Overlawyered » wrongful birth and wrongful life

October 27 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:41:10 +0000

“Table Saw without ‘saw stop’ technology defective: First Circuit” [George Conk, Ted Frank, earlier here, here]
Court OKs burned patron’s flaming-rum suit against Bacardi [Reuters]
Feds won’t pursue Title IX complaint against 60 Oregon school districts [Oregonian]
IRS putting the squeeze on small tax preparers [WaPo]
How the incinerator (and decades of bad decisions) bankrupted Harrisburg [Bond Girl]
“The most thoughtful, reasonable guy in the whole symposium” — aw [Greenfield on law licensing, earlier] P.S. And similarly from David Lat;
Adam Freedman and readers on Florida “wrongful birth” case [Ricochet, earlier]

Tags: alcohol, product liability, small business, taxes, Title IX, wrongful birth and wrongful life

October 27 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Florida couple wins $4.5 million “wrongful-birth” award

Walter Olson — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:29:01 +0000

They say they’d have aborted their disabled son if they’d known. [Palm Beach Post]

Tags: wrongful birth and wrongful life

Florida couple wins $4.5 million “wrongful-birth” award is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

February 8 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:28:53 +0000

Cleverer approach NFL might have taken in “Who Dat” affair [Schwimmer, HuffPo, earlier here, here, etc.]
Justice Anthony Kennedy: influence of unionized prison guards in passing California’s three-strikes law “sick” [LA Times]
Federal prosecutors going after poster designer Shepard Fairey for untruth in civil lawsuit? How strange is that? [Kennerly]
Plaintiff in complaint against Mark Steyn before Canadian rights tribunal boasted of having “increase[d] the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material” [NRO "Corner"; earlier here, here, here, etc.]
Federal jury rejects wrongful birth suit against Elkton, Maryland obstetrician [Miller, more on wrongful birth]
Forced-reincarnation suit against Oprah Winfrey dismissed, George W. and Laura Bush off hook too [WV Record]
“How to Report the News”: funny plug-and-use TV reporting template [YouTube/Charlie Brooker, Newswipe, UK]
“Virginia Legislators Kill Bills to Mandate Child Support for Adult College Students” [Hans Bader/CEI "Open Market", earlier here and here]

Tags: Mark Steyn, Oprah Winfrey, public employment, wrongful birth and wrongful life

February 8 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

May 7 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:09:07 +0000

New court allegations that disgraced Luzerne County, Pa. judges fixed civil cases as well [Legal Intelligencer; earlier here and here]
Half-hopeful, half-sad story of Florida town’s efforts to live down “Nub City” insurance-fraud notoriety [St. Petersburg Times a while back, but new to me; Errol Morris film; my review of Ken Dornstein's book]
Evidence continues to roll in against once-touted theory that bans on smoking in public places result in dramatic overnight drop in heart attack rates [Sullum, Reason "Hit and Run", earlier here and here]
Maybe everyone’s too used to such things by now to get riled up by that pic of garishly painted “1-800-LAWYERS” van [Ron Miller; earlier]
Magazines often found on scene at law enforcement raids = guilty magazines that should be banned from mails? [McClatchy "Suits and Sentences" blog; earlier on cockfighting periodicals Apr. 24, etc.]
Lawprofs: Let’s carve bigger religious-conscience exemptions into antibias laws [Robin Wilson, L.A. Times; Dale Carpenter series at Volokh; Ira Lupu, ConcurOp via Orin Kerr]
UK: “Parents sue NHS over ‘wrongful birth’ of disabled son” [Times Online, our earlier coverage of concept]
Throw bloggers in prison because their posts cause emotional distress? Have fifteen members of Congress gone completely mad? [David Kravets, Wired "Threat Level", earlier]

Tags: animal rights, bloggers and the law, discrimination law, Florida, free speech, insurance fraud, Luzerne County judicial scandal, same-sex marriage, smoking bans, wrongful birth and wrongful life

May 7 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Sues over having twins

Walter Olson — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:06:19 +0000

An Australian woman asked that her in vitro fertilization (IVF) result in a single baby but two embryos were mistakenly implanted. Now she wants $A400,000 for the cost of raising the child to adulthood. (“Mother sues doctor over twin birth”, ABC (Australian) News, Sept. 18)(via KevinMD). The local branch of the Australian Medical Association says the law should be changed to prevent damage claims over the birth of unimpaired babies: “We’re very concerned [at] the concept that a healthy life is wrongful.” (“Doctors should not be liable for mistake births: AMA”, Sept. 22). More on wrongful birth lawsuits here.

Tags: Australia, medical, wrongful birth and wrongful life

Sues over having twins is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 27 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:14:56 +0000

Grand jury declines to indict Dr. Anna Pou in Katrina hospital deaths, despite heavy breathing from Louisiana AG Charles Foti and TV’s Nancy Grace [Times-Picayune, more; 2005 CNN transcript; Health Care Blog, GruntDoc, Vatul.net]

Protection from lawsuits for “John Doe” security informants is back in anti-terror legislation moving through Congress, despite back-door effort to eliminate it earlier [Fox News, Malkin; earlier] Addendum: but it’s in altered, much-weakened form, says commenter Bob Smith;

U.K.: Top law firm Freshfields earns millions advising clients on employment compliance, yet “omitted to check that changes to its own pension scheme were legal” [Times Online]

Thinking of doing some guestblogging, for us or another site? Some good advice here [Darren Rowse via Kevin O'Keefe]

Even Conrad Black can have trouble affording lawyers, at least with feds freezing his accounts [PoL on Steyn]

Shouldn’t have let us become parents again: Florida jury awards $21 million in “wrongful birth” case [Fox News]

Possibility of gigantic reparations claims adds intensity to big lobbying fight in Washington over whether Turkey’s slaughter of Armenians in 1915 amounted to genocide [Crowley, New Republic]

Updating colorful coverage case (Jun. 22, 2005): dentist wins $750K verdict on insurer’s duty to defend him for taking gag photos of sedated employee with boar tusks in mouth [Seattle Times, more; dissent in PDF; Althouse]

Giuliani might use federalism to defuse culture wars [Brownstein, L.A. Times; disclaimer]

Virginia’s enactment of harsh traffic fines (Jul. 6) follows tryouts of the idea in Michigan and New Jersey, where effects included rise in unlicensed driving [Washington Post]

Tags: Alabama, federalism, hospitals, Katrina, Louisiana, Michigan, Nancy Grace, New Jersey, reparations, roundups, Seattle, wrongful birth and wrongful life

July 27 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Wrongful birth” in Boston

Walter Olson — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:16:47 +0000

We’ve covered a number of cases over the years in which parents sue physicians and others over the “wrongful birth” of perfectly healthy children, demanding, as part of the claimed damages, the cost of raising the youngsters to adulthood: May 9, 2000 (Phoenix), Jun. 8, 2000 (Revere, Mass., outside Boston), Apr. 9, 2006 (Scotland), and Nov. 1, 2006 (Germany). Many such cases arise from failed sterilizations or other efforts at birth control, but a new suit by Jennifer Raper of Boston against Planned Parenthood and two doctors claims that an abortion went awry. “The [Massachusetts] high court ruled in 1990 that parents can sue physicians for child-rearing expenses, but limited those claims to cases in which children require extraordinary expenses because of medical problems, medical malpractice lawyer Andrew C. Meyer Jr. said. Raper’s suit has no mentions of medical problems involving her now 2-year-old daughter.” (“Boston woman sues for child-rearing costs after failed abortion”, AP/Boston Globe, Mar. 7; Jonathan Saltzman, “Suit seeks compensation for botched abortion”, Boston Globe, Mar. 7). More: “One day Jennifer Raper’s daughter will punch her mother’s name into Google and discover that she was the result of ‘a failed abortion.’” (Taranto)

Tags: Massachusetts, wrongful birth and wrongful life

“Wrongful birth” in Boston is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

February 9 roundup

Ted Frank — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 14:59:26 +0000

Multi-billion dollar (and down) extortion edition:

Merrill Lynch and CSFB appeal extortionate Enron class-action certification. [Point of Law; AEI (Feb. 9); WLF brief]

More on the extortionate and lawless $500 billion Wal-Mart class certification. [Point of Law]

Mississippi Supreme Court rejects extortionate medical monitoring class actions. [Behrens @ WLF]

Lawyer Daniel Hynes tries to extort $2000 from New Hampshire bar holding Ladies’ Night. [Foster's Daily Democrat (h/t B.C.)]

Colorado Civil Justice League stops legislative attempt at giveaway to local trial lawyers. [Point of Law]
Wisconsin court: family can be sued for babysitter’s car accident when returning home from dropping off child. [AP/Insurance Journal]
Fox seeks to dismiss Borat suit on anti-SLAPP grounds. [Hollywood Reporter Esq. via WSJ Law Blog]
Passaic County jury: $28M for “wrongful birth.” [NorthJersey.com]

Former AG (and Dem) Griffin Bell: “Judicial Leadership Emerging In Asbestos And Silica Mass Torts” [WLF]
Utah legislature considering med-mal reform for ERs. “Neurosurgeons in this town have to pay over $90,000 a year just for the privilege of getting out of bed on a Friday night to drain the blood from the brain of a victim of a drunk driver crash. And they say, I’m not gonna do it. Because the patients are sicker. The procedures are sometimes more invasive and more risky with more complications. Why take that risk if they don’t have to?” [KCPW via Kevin MD; Provo Herald]
A little-read blog promoting a soon-to-be-pulped fictional account of tort reform is really begging for a link from us, what with three out of the last five posts making amateurish (and often false) personal attacks on this site’s authors or soliciting others to also fling poo. No dice.