Springfield, Mass.: The parents’ suit charges that the chain wrongfully sent Corey Lind out to deliver pizza to dangerous and unknown addresses; he was ambushed and murdered in 2007. Noteworthy angle:
According to the suit, prior to 2000 Domino’s had a policy of not making or of limiting deliveries to certain areas.
As a result of discrimination claims against the company, the federal Department of Justice investigated the policy. The result was an agreement between the government and Domino’s establishing procedures Domino’s could use to limit or stop deliveries to certain areas based on safety.
The suit said that Domino’s required all stores to implement a Limited Delivery Service Policy which, among other things, would evaluate each store’s delivery and service area and provide for the safety of delivery workers.
Tagged as:
restaurants,
sued if you do,
third party liability for crime
Sued-if-you-do, sued-if-you-don’t dept.: “United Parcel Service tentatively settled a 10-year-old lawsuit Tuesday by agreeing to allow some deaf and hard-of-hearing employees to compete for jobs driving small delivery vans after special testing and training. …UPS argued that deaf drivers were more likely to get into accidents because they couldn’t hear sirens, screeching tires or other danger signals.” [Egelko/SF Chronicle] We covered the litigation in 2006.
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
safety,
sued if you do
There is a horrifying tale on Consumerist about a family that missed a flight to visit their dying mother in the hospital because a ticket agent refused to help them because it was time for her break. What the story doesn’t tell you, and what none of the commenters seem to realize, is that it’s the trial lawyers that put United Airlines in that situation. Oregon labor laws California labor laws require workers to be permitted to take breaks; plaintiffs’ attorneys have made a multi-million-dollar cottage industry out of class action lawsuits against employers where customer service was permitted to take priority and workers occasionally didn’t take their breaks. (In California, the penalty for failing to provide a ten-minute break is an hour of pay.) To avoid this, the employer has to enforce the break period stringently, because they can potentially be held liable even if the employee voluntarily avoids the break.
Tagged as:
airlines,
sued if you do,
wage and hour suits
Yes, he’s back in court: Dr. John A. King is now suing, for $50 million, the lawyer he hired to sue the three law firms that represented him previously. “King has an extensive history of suing hospitals who terminated his privileges, medical boards who took away his licenses and lawyers he hired to represent him.” Putnam General Hospital, where he previously practiced, and HCA have paid out around $100 million to settle claims against King. [Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail].
Tagged as:
hospitals,
sued if you do,
West Virginia
The Supreme Court rejected (h/t Beck/Herrmann) tobacco companies’ argument that the FTC’s use of the Cambridge Filter Method standard of measuring tar and nicotine impliedly preempted lawsuits against the tobacco companies for advertising their cigarettes using data from the Cambridge Filter Method standard of measuring tar and nicotine. The fact that the federal government disavowed preemption lends another data point in support of Professor Catherine Sharkey’s argument that the Court tends to defer to the Solicitor General’s position on preemption disputes. Justice Thomas’s dissent, which would undo the unworkable Cipollone plurality, appears to me to be the stronger argument, but it didn’t carry the Kennedy Five.
The fact pattern is the subject of numerous multi-billion dollar lawsuits against tobacco companies alleging that their sales of light cigarettes are fraudulent. The light-cigarette consumer fraud litigation still suffers from constitutional flaws relating to due process in aggregate litigation, but these remain to be resolved.
Tagged as:
class actions,
light cigarettes,
preemption,
sued if you do,
Supreme Court,
tobacco
Perhaps a candidate for the “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” files? From Gov. Sarah Palin’s ethics disclosure form to the Attorney General of Alaska concerning allegations that she improperly sought the removal of Alaska state trooper Mike Wooten, an estranged brother-in-law who’d made threats against her family:
It was a matter of public importance that some Alaska State Troopers seemed to feel themselves above the law. Beyond the governor’s own personal experience, the state was sued for troopers’ violations of constitutional rights, occasionally losing jury trials that would cost the taxpayers substantial money. And, of course, such abuses of power by troopers are exactly the kind of corruption that the governor has long opposed. On occasion, Governor Palin would let Monegan know that she felt this was a problem within the Department of Public Safety; Monegan has told the press that at least once the Governor included mention of Wooten as a prime example of someone who was a problem within the department. Monegan himself told the Washington Post about an e-mail Governor Palin sent him after he informed the governor about one such jury trial loss.
(courtesy Anchorage Daily News, PDF — see p. 9, paragraph 45)(background: WaPo, CNN). More: Beldar.
Tagged as:
Alaska,
police,
Sarah Palin,
sued if you do
This is the silliest claim I’ve seen in a long while. The shooting victim’s family filed a claim against the school their son attended because it allegedly failed to enforce the dress code. The “feminine-dressing” boy was thusly singled out for abuse. (“Family of shooting victim files claim against Huenume School District”, VenturaCountyStar, Aug. 14).
Update: I revised the title for accuracy.
Tagged as:
deep pocket,
guns,
schools,
sued if you do,
third party liability for crime
We hear frequently that the medical profession doesn’t do enough to police its own. Cases like that of Lawrence Poliner might explain why. In 1997, in response to complaints by nurses at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, and the allegation by a doctor that Poliner had performed an angioplasty on the wrong artery, the hospital asked Poliner to stop work while they investigated. These limited privileges lasted 29 days, followed by a unanimous decision to suspend, a five-month suspension from echocardiography privileges, and then reinstated Poliner five months later subject to conditions that he consult with other cardiologists.
For this, Poliner sued for defamation and under federal antitrust law, alleging that other cardiologists were trying to dominate the market and prevent his competition. The five-month suspension had federal immunity under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act, 42 U.S.C. § 11101 et seq. (just one of many federal tort reforms that promote safety), but the trial court held that the 29-day limited-privileges created a cause of action that should go to a jury. Poliner lost $10,000 in income over that time “but was awarded more than $90 million in defamation damages, nearly all for mental anguish and injury to career. The jury also awarded $110 million in punitive damages”–despite the fact that Poliner would have to prove damages were caused by the allegedly unprivileged temporary limitation rather than by the five-month suspension. We covered the initial $366 million verdict in 2004, the outraged medical blogosphere reaction, and the remittitur to a still ludicrous $22.5 million in 2006.
[click to continue…]
Tagged as:
antitrust,
Dallas,
hospitals,
jackpot justice,
medical,
noneconomic damages,
sued if you do
- Nothing new about lawyers stealing money from estates, but embarrassing when they used to head the bar association [Eagle-Tribune; Lawrence, Mass., Arthur Khoury]
- Unusual “reverse quota” case: black job applicant wins $30K after showing beauty supply company turned her down because it had a quota of whites to hire [SE Texas Record]
- Who knew? Per class action allegations, pet food contains ingredients “unfit for human consumption” [Daily Business Review]
- U.K.: “A divorcee who won a £1.4million payout from her multi-millionaire husband is suing her lawyers because she claims she should have got twice that amount.” [Telegraph]
- UW freshman falls from fourth-floor dorm window after drinking at “Trashed Tuesday”, now wants $ from Delta Upsilon International as well as construction firm that put in windows [Seattle P-I, KOMO]
- After giant $103 million payday, current and former partners at Minneapolis law firm are torn by feuds and dissension — wasn’t there a John Steinbeck novella about that? [ABA Journal and again, Heins Mills]
- Small firm that used to make Wal-Mart in-house videos sets up shop at AAJ/ATLA convention hawking those videos for use in suits against the retailer [Arkansas Democrat Gazette, earlier]
- When the judge’s kid gets busted [Eric Berlin; Alabama]
Tagged as:
Alabama,
alcohol,
bar associations,
class actions,
colleges and universities,
divorce,
feeing frenzy,
for me but not for thee,
Massachusetts,
Minnesota,
personal responsibility,
sued if you do,
Wal-Mart,
Washington state,
wills and trusts
Yesterday the New York Times reported on the longstanding problem of patient assaults on medical personnel, particularly in psychiatric care: citing Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, it said “half of all nonfatal injuries resulting from workplace assaults occur in health care and social service settings”. (David Tuller, “Nurses Step Up Efforts to Protect Against Attacks”, Jul. 8). So it’s worth noting what happened to Northfield City Hospital in Northfield, Minnesota when a man showed up at the emergency room at 2 a.m., ranting and yelling in an increasingly agitated manner. Hospital staff finally called the police, who arrived on the scene at 7 a.m., assessed the situation and tasered the man. (He was uninjured otherwise and was subdued without losing consciousness.) “Now federal and state health officials have cited the Northfield hospital for violating the patient’s rights,” a development that has outraged hospital officials in the state. The state health department says it believes that staff at the facility, a small one with fewer than 100 beds, “needs more training in deescalation techniques”. The hospital has hired two security guards and is negotiating other steps with the state (Maura Lerner, “Hospital calls cops and feels the sting”, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Jun. 15). A commenter at KevinMD asserts:
A few years ago, Medicare tried to prohibit physicians from discharging a patient for any reason, up to and including physical attacks on physicians and staff.
Just as the doctors were required to hire translators at the doctor’s expense, they would be required to hire security at the doctor’s expense.
They backed off then, when they physicians called them on it. Not surprised they would try again.
Tagged as:
hospitals,
Minnesota,
sued if you do
- New FASB regulation may provide fodder for trial lawyers: publicly disclose your internal analysis of liability (thus giving away crucial settlement information and attracting more lawsuits), and/or face lawsuits when your disclosure turns out to be incorrect. [CFO.com; CFO.com; NLJ/law.com ($); FASB RFC]
- NBC settles a “You-made-me-commit-suicide-by-exposing-my-pedophilia” lawsuit. [LA Times; WSJ Law Blog; Conradt v. NBC Universal]
- A victim of overwarning? 17-year-old loses hat on Six Flags Batman roller-coaster ride, ignores multiple warning signs to jump multiple fences into unauthorized area, retrieves hat, loses head. [FoxNews/AP; Atlanta Journal-Constitution; TortsProf]
- Lots of Ninth Circuit reversals this term, as per usual. [The Recorder/law.com]
- A no-Twinkie defense doesn’t fly in a maid-beating case. [CNN/AP via ATL]
- The Chinese government demonstrates that it can enforce laws against IP piracy when it wants to [Marginal Revolution]
- “Justice Scalia said he thought that the United States was ‘over-lawed,’ leading to too many lawyers in the country. ‘I don’t think our legal system should be that complex. I think that any system that requires that many of the country’s best minds, and they are the best minds, is too complex. If you look at the figures, where does the top of the class in college go to? It goes into law. They don’t go into teaching. Now I love the law, there is nothing I would rather do but it doesn’t produce anything.’” [Telegraph]
- Above the Law commenters decidedly unimpressed by my looks. Looking forward to feminists rushing to my defense against “silencing insults.” [Above the Law]
Tagged as:
accounting,
defense lawyers,
media,
Ninth Circuit,
overwarning,
sued if you do,
suicide,
Supreme Court,
trademarks
Industrial safety specialists have long warned of the hazards of letting employees wear baggy garments around assembly-line machinery, hence the snug uniform, including pants, prescribed for both sexes by Mission Foods at its tortilla-making plant in New Brighton, Minn. Fatuma Hassan, an employee of Somali descent, claims it’s religious discrimination not to let her wear traditional garb. Thanks in part to activist groups eager to provide backup, Minnesota has become a flashpoint for Muslim employees’ demands for religious accommodation on the job: the cab drivers who refused to transport arriving airline passengers carrying duty-free alcohol and the Target cashiers who declined to scan pork apparently never made it to court, but complainants in the state filed 45 other cases with the EEOC last year. A class action is in progress against circuit-board maker Celestica on behalf of 22 employees, many of whom “were fired or suspended for taking unauthorized breaks at sunset. The changing Islamic prayer schedule was a key reason.” (”Cultural traditions can lead to conflict on the job”, AP/Rochester (Minn.) Post-Bulletin, Jun. 17)(via Michelle Malkin).
Tagged as:
Minnesota,
religious discrimination,
safety,
sued if you do
The facade of the Old Morris tobacco shop in Victoria, British Columbia, which has operated at its location for 120 years, “has been preserved in it’s [sic] original design, including signs noting the tobacco, house blends and Havana cigars within.” New provincial legislation prohibits tobacco-promoting signage where visible to youths; “Businesses who violate the act face a $575 fine for a first offense, with penalties rising up to $5,000 for repeat offences.” At the same time:
In a letter sent to [store owner Rick] Arora, Steve Barber, senior heritage planner with the City of Victoria, called the store’s signs “an integral part of the history of this building and part of it’s heritage character,” meaning Arora cannot remove or cover the signs.
“They’ve made it clear I can’t touch them,” Arora said. “I could be fined $1 million and go to jail for two years.”
Neither government agency “is budging” on its demands. (Tom Mcmillan, “Tobacco store owner caught between policies”, Canwest/Vancouver Sun, May 27). Update: compromise struck (thanks to reader ras in comments).
Tagged as:
Canada,
historic preservation,
sued if you do,
tobacco
A customer complained to the staff that a man was in the women’s restroom in the Greenwich Village restaurant Caliente Cab Co. Given the risk of multi-million dollar liability of failing to act in the face of a warning if a customer were assaulted by a man in the women’s restroom, a restaurant bouncer ejected Khadijah Farmer, Khadijah’s girlfriend, and a third in their dinner party.
Unfortunately for the restaurant, Khadijah Farmer was not a man, but an extraordinarily masculine-looking lesbian (who says she is mistaken for a man on a “daily basis”).
Further unfortunately for the restaurant, New York City has an unusual law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of “sexual stereotyping.” Further further unfortunately, Ms. Farmer wasn’t satisfied when the restaurant offered her a free meal in response to her complaint, and went straight for the lawyers. Further further further unfortunately, a top-tier law firm agreed to work the case “pro bono,” assigned three attorneys to it, and ran to the courthouse, even after the restaurant agreed to sensitivity training for its employees.
Let’s agree: the bouncer made a mistake and should have taken the opportunity to look at Farmer’s ID. Women shouldn’t be thrown out of women’s restrooms for looking like men, though one who looks as masculine as Farmer has to reasonably expect questioning unless we’re going to go the unisex bathroom route.
Damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t; up against a law firm using a bazooka to kill a mosquito; and in a neighborhood where being on good terms with the gay community is important for business relations, the restaurant, facing weekly pickets from the Queer Justice League, rolled over and settled for $35,000 + $15,000 in attorney’s fees, which will eventually be extracted from the restaurant’s clientele in the form of higher prices. (Jennifer 8. Lee, “Sexual Stereotypes, Civil Rights and a Suit About Both”, NY Times, Oct. 10; Jennifer 8. Lee, “Woman Wins a Settlement Over Her Bathroom Ouster“, NY Times, May 14; Andy Humm, “Calls to Boycott Caliente Cab Company”, Gay City News, Jul. 19).
I ate at the Caliente Cab Co. on Bleecker in the summer of 1988 when I lived on 12th and University; next time I’m inclined to eat there, I’ll let them throw me out of the restaurant for a fraction of what they paid Ms. Farmer. (Similarly: Gothamist commenters.)
The good news is that the legal problems of New York’s poor and non-profits have been so thoroughly resolved that a law firm can devote substantial pro bono resources to punitively harassing a small business over a bouncer’s not especially unreasonable misunderstanding, and has successfully trained a couple of young associates that they can file a lawsuit to extract tens of thousands of dollars over a $50 dispute. Do Morrison & Foerster’s clients know that this is the kind of litigation they’re subsidizing?
Previously on pro not-so-bono: October 2004.
Tagged as:
Caliente Cab,
eat drink and be merry,
Khadijah Farmer,
legal extortion,
Morrison & Foerster,
pro bono,
restaurants,
sexual stereotyping,
sued if you do
School districts have learned that they cannot discipline students for abusive Internet postings they make off-campus. Layshack v. Hermitage Area School District, No. 074465 (pending 3d Cir.); Dwyer v. OceanPort School District No. 03-6005 (D. N.J.) ($117,500 settlement to student suspended over web site). “Lawyers say school districts are in a legal quandary: If they punish a student for something they did off school grounds, they could get hit with a freedom of speech claim. If they do nothing, they could get hit with failure to act litigation.” (Tresa Baldas, “As ‘cyber-bullying’ grows, so do lawsuits”, National Law Journal, Dec. 10).
Tagged as:
bullying,
schools,
sued if you do
- Remember that ludicrous case where the Florida driver fell asleep, crashed his Ford Explorer, his passenger was killed, and a jury blamed Ford to the tune of $61 million? (See also Sep. 10.) A Florida court got around to reversing it, though only to grant a new trial under a variety of erroneous evidentiary rulings that prejudiced Ford, rather than because the suit was too silly to ever conceivably win in a just society. The remand goes back to the same judge that let the suit go forward and committed multiple reversible errors in favor of the plaintiff. [Ford Motor v. Hall-Edwards (Fla. App. Nov. 7, 2007); Krauss @ Point of Law; Daily Business Review; Bloomberg/Boston Globe]
- Not really a man-bites-dog story, but Geoffrey Fieger (Aug. 25 and rather often otherwise) speaks. [ABA Journal]
- Uh-oh: Former litigator hired to invest $100m in court cases for UK hedge fund. [Times Online]
- The real NatWest Three deal. [Kirkendall; July 2006 in Overlawyered]
- Homeowners fined $347,000 for trimming trees without a permit—after the Glendale Fire Department sent them a notice telling them to trim their trees for being a fire hazard. (h/t Slim) [Consumerist]
- Disclaimers at children’s birthday parties (h/t BC) [Publishers Weekly]
- British Christmas parades handcuffed by litigation fears. (h/t F.R.) [Telegraph]
- Underlawyered in Saudi Arabia: A “19-year-old Saudi gang-rape victim was recently sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail for being in a car with an unrelated male when the attack occurred. Last week, her lawyer was disbarred for objecting too vociferously.” [Weekly Standard]
- Don’t forget to vote for us at the ABA Journal Blawg 100.
Tagged as:
autos,
deep pocket,
Enron,
Ford Explorer,
Ford Motor,
Geoffrey Fieger,
jackpot justice,
nonmonetary costs of litigation,
personal responsibility,
Saudi Arabia,
sued if you do,
trees,
United Kingdom
- “I’ve always thought that promoting yourself as a ‘Super Lawyer’ or ‘Best Lawyer’ was pathetic, self-aggrandizing and meaningless.” [Larry Bodine; Karen Donovan, Portfolio ("cheesiest"); ABA Journal]
- That big campaign by bossy public health groups and tobacco-suit veterans for legal restrictions on fat in the American diet is still with us, even as its scientific credibility falters [Tierney, NYT]
- “1,700 Connecticut Attorneys Suspended Over $110 Bill” — now that sounds like a bargain [ABA Journal]
- Blackwater meets Elmer Gantry? John O’Sullivan shouldn’t plan on being invited to the Edwards inaugural [NRO Corner]
- Nor would it be prudent to invite Felix Salmon and Ben Stein to the same dinner party [Portfolio; more]
- Truly dreadful idea from feminist Northwestern lawprof Kimberly Yuracko: constitution obliges states to ban sexist homeschooling [SSRN via Prawfsblawg; Serious Learning, Ragamuffin Studies, TalkToAction, Marcy Muser]
- New at Point of Law: some results of Tuesday’s election; employers whipsawed on risk of fetal injury; signs of exhaustion at long jury trials; wanna become a law professor?; 9/11 dust injury, or ground-up pills in his bloodstream?; more on Chevron/Texaco and the Ecuador Indians; dept. of New York Times self-parody; and more;
- Lawyer who sued McDonald’s over cheese-allergic client served cheeseburger (Aug. 10, Sept. 1) asks to be released from case, says he’s quitting law practice [LegalNewsLine]
- Of seven leading White House aspirants, all but McCain have law degrees, and all the other six but Romney practiced as lawyers [Liptak, NYT]
- UK: “A lorry driver sentenced to 150 hours’ community service for a drunken racist assault has been let off after probation chiefs claimed the punishment could breach EU working hours limits.” [Daily Mail]
- Notation on Scruggs’s court file: to be “kept away from the press” [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Ben Stein,
chasing clients,
Chevron,
Connecticut,
Dickie Scruggs,
eat drink and be merry,
Europe,
Ground Zero dust lawsuits,
John Edwards,
juries,
law schools,
McDonald's,
sued if you do,
United Kingdom
