- Adventures in causation: Per $19 million Mississippi verdict, fumes from leftover gasoline caused birth defects, asthma [Insurance Journal]
- Legal academia watch: lawprof proposes massive expansion of liability for parents [TortsProf]
- University of Virginia’s torts giant: “A Tribute To Jeffrey O’Connell” [U.Va. Dean Paul Mahoney, Virginia Law Review (PDF) via TortsProf]
- “Proposed civil justice reform in Canada” [Ted Frank]
- “Town Owes $10M To Pupil Paralyzed In School Beating” [New Jersey Law Journal; Irvington, N.J.]
- Businesses steer clear of Philadelphia litigation climate [Jim Copland, Inquirer; Trial Lawyers Inc. update]
- Longtime West Virginia attorney general Darrell McGraw, disliked by business, toppled in re-election bid [Charleston Gazette-Mail]
Posts tagged as:
toxic torts
- Behind a YouTube anti-fracking video labeled “Hydraulic Fracturing turns gardenhose to flamethrower,” there’s quite a story [Star-Telegram]
- BPA-endocrine alarms: “Why Nick Kristof’s Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Us All” [Trevor Butterworth, Forbes]
- Incy wincy spider shuts down $15 million construction project [Fox]
- Regulatory Balkanization of gasoline market worsens price volatility [Morriss/Boudreaux via David Henderson; more, WSJ] Will CAFE sink GM? [Holman Jenkins via same]
- “After a fire at a massive oil plant in California, residents want compensation. But it’s not that easy” [Above the Law]
- “Dispatches from the Duke Conference on ‘Conservative Visions of Our Environmental Future’” [Jonathan Adler]
- Broadway, dark? “The high cost of closing Indian Point” [Lesser & Bryce, NYP]
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The lung disorder bronchiolitis obliterans has been diagnosed in food processing workers who regularly breathed in the flavoring chemical diacetyl, but this was a claim of consumer, not occupational, exposure; Wayne Watson’s physician testified that he suffered lung damage after years of regularly consuming microwave popcorn. The jury found the Kroger supermarket chain as well as the popcorn manufacturer liable for not warning of the potential problem. “An attorney for the defendants had told jurors that Watson’s health problems were from his years of using dangerous chemicals as a carpet cleaner.” [Reuters]
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Reader Dave Westheimer writes, regarding a news item that we briefly noted earlier:
Guess who’s coming to the suburb where I live? Erin Brockovich. She’s here and in the news.
Of course she’s not hearing “Fridley’s concerns” — she’s hearing the concerns of novices who’ve never heard of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.
FWIW, “one of the worst Superfund sites in the country” refers to the old FMC plant in the southwest corner of the city by the Mississippi, well away from the closest residential neighborhood and more likely to affect Minneapolis than Fridley, if it affected anything at all. Fridley’s biggest industry is Medtronic’s headquarters. It’s a typical postwar residential suburb, mostly built in the 50s and 60s.
The neighborhood newspaper ran what I thought was a fawning article about her appearance here, written by an intern, along with a separate article about how the intern who wrote the article was so excited to meet her. So much for objectivity.
As the city’s water report (PDF) says, Fridley has never been in violation of the cancer causing agents standards in the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pour myself another tall glass of city water.
A local woman says wi-fi emanations from new “smart” parking meters in Santa Monica, Calif., have caused her various health injuries including tightness in her neck and an ear infection that took antibiotics to heal. She wants $1.7 billion: “I know it seems a little big,” [Denise] Barton said, “but they can’t do things that affect people’s health without their consent. I think that’s wrong.” [Santa Monica Daily Press, LAist]
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- “A loose coalition of eco-anarchist groups is increasingly launching violent attacks on scientists.” [Nature]
- “Jury Blames ‘Erin Brockovich’ Doc For His Patient’s Illness, Not Defendants” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
- “Judge declines to toss Chevron RICO case against lawyer over $18bln award” [Reuters, Folkman/Letters Blogatory] Videos tell Chevron side of story in hotly disputed Ecuador Lago Agrio dispute ["Amazon Post"]
- NGOs’ bag of tricks: Greenpeace helped pack International Whaling Commission thirty years ago by paying dues for small states to join [Skodvin/Andresen via Spiro/OJ]
- Distinguishing the areas of clear vision from the blind spots in Chicago Tribune’s flameproofing series [Coyote, earlier]
- Wilderness regs prevent town of Tombstone, Ariz. from rebuilding water pipes destroyed in fire [Daily Caller]
- Look! Over that factory! It’s a plume of (shudder) … water vapor! [Coyote]
- National Science Foundation grantee: “Tort actions may impel industry to … redesign chemical molecules … to be less toxic.” [David Oliver, Ted Frank]
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Susan Dominus explores an outbreak of tics and other neurological symptoms among teenage girls in a town near Rochester, as hyped on outlets like “Today” and CNN. Roving Tort-Finder Erin Brockovich, who parachuted into the town to blame possible chemical spills, does not come off well either: “Things only go wrong,’ [King's College London epidemiologist Simon] Wessely wrote in 1995, ‘when the nature of an outbreak is not recognized, and a fruitless and expensive search for toxins, fumes and gases begins.’” [NY Times Magazine]
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“In non-Western countries, demons and witchcraft are still sometimes blamed for outbreaks of fainting and fits [PDF]. Pollution, poisoning, chemical weapons, and other environmental concerns are dominant in the West (a fact that makes Brockovich something of a mass hysteria machine). Some bloggers are now claiming that the upstate New York girls fell ill because of the HPV vaccine or fracking.” [Ruth Graham, Slate]
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- Michigan sex abuse prosecution of dad falls apart; it was premised on ultra-controversial technique of “facilitated communication” with autistic daughter [Detroit Free Press; Ted Frank/Point of Law]
- Do demagogy and hardball work as trial techniques? [Steve McConnell vs. Ronald Miller and Max Kennerly]
- When lawyer-pundits consent to chase cameras [Scott Greenfield]
- Lawyer dad sues middle school girls over Facebook video [Houston Chronicle]
- So-called Precautionary Principle slipping into Restatement (Third) of Torts? [David Oliver]
- U.S Attorney in Maryland didn’t think Lauren Stevens case was strong enough to indict [Sue Reisinger/Corporate Counsel, White Collar Law Prof, Legal Ethics Forum, my Cato take]
- “The SLAPP-Happy Story of Rakofsky v. Internet” [Citizen Media Law, Atlantic Wire ("Meet the Lawyer Who Sued the Internet"), Popehat, earlier here and here]
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But that hasn’t stood in the way of a push to sign up clients for law firms in the vicinity of the Frederick, Md. armed forces base. [WJZ, Army Times]
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Only stony-hearted Scrooges could oppose it, right? Earlier here, here, etc. More: PoL; Senate passes modified bill.
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After alarmist coverage about how the water supply of rural Hinkley, Calif. is laced with carcinogenic chromium 6, it may have surprised some L.A. Times readers to learn that the town’s cancer rate is actually a bit below average. One interviewed local family blames the pollution for a variety of ills ranging from stroke to cognitive deficits to miscarriage to tumors in a pet dog. When the movie “Erin Brockovich” came out, it was pointed out that workers at the utility plant where the contamination originated had a life expectancy exceeding the California average.
P.S. I see that Tim Cavanaugh of Reason is on the case too.
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The National Review on a dubious federal compensation bill for Ground Zero emergency responders. More: PoL.
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Michael Fumento has a noteworthy statistical update on the case that made Erin Brockovich famous.
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Concern is raised over bisphenol-A (BPA) in printed cash register receipts [Gordon Gibb, Lawsuits and Settlements] Adds reader Rogers Turner: “Brilliant…what does almost every single person in the U.S. touch multiple times a day?”
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An editorial in the Palm Beach Post advises reader caution about the glamorous tort-chaser’s efforts to drum up clients for Weitz & Luxenberg and Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley based on allegations of a cancer cluster with a claimed link to radioactive drinking water:
The lawyers discussed water samples from 10 homes of cancer patients that showed at least trace amounts of radium, a naturally occurring metal. Those studies, however, echoed Florida Department of Environmental Protection results from 50 randomly selected homes. …
…one resident concluded on a Web site after the meeting: “Last night, we were validated.” Amid the personal appeals came the business pitch. Attorney Jack Scarola explained the contingency contract, which means that clients would pay nothing, even if they lost. He urged residents to take their time reading the contract because if “you inform yourselves well, you will find it’s in your best interest to sign with us.”
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- “Jury Says No to Libel Claim Over Truthful E-Mail” [NLJ, Ardia/Citizen Media Law; high-profile First Circuit Noonan v. Staples case, earlier here and here]
- Transmission of folk music is getting tangled in copyright claims [BoingBoing]
- Scientific shortcut? Veterans Department will presume Parkinson’s, common heart ailment are caused by Agent Orange for GIs who set foot in Vietnam [NY Times]
- Federal hate crimes bill: yes, courts will consider speech and beliefs in assessing penalties [Sullum and more, Bader]
- Texas trial lawyer Mark Lanier’s famed Christmas bash will feature Bon Jovi this year [ABA Journal, background here and here]
- Let’s explain our Constitution to her: U.K. cabinet minister thinks Arnie can close private website because it’s based in California and he’s governor [Lund, Prawfsblawg]
- Ten best Supreme Court decisions, from a libertarian point of view? [Somin, Volokh]
- Cert petition on dismissal of suit against Beretta shows Brady Center still haven’t given up on undemocratic campaign to achieve gun control through liability litigation [Public Nuisance Wire interview with Jeff Dissell, NSSF]
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