• Raelyn Campbell briefly captured national spotlight (”Today” show, MSNBC) with $54 million suit against Best Buy for losing laptop, but it’s now been dismissed [Shop Floor; earlier]
• Charmed life of Florida litigators Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt continues as Miami judge awards them $218 million for class action lawsuit they lost [Daily Business Report, Krauss @ PoL; earlier here, here, and here]
• Lerach said kickbacks were “industry practice” and “everybody was paying plaintiffs”. True? Top House GOPer Boehner wants hearings to find out [NAM "Shop Floor", WSJ law blog]
• It’s Dannimal House! An “office rife with booze, profanity, inappropriate sexual activity, misuse of state vehicles and on-the-job threats involving the Mafia” — must be Ohio AG Marc Dann, of NYT “next Eliot Spitzer” fame [AP/NOLA, Adler @ Volokh, Above the Law, Wood @ PoL; earlier]
• Sorry, Caplin & Drysdale, but you can’t charge full hourly rates for time spent traveling but not working on that asbestos bankruptcy [NLJ] More: Elefant.
• Fire employee after rudely asking if she’s had a face-lift? Not unless you’ve got $1.7 million to spare [Chicago Tribune]
• Daniel Schwartz has more analysis of that Stamford, Ct. disabled-firefighter case (May 1); if you want a fire captain to be able to read quickly at emergency scene, better spell that out explicitly in the job description [Ct Emp Law Blog]
• As expected, star Milberg expert John Torkelsen pleads guilty to perjury arising from lies he told to conceal his contingent compensation arrangements [NLJ; earlier]
• Case of deconstructionist prof who plans to sue her Dartmouth students makes the WSJ [Joseph Rago, op-ed page, Mindles H. Dreck @ TigerHawk; earlier]
• How’d I do, mom? No violation of fair trial for judge’s mother to be one of the jurors [ABA Journal]
• First sell the company’s stock short, then sue it and watch its share price drop. You mean there’s some ethical problem with that? [three years ago on Overlawyered]

“Accusing tobacco companies of preying on black people, a Miami attorney is seeking $1 billion in damages on behalf of a Coral Springs, Fla., woman whose mother and grandmother both died of smoking-related health problems.” Reporter Forrest Norman of the Daily Business Review, the south Florida legal paper, quotes me expressing skeptical opinions about the suit. In Florida’s earlier Engle tobacco litigation, plaintiff’s lawyer Stanley Rosenblatt came in for sharp criticism at the appeals level for the way he demagogued the racial angle; I covered the case here, here and here. This week’s case was brought by solo practitioner J.B. Harris, who said of the tobacco-company defendants, “If I could, I’d try to have them charged with genocide.” (”Suit Accuses Tobacco Firms of Targeting Black Consumers, Seeks $1 Billion in Damages”, Jun. 6).

The Florida Supreme Court has backed an appeals court’s dismissal of the absurd $145 billion verdict against cigarette makers in the Engle case. The court’s opinion is split in complicated ways, but the defeat for attorney Stanley Rosenblatt is unmistakable. (Daniel Pimlott, “$145bn award against tobacco giants goes up in smoke”, Financial Times/MSNBC, Jul. 6). The opinion is here (PDF)(via Bashman). I’ve written extensively about the Engle case at earlier stages, including op-eds for the Wall Street Journal Jul. 12, 1999, Jul. 18, 2000 and May 23, 2003. Much more background here.

One more try to keep the circus going, from Miami lawyers Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt and friends. If the Florida Supreme Court doesn’t agree with them, it’s all over. (Paul Curcio, “Fla. Justices Asked to Reinstate $145 Billion Award in Tobacco Suit”, Miami Daily Business Review, Nov. 4). See May 15 and links from there.

To no one’s surprise, plaintiff’s lawyers Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt are seeking en banc review by an 11-member Florida appeals court of the demise of their $145 billion verdict against the tobacco industry in Engle v. R.J. Reynolds. (”Florida smokers to appeal $145 billion lawsuit”, Reuters/Forbes.com, Jul. 16). Perhaps hinting at desperation, their banner argument is that the appeals panel engaged in “judicial plagiarism” because it adopted wholesale in its opinion vast tracts of language from defense briefs — even though this particular form of supposed plagiarism is entirely routine in court opinions when judges consider one side’s briefs convincing and do not expect that they will be able to improve on the style of the briefs’ presentation (Siobhan Morrissey, “A Case of Judicial Plagiarism?”, ABA Journal E-Report, Aug. 1). More: Gary Young, “Plagiarism Charges Plague Tobacco Decision”, National Law Journal, Aug. 21. Update May 15, 2004: Fla. Supreme Court agrees to hear case.

[archives after Jun. 24, 2003 are on automatically generated archive pages, accessible from this site's front page]

June 24 – Next: Mercedes sues Merced, Calif. The Volo Antique Auto Museum and Mall in Volo, Ill. (population 200) exhibits and vintage and historic automobiles and runs a website Volocars.com. Now the Volvo division of Ford Motor has failed in a bid before the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva to take away the museum’s right to the volocars.com domain. (Dan Rozek, “Volo car museum nets a win in Volvo Web fight”, Chicago Sun-Times, Jun. 20; Declan McCullagh’s Politech, Jun. 11 and Jun. 10; TechDirt, Jun. 20). (DURABLE LINK)

June 24 – Engle: a $710-million loose end. Assuming the $145 billion punitive damages verdict in the Florida tobacco class action is not revived by the state’s supreme court, one major loose end remains, but it’s a really big one. Three tobacco companies agreed to fork over $710 million in exchange for class counsel’s agreeing “not to challenge a new state law, passed at the behest of the cigarette makers, capping appeals bonds at $100 million.” The enormous sum was placed in escrow for the class, but now the class does not exist since it’s been decertified. Does the class somehow get reconstituted for purposes of dividing the booty? Does it go back to the defendants? To some worthy cause? And how much of it, if any, are plaintiff’s lawyers Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt going to be allowed to grab for themselves? The agreement between the Rosenblatts and the three companies says nothing about decertification. (Matthew Haggman, “The $710 Million Question”, Miami Daily Business Review, Jun. 19). (DURABLE LINK)

June 23 – Lightning bolt in amusement park’s parking lot. Cincinnati attorney Drake Ebner admits cynics will think he’s suing the Kings Island amusement park — in whose parking lot his client was struck by lightning — just because it’s a deep pocket. “But they should hold the park accountable, for not telling his client and thousands of others about an impending lightning storm, Edner said Monday. ‘They could have told the people not to go to their cars, which are large metal objects that can attract lightning.’” (Kimball Perry, “Family sues Kings Island”, Cincinnati Post, Jun. 17). (DURABLE LINK)

June 23 – Misguided search for a sanitized jury. The “legal defense team for Lee Boyd Malvo, the young suspect in last fall’s Washington-area sniper attacks, is seeking a change of venue from Fairfax County. It contends that all potential jurors in the county were victims of the terror spread by the sniper attacks and that jurors contaminated by news coverage make a fair trial impossible. … But impartiality only means without bias. It does not mean without knowledge. The courts have long recognized that jurors can set aside what they might know about a case, and that it’s preferable to have jurors who are tuned into the world around them than ones who are hermits.” (Charles H. Whitebread, “Jurors Must Be Impartial. They Shouldn’t Be Clueless”, Washington Post, Jun. 22). (DURABLE LINK)

June 23 – Mold — to the highest bidder! “Did you hear the one about the guy with the Park Avenue apartment full of toxic mold? He couldn’t find anyone to buy the place for $15.5 million, so he jacked up the asking price last week to $18 million. … At 515 Park Avenue, real-estate developer Richard Kramer would have you believe that recently, his apartment went up in value by $2.5 million even as he and the condominium’s board of managers continue to fight multimillion-dollar lawsuits against the building’s developers and sponsors, in which they allege that the 43-story tower is plagued with a mold infestation and major construction deficiencies.” (Blair Golson, “Toxic-Mold Gold: Shoddy High Rises Sold With Flaws”, New York Observer, Jun. 23 (temporary URL — after it expires, try search function)) (DURABLE LINK)

Assuming the $145 billion punitive damages verdict in the Florida tobacco class action is not revived by the state’s supreme court, one major loose end remains, but it’s a really big one. Three tobacco companies agreed to fork over $710 million in exchange for class counsel’s agreeing “not to challenge a new state law, passed at the behest of the cigarette makers, capping appeals bonds at $100 million.” The enormous sum was placed in escrow for the class, but now the class does not exist since it’s been decertified. Does the class somehow get reconstituted for purposes of dividing the booty? Does it go back to the defendants? To some worthy cause? And how much of it, if any, are plaintiff’s lawyers Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt going to be allowed to grab for themselves? The agreement between the Rosenblatts and the three companies says nothing about decertification. (Matthew Haggman, “The $710 Million Question”, Miami Daily Business Review, Jun. 19).

Florida class action (Engle), 2003: “A $710 million loose end“, Jun. 24; ““Trial lawyers get spanked’“, May 24-26; “Court overturns $145 billion Engle award“, May 22-23. 2001: “Angles on Engle“, May 24.  2000: “‘Not even thinking about’ fees“, Aug. 11-13; “Smoking and responsibility: columnists weigh in“, Jul. 28-30; “‘Poll: majority disapprove of tobacco fine’“, Jul. 24-25; “Florida verdict: more editorial reaction“, Jul. 24-25; “Smoking and responsibility: columnists weigh in“, Jul. 28-30; Editorial roundup“, Jul. 19-20; “Florida tobacco verdict“, July 18; “Tobacco: why stop at net worth?” (punitive damage rulings by judge), Jul. 10; “Another Mr. Civility nominee” (Stanley Rosenblatt), Jun. 2-4.  1999: “$49 million lawyers’ fee okayed in case where clients got nothing” (secondhand smoke class action), Sept. 28; “Personal responsibility takes a vacation in Miami“, Jul. 8; “The Florida tobacco jurors: anything but typical“, Wall Street Journal, Jul. 12, 1999. 

Tobacco fees reconsidered, 2003: “Senate panel nixes tobacco-fee clawback“, May 9-11; “Feds indict former Texas AG“, Mar. 8-9; “‘Not a pretty picture’“, Jan. 10-12.  2002: “Judge overturns $1.3 billion tobacco fee award” (Castano Group), Sept. 27-29; “Welcome Fox News viewers/ readers“, Aug. 2-4; “Tobacco fees: one brave judge” (New York), Jul. 30-31 (& Aug. 2-4, Jun. 21-23, Oct. 16-17, Oct. 25-27, 2002; Feb. 11 & Jun. 6-8, 2003; May 11, 2001).


“‘Lawyers who won $10 bil. verdict had donated to judge’“, Apr. 30, 2003; “A bond too far“, Apr. 4-6; “Appeals bonds, again“, Apr. 2-3; “Mad County pays out again” (”light” cigarette class action), Mar. 24, 2003.

“‘Nanny Bloomberg’” (NYC smoking ban), Oct. 22, 2002.

Tobacco fees, state by state, 2003: “‘Law firms in tobacco suit seek $1.2b more’” (Mass.), May 19 (& Jan. 2-3, 2002, Dec. 22, 1999); “Feds indict former Texas AG“, Mar. 8-9 (& May 22, Sept. 1-3, 2000; Jun. 21, Aug. 29-30, Nov. 12, 2001, Jul. 15, Jul. 30-31, 2002; Jan. 10-12, 2003). 2002: “Judge overturns $1.3 billion tobacco fee award” (Castano Group, California), Sept. 27-29; “Tobacco fees: one brave judge” (N.Y.), Jul. 30-31 (& Aug. 2-4, Jun. 21-23, 2002, Oct. 16-17, 2002, Feb. 11, 2003, May 11, 2001); “Dewey deserve that much?“, Mar. 6; “Mass., Ill., NYC tobacco fees“, Jan. 2-3.  2001: “Michigan tobacco fees“, Sept. 19-20; “Tobacco-fee tensions” (Fla. resumes investing in tobacco cos.), Jun. 21 (& letter to editor, Jul. 6); “Missouri’s tagalong tobacco fees“, Jun. 5 (& Sept. 21, 2000); “‘Lungren now a paid advocate for his former foes’” (Calif.), Apr. 5; “(Another) ‘Monster Fee Award for Tobacco Fighters’” (Calif. cities and counties), Mar. 21-22; “Reclaiming the tobacco loot“, Mar. 15; “Lawyers get tobacco fees early“, Mar. 5; “Tobacco arbitrator: they all know whose side I’m on“, Feb. 16-19.  2000: “Beehive of legal activity: Utah tobacco fees“, Nov. 6; “South Carolina tobacco fees: how to farm money“, Oct. 25; “Gore amid friendly crowd (again)” (Fla.), Apr. 12 (& “Dershowitz’s Florida frolic?“, Jul. 17; also see Dec. 8-10, 2000, Aug. 8-9, 2000, Dec. 27-28, 1999); “Sooner get rich” (Oklahoma), Jun. 7; “‘Lawyers’ tobacco-suit fees invite revolt’” (Ohio), May 23; “North Carolina (& Kentucky & Tennessee) tobacco fees“, May 2; “Connecticut AG has ‘no idea’ whether lawyers he hired are overcharging“, Feb. 3 (& update Feb. 16); “Pennsylvania tobacco fees: such a bargain!“, Jan. 10 (& Oct. 24, 2002). 1999: “Maryland’s kingmaker” (Peter Angelos), Oct. 19 (& Dec. 9, 1999, Oct. 16-17, 2000, June 21, 2001, Apr. 10, 2002); “Illinois tobacco fees“, Oct. 16-17; “My dear old tobacco-fee friends” (Kansas AG, like Connecticut’s, gave tobacco business to her old law firm), Oct. 11 (see also Sept. 21, 2000); “Boardwalk bonanza” (N.J.), Oct. 1-3; “News judgment“, Aug. 6; “Puff, the magic fees” (Wisc.), Jul. 13. 

Tobacco-fee tycoons, 2003: “Class action lawyer takes $20 million from defendant’s side” (Joseph Rice), Mar. 15-16; “‘Not a pretty picture’“, Jan. 10-12; 2002: “Rumblings in Mississippi” (Scruggs, Minor), Oct. 9-10 (& Nov. 6); “Judge overturns $1.3 billion tobacco fee award” (Castano Group), Sept. 27-29.  2001: “Settle a dispute today” (O’Quinn vs. Jamail), Sept. 18; “Ness monster sighted in Narragansett Bay” (Rhode Island, Ness Motley), Jun. 7 (& see Oct. 6-9, 2000, July 17, 2000, Nov. 1, 1999). 2000: “Punch-outs, Florida style” (Robert Montgomery), Nov. 17-19 (& see Aug. 8, April 12, 2000; Aug. 21-22, 1999); “Friend to the famous” (Williams Bailey), Oct. 12; “Senator Lieberman: a sampler” (voted to curb tobacco fees), Aug. 8-9; “Trial lawyer candidates” (Minnesota’s Ciresi), Jul. 6 (& update Sept. 15-17; loses primary bid); “‘Lawyers’ tobacco-suit fees invite revolt’” (USA Today editorial), May 23.  1999: “Who’s afraid of Dickie Scruggs?“, Dec. 2; “Maryland’s kingmaker” (Peter Angelos), Oct. 19 (& Dec. 9, 1999, Oct. 16-17, 2000, June 21, 2001); “The Marie Antoinette school of public relations” (tobacco lawyers pose for photo shoot on their yachts, horse farms, etc.), Aug. 21-22; and see lawyers’ campaign contributions. 

Humor: “Dave Barry on tobacco settlement, round III“, Sept. 16-17, 2002; “Dave Barry on tobacco suits, round II“, March 16, 2000; “Dave Barry on federal tobacco suit“, Oct. 26, 1999; “Cartoon that made us laugh” (”….We can’t take those off the market! Dangerous products are a gold mine for the government!”), Jan. 21-23, 2000.
.
Terms of state tobacco settlement, 2003: “Appeals bonds, again“, Apr. 2-3. 2002: “We did it all for the public health, cont’d” (Alabama devotes more proceeds to tobacco farmers than to smoking reduction), Aug. 22; “Tobacco settlement funds go to tobacco promotion” (N.C.), Jun. 28-30;  “‘Bush budget surprise: $25M for tobacco suit’” (Martha Derthick, Up in Smoke), Feb. 20. 2001: “Tobacco-fee tensions” (Fla. resumes investing in tobacco cos.), Jun. 21 (& letter to editor, Jul. 6); “Reclaiming the tobacco loot“, Mar. 15; “Push him into a bedroom, hand him a script” (Bill Clinton testimonial for tobacco lawyers), Mar. 9-11; “Lawyers get tobacco fees early“, Mar. 5; “Tobacco arbitrator: they all know whose side I’m on“, Feb. 16-19; “Safer smokes vs. the settlement cartel“, Feb. 7-8.  2000: “Missouri tobacco fees“, Sept. 21, 2000; “Tobacco- and gun-suit reading” (Stuart Taylor, Jr.), Aug. 21-22, 2000; “Challenging the multistate settlement“, Jul. 17, 2000.  1999: “‘Few Settlement Dollars Used for Tobacco Control’“, Dec. 27-28; “Tobacco bankruptcies, and what comes after” (state gov’ts, trial lawyers would become cigarette producers), Dec. 13; “How the tobacco settlement works” (the more cigarettes sold, the more money states get), Nov. 2; “Addictive tobacco money” (states sued over alleged burden on their taxpayers — so are they using the proceeds to cut taxes?), Sept. 7; “Collusion: it’s an AG thing” (terms of settlement cartelize cigarette industry), Jul. 29. Also see Walter Olson, “Puff, the magic settlement“, Reason, Jan. 2000. 

“‘Tough tobacco laws may not deter kids’“, Jun. 7-9, 2002; “Blind newsdealer charged with selling cigarettes to underage buyer“, Sept. 16, 1999.

“Sin-suit city” (Banzhaf), Jun. 10, 2002. 

“Ad model sues tobacco company“, May 1-2, 2002. 

“Australian party calls for banning smoking while driving“, Jun. 3-4, 2002; “‘Positive nicotine test to keep student from prom’” (over-18 student, off-premises consumption), Apr. 26-28, 2002 (& update May 10-12: school backs down); “Judge orders woman to stop smoking at home“, Mar. 27-28, 2002; “‘Smokers told to fetter their fumes’” (smoking in homes that bothers neighbors), Nov. 26, 2001; “Utah lawmakers: don’t smoke in your car” (when kids present), Oct. 5-7, 2001; “Apartment smoking targeted“, Jan. 3, 2000. 

“Australian party calls for banning smoking while driving“, Jun. 3-4, 2002 (document retention case); “International tobacco suits: not quite such easy pickings“, Feb. 1-3, 2002; “‘Saudi Arabia finally gets tough on terrorism!’“, Dec. 10, 2001; “More from Judge Kent” (Bolivian suit), Aug. 3, 2001; “Smoker’s suit nixed in Norway“, Dec. 18-19, 2000; “They call it distributive justice” (government of Saudi Arabia sues tobacco cos.), Nov. 16, 2000; “Spreading to Australia?“, Dec. 29-30, 1999; “Israeli court rejects cigarette reimbursement suit“, Oct. 7, 1999. 

“Veeps ATLA could love” (Durbin, D-Ill., as guardian of tobacco lawyers’ fees), July 7, 2000 (& see Apr. 25, 2002). 

“Competing interests: none declared”.  “The unconflicted Prof. Daynard“, April 21-23, 2000 (& update: letters, Jan. 2001, June 2001; Aug. 2, Dec. 17, 2001). 

Federal tobacco suit: our views: “‘Bush budget surprise: $25M for tobacco suit’“, Feb. 20, 2002; “Judge throws out half of federal tobacco suit“, October 2, 2000; “Good news out of Washington…” (House votes to cut off funding for suit), June 21, 2000 (& update June 26: action reversed, funds approved); “Feds: dissent on smoking = racketeering“, Sept. 23, 1999; “Guest column in Forbes by Overlawyered.com’s editor“, Oct. 25, 1999. 

“Prison litigation: ‘Kittens and Rainbows Suites’” (cellmate’s smoking violates rights), Jan. 11-13, 2002. 

Boeken v. Philip Morris: “Boeken record“, June 19, 2001; “$5,133.47 a cigarette“, Jun. 11, 2001; “Tobacco plunder in Los Angeles” ($3 billion damage award), Jun. 8-10, 2001. 

Federal tobacco suit: others’ views: “Columnist-fest” (Jacob Sullum), Jun. 22-24, 2001; “Blatant end-runs around the democratic process” (former Labor Secretary Robert Reich), Jan. 15-16, 2000; “Dave Barry on federal tobacco suit” (plus novelist Tom Clancy’s critique), Oct. 26, 1999; “‘This wretched lawsuit’” (Jonathan Rauch in National Journal ), Oct. 13, 1999; “Feds’ tobacco shakedown: ‘A case of fraud’“, Sept. 29, 1999 (roundup of editorial pages); “Feds as tobacco pushers” (columnist Andrew Glass recalls encouragement of smoking in U.S. Army), Sept. 24, 1999; “Hurry up, before the spell breaks” (leading plaintiff’s lawyer wants feds to sue fast since public losing interest), Sept. 24, 1999.

Regulation by litigation: “Tobacco- and gun-suit reading” (law prof Michael Krauss), Aug. 21-22, 2000; “Convenient line at the time” (tobacco is unique, said state attorneys general — sure), May 15; “Stuart Taylor, Jr., on Smith & Wesson deal” (”Guns and Tobacco: Government by Litigation”), Apr. 11, 2000; “Arbitrary confiscation, from Pskov to Pascagoula” (Michael Barone in U.S. News on threat to rule of law), Jul. 24-25, 1999; “Guns, tobacco, and others to come” (Peter Huber in Commentary on the new mass-tort cases as “show trials”), Jul. 20; “‘A de facto fourth branch of government’” (prominent trial lawyer Wendell Gauthier’s view of plaintiff bar’s role), Jul. 4, 1999. 

“Dewey deserve that much?“, Mar. 6, 2002; “Health plans rebuffed in bid to sue cigarette makers“, Jan. 11, 2000. 

“Terrorists, American business execs compared“, Sept. 28-30, 2001. 

“Columnist-fest“, Jun. 22-24, 2001 (Amity Shlaes on asbestos synergy case); “Best little forum-shopping in Texas” (state’s Medicaid suit got filed in Texarkana, contributing $6.1 million to local economy), Aug. 27, 1999. 

“The Kessler agenda” (former FDA chief calls for cigarette ban), Jan. 12-14, 2001; “Kessler rebuked” (FDA claim of authority over tobacco), March 27, 2000. 

“Updates” (baby Castano suit nixed in N.Y.), Dec. 26-29, 2000. 

“Wal-Mart’s tobacco exposure“, Sept. 25-26, 2000; “The Wal-Mart docket” (sued over tobacco sales), July 7, 2000.

“Another billion, snuffed” (antitrust lawsuit between snuffmakers), May 10, 2000. 

“Hollywood special: ‘The Insider’“, Mar. 30, 2000. 

“Because they still had money” (Hausfeld’s price-fixing suit), Mar. 2, 2000. 

“Tobacco lawyers’ lien leverage“, Feb. 29, 2000. 

“Feds’ tobacco hypocrisy, cont’d: Indian ’smoke shops’“, Jan. 25, 2000; “Do as we say, please” (Indian tribes, after profiting immensely from tax-free smoke shops, turn around and sue suppliers), Jul. 14, 1999. 

“The joy of tobacco fees“, Jan. 20, 2000.

“Calif. state funds used to compile ‘enemies list’“, Jan. 5, 2000.

“‘Trial lawyers on trial’” (Trevor Armbrister, Reader’s Digest), Dec. 23-26, 1999.

“Philadelphia Inquirer Tech.life: ‘Web Winners’” (this page is recommended), Dec. 15, 1999.

“Ohio tobacco-settlement booty“, Nov. 8, 1999.

“Public by 2-1 margin disapproves of tobacco suits“, Nov. 5-7, 1999. 

“Not-so-Kool omen for NAACP suit“, Nov. 1, 1999. 

“Minnesota to auction seized cigarettes“, Oct. 21, 1999. 

“Reform stirrings on public contingency fees“, Oct. 15, 1999.

“Big guns” (tobacco example shaped gun litigation), Oct. 5-6, 1999.

“Plus extra damages for having argued with us” (”lesson of tobacco”: you can get punished for defending your product), Aug. 19, 1999. 

“‘Settlement bonds’: are guns next?” (how Wall Street finances expropriation of industries), Aug. 5, 1999.

Do the tobacco wars that began in the mid-1990s represent an unprecedented triumph for public health?  Are they an inevitable response to legislative gridlock on smoking policy?  Or are they our legal system’s own updated version of the Gilded Age scandals that brought American government into disrepute a century ago, siphoning billions of dollars of publicly obtained money into the hands of politically connected attorneys?  Commentaries on Overlawyered.com (above) may help you decide.  In the mean time, the following links offer a way into the wider tobacco controversy: 

Anti-tobacco groups, most of which are supportive of litigation as well as other coercive government actions aimed at curtailing tobacco sale and use, are well represented on the web.  They include Tobacco.org, federally funded antitobacco activist Stanton Glantz’s Tobacco Control Archives, Americans for Non-Smokers’ Rights, Action on Smoking and Health, and the American Council on Science and Health. Tobacco.org’s links list is especially comprehensive. The empire associated with Prof. Richard Daynard, participant in tobacco suits, oft-quoted expert, and professor at Northeastern U., includes the Tobacco Products Liability Project and Tobacco Control Resource Center, as well as the State Tobacco Information Center.  The Castano Group, a vast joint venture of trial lawyers cooperating to file tobacco class actions, maintains a website that is distinctly uninformative (unless you’re a lawyer/member or a cooperative pressie).

Relatively neutral sites include Yahoo Full Coverage.

Critics of the anti-tobacco crusade often note that it curtails individual liberty, freedom of contract and freedom of association.  As part of its Breaking Issues series (”Fining Smokers“), Reason magazine includes a list of online articles skeptical of the government’s role in the tobacco field, while Reason senior editor Jacob Sullum is the author of 1998’s For Your Own Good : The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health.  At the libertarian-oriented Cato Institute, Robert Levy has criticized “The Tobacco Wars“, written that “States Share Blame for Tobacco Lawyers’ Greed“, and called tobacco settlements “Dangerous to Your Liberty“; the state Medicaid suits, he argues, are “Snuffing Out the Rule of Law“. Cato’s Jerry Taylor describes the battle as “The Pickpocket State vs. Tobacco“. “The Anti-Tobacco Crusade” by Joseph Kellard, Capitalism magazine, March 1998, argues from a viewpoint supportive of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. In Colorado, the Independence Institute maintains a Center for Personal Freedom run by Linda Gorman which draws the connection to other paternalist crusades on issues like drinking, seatbelt use and mandatory helmet laws.  The Heritage Foundation’s Todd Gaziano makes the case that a proposed federal lawsuit against tobacco companies is “elevating politics over law” (July 30, 1999 Backgrounder).  Overlawyered.com’s editor has taken exception to the retroactivity of the crusade, to its manipulative treatment of children, and to the hardball or demagogic tactics used in the Castano and Engle cases. Rep. Chris Cox (R-Calif.) delivered a notable critique of the tobacco litigation at a Congressional hearing held Dec. 10, 1997 (no longer online).

An extensive site offering an aggressive defense of smoking and smokers, along with a large collection of links, is Forces International (”Fight Ordinances and Restrictions to Control and Eliminate Smoking”).

August 18-20 – Why the bad guys can’t stand John Stossel. The ABC News correspondent is the one TV reporter who again and again has exposed and ridiculed in devastating style the abuses of litigation and misconduct of lawyers, the excesses of scare-environmentalism, and countless instances of over- and mis-government (his hourlong special “The Trouble With Lawyers” a couple of years back is just one of many highlights; Stossel’s website at ABC). You can bet he’s made a long list of enemies in the course of doing this, and now, after a flub by his staff in a report on organic foods (for which he apologized last Friday on camera) there’s a well-organized campaign under way to take his journalistic scalp. That would reduce from one to zero the number of prominent contrarian TV voices on many of these issues, leaving in place, of course, the large amount of vigorous advocacy journalism from the point of view opposite to his. A recent New York Times roundup on the controversy quotes our editor (Jim Rutenberg and Felicity Barringer, “Apology Highlights ABC Reporter’s Contrarian Image”, Aug. 14); if you wonder what sorts of grossly misleading stories the network newsmagazines have run over the years without anyone’s feeling obliged to apologize for them, check out our article “It Didn’t Start With NBC Dateline“.

Now the Competitive Enterprise Institute has launched a website project devoted to documenting and exposing the campaign to get John fired, and to collecting letters, petition signatures, and other signs of support so that ABC will know how big a fan base he has rooting for him. (SaveJohnStossel.org, temporarily hosted at counterprotest.net/stossel).

August 18-20 – “Caffeine added to sodas aims to addict — study”. Because most consumers in a small study could not tell by taste whether a soda had caffeine in it or not, some researchers at Johns Hopkins arrived at the conclusion that the substance appears in sodas for the sole purpose of “addicting” consumers. (Most of the biggest mass-market sodas offer a choice of caffeinated and non-caffeinated versions; typically the latter is considerably less popular with consumers, who are presumably helpless to choose between the products, enslaved as they are by their addiction.) “The study appeared in Archives of Family Medicine, which is published by the American Medical Association”. (”Pop made to hook drinkers”, Reuters/Detroit News, Aug. 15; “Cola makers rip study on caffeine addiction”, AP/Spokane Spokesman-Review, Aug. 15). Advocates who have participated in the demonization of the tobacco industry and other businesses have frequently denied that the food industry is next on the list. It’s certainly on some folks’ list, however. Last year Yale University researcher Kelly Brownell said: “I have called the food environment in the United States toxic … The food companies and their advertisers are, in fact, luring our children into deadly behavioral patterns … Sooner or later, the food companies will be considered in the same way we regard the tobacco industry.” (”Regulation by Litigation: The New Wave of Government-Sponsored Litigation”, sponsored by Manhattan Institute, Chamber of Commerce of the U.S., and Federalist Society, June 22, 1999, conference proceedings)

August 18-20 – Weekend reading: Macaulay’s bicentenary. Your editor being a longtime admirer of the great classical liberal Thomas Babington Macaulay, his latest Reason column is devoted to appreciating the Whig historian’s written legacy on the 200th anniversary of his birth (Walter Olson, “Confessions of a Macaulay Fan”, Reason, August/September). An outfit called Electric Book is generous enough to webpost downloadable versions of many of his essays, free for individual use (zip files of PDF documents).

August 18-20 – Snakes’ rights not always paramount. Notwithstanding endangered species law, New York environmental authorities have decided not to press charges against 72-year-old Phillip Wheaton for killing a protected rattlesnake that had bitten him. Wheaton had just stepped from his car on a rural road in Cameron, N.Y. when the timber rattler bit him on the leg. Wheaton proceeded to hit the snake with his cane, injuring it; it was taken to a veterinary hospital where it later died. “I had a fight with that snake and I won,” Wheaton said later. “I didn’t cause no fight with that rattlesnake but he caused it with me.” (”Slain serpent”, AP/Fox News, Aug. 16). Last year (Oct. 12) we reported on a court’s ruling, also in New York, that a private landowner was obliged to host rattlers on its property; it ordered the tearing down of a “snake-proof” fence that had prevented the venomous creatures from approaching an area where humans were at work.

August 16-17 –Fortune on Lerach. Don’t miss this long but grippingly reported account of the rise, prosperity and current woes of the world’s most widely feared plaintiff’s securities lawyer, Bill Lerach of the west coast office of Milberg, Weiss. Full of remarkable material new to us (Peter Elkind, “The King of Pain Is Hurting”, Fortune, Sept. 4). Earlier this summer the same magazine published a colorfully detailed account of infighting among the troop of plaintiff’s lawyers angling to bring down the HMO industry (John Helyar, “They’re Ba-a-ack!”, Fortune, June 26).

August 16-17 – Okay to make lemonade. In Eustis, Fla., the city government has backed down from an inspector’s attempt to close down the lemonade stand that nine-year-old Rachel Caine runs across the street from her home. (Stephanie Erickson, “Eustis officials back down from order to make girl, 9, close lemonade stand”, Orlando Sentinel/Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Aug. 9). And in Longmont, Colo., 11-year-old “Soda Girl” Caitlin Rezac is back in business with her fizzy-refreshment stand after a run-in with the Boulder County health department, which had busted her for operating without a hand sink and $110 license; a local business donated the sink (search Denver Post archives on “Caitlin Rezac” (excerpts free, fee for full story); letter to the editor from county official Ann Walters, Boulder Daily Camera, Aug. 12 (scroll) (via Liberzine)).

August 16-17 – Olympics website’s accessibility complaint. The United States isn’t the only place where controversy is simmering over websites that “exclude” blind and other disabled users (by not adopting design and syntax that cater to them). At a recent hearing of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in Australia, organizers of the Sydney Olympics defended themselves against charges that they hadn’t made their website usable by the vision-impaired. (Rachel Lebihan, “Olympics web site riddled with blind spots”, ZDNet, Aug. 9). America Online has reached a provisional settlement of the complaint filed against it by the National Federation of the Blind (see Nov. 5); the online service pledges to alter its software to bring it into fuller compatibility with screen reader technology and says it will train its employees to be sensitive to disabled users’ needs, in exchange for which NFB agrees to postpone suing for a year (Oscar S. Cisneros, “AOL Settles Accessibility Suit”, Wired News, July 28). Also: a clip we missed earlier on Congress’s February hearing on this topic: “Do Web Sites Violate the Americans with Disabilities Act?”, TechLawJournal, Feb. 10.

August 16-17 – “City gun suit shot down on appeal”. An appeals court has unanimously upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the city of Cincinnati’s lawsuit against the gun industry, likening that suit “to the ‘absurdity’ of suing the makers of matches because of losses from arson.” Prominent tort attorney Stanley Chesley (see June 1, March 30), representing the city, says he will appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, which, ominously for the gunmakers, is currently controlled by a majority of justices well disposed to trial-lawyer arguments (see May 8, 2000; Aug. 17 and Aug. 18, 1999). (Dan Horn, Cincinnati Enquirer, Aug. 12; “Cincinnati can’t sue gunmakers for damages, court rules”, Reuters/FindLaw; text of decision (Cincinnati v. Beretta; retrievable Word document, not website).

August 16-17 – Web-copyright update: “Dialectizer” back up, “MS-Monopoly” down. The “Dialectizer“, a website that will translate another page of your choice into a variety of stagey dialects including Redneck, Cockney, Elmer Fudd and Pig Latin, is back up and running; we reported May 18 that the site had closed itself down for fear of being sued by businesses that might view such automated translation of their websites’ contents to be an infringement on their copyright. However, the “MS-Monopoly” parody site, which adapted elements from the popular board game Monopoly to comment on the Microsoft case (see Dec. 3) has been pulled down at the behest of lawyers for toymaker Hasbro, which puts out the real game: “MS-Monopoly.com ‘Cease and Desist’ed by Hasbro Lawyers“. In Forbes, Virginia Postrel says big companies are being shortsighted when they sic lawyers on fan sites that happen to use copyrighted material; News Corp.’s Fox properties, for example, have issued rumbling letters to online enthusiasts of cult shows such as The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (”The Shortsighted Site Busters”, Forbes/Reason Online, July 24).

August 15 – Plastic surgeons must weigh patients’ state of mind, court says. By a 3-2 margin, a New York court has allowed a claim to proceed against a cosmetic surgeon for conducting liposuction and abdominoplasty procedures on a patient while “fail[ing] to take into account that she suffered from Body Dysmorphic Disorder, or a preoccupation with a minor or imaginary physical flaw,” which meant that her consent to the procedures might not really count as informed. The patient made at least fifty visits to the doctor’s office. (Michael A. Riccardi, “Doctor Must Weigh Patient’s Mental State”, New York Law Journal, June 29; Renee Kaplan, “What Should Plastic Surgeons Do When Crazy Patients Demand Work?”, New York Observer, July 31). (Update June 11, 2001: she loses in New York’s highest court). The American Life League, an anti-abortion group, plans to take a leaf from its counterparts on the left and launch a systematic litigation campaign based on malpractice, consumer protection and other theories to shut down abortion clinics, while a conservative writer suggests approaching sympathetic state attorneys general and getting them to file a tobacco-style megasuit against abortion providers (Julia Duin, “Pro-life advocates aim to hit clinics in the pocketbook”, Washington Times, Aug. 10; Chuck Morse, “Big Tobacco and the Abortion Industry”, EtherZone, June 12). In Erie, Pennsylvania, a judge has declared a mistrial in a medical malpractice trial after a juror fainted during the trial and the defendant physicians revived him; the judge thought it necessary, lest this act of kindness be thought to have improperly prejudiced the proceedings, to restart the whole ordeal from scratch (”Doctors accused of malpractice aid juror who fainted”, AP/CNN, Aug. 11). And Overlawyered.com’s page on law and medicine has been selected as a resource by the MedExplorer medical search site.

August 15 – The Veep that got away. It’s been widely reported that the other finalist in the process by which Al Gore picked his running mate was youthful Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who’d have been an equally noteworthy pick from litigation reformers’ perspective but for opposite reasons: after briefly representing record companies Edwards “moved to Raleigh, N.C., in 1981 and became a plaintiffs’ lawyer. That made him a millionaire. His fortune has been estimated at $20 million to $50 million.” Edwards proceeded to sink an estimated $10 million from his own pocket into his first and only political campaign, knocking off incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth by 4 points. The Gore camp saw Edwards as telegenic, a skillful speaker and from an important state, but worried that his past could backfire among voters unhappy with trial lawyers for “doing things like suing doctors and winning big verdicts, which then drive up health care costs — and Edwards has been an incredibly successful one of that breed.’” (Michael Kramer, “Aides: Al Leaning Toward Edwards”, New York Daily News, Aug. 6).

August 15 – “Teams liable for fans’ safety”. A Colorado court of appeals has ruled that “sports teams must protect fans from known dangers — such as flying hockey pucks — unless lawmakers specifically exempt the teams from such liability.” Diane Smith, a lawyer for the now-defunct Denver DareDevils roller hockey team, said fans sit in the more hazardous area near the goal because they want the best view and “if you are going to sit where the action is, there are risks that go along with that”; appeal to the state’s high court is planned (Howard Pankratz, Denver Post, Aug. 4).

August 14 – Bush-Lieberman vs. Gore-Nader? Our editor contributes a guest column today (pinch-hitting for the vacationing Holman Jenkins) for Opinion Journal, the Wall Street Journal editorial page’s new online venture. The column discusses the strong record Sen. Joe Lieberman has compiled on litigation reform, the dilemma this poses for Vice President Gore, the wrath it calls down on his head from fellow Connecticut resident Ralph Nader, and the reasons why America is unusual in treating the pro-litigation position as “progressive” when it isn’t deemed to be such in much of the rest of the world (”Not All Liberals Love Lawsuits”, Aug. 14).

August 14 – “Disney must pay $240 million in sports park lawsuit”. A jury in Orlando “ruled Friday that the Walt Disney Co. stole the idea for a sports theme park from a former baseball umpire and his architect partner and must pay $240 million in damages,” a sum that the judge has discretion to increase because the jury found Disney acted with malice. “The notion that we had to steal the idea from the plaintiffs, an idea as old as ancient Greece, is preposterous,” said Disney general counsel Lou Meisinger, who said “the plaintiffs lawyers had tried to frame the case as ‘little people against big business’ and attempted to ‘inflame their prejudice.’ Plaintiffs’ lawyer Willie Gary”, well known for his work on the Loewen and Coke cases, “called Disney’s reaction ’sour grapes.’ ‘We beat ‘em and quite frankly we’ll beat ‘em again if we need to,’ Gary said. ‘They’re crying like little babies.’” Another member of the team of plaintiff’s attorneys was Johnnie Cochran of O.J. Simpson case fame (CNN, Aug. 11; Beth Piskora, “Ump and architect sue Disney for $1.5 B”, New York Post, Aug. 10; “The Mouse Stole Idea”, Aug. 12; Yahoo Full Coverage).

August 14 – “Airbag chemical on trial”. Because of the airbag in her $30,000 Mercedes, Edith Krauss and her husband walked away from a 1997 crash that otherwise might have killed them. But Krauss is suing the luxury automaker anyway: she “contends that she has been plagued by throat ailments since the crash and they stem from her inhaling sodium azide, the chemical that allows for the forceful deployment of airbags.” The company says the concentration of the chemical in an airbag is too low to cause harm. Trial began last week in Elizabeth, N.J. (MaryAnn Spoto, Newark Star-Ledger, Aug. 8).

August 14 – Embarrassing Lawsuit Hall of Fame. Among recent lawsuits with details so embarrassing it’s a wonder anyone would file them: a Barberton, Ohio woman is suing an acquaintance in small claims court, saying he reneged on a promise to let her pay in sexual favors for part of the sale price for a truck (Stephanie Warsmith, “An unusual ‘contract’ is in court”, Akron Beacon Journal, Aug. 10); the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination has recommended dismissal of a complaint by an employee of the town of Plymouth, who had charged that a town official inflicted a hostile working environment on her by (among other things) subjecting her to flatulence, the commission reasoning that the passing of gas is not sexual in nature (Aug. 27, 1999; not online, case referred by UCLA law prof Eugene Volokh); and an Ottawa man has sued a city hospital, saying it misdiagnosed a very intimate injury committed to his person after he got on stage at a club and allowed an exotic dancer to sit on his chest (Glen McGregor, “Man sues hospital over testicle removal”, Ottawa Citizen/National Post, Aug. 8; more exotic dancer litigation: July 26, May 23 (also from Canada), Jan. 28).

August 11-13 – Litigation reform: the Texas experience. Citizens for a Sound Economy releases a report evaluating the results of the 1995 package of litigation reforms enacted in Texas under Gov. George W. Bush (more about package, from Governor’s office). Prepared by the Perryman Group of Waco, Tex., the report estimates that the reforms contributed significantly to reducing prices, raising personal incomes and stimulating economic development in the Lone Star State, with resulting benefits to the average Texas household of $1,078 a year. (”The Impact of Judicial Reforms on Economic Activity in Texas”, Aug. 9; executive summary links to PDF document).

Earlier, Texas insurance commissioner Jose Montemayor estimated that insurance buyers in the state would save a cumulative $2.9 billion by 2000 through mandated rate reductions linked to the lawsuit reforms: “Tort reform has been a tremendous success.” (”Commissioner says tort reform saves Texans $2.9 billion”, AP/Abilene Reporter-News, Oct. 2, 1999). Trial-lawyer-allied groups soon attacked the figures (Terrence Stutz, “Tort Reform Savings on Insurance Overstated”, Dallas Morning News, Dec. 21, 1999, reprinted at Kraft Law Firm site), and have gone to considerable lengths to publicize their case since then (see Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Jim Yardley, “Bush Calls Himself Reformer; the Record Shows the Label May Be a Stretch”, New York Times, March 26, 2000, excerpted at Democratic National Committee site; now 404 Not Found, but GoogleCache has preserved a version). For a riposte from the reform side, see Tom Beaty, “Legal reform has brought benefits to business”, Houston Business Journal, Feb. 21, 2000.

And see: Constance Parten, “Texas Holds Its Own in Insurance Rates”, Insurance Journal, June 26, 2000 (reform package wasn’t expected to bring major savings in auto insurance, as opposed to commercial and medical lines, but did so anyway); Lone Star Report, Aug. 27, 1999 (scroll halfway down for item); and Texans for Lawsuit Reform. Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, Houston, has posted a variety of materials on the controversy at its website, including a summary of reforms; Jon Opelt, “$3 Billion Hardly Chump Change“; and Cora Sue Mach, “Governor Bushwhacked over Lawsuit Savings“. (DURABLE LINK)

August 11-13 – “Ohio cracks down on keggers”. Under a new Ohio law, people who want to give parties for which they’ll buy five or more kegs of beer must register the location of the party in advance, wait five days to take possession of the kegs, and “allow liquor agents and police to enter the property to enforce state liquor laws, a requirement that bothers the American Civil Liberties Union and others.” Several states have or are considering similar laws. “Maryland has required keg registration since 1994 to allow the containers to be traced to the buyer and the seller, both of whom are held accountable if minors are caught drinking the alcohol.” (Liz Sidoti, AP/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 8).

August 11-13 – Stay away, I’ve got a court order. Last year Maryland passed a new law allowing residents to apply for a civil restraining order to keep away people who they say have frightened or harassed them, a type of protection long available in matrimonial cases. Now the law is being used more than proponents expected, and not just by unmarried paramours and other intimates but as a way to settle — or escalate — spats among schoolmates, neighbors, co-workers and virtual strangers. (Donna St. George, “Residents Seeking ‘Peace’ Invade Md. Courts”, Washington Post, Aug. 7).

August 11-13 – “Not even thinking about” fees. With appeals and other legal maneuvering expected to last quite a while after a Miami jury’s $145 billion punitive damage award against tobacco companies, Knight-Ridder asked plaintiff’s attorney Stanley Rosenblatt about fees he might reap from the action. “It’s so far down the road that we’re not even thinking about it,” he claimed. (Uh-huh.) “Generally lawyers’ fees in class-action suits are about 25 to 30 percent of the award or settlement,” the news service reports, though it speculates that trial judge Robert Kaye might approve a smaller fee award than that, perhaps a mere $1 billion. Rounded off in the overall context, that would count as almost nothing, right? (”Smokers’ lawyers could get $1B — or zilch”, Knight Ridder/Norwalk (Ct.) Hour, July 26, not online). Plus: commentary by the Cato Institute’s Robert Levy (”Litigation Lunacy in Florida”, Cato Daily, July 31).

July 10 – Tobacco: why stop at net worth? Trial judge Robert Kaye, presiding over the Engle tobacco class action in Miami (see July 8, 1999, Sept. 28, June 2, our WSJ take July 1999), has declared that in calculating a basis for punitive damages there’s no reason jurors should feel obliged to stop at a sum representing the tobacco companies’ net worth. “There’s much more to this case than net worth or stockholder equity,” he said. Earlier, Judge Kaye ruled that it was proper to place before the jury the companies’ capacity to borrow funds to help meet a punitive damage award, and also agreed to let the jury consider companies’ operations worldwide in assessing those damages, though foreign countries might wonder why the hypothesized victimization of smokers worldwide should result in a punitive payoff exclusively to (certain) Floridians, and though overseas court systems are generally far more averse than ours to the award of punitive damages. Moreover, Judge Kaye “barred the defendants from arguing to the jury that they have already been punished enough by their earlier settlements with states valued at $246 billion” even though those settlements took place in the shadow of demands for punitive damages. (Imagine copping to a plea bargain in one court over your past doings, and then finding you get no double jeopardy protection when hauled up for punishment by a second court — after all, your plea bargain was “consensual”, so how can it count as punishment? But American courts are in fact permitted to assess punitive damages against civil defendants an unlimited number of times to chastise them for a single course of conduct, so it’s not as if any due process is owed or anything.)

Plaintiffs offered an expert witness, Prof. George Mundstock of Univ. of Miami School of Law, who testified that the nation’s five biggest cigarette makers “are worth $157 billion domestically and have a ’strikingly rosy’ future”, per AP, which appears to make hash of suggestions that lawyers’ efforts previous to this point have made a vital difference in putting us on the road to a “smoke-free society”. Mundstock’s methodology reportedly reduced to a present value stream the surplus of all future tobacco company income over expenses. Even the Wall Street Journal’s Milo Geyelin, not a reporter suspected of pro-business leanings, writes that Kaye’s handling of the legal issues in the suit has been “unorthodox”. At the New York Times, meanwhile, reporter Rick Bragg last month interviewed several of the dozen or more smoking-ravaged spectators who throughout the trial have taken highly visible seats in the courtroom day after day where the jury can hear and see their labored breathing, oxygen tanks, and mechanical voice boxes. While extracting considerable human-interest content from these interviewees, Bragg’s story does not display the least curiosity as to whether the idea of attending just happened to occur to all of them spontaneously, or instead, as defendants have hinted, was the result of an orchestrated effort by plaintiff’s attorneys Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, which might have been ruled out of bounds as manipulative and prejudicial by a jurist less agreeable to the plaintiffs’ cause than Judge Kaye.

SOURCES: Milo Geyelin, “Judge Won’t Allow Tobacco Industry To Cite Settlements”, Wall Street Journal, May 18; “Jury can hear about tobacco industry’s borrowing power, judge rules”, FindLaw, May 31, no longer online; “Economist estimates tobacco industry worth $157 billion”, AP/FindLaw, June 6, no longer online; Gordon Fairclough, “Judge in Smoking-Illness Suit Tells Jury Not to View Settlements as Punishment”, Wall Street Journal, June 14; “Judge KO’s Tobacco Try on Damages”, AP/FindLaw, July 6; Milo Geyelin, “Judge Reverses, Lets Jury Weigh Foreign Tobacco Sales”, Wall Street Journal, June 7; Rick Bragg, “Where Smoking Damages Are Argued, Plaintiffs Fight for Air”, New York Times, June 3.

July 10 – “Why You Can’t Trust Letters of Recommendation”. Fear of lawsuits isn’t the only factor inhibiting candid letter-writing in higher education, but it’s an important one, especially since a recent decision by the Virginia Supreme Court stripped professors of immunity for allegedly defamatory reference-giving in the tenure process. Open-records laws add to the difficulties, as in the University of California system, where job candidates enjoy a big head start in figuring out who’s saying what about them (Alison Schneider, “Why You Can’t Trust Letters of Recommendation”, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 30) (via Arts & Letters Daily).

July 10 – Wonder Bread hierarchy too white, suit charges. What more symbolically fraught company to get sued on race discrimination charges than Wonder Bread? Bay Area politician/attorney Angela Alioto, representing 21 black workers at Interstate Brands’ San Francisco bakery, thinks $260 million an appropriate amount to ask for failure to promote and other sins; the trial began May 24. A feud has also developed between Alioto and co-counsel Waukeen McCoy, with Alioto accusing McCoy of swiping three of her clients. (Dennis J. Opatrny, “Wonder Bread Race Discrimination Trial Opens in S.F.”, The Recorder/CalLaw, May 30; Alioto website). Update: jury awarded $11 million in compensatory and $121 million in punitive damages (see Aug. 4).

July 7-9 – Veeps ATLA could love. For the organized plaintiff’s bar, more reason to smile: recent speculation about a running mate pick for Al Gore has centered on such names as Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Defense Secretary Bill Cohen, a Republican Senator from Maine before joining the Clinton Administration. Trial lawyers have had few better friends in the U.S. Congress than Durbin, who’s taken a prominent role in advancing their interests in virtually every hot area of recent years: tobacco (where, notwithstanding language on his website about how he’s worked to prevent “unnecessary windfalls for special interests“, he led the successful fight against limiting multi-billion-dollar lawyers’ fees), gun and HMO liability (in both cases sponsoring legislation that would make it easier to sue) and product liability (where he helped lead opposition to various GOP-sponsored bills, such as one to ease liability pressure on biomaterials used in implants and other advanced medicine). (PBS “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” transcript, May 19, 1998 (tobacco — scroll to near end); Bob Barr (R-Ga.) press release on Durbin gun bill, March 4, 1999; Durbin press release on HMO liability, April 29, 1998; Jeffrey J. Kimbell, “Biomaterials Access Bill Continues To Move Through Congress”, American Society for Artificial Internal Organs, undated 1998) (also see May 8). Cohen, though unlike Durbin not closely identified with the trial lawyer agenda, has the unusual distinction of having worked early in his career for both the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (as an assistant editor-in-chief) and the Maine Trial Lawyers Association (as vice president); not surprisingly, he acquired a reputation on the Hill as one who often strayed from the Republican fold on litigation issues. (Biographical note, University of Maine/Orono; Ramesh Ponnuru, “The Case for Bill Cohen”, National Review Online “Washington Bulletin”, July 3). (DURABLE LINK)

July 7-9 — Inmate: You didn’t supervise me. A former inmate at the Spartanburg County, S.C. jail has filed a lawsuit saying officials negligently failed to supervise him while he engaged in horseplay alone in his cell. Torrence Johnson, of Rock Hill, who was in jail after his arrest on charges of driving with a suspended license and another traffic infraction, says he fell and broke a vertebra with resulting paralysis. “If jail personnel had done a better job of supervising him, Johnson claims, he never would have been able to engage in the ‘horseplay’ that paralyzed him.” “He stood up on a desk in his cell and was cutting back flips off of it,” said jail director Larry Powers. “With the small number of detention officers we have, there’s no way that we can constantly monitor every inmate continuously around the clock.” (Tom Langhorne, “Paralyzed man blames jail for injury”, Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal, July 6).

July 7-9 – The Wal-Mart docket. The world’s largest retailer gets sued with such regularity that an enterprising Nashville lawyer has erected a site entitled the Wal-Mart Litigation Project devoted to the subject. You can browse 99 Verdicts Against Wal-Mart, search for attorneys who volunteer a willingness to sue the company, or consult a price list of packets you can buy on dozens of specialized topics such as “Pallets or Dollies Left in Aisle Ways (12 items, $100)” “Shopping Carts - Overloaded (4 items, $45)”, and “Restrooms - Water on Floor (3 items, $40)”. Some of the bigger-ticket lawsuits against the chain assert liability over the sale of guns later used to commit crimes, over abductions and other crime occurring in parking lots, and over tobacco sales: a suit in Arkansas last year labeled the retailer a “co-conspirator” with cigarette companies. Update: for another suit, see July 21-23.

SEE ALSO: “Ala.Wal-Mart to pay up to $16 million over shotgun used to kill woman”, AP/Court TV, Feb. 23; Trisha Renaud, “Tangled Mind, Tangled Case”, Fulton County Daily Report (Atlanta), March 24; Bob Van Voris, “Wal-Mart Discovery Tactics Hit”, National Law Journal, March 29; Bob Van Voris, “More Sanctions for Wal-Mart”, National Law Journal, April 14; Seth Blomeley, “Pair sues Wal-Mart, tobacco firm, calls them ‘co-conspirators’”, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Dec. 16, 1999 (no longer online); Bob Van Voris, “Wal-Mart’s Bad Day”, National Law Journal, June 5.

July 7-9 – Welcome Australian Bar Association members. Our editor was a featured speaker at the Association’s conference in New York this week, which has helped boost this site’s already considerable traffic from Down Under. For more on Dame Edna’s fateful gladiolus toss, mentioned in our remarks, see our May 26 commentary.

July 6 – Foreign policy by other means. The Constitution entrusts to the President and his appointees the task of managing this nation’s relations with foreign powers, but now some in Congress are keen on giving private litigators ever more authority to initiate courtroom fights against those foreign powers, whether or not the State Department considers that such hostilities fit well into a coordinated national policy. A bill that would entitle U.S. victims of Iranian-backed terrorism to collect compensation payments from blocked Iranian bank accounts is moving swiftly on Capitol Hill, despite a plea from the Clinton Administration’s Stuart Eizenstat that significant foreign policy interests of the government will be impaired if blocking of foreign assets becomes simply a preliminary to attachment of those assets on behalf of particular injured litigants. (Jonathan Groner, “Payback Time for Terror Victims”, Legal Times (Washington), June 7). The touchy issue of U.S. relations with member nations of OPEC has in the past and might someday again engage this nation in armed conflict abroad, but Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has just introduced a Foreign Trust Busting Act that could empower litigants to seize OPEC assets in this country, removing a legal obstacle known as the “Act of State” doctrine, under which U.S. courts generally avoid ascribing liability to the official acts of foreign governments. Presumably oil sheiks would proceed to submit to depositions in American courtrooms and negotiate over the size of the fees payable to entrepreneurial class action lawyers. (Ted Barrett, “Bill will allow antitrust suits against OPEC”, CNN, June 24). And lawyers for Argentine veterans and relatives are in Strasbourg, France, preparing to file a war crimes case against Great Britain over the 1982 sinking of the cruiser General Belgrano, which killed 323 seamen; Britain and Argentina were at war at the time over Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands. (”Argentine war victims sniff justice in Belgrano case”, Reuters/CNN, July 3) (see Feb. 14 commentary and links there, and July 14).

July 6 – Trial-lawyer candidates. New York Press columnist Chris Caldwell, reflecting on the New Jersey Senate primary victory of Goldman Sachs executive Jon Corzine, predicts that more millionaire candidates will enter Democratic politics by staking their own campaigns, but says “[i]t’s unlikely most of them will be finance executives. More probably, they’ll resemble North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who made his 25 million as a trial lawyer. Trial lawyers are the Democratic Party’s biggest contributors, and the party repays the favor by helping create a favorable litigating climate, and even breeding such golden-egg-laying geese as the various state tobacco agreements. But they’re increasingly coming to the conclusion that there’s no reason to bribe the party when you can run it yourself.

“Typical of the new lawyer/candidate class is Minnesota’s Michael Ciresi, who’s seeking the Democrat/ Farm[er]/ Labor nomination for Senate. Ciresi’s law firm got $400 million of Minnesota’s tobacco money. Why? Because then-state Attorney General Skip Humphrey (Hubert’s son) said it should. We seem to be arriving at a situation in which it is the government itself that puts up candidates.” (”Hill of Beans: Iron Jon (second item), New York Press, June 13).

July 6 – Update: Canadian skydiver recovers damages from teammate. A judge has awarded C$1.1 million ($748,000) to Gerry Dyck, a veteran skydiver who sued teammate Robert Laidlaw for allegedly failing to exercise proper care toward him during a dive. The case, along with other recent suits, had been criticized by some in the skydiving community as bad for the sport (see May 26) (”Canadian skydiver wins lawsuit against teammate”, Reuters/FindLaw, June 26).

July 5 – Feds’ own cookie-pushing. Even as the White House and Senators wring their hands over the threat to privacy posed by visitor tracking by private websites, dozens of federal agencies use cookies to track visitors, including those dispensing information on such sensitive topics as drug policy and immigration. (Declan McCullagh, “Feds’ Hands Caught in Cookie Jar”, Wired News, June 30; Eric E. Sterling, “Uncle Sam’s ‘cookie’ is watching you”, Christian Science Monitor, July 3). So does the website of a New Jersey Congressman who’s expressed high dudgeon about privacy issues in the past (Declan McCullagh, “How Congressional Cookies Crumble”, Wired News, June 30; John T. Aquino, “Senate Online Profiling Hearing Suggests Movement Toward Federal Legislation”, E-Commerce Law Weekly, June 16). Meanwhile, state attorneys general, emboldened by taking tobacco and Microsoft scalps, are moving closer to filing cases against cookie-setting dot-coms: “It’s like the thought police. It’s really an alarming specter in terms of privacy”, claims Michigan AG Jennifer Granholm, of the ability of servers to detect particular repeat visitors to their sites (Gail Appleson, “States may launch privacy suits”, Reuters/ZDNet, June 20). The Federal Trade Commission has moved to regulate privacy policies at financial services sites, and is asking Congress for legislation that would extend its authority much further (Keith Perine and Aaron Pressman, “FTC Publishes Internet Privacy Rule”, Industry Standard/Law.com, May 16; Keith Perine, “FTC Asks Congress for Online Privacy Laws”, Industry Standard/Law.com, May 24).

July 5 – Prospect of injury no reason not to hire. In May, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that employers can’t deny a job to a disabled applicant even if the work poses a “direct threat” to that applicant’s health or safety. Chevron had turned away Mario Echazabal for a job at the “coker unit” of its El Segundo, Calif., oil refinery in 1995 after a pre-employment exam revealed that he had a liver disorder that the company’s doctors feared would worsen in the unit’s harsh environment (”coker units” explained: Industrial Fire World site). Prominent liberal jurist Stephen Reinhardt, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, held that it should be up to a disabled worker whether to risk a toxic exposure — never mind that the employer will predictably be presented with much or all of the bill if the exposure does wind up incapacitating the worker. Jeffrey Tanenbaum, with the San Francisco office of the management-side law firm Littler Mendelson, said “either the decision is terribly wrong, or the ADA is written in a ludicrous manner,” because “it makes no sense to make an employer violate a federal or state health and safety law,” referring to Occupational Safety and Health Administration statutes that require employers to avoid exposing employees to injury. (Michael Joe, “Employment Bar in Tizzy Over 9th Circuit Decision”, The Recorder/CalLaw, June 16).

July 5 – “Exporting tort awards”. Study of more than 7,000 personal injury cases by Eric Helland (Claremont McKenna College) and Alexander Tabarrok (Independent Institute) finds civil awards against out-of-state defendants ran an average of $652,000 in states where judges reach office by partisan election, but only $385,000 where selection is nonpartisan. For cases against in-state defendants, the gap was a narrower $276,000 vs. $208,000 — suggesting that while one effect of partisan judicial elections may be to raise the level of awards, an even more important effect may be to worsen the bias against out-of state entities which are not represented in a state’s political process but are subject to wealth redistribution by its courts (”Exporting Tort Awards“, Regulation, vol. 23, no. 2 (autoredirects to pdf document); “The Effect of Electoral Institutions on Tort Awards” (links to pdf document), Independent Institute Working Paper #1).

July 5 – We probably need a FAQ. “Does your law firm handle driving under the influence cases?” — thus a recent email to this site from a Mr. R.S. We do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to correspondents that we aren’t a law firm or legal referral service, and that we can’t advise folks with their legal problems, no way, nohow — both from lack of time and inclination and because we fear being dragged off to the Unauthorized Practice dungeons where they stow people who presume to dispense such advice without advance permission from the bar.

July 3-4 – “Parody of animal rights site told to close”. Several years ago internet entrepreneur Michael Doughney registered the web address www.peta.org and used it to put up a site called People Eating Tasty Animals, parodying the militant animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Now a federal judge “has ordered him to relinquish the web address to PETA and limit his use of domain names to those not ‘confusingly similar’”. Doughney’s lawyer says he plans to appeal and says it’s not a cybersquatting case because his client had no wish to sell the domain name but simply wanted to use it for parody. Doughney has moved the site here; it includes a substantial list of links to sites which take the position that there’s nothing unethical about animal husbandry as such, as PETA would have it. (”Parody of animal rights site told to close”, Ananova.com, June 21; “Domain Strategies fo