The first copies of my new book Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America are here from the printer, and I’ll be touring the country to promote it in coming weeks. Some highlights:

• February 21. Bloomington, Ind. Indiana University Law School, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
• February 22. Urbana-Champaign, Ill. University of Illinois School of Law, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter. Commenting will be Prof. Larry Ribstein.
• March 3. Washington, D.C. Cato Institute Policy Forum. Commenting on the book will be the Hon. Douglas Ginsburg, U.S. Court of Appeals, and moderating will be Cato legal director Roger Pilon.
• March 10. University of Minnesota, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter. Commenting will be Profs. Brad Clary and Oren Gross, and moderating will be Prof. Dale Carpenter.
• March 16. New York, N.Y. Manhattan Institute luncheon (invitation). Commenting will be James Copland, Manhattan Institute.
• March 22. Washington, D.C. Heritage Foundation forum. Commenting/moderating: Todd Gaziano, Heritage Foundation.
• March 28. Boulder, Colo. University of Colorado School of Law, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
• March 29. Laramie, Wyo. University of Wyoming School of Law, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
• March 30. Sacramento, Calif. McGeorge School of Law, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
• April 6. New York, N.Y. Manhattan Institute Young Leaders evening event (private).
• April 7. Washington, D.C. American University Law School, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
• April 13. Washington, D.C. Book club appearance (private).
• April 27-29. Dallas, Tex. Heritage Foundation Resource Bank meeting (private).

Always check in advance with the hosting group for venues and exact times; some events open to the public require advance registration. The book’s official publication date is March 1, and copies should be arriving in the bookstores soon.

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More from Dan Pero: “Was it just bad timing or some sort of cosmic justice that Mr. Spence made this preposterous claim on Veterans Day?”

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• Picture of farmer with goose appears on greeting card, he wants $7.5 million [Roanoke Times; earlier]


• More class actions filed over Apple iPhone [Ars Technica on roaming and battery claims, O'Grady's PowerPage, iPhoneWorld; earlier]


• L.A. Times quotes attorney Stephen Yagman on prison overcrowding, but forgets to mention that he was lately convicted of thirteen felonies [Patterico]


• Bad idea watch: compulsory national service [Somin @ Volokh]


• Doing well representing the little guy: Gerry Spence lists his Wyoming residence for sale at $35 million [WSJ/Chicago Daily Herald]


• “Appropriate”, not “perfect”, justice needed: “We simply have to stop killing litigants with kindness,” says chief judge of Australia’s largest state [The Australian]


• Toddler killed after wandering into heavy traffic, trucker should have been more on guard against such a thing happening [Salt Lake Tribune]


• Pennsylvania pro se litigant sues Google, says it spells his social security number upside down [Ambrogi] More: Coyote says “Up next, the owner of Social Security number 71077345 sues Shell Oil for the same reason.”


• Once billed as “King of Torts”, Miami asbestos lawyer faces fifteen years behind bars for stealing $13 million from clients [Sun-Sentinel]


• Groom sues bride, saying she took the ring and presents and never got the wedding paperwork straightened out leaving them legally unmarried [ClickOnDetroit]


• Surgical resident on the hook for $23 million in Wisconsin case; she was the only one of the docs involved not covered by damage limits [Journal Sentinel via KevinMD]

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Well, that would be the summary of my argument to the jury if the surgeon in question botched my poor client’s operation and left him permanently injured. So a hospital would have to be crazy to let this state of affairs go on, right?

Right. Except that when Wyoming Valley Health Care System decided not to take any chances, and refused to let mentally ill surgeon Jonathan Haas operate without supervision, he sued the hospital in federal court for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. And this week, a Pennsylvania jury awarded $250,000 to Haas for this violation of his rights. That’s the case, even though the Americans with Disabilities Act ostensibly has an exception for situations where employing the disabled person would be a threat to the health or safety of other people.

Haas’s complaint was that since he couldn’t find anybody to supervise him, the hospital’s condition effectively prevented him from acting as a surgeon. (Oddly, once this happened, Haas moved on to a hospital in Minnesota which imposed exactly the same supervisory requirement on him, which he accepted. But neither the judge nor jury found that relevant to the question of whether the requirement was reasonable.)

In short, the hospital had the choice of risking a patient’s life and being sued for malpractice, or restricting the privileges of the surgeon and being sued for discrimination. (And we know that had a patient sued for malpractice, the hospital couldn’t possibly have defended itself by pointing to the requirements of the ADA and saying that it was forced to employ the surgeon.)

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The misnamed anti-tort reform Center for Justice & Democracy has noticed the success of the ATRA’s judicial hellhole campaign (Dec. 15; Dec. 3, 2003), and decided to respond with its own report, the “Zany Immunity Law Awards”, intended to single out “special interests” who opportunistically subvert the legislative system to get improper immunity from liability. The cover shows a legislator receiving a statuette, cash in his pocket, and roses with a ribbon labeled “Sleaziest Legislation.”

Exposing sleazy special-interest immunity laws is a noble sentiment–but it’s a sure sign of how few and far between such laws are that CJD singles out the sensible anhydrous ammonia immunity laws for its top ten list. The CJD incorrectly blames the law on a supposed “anhydrous ammonia business lobby”; in fact, it’s groups like the Michigan Farm Bureau that push for laws like Michigan S.B. 786. Indeed, the only group to oppose such laws? Trial lawyers’ lobbying groups. See also Kelly Lenz, “Fertilizer law to help farmers”, Farm and Auction, Jun. 12, 2002.

How ridiculous are the CJD awards? One of the top ten “zany immunity laws” refers to “immunity” granted to placebo manufacturers and distributors. Except the immunity in question isn’t immunity–it’s an exception to a criminal statute prohibiting the sale of fake drugs! E.g., Fla. Stat. 817.564(6)(a). (This is the only appearance of the word “placebo” in the Florida Code. It’s telling that CJD omits the statutory cite in its footnotes.) Perhaps this law is zany, but it’s hardly an example of a special interest group buying sleazy legislation that damages consumers. A subject of a research test who is injured by adulterated placebos (has this ever happened?) will still have a cause of action.

Other “awards,” such as a complaint that owners of baseball facilities in three states are immune from liability for spectator injuries caused by baseballs used in a game, are similarly misguided. For example, CJD complains about Louisiana immunity for Mardi Gras parade injuries from thrown prizes–but neglects to mention that the immunity came about from community outrage when the predominantly African-American “Zulu Krewe” announced in 1987 that it would no longer engage in the decades-old tradition of throwing decorated coconuts from floats because of liability concerns. In any event, the immunity provided by the law is sufficiently limited that even today, the Zulu Krewe only hands out the coconuts rather than throws them. Heaven forfend. (Nora Sherman, “Guide to the Mardi Gras Parades”, Tulane Arcade, Feb. 13; Zulu history).

In some cases, CJD simply misleads about the scope of the immunity.

CJD: [A]fter an autopsy, there are some extra body parts hanging around so the coroner puts them in [the wrong] coffin. … Indiana’s morticians lobby made sure they wouldn’t be legally accountable for any of this.

Fact: A mortician is only immune for this mistake if those remains have been “hanging around” for three years without being placed in a coffin or urn and there is no written contract specifying where those remains go. IC 23-14-55-2(c). (And why should a cemetery owner be liable for a coroner’s mistake anyway?)

CJD: [I]n a bunch of states, an agent or real estate owner can’t be held liable for failing to tell a potential buyer or renter that the house is “psychologically affected.” What’s scarier than a haunted house? A statehouse that grants immunities like this one.

Fact: The only law that CJD cites, Indiana’s, provides “an owner or agent may not intentionally misrepresent a fact concerning a psychologically affected property in response to a direct inquiry from a transferee.” IC 32-21-6-6. Connecticut law similarly strips immunity when a purchaser makes affirmative inquiries. Sec. 20-329ee. Are you really concerned whether an HIV+ person used to live in a house? A buyer is entitled to ask and demand disclosure (though the federal fair housing laws may come into play). But why is CJD so concerned about protecting the rights of bigots to sue on the psychological damage self-imposed by their bigotry? Where’s the justice in requiring a seller to admit their HIV+ status on pain of liability for failing to affirmatively do so?

The complaint about haunted house immunity is especially ironic, given that the famous New York haunted house case of Stambovsky v. Ackley–where a court held that a buyer could back out of a home purchase because the seller failed to disclose poltergeists–is a famous poster child for a justice system run amok. 169 A.D.2d 254, 572 N.Y.S.2d 672 (1st Dept. 1991).

CJD: [M]aybe you leave [a deer] carcass out in the sun while celebrating the joy of hunting. Does that mean you can’t donate the meat to a charity…? … And if someone gets sick from eating the meat that’s gone bad, is that your fault? Not in a bunch of states, it isn’t! [A donor] of wild game meat for free use by a charity (a soup kitchen, for example) has limited liability for injuries or death caused by the age, condition, or packaging of the meat.

Fact: The fact pattern described wouldn’t result in immunity; in all of the states cited by CJD, the hunters could be sued for being grossly negligent or even reckless.

CJD: In Oklahoma, institutions using dogs unclaimed at the pound aren’t liable to the dog’s owners if they kill or injure the dog during a “scientific” experiment.

Is CJD seriously arguing that a research lab that purchases a dog about to be euthanized at the pound should bear the risk that an owner will claim the dog later?

CJD: In Arizona, a veterinarian who files a report with a local law enforcement agency, stating that he believes a dog he’s treated or examined has participated in a dogfight, is immune from liability.

Is CJD seriously claiming that vets should be liable for mistakenly reporting suspected cruelty to animals? That’s a good way to ensure that such cruelty doesn’t get reported.

CJD: Pawnbrokers in Missouri and Nevada who don’t release or dispose of pledged property, because they’ve been ordered to hold it by a police officer, are immune from liability.

Amazing! CJD actually contends that someone should be sued for obeying a lawful order of the police.

If ever there was proof that the Center for Justice and Democracy cares little for justice or democracy or consumers, it’s this report that shows the only things CJD cares about are trial lawyers and creating as much litigation as possible, regardless of its effect on justice, democracy, or consumers.

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In California, in a convincing victory for the business community and good sense, voters approved Proposition 64 by a wide margin, requiring lawyers to demonstrate actual injury before invoking the state’s broad unfair-practices statute in private cases. (Thank you, Arnold.) Colorado voters lopsidedly defeated a trial-lawyer-sponsored measure to expand litigation over alleged construction defects. And in the two hot judicial contests, for seats on the Illinois and West Virginia Supreme Courts, trial-lawyer-backed candidates lost in both. Details on all these races can be found on PointOfLaw.com. Also, voters ignored this site’s advice and passed all eleven state marriage amendments on the ballot.

Finally, some politicians whose ambitions this website has followed were locked in too-close-to-call races: Washington state AG Christine Gregoire (see Oct. 28) was slightly trailing a GOP opponent in her bid for governor, while former trial lawyer lobbyist and Bush HUD secretary Mel Martinez (see Sept. 3) was leading by 80,000 votes in his Florida Senate race against Democrat Betty Castor. (Update: Martinez wins). John Edwards’s vice-presidential ambitions seem at the moment to depend on an unlikely reversal of Ohio results in late vote counting, while his home state of North Carolina went Republican both in the presidential race and in filling Edwards’s old seat. (Update: Kerry and Edwards concede).

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The ballot measures are: Florida’s Amendment 3 (limiting lawyers’ med-mal fees), lawyer-sponsored Amendment 7 (removes confidentiality of medical peer review) and Amendment 8 (strips licenses of doctors who lose three malpractice verdicts); Wyoming’s Amendments C and D (authorizes legislative limits on med-mal awards); Oregon’s Measure 35 (limits med-mal awards); Nevada’s Question Three (limits med-mal awards) and lawyer-sponsored Questions Four (undercuts med-mal reform) and Five (forbids legislative reductions of liability); Colorado’s lawyer-sponsored Amendment 34 (expands right to sue over alleged construction defects), and California’s Proposition 64 (narrows scope of s. 17200 “unfair competition” law).

The timing: Florida polls close at 8 pm EST, Colorado and Wyoming at 9 pm, Nevada at 10 pm, and California and Oregon at 11 pm. I’m in the Eastern time zone, and intend to stay up until 2 am (11 pm Pacific) if that’s needed to follow any still-unresolved contests.

How readers can help: I’ll have access to standard online sources that cover these sorts of votes (big-city papers, Secretary of State websites) but in the past those sources have sometimes been slow to post totals, especially on “down-ballot” issues. I won’t have much access to local broadcast sources, for the most part. If you’ve got fresh news on your state to report, such as a local news organization’s calling a ballot contest one way or the other, email me at editor (at) pointoflaw – dotcom.

Once again, the liveblogging tonight will be going on at Point of Law, not here. [cross-posted from Point of Law, with slight changes][bumped 2:30 pm]

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* At Point of Law, I’ve got a post up tracking the current status of the propositions on four states’ ballots that would limit medical malpractice litigation or fees. The situation in Florida looks grim for doctors who’ve pushed such curbs (they’ve been outspent by their lawyer opponents, $22 million to $7 million). Voters in Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming may be better disposed toward their states’ ballot measures.

* On Friday, Ted posted about how critics of trial lawyers are getting sued for running an ad commenting on the Illinois Supreme Court race. Unfortunately, that’s just one of numerous instances in which criticizing the Litigation Lobby in paid advertisements is itself getting to be legally hazardous. In a new post at Point of Law, I list two other recent instances.

* Both the New York Times and the National Law Journal are out with stories on the very nasty and expensive battles between business interests and trial lawyers in state supreme court races, especially those in West Virginia (see May 13, etc.) and Illinois (Adam Liptak, “Judicial Races in Several States Become Partisan Battlegrounds”, Oct. 24; Emily Heller, “Judicial Races Get Meaner”, National Law Journal, Oct. 25).

* “Voters may run a gantlet of lawyers before reaching the ballot box on Nov. 2.” The two major parties are deploying lawyers by the thousand to challenge state procedures and individual votes (Miles Benson, “Voting in a Battleground State? Prepare to Meet a Lawyer at the Polls”, syndicated/Newhouse, Oct. 23).

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