An investigator has told the BBC that fraudulent claims were much more widespread than previously believed at the now-collapsed Accident Group, which had been the largest personal injury claims firm in Great Britain. “”At a very conservative estimate there were 200 people suspected of making claims up,” of a 1,500-person sales force, said Paul Stott. “With some of the people that I have dealt with, from the day that they started until their activities were brought under the umbrella of an investigatory procedure, every single claim that they wrote was fraudulent. It was apparent to a man with one eye.” (Pip Clothier, “Accident Group fraud investigator speaks out”, BBC News, Jul. 30). In Parliament, Merseyside MP Peter Kilfoyle “said sales reps targeted vulnerable, poverty-stricken people, enticing them to fabricate claims. He claimed some reps waited for vulnerable people outside Job Centres, others even stood outside Liverpool Prison to persuade people to claim they had a bad back caused by sleeping on lumpy mattresses.” Meanwhile, execs were tooling around in company-owned Ferraris and a Bentley and the company founder had amassed “assets in excess of ?40m, including a ?3.5m home in Cheshire”, said Mr. Kilfoyle (Ian Craig, “Sales reps ‘lay in wait for poor'”, ManchesterOnline, Jul. 18). The Accident Group made headlines in May when it suddenly announced that it could not pay its bills and dismissed 2,400 workers, informing many of them by text messages to their mobile phones (BBC, “Bust company sacks workers by text”, May 30).
Archive for August, 2003
“Homemakers contribute to Edwards”
Priceless short item — the fourth paragraph explains everything. (AP/Myrtle Beach, S.C. Sun News, Aug. 5) (via Kathryn Lopez of NRO “The Corner“, who notes: “Stay-at-home moms for Edwards? Not exactly”).
Addendum: “We have no problem if 100 percent of our money came from trial lawyers,” said Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri this spring (AP/Amarillo Globe-News, Apr. 16).
Litigation finance runs afoul of champerty doctrine
Opining that “a lawsuit is not an investment vehicle,” the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that a personal injury plaintiff who settled her case for $100,000 “need not honor a contract that required her to pay nearly $20,000” to a Nevada-based litigation finance company and an Ohio broker. What’s more, plaintiff Roberta Rancman is not required to return the $8,800 advanced to her by the two companies. A National Law Journal article takes a look at the litigation finance industry, in which “financiers typically offer cash advances to plaintiffs who might be out of work because of an injury or otherwise unable to meet their daily living expenses. The financiers get back their advance, not to mention a usually quite substantial premium, only if the suit leads to a settlement or an award.” (See Gary Young, “Two setbacks for lawsuit financing,” The Nat’l Law Journal, July 28). Update Oct. 25: litigation-finance firms pull out of Ohio after ruling.
“Humboldt Creamery fined for ‘over-reporting’ chemical release”
From California’s North Coast: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reached a settlement with Humboldt Creamery that requires the company to pay $5,000 for allegedly over-reporting the amount of nitric acid it released into the environment in 1999 and 2000. Ironically, the actual amount of nitric acid the creamery released was … zero pounds. That’s right, zip. Zilch. Nada. But it’s still being fined, simply because it reported incorrectly.” The company says the agency originally sought to impose a fine of $30,000 and declined to negotiate the issue unless the creamery hired its own lawyer. “It’s kind of a rare thing,” said Leo Kay of the EPA’s San Francisco press office. “Most fines involve under-reporting, not over-reporting.” (Jennifer Morey, Eureka (Calif.) Times-Standard, Jul. 16).
Query on site redesign answered
At least a dozen of our readers were generous enough to reply to our query of last Friday about how to replace relative with absolute links. We’ve now solved the problem to our satisfaction. Readers’ suggestions fell into three main categories:
“Kiss ladies’ night goodbye”
Although the California Supreme Court ruled as long ago as 1985 that the state’s civil rights law prohibits “Ladies’ Night” discounts at bars, various San Diego taverns apparently hadn’t gotten the word. That created a perfect opening for Steven Surrey and Alfred Rava to make the rounds of nightspots in the county, demanding similar discounts for themselves and taking note when they were refused. The Unruh Civil Rights Act provides $4,000 fines for each violation plus “one-way” attorneys’ fee awards (pay if you are a losing defendant, collect nothing if you win). The next step was for lawyers to swoop down and obtain $20,000 settlements from six errant bar owners and $5,000 from a seventh that was going out of business. “One of the [complainants] is a California Western School of Law classmate of the two lawyers who filed the suits on their behalf. The other is a paralegal. When asked about the social merits of these lawsuits, Erik Jenkins, one of the attorneys who filed the suits, made comparisons between ladies night discounts and the discrimination faced by African-Americans in the South.” (Alex Roth, San Diego Union-Tribune, Aug. 3).
In other news of California bounty-hunting, the Long Beach Press-Telegram (Aug. 2) has editorially cited our editor’s recent WSJ op-ed in upbraiding local Assemblywoman Martha Escutia for advancing a measure that masquerades as reform of the state’s notorious section 17200 law but in fact would give lawyers even more scope to use it for shakedowns (see Jul. 28).
Addendum: Lest anyone doubt that highly entrepreneurial applications of section 17200 remain alive and well despite the downfall of the Trevor Law Group, John Sullivan at the Civil Justice Association of California reprints a recent letter (PDF) from a Bay Area law firm demanding $6500 in legal fees in exchange for not filing a 17200 lawsuit over an allegedly erroneous advertisement; the law firm does not claim to represent any clients injured by the ad, but does state that “A substantial percentage of this firm?s practice is devoted to prosecuting UCL violations.” (“17200 Abuses don’t stop with Trevor: Shakedowns Head North”, CJAC press release, Jul. 23)
Brooklyn judges scandal
It’s looming as the worst judicial scandal in years: “Since Barron’s conviction [Judge Victor Barron of Brooklyn was sentenced to three to nine years in prison for taking thousands of dollars in bribes], authorities have arrested a second Brooklyn judge [Gerald Garson] for allegedly accepting gifts from a corrupt lawyer, kicked a third off the bench for breaking rules on rental property and scrutinized a fourth for his handling of his elderly aunt’s life savings.” The borough’s judicial selection system, which gives party bosses a key say in nominating jurists to the bench, is being widely blamed. (“Corruption Scandal Shakes Brooklyn Court”, AP/ABCNews.com, Aug. 3; Jack Newfield, “‘Regime Change’ Should Be Goal of Judge Probe”, New York Sun, Jun. 30; “Norman schemes while B’klyn burns”, New York Daily News (editorial), Jun. 30; Anthony M. DeStefano, “Their Goal: Dismissal”, Newsday, Jul. 14; Mark Berkey-Gerard, “Judges”, Gotham Gazette, Aug. 8) (many links via former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern’s NYCivic.org).
More on jackpot justice
Michigan: A federal jury awarded $270.05 in general damages and $875,000 in punitive damages to a 74-year-old woman who claimed she was “questioned, photographed, held against her will and finally tossed out” of a casino after she found an abandoned nickel credit in a deserted slot machine. Plaintiff Estella Romanski prevailed on her claims for violation of her civil rights, false arrest and false imprisonment, while Detroit’s MotorCity Casino defeated her claims for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
MotorCity spokesman Jack Barthwell told a reporter that the practice of so-called “slot walking” is discouraged to ensure “that proper taxes are paid, and to preserve order in the casino. … Because it’s not your money, you’re taking something that doesn’t belong to you. We believe it’s owned by the person who bet it or by the casino.” But Romanski’s lawyer “said the jury was instructed that under Michigan law the finder of lost or abandoned property has superior title to it than the owner of the locality where the property is found.” Barthwell said the casino plans to appeal, but may first ask the court to reduce damages. (Leonard Post, “Casino Visitor Parlays Nickel Into Legal Jackpot,” The Nat’l Law Journal, Aug. 4) (via law.com) (see also earlier Overlawyered.com report, Jul. 25). [Update Feb. 28, 2007: Supreme Court denies casino’s certiorari petition.]
Update: seeking review of Engle dismissal
To no one’s surprise, plaintiff’s lawyers Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt are seeking en banc review by an 11-member Florida appeals court of the demise of their $145 billion verdict against the tobacco industry in Engle v. R.J. Reynolds. (“Florida smokers to appeal $145 billion lawsuit”, Reuters/Forbes.com, Jul. 16). Perhaps hinting at desperation, their banner argument is that the appeals panel engaged in “judicial plagiarism” because it adopted wholesale in its opinion vast tracts of language from defense briefs — even though this particular form of supposed plagiarism is entirely routine in court opinions when judges consider one side’s briefs convincing and do not expect that they will be able to improve on the style of the briefs’ presentation (Siobhan Morrissey, “A Case of Judicial Plagiarism?”, ABA Journal E-Report, Aug. 1). More: Gary Young, “Plagiarism Charges Plague Tobacco Decision”, National Law Journal, Aug. 21. Update May 15, 2004: Fla. Supreme Court agrees to hear case.
Update: Judge throws out Milwaukee lead paint case
In the latest high-profile lead paint suit to go down to defeat, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Timothy G. Dugan dismissed the city of Milwaukee’s lawsuit demanding $85 million from NL Industries, maker of Dutch Boy paint, and Mautz Paint Co. Although Milwaukee’s contingency fee agreement with private lawyers was widely billed as one in which city taxpayers faced no risk, it turns out that the city will owe the private lawyers a substantial sum for expenses if it chooses to abandon the case rather than pursue appeal. (Tom Held, “Judge dismisses lawsuit against lead paint companies”, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jul. 30; AP/Madison Capital Times, Jul. 30). The lawsuit had already contributed to the demise of the family-owned Mautz Paint Co., which sold itself to Sherwin-Williams in part because it could not afford to shoulder a legal defense (see Nov. 13, 2001). “The African American Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce praised the court’s action in prepared statements. ‘This lawsuit has hurt efforts to clean up lead paint problems,’ a statement from the African American Chamber said.” (“City’s lead paint suit dismissed”, Milwaukee Business Journal, Jul. 28).