St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “The parents of a man fatally stabbed at the New Life Evangelistic Center homeless shelter in 2008 have filed wrongful death lawsuits against the center, saying the center did not provide adequate security.” Jeremy Dunlap was 21 years old when he was stabbed at the center by Robert Gamble, another homeless man who was convicted of murder. “We are saddened that the family would claim that we were negligent,” a church assistant said. “We are in the business of trying to help people that nobody else will help.”
Tagged as:
churches,
third party liability for crime,
volunteers
- Rules for Growth: Promoting Innovation and Growth Through Legal Reform is new book from Kauffman Foundation in which “formidable” contributors including Henry Butler, George Priest, and Peter Schuck prescribe pro-growth policy changes across a variety of fields [available at Kauffman or on SSRN via contributor Larry Ribstein, Diana Furchtgott-Roth/Real Clear Markets]
- Nick Farr is awfully apologetic (not really) for saying those mean things about Hot Coffee, the new documentary film presenting Lawsuit Lobby view of the world [Abnormal Use, earlier] Related: TBD, more. More: Bob Dorigo Jones.
- AEP v. Connecticut global warming case invites courts to supplant other branches’ role [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- Washington jury awards $46 million to victim of shooting spree at Denny’s who charged negligent security [Kent Reporter, KOMO, Seattle Times, earlier]
- New bipartisan Congressional Civil Justice Caucus forms on Capitol Hill [BLT, PoL]
- Oh, Professor Tribe, your rhetorical moves on the Supreme Court and Obamacare are so transparent [Ann Althouse] (& Ilya Shapiro letter in NY Times)
- DRI says “if you [defend] Med Mal cases the news isn’t good,” new filings show a drop; clients may take different view [For the Defense] James Pinkerton on med-mal reform [Serious Medicine Strategy] Jan. 20 medical liability hearing in the House [PoL]
- Jury: “customer of size” not victim of airline bias [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
climate change,
global warming,
medical malpractice,
restaurants,
Senate,
Stella Liebeck,
third party liability for crime,
U.S. House of Representatives
- Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s firm suing Apple, Google and many others over common web features [Atlantic Wire, Groklaw ("Allen v. World and Dog"]
- Probably not a good idea to give local authorities cash incentive to snatch kids from homes [Bader, CEI]
- Hyperlink liability case: “If I lose there won’t BE an Internet in Canada” [Ars Technica]
- Shooting spree at Denny’s results in suit charging eatery with negligent security [PNWLocalNews.com]
- More links: “Do securities lawsuits help shareholders?” [Point of Law, Bainbridge]
- Fourth Circuit revives CSX fraud suit against asbestos lawyers [Dan Fisher, Forbes] “Asbestos defendants want automatic access to info in bankruptcy trusts” [Chamber-backed LNL]
- Creation of noncompliant consumer financial product is a criminal offense under Dodd-Frank [Josh Wright, TotM]
- Man sues over seeing contestants eat rats on NBC reality show “Fear Factor” [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
asbestos,
Canada,
Child Protective Services,
libel slander and defamation,
online speech,
patent trolls,
restaurants,
securities litigation,
third party liability for crime,
Washington state
And the resulting lawsuit by the bomb victim names as defendants the parking garage as well as the family member. A panel of the D.C. Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the garage owners, however, ruling that a car bombing was not reasonably foreseeable at their location on Wisconsin Ave. in the District of Columbia. [Sigmund v. Starwood, Findlaw, via The Briefcase]
Tagged as:
D.C. Circuit,
third party liability for crime,
Washington D.C.
Tagged as:
banks,
bullying,
California,
international law,
medical malpractice,
New Jersey,
Philadelphia,
schools,
third party liability for crime,
trademarks,
transit
Wal-Mart stores in many parts of the country are famous for letting motor-home travelers park overnight in their lots for free. One wonders whether that policy will last: a Florida couple is now suing the retailer over an incident in the parking lot of its Cedar City, Utah store, in which the family shot and killed a man who intruded in their parked home. They say they have suffered emotional distress and medical problems and that “store officials knew the man was loitering in the lot” but failed to act. [Salt Lake Tribune via Consumerist, where commenters haven't been conspicuously sympathetic to the plaintiffs]
Tagged as:
premises liability,
recreation,
third party liability for crime,
Utah,
Wal-Mart
KOMO News:
The [officers'] widows believe that if someone had been listening to [Maurice] Clemmons’ jailhouse phone calls, their husbands could still be alive today. …
While they were recorded, the calls from the Pierce County Jail were never monitored. No one heard them. …
[Pierce County sheriff spokesman Ed] Troyer said it was “preposterous” to think that the county could have listened to every phone call made from the jail.
“It would take over 40 people and $50 million a year to do,” he said. “Plus, we don’t even believe that it’s legal just to randomly listen to people’s phone calls on a full-time basis.”
Washington has gone farther than other states in exposing its state and local governments to exposure in lawsuits alleging failure to prevent crime.
Update: Families drop claims the next day after highly adverse public reaction [Seattle Times]
Tagged as:
prisoners,
third party liability for crime,
Washington state
- “Litigation nightmare” seen in Unvarnished, site that allows Yelp-like review of people’s reputations [L.A. Times, Balasubramani] Arkadelphia, Ark.: “16-year-old boy accuses mother of Facebook slander” [AP]
- Inadvertent rape? At Duke, “perceived power differentials” might negate consent [Popehat, Joanne Jacobs]
- New CPSC leadership signals policy of greatly stepped-up fines for CPSIA violators [Northup, Rick Woldenberg/Amend the CPSIA ($2 million Daiso fine) and more]
- “PI Lawyer Pleads in $2.2M Client Theft, Will Get Between 3 and 9 Years” [ABA Journal, NY Daily News, earlier; Marc Bernstein of Bernstein & Bernstein, NYC]
- Let’s say landlords who knowingly rent to accused criminals or released convicts can get sued for negligence in case of repeat offense. Then where do we propose that accused criminals and released convicts live? [Volokh]
- Some theories on lawyer unpopularity [DeVoy, Legal Satyricon]
- Privacy class action over ill-advised Facebook “Beacon” venture settles for… for what, exactly? [Popehat]
- Wisconsin D.A. to teachers: if you obey state’s new sex-ed law, I’ll prosecute you [Radley Balko, Reason "Hit and Run"] More: Volokh.
Tagged as:
class action settlements,
CPSC,
CPSIA,
Facebook,
lawyers,
social media,
third party liability for crime,
Wisconsin
A California appeals court has declined plaintiffs’ invitation to hold that “a public invitation posted on MySpace to a free party offering music and alcohol was substantially certain to result in an injury to someone.” Three men were “allegedly attacked by a group of unknown individuals as they arrived at the party,” which was thrown by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and announced on the social media site. [OnPoint News]
Tagged as:
California,
MySpace,
social host,
third party liability for crime
Those of you who have attended my “Law of McDonald’s” talks in California and Florida may recall the case of the strip search hoax. A Florida man who was unusually persuasive would call dozens of fast food restaurants until he could find someone who would believe he was with the police and who would disrobe employees (or themselves) at his instructions; though there have been other lawsuits seeking to blame the fast food restaurants for this, courts have generally thrown them out. One exception was the case of Ogborn v. McDonald’s, where two targets of the hoax successfully sued for millions. On Friday, the Kentucky Court of Appeals largely affirmed the lower court judgment, though it reduced the punitive damages received by Donna Summers (who gave an Alford guilty plea for her role in the strip search) from $1 million to $400,000. McDonald’s hasn’t yet decided whether to appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court. (Andrew Wolfson, “Appeals court upholds $6.1 million strip-search verdict against McDonald’s”, Kentucky Courier-Journal, Nov. 20, via ABA Journal).
Tagged as:
criminals who sue,
deep pocket,
failure to warn,
Kentucky,
McDonald's,
personal responsibility,
punitive damages,
strip search hoax,
third party liability for crime,
workplace
Tagged as:
Australia,
Brazil,
fraud,
Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud,
libel slander and defamation,
McDonald's,
Nevada,
Ninth Circuit,
patent law,
Phoenix,
police,
third party liability for crime
Two sisters were repeatedly raped and sexually abused by their older half-brother. This is, a federal jury decided, the fault of their pediatrician, Dr. Patricia Monroe, who failed to report the abuse–though there was no evidence she was aware of the scope of it. Monroe’s attorney “says that’s because the girl refused to speak to Monroe and because the incident wasn’t reportable to Child Protective Services.” The decision will be appealed. (Chris Knight, “Monroe to appeal $11M verdict”, Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Sep. 3).
A message has been sent: make defensive reports to Child Protective Services, and parents will all be worse off when CPS overreacts.
Tagged as:
child protection,
Child Protective Services,
medical,
New York state,
third party liability for crime
Eugene Volokh recalls (with a followup) a groundbreaking 1973 case in which the Tenth Circuit ruled that it could be found negligent for a supermarket to have installed a silent alarm that summoned the police when a holdup was in practice; a hostage was killed in the resulting shootout. The case is consistent with others in which lawyers have advanced theories summed up in the phrase “negligent provocation”.
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on other blogs,
Tenth Circuit,
third party liability for crime
