Dao, “Nader Runs Again, This Time With Feeling”, New York Times, April 15 (reg) (critics charge “that despite his seemingly penurious way of living, he is actually quite wealthy, that he purposely spent almost nothing on his 1996 campaign to skirt federal election laws, which require candidates who spend more than $5,000 to file reports disclosing their assets”); Karen Croft, “Citizen Nader”, Salon, Jan. 26, 1999 (uncritical appreciation by former Nader employee); VoteNader.com (website for his candidacy).

On RN & trial lawyers, not online unless link given: Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer, “The plaintiff attorneys’ great honey rush”, Forbes, Oct. 16, 1989 (includes interview quotes from prominent trial lawyers: “‘We are what supports Nader. We all belong to his group. We contribute to him, and he fundraises through us,” says Fred Levin [Pensacola, Fla.] ([then-annual income from practice] $ 7.5 million). ‘I can get on the phone and raise $100,000 for Nader in one day,’ says Herb Hafif [Claremont, Calif.]. ‘We support him overtly, covertly, in every way possible,’ says Pat Maloney [San Antonio, Texas]. ‘He is our hero. We have supported him for decades. I don’t know what the dollar amounts would be, but I would think it would be very large, because we have the money and he has our unabridged affection. I would think we give him a huge percentage of what he raises. What monied groups could he turn to other than trial lawyers?’”); Peter Brimelow and Leslie Spencer, “Ralph Nader, Inc.”, Forbes, Sept. 17, 1990; Associated Press, Sept. 10, 1990 (quoting RN: “If they don’t retract I will take them to court”, an empty threat as it would seem); “Ralph Nader, pro and con”, Forbes, Oct. 29, 1990 (includes RN’s response); Leslie Spencer, “America’s third political party?”, Forbes, Oct. 24, 1994; Andrew Tobias, “Ralph Nader Is a Big Fat Idiot”, Worth, Oct. 1996; “Ralph Nader’s Dirty Little Secret”, New York Post (editorial), Mar. 19, 2000; Andrew Tobias, “Ralph Nader Really IS a Big Fat Idiot”, AndrewTobias.com, June 12, 2000.

June 12 – Rewarded with the bench. Probably no state official in the country has done more to organize mass litigation than Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal, a key backer of gun, tobacco and Microsoft cases, among many others (see Dec. 2, March 31, Feb. 3, Feb. 16, April 11). Confirming (in case we didn’t already know) that marshaling such courtroom assaults is a good way to get ahead in American law, Blumenthal is now reported to be in line for a nomination by President Clinton to the powerful Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which handles cases from New York and Vermont as well as Connecticut. According to the Hartford Courant, compliant Senate Republicans are expected to confirm him quickly and without a fight. (Jon Lender and Michael Remez, “White House Eyes Blumenthal”, May 9; Michael Remez, “Blumenthal On Verge Of Court Nomination”, May 17; Michele Jacklin, “For The Last Time: Blumenthal Doesn’t Want To Be Governor”, May 17). Update Oct. 10: judgeship didn’t go through, now angling for Senate seat.

June 12 – Who wants to sue for a million?, part II. In March, four disabled Miami residents announced they were suing the hit game show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”, saying the show hadn’t accommodated their efforts to become contestants, and “seeking class-action status for themselves and others who are deaf, blind or paralyzed and have problems using the phone or hearing the instructions.” (see March 24-26) Now Peter F. Liberti Jr., who is deaf and a resident of Tonawanda, N.Y., has filed a similar complaint. (Dan Herbeck, “Wanted: a fair hearing”, Buffalo News, June 8).

June 12 – Bestiary of the bar. In Cincinnati, Common Pleas Judge Fred Cartolano recently complained from the bench “that there are too many lawyers, too many law schools and too many opportunities for dishonest behavior. ‘There are only so many fleas that can feed on a dog,’ the judge said. ‘We have lawyers coming out of the woodwork. There’s not enough business for all the lawyers out there.’ Judge Cartolano spoke before sentencing Kenneth Schachleiter to six months in jail for stealing about $91,000 from the estate of an elderly client.” (Dan Horn, “Judge decries lawyers as ‘fleas’”, Cincinnati Enquirer, April 13). Fullerton, Calif. attorney Linda K. Ross, who practices family and probate law, has filed a lawsuit against GTE Directories Sales Corp. for mistakenly listing her name and phone number in a yellow pages directory under the heading “Reptiles”. “She is subject to a great many joke and hostile phone calls, hissing sounds as she walks by and other forms of ridicule,” according to the lawsuit, although Ross does concede that her own mother “laughed for 10 minutes.” (Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse Houston website, “Briefs”, citing May 1 issue, Liability & Insurance Week; Cathy Martindale, “Bulletin Board”, Amarillo, Tex. Globe-News, Jan. 17). A new legal referral website bills itself as “SharkTank.com — Attorneys Ready To Attack Your Case”. And New York Observer columnist Chris Byron has penned this lyrical description of what happened to a company whose business went from bad to worse trying to lend to borrowers with bad credit records: “class action lawyers have now descended on the company as if drawn by fish guts and other chum to a feeding frenzy of great whales”. (”Shoddy Contifinancial collapses by lending to risky deadbeats”, March 27).