- “California’s Largest Cities and Counties Spent More Than $500 Million in Litigation Costs in Two Years” [CACALA]
- Violence Policy Center blames handgun carry permits for offenses that include … strangulation? [Sullum]
- New allegations in New York school district lawyers pension scandal [Newsday]
- Plush doll twade dwess dispute made Tonstant Weader fwow up [Schwimmer]
- “School Hit With a Lawsuit over Dodgeball Game Injury” [FindLaw "Injured", Bronx]
- Too bad judges are so reluctant to sanction lawyers for filing papers that contain false assertions [Coleman]
- Hundreds of asylum clients could be deported after law firm founders are convicted of fraud [ABA Journal]
- Congratulations to superlative juryblogger Anne Reed, picked to run Wisconsin Humane Society [Deliberations; also Turkewitz]
Tagged as:
California,
guns,
immigration law,
legal blogs,
Long Island,
schools,
taxpayers,
trade dress
Readers might remember the Mraz case, where a driver was run over by his own truck because he failed to engage the parking brake, and a jury nevertheless awarded $55 million. (March 8 and March 21, 2007.)
The Chrysler bankruptcy threw a wrench into the appellate process. Given the number of unsecured (and secured!) creditors who were taking a haircut on what Chrysler owed them, and the weakness of the case, one would expect the claim to be extinguished. But Chrysler unilaterally (and almost certainly politically) decided not to extinguish product-liability lawsuits against it, and the Mraz case has settled for $24 million. (Amanda Bronstad, “Chrysler bankruptcy judge approves $24 million personal injury settlement”, National Law Journal, Sep. 25). Of course, the likely $8-$10 million attorneys’ fee in this case is being funded by taxpayers’ bailout money.
Tagged as:
autos,
bankruptcy,
California,
Chrysler,
taxpayers
- Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce: “Elmer Fudd” commenter defamed us [Sun-News via Patrick at Popehat]
- “New Texas law seeks common sense instead of ‘zero tolerance’ in punishment of students” [Star-Telegram]
- Oprah can relax, poet’s self-scripted $1 trillion lawsuit against her is dismissed [THR Esq., Lowering the Bar and more, New Jersey Lawsuit Reform Watch]
- Overview of big push for new federal food safety laws [Kristin Choo, ABA Journal]
- And thanks for all the booze: “Chronic drunk costs SF taxpayers at least $150,000/year” [Obscure Store, Common Room]
- “We have made a grave mistake in politicizing the economy so deeply, and should back away now.” [Tyler Cowen, NYT]
- As a phrase, “sex toy product liability” is probably going to bring us the wrong sort of search engine traffic [Law and More]
- Overturning Supreme Court’s Iqbal/Twombly pleading jurisprudence emerging as key Congressional objective for trial lawyer lobby [Freddoso, Examiner; recent post of mine at Point of Law, and much other coverage there]
Tagged as:
food safety,
libel slander and defamation,
Oprah Winfrey,
pleading,
product liability,
taxpayers,
Texas,
zero tolerance
Southern California: “A Ventura woman whose husband allegedly shot up his neighborhood during a four-hour standoff with police is asking the city for more than $680,000.” [AP/Recordnet.com] More: She reduced the claim drastically to approximately $1000 [Ventura County Star, h/t Jane in comments]
Tagged as:
California,
police,
taxpayers
The L.A. Times reports (via PoL and Bainbridge) that just in case Golden State government were not dysfunctional enough otherwise, you-know-who has gotten involved:
Lawyers are being drafted in droves to unravel spending plans passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor. The goal of these litigators is to get back money their clients lost in the budget process. They are having considerable success, winning one lawsuit after another, costing the state billions of dollars and throwing California’s budget process into further tumult.
Tagged as:
California,
taxpayers
“Hank Adorno, head of the nation’s largest minority-owned law firm, violated nine Florida Bar rules when he engineered a $7 million class action settlement that distributed money to only seven people instead of all Miami taxpayers, the state regulatory agency for attorneys claims.” [Billy Shields, Daily Business Review and Law.com; earlier here and here]
Tagged as:
class action settlements,
Florida,
taxpayers
Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow John Avlon, in Forbes:
New York City spends more money on lawsuits than the next five largest American cities — Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia — combined. The city’s $568 million outlay in fiscal year 2008 was more than double what it spent 15 years ago and 20 times what it paid in 1977.
And the odd and extreme cases continue:
A Brooklyn insurance investigator won $2.3 million this year after he tumbled onto the subway tracks with a 0.18 blood-alcohol level and lost his right leg. (”They’re not allowed to hit you just because you’re drunk and on the track,” his lawyer explained.) A corrections officer received $7.25 million after unsuccessfully attempting suicide, on the grounds that the city should not have permitted her to have a gun. (”Ms. Jones could just have easily turned her city-authorized firearm on anyone,” her lawyer said.)
The piece is adapted from a contribution to a City Journal symposium, “New York’s Tomorrow”, and there’s also an associated podcast (cross-posted from Point of Law). More: Eric Turkewitz talks back from a plaintiff’s point of view (”when you account for inflation, there really hasn’t been much change at all” [compared with 15 years ago)] (& welcome Above the Law, WSJ Law Blog readers)
Tagged as:
alcohol,
Manhattan Institute,
NYC,
personal responsibility,
suicide,
taxpayers
A long-running controversy pits some elected officials and townspeople of Framingham, Mass., west of Boston, against a social service agency that has proposed the town as a site for halfway houses and other residential facilities for recovering addicts, the homeless and others. Two years ago things turned particularly unpleasant:
…[South Middlesex Opportunity Council] filed suit in federal court this week demanding damages not just from town officials, but from citizens who have dared criticize the agency and challenge its plans.
SMOC’s 99-page complaint [which alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act, federal Rehabilitation Act, Americans With Disabilities Act and Civil Rights Act -- ed.] piles up charges against selectmen and planning board members not just in their official capacity, but as individuals. It targets town employees, both named and unnamed. It calls for damages against four Framingham Town Meeting members and two citizens for comments made on a private Web site and e-mails distributed on a privately-operated mailing list.
The ACLU of Massachusetts expressed unease at the naming of private citizens as defendants over their advocacy efforts. While the lawsuit has been narrowed somewhat in the two years since then, it continues to engender much acrimony as it drags on:
Aggravating the ill will is a recent revelation that a man charged with shooting a local police officer had lived in a home run by the agency, the South Middlesex Opportunity Council, or SMOC.
Tagged as:
ACLU,
Boston,
fair housing,
land use and zoning,
Massachusetts,
taxpayers
Washington state jails are overcrowded, so—presumably to avoid lawsuits over overcrowding—Washington State Patrol policy is to arrest nonviolent offenders without jailing them. In the case of Bellingham resident Janine Parker, drunk driving in the early morning hours of January 4, Trooper Chad Bosman arrested her, and drove her home, telling her not to drive until she was sober. Nevertheless, Parker, an hour later, found a taxi to take her nine miles to her car left by the side of the road, and drove drunk head on into Hailey French’s auto, causing the innocent 22-year-old driver many injuries.
French sued Parker, of course, but also the Washington State Patrol and Whatcom County (the latter apparently failed to put an ignition-interlock device in her car as Parker’s probation from an earlier conviction provided). (Miraculously, she doesn’t seem to have sued the taxi company.) A Skagit County jury found the two governmental entities jointly liable for $5.5 million. According to press accounts, the two defense attorneys each tried to get the jury to blame the other deep pocket: apparently, making the suggestion the person responsible for the drunk driving was the person responsible was beyond either hope or comprehension, though a web commenter to the article claims that Parker testified that the accident was entirely her fault. (Peter Jensen, “Whatcom County woman’s suit against county, State Patrol in jury’s hands”, Bellingham Herald, Apr. 24; May 1 post-trial press release of victorious plaintiff’s attorney).
Tagged as:
deep pocket,
MADD,
police,
taxpayers,
third party liability for crime,
Washington state
Dustin Dibble was intoxicated when a Manhattan subway train ran over him in 2006, but a jury found the transit authority 65% responsible in February: $2.3 million for the lost right leg.
James Sanders stumbled onto the tracks and was hit by a train in 2002, but a New York City jury again found him only 30% responsible: $7 million for a lost right leg and eye.
Gloria Aguilar did not look both ways when she crossed the street; there was a dispute whether she was in the crosswalk. A Manhattan jury–after a seven-week trial–found the transit authority 100% responsible, and awarded $27.5 million for her lost left leg; a judge refused to reduce that figure.
Clearly a left leg is more valuable than a right leg. Or, as I’ve noted several times in the past, noneconomic damages are essentially random jackpots.
New York City is appealing all three verdicts. (Liz Robbins, “Woman Run Over by Bus Is Awarded $27.5 Million”, New York Times, Apr. 16).
Tagged as:
deep pocket,
jackpot justice,
New York,
noneconomic damages,
personal responsibility,
remittitur,
taxpayers
Now that they’re in the saddle Senate Democrats are planning to strip away various long-fought restrictions on federally funded legal services programs. For the moment, at least, the class actions are supposed to be based at least ostensibly on existing law (litigation aimed at “law reform” was a specialty of the early legal services programs) and the programs will need to keep their books in such a way that federal taxpayer funds do not appear to be going toward their lobbying of legislators.
Tagged as:
legal services programs,
taxpayers
- Suit by Hurricane Katrina victims against Army Corps of Engineers set for trial April 20 [WSJ law blog, Frankel/AmLaw Daily, earlier]
- Some criminal defense arguments are creative, which doesn’t mean they’ll work [Ambrogi/Legal Blog Watch]
- Words to avoid in real-estate ads: safe, quiet, family-friendly, bachelor’s, walking distance [UrbanDigs.com, New York Post] And better not mention the quadruple murder in the house either [Fountain]
- The questionable science of repressed memories [Joann Wypijewski, The Nation]
- National coverage of 14 states’ ban on fish-nibble pedicures [WSJ via OpenMarket; earlier]
- States move to revoke medical license of Dr. Ray Harron, accused of falsely diagnosing thousands of plaintiffs in asbestos cases [(Chamber-backed) SE Texas Record]
- Conan tales are public domain in New Zealand, but online reading of them there draws nastygram anyway [BoingBoing and followup]
- “Wrestler stages a fall at 7-Eleven in attempt to collect $50,000″ [Obscure Store, Philadelphia Daily News]
Tagged as:
advertising,
asbestos,
copyright,
Katrina,
New Zealand,
real estate,
taxpayers
Aren’t class actions great? The only problem is that the money for the residents will have to come from, well, themselves:
“We are having an accounting game. It’s basically saying, ‘we’re sorry you paid it from this pocket, instead it should have come from this pocket,” said Seattle City Council member Richard Conlin. …
“The only party benefiting from this are the law firms,” said Conlin.
The attorneys who fought the city on the hydrants will get $4.2 million plus interest charges.
City water customers will get refunds averaging $45 but will be obliged to pay surcharges averaging $59 to cover the cost of the settlement [KOMO].
Tagged as:
class actions,
Seattle,
taxpayers
