“‘Just sue. Just do it. Sue, sue, sue. Do it. Go, go, go, go.’ — Actor Tom Cruise in Details magazine, revealing how he instructs his lawyer to deal with libelous remarks about him in the press.” (“Names and Faces”, Washington Post, Dec. 17) (via Gawker)
Archive for December, 2003
Number of Senators who are lawyers
It currently stands at 59 of the 100, according to today’s editorial in Investor’s Business Daily on legal reform (“Any tort in a storm”, Dec. 18).
Oklahoma AG: I wasn’t familiar with short-selling
“I have recently been made aware of a market practice known as ‘short selling’ and am amazed that it is legal,” Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson wrote the Securities and Exchange Commission last year. That’s one of many tidbits to be found in a column by the L.A. Times’s Mike Hiltzik about politicians’ ties to Oklahoma-based Pre-Paid Legal Services, a multilevel marketing (MLM) enterprise that has been the subject of a fair bit of controversy and litigation over the years (Mike Hiltzik, “Lockyer Not Above a Little Legal Aid”, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 18). Oklahoma AG Edmondson’s bio lists him as having been born on “October 12, 1946” rather than, as one might assume, “yesterday”.
Killer nurse: hospitals didn’t share records
“‘What I’m coming to understand is that, short of an actual conviction or revocation of a license, none of that information gets shared,’ said Dr. William Cors, chief medical officer at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, N.J., where Mr. [Charles] Cullen last worked and where, prosecutors say, he may have killed 12 to 15 patients. ‘If anything good comes from this, it would be to reform the system where we’re prevented from telling one another what we know out of fear, quite frankly, of being sued.’ … Ms. Schantz, at St. Luke’s, said, ‘There is no record that anyone called here, ever, for any recommendation on him.’ And if someone had called? She said she was not sure what the hospital would have said. Hospitals are loath to say anything negative, she acknowledged, adding, ‘We’re a litigious society.'” (Richard P?rez-Pe?a, “Hospitals Didn’t Share Records of a Nurse Accused in Killings”, New York Times, Dec. 17). For more on reference liability, see Aug. 7; discussion of pilot and teacher cases from The Excuse Factory (link now dead). See also Mar. 23, 2000. More: Jan. 29, Mar. 3, Mar. 30.
Daschle does the trial-lawyer hop
A Senate Minority Leader’s gotta drum up money, after all: he popped down to Jacksonville last Thursday for a fund-raiser hosted by plaintiff’s lawyer Wayne Hogan, part of the $3.4-billion-in-fees Florida tobacco team (see Apr. 12, 2000), and then yesterday attended an event at the Providence, R.I., home of Ness Motley’s Jack McConnell (see Jun. 7, 2001) (David DeCamp, “Party not big on bid from Weinstein”, Jacksonville Times-Union, Dec. 15; Liz Anderson, Scott MacKay and Katherine Gregg, “State House’s quick Thanksgiving food drive is no turkey”, Providence Journal, Dec. 1) (hat tip: South Dakota Politics blog)
Florida AARP supports liability cap
“In a reversal that has stunned the plaintiff bar, the Florida chapter of AARP, the powerful senior lobbying group, has declared its support of caps on pain and suffering damages in abuse and neglect lawsuits against Florida nursing homes.” In years past the retirees’ group has been an influential foe of limits on nursing home liability, but the state chapter reversed course and decided to strike a compromise with nursing home operators that would trade limits on pain-and-suffering liability in exchange for the industry’s agreement to accept new state rules, among them a requirement that facilities maintain assets so that successful litigants can recover liability verdicts. A lobbyist for the Florida chapter “said AARP changed its view after learning that many nursing homes were hiding their assets to avoid liability claims. In addition, many nursing homes have been carrying little or no liability coverage, despite the 2001 law’s requirement that all facilities carry coverage.” The group’s change in course is likely to draw fire from other elements within AARP that remain closely allied with the litigation lobby; it also was criticized by an official of the “Coalition to Protect Florida Elders, a nonprofit organization that is funded by trial lawyer Jim Wilkes.” More on Fla. nursing home suits: Mar. 13-14, 2001; Mar. 19, 2003; etc. (Julie Kay, “Unexpected Ally”, Miami Daily Business Review, Dec. 17).
Around the blogs
Beth Plocharczyk of Crescat Sententia responds (Dec. 15) to Dr. Kurt Kooyer’s Calvin College memoir on medical liability, recently referenced in this space, and takes issue with Kooyer’s assertion that the obligations of the medical profession toward patients are necessarily of a “covenantal” rather than contractual nature. David Giacalone (Dec. 15) notes that a star witness has emerged to support the state of Massachusetts in its dispute with law firm Brown Rudnick over $2 billion in tobacco fees (see Nov. 4): none other than Thomas Sobol, who served at Brown Rudnick as lead attorney on the state’s case, later departed, and now has testified that it would be “absolutely, clearly excessive” for his former firm to pocket the higher sum. Brian Sack (“Banterist”), provoked by a CBS “60 Minutes” segment (Dec. 8), wonders whether the courts will really award money to complainants who say they couldn’t get jobs at Abercrombie & Fitch because they weren’t “pretty enough” or “All-American enough” (see Dec. 26-28, 2000). (Update Nov. 17, 2004: Abercrombie settles three cases for nearly $50 million.) Professor Bainbridge (Dec. 5, Dec. 11, Dec. 15, Dec. 16) has been hammering away at New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for using prosecutorial negotiations to induce mutual fund companies to lower their fees: “Spitzer has no authority — none, nada, zilch — to regulate mutual fund fees. Spitzer’s use of his leverage to extort a reduction in fees is a gross abuse of discretion.” And Curmudgeonly Clerk (Dec. 14) documents the latest adventures of anti-videogame attorney Jack Thompson, already much chronicled in this space (see Sept. 26).
Pay me for driving drunk, cont’d
“The wife of a hockey fan who crashed his car after drinking too much at a Minnesota Wild game has sued the team, saying her husband shouldn’t have been served so much alcohol.” (“Wife sues Minnesota Wild for husband’s crash”, AP/CNN, Dec. 13)(more tipple-your-way-to-court cases).
From a kit (no lawyer included)
Experimental aircraft assembled from kits are rising in popularity, aimed at accommodating owner-pilots “who want a new high-performance aircraft without shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars”. “The fact is, there just aren’t that many new production airplanes,” says Bob Warner, executive vice president of the Experimental Aircraft Association. “Part of the price in the production-built airplane is you’re paying for a bunch of lawyers and a bunch of insurance.” (Jon Bonn?, “‘Experimental’ aircraft push the envelope”, MSNBC, Dec. 15).
Radio tomorrow morning
Tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. EST I’m scheduled to be a guest on Jim Blasingame’s national radio program, “Small Business Advocate“, discussing federal and state anti-spam legislation (more on host/topic). More: President Bush today signed the “CAN-SPAM” bill, the first federal anti-spam legislation (Stacy Cowley, PC World, Dec. 16)