Australia is in an uproar after a New South Wales teacher, Jeff Sinclair, won a A$28,000 payout for “psychological injury” for being fired for starting a relationship with a 15-year-old student a third of his age. The Department of Education has been ordered to pay him an additional A$317 a week until he finds “suitable” employment. The government is appealing. (Bruce McDougall, “Teacher’s cash over student love”, news.com.au, Apr. 5; Miranda Devine, “The teacher who played victim”, Sydney Morning Herald, Apr. 8) (via Jacobs). Update Jun. 3: jilted wife wants damage from school authority too.
Archive for April, 2004
Update: PetsWarehouse case
Latest chapter in the ongoing PetsWarehouse saga (Dec. 28, Oct. 5 and links from there): Robert Novak’s lawsuit against Google and two other search engines was allowed to stand. Novak accused the search engines of violating the law by selling advertising tied to his trademarked phrase “pets warehouse”. (Declan McCullagh, “Judge won’t toss out Google, Overture suit”, CNet News, Apr. 6; Mar. 25 opinion). Update Oct. 16 (Novak prevails in a different action).
Eligible for “I Sued” sticker?
Stamford resident Robert Bonoff was handed an “I Voted” sticker on election day, and promptly ruined a suede coat by placing the sticker on it. He’s asked the city to pay to replace the coat, and, so far, the city has said no. (AP, Apr. 7).
Update: A reader expressed skepticism because of the similarity to a “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode, but a more detailed Stamford Advocate piece shows it’s for real. “Bonoff said poll workers, who are paid by the city, should be given a list of fabrics that can be damaged by the stickers. … Bonoff said he is not going to give up until the city pays. ‘What’s $100? Big deal,’ he said. ‘They waste so much money anyway, why not give me a new jacket?'” (Donna Porstner, “A sticky situation”, Apr. 7).
Drunk driver’s family: blame it on the road
17-year-old Steven Terrell had a blood-alcohol level of .162 and had taken OxyContin when he lost control of his car, swerved off the road, hit a culvert, and overturned; not wearing a seatbelt, he died from the resulting injuries. “Roy Terrell and Donna F. Moore, the parents of Steven L.R. Terrell, notified [Morgan County] officials that they blamed the death on the county’s failure to maintain the roadway in a reasonable safe condition, failure to warn, defective road construction and design and failure to have a proper sign. They intend to seek $2 million in damages.” This time, the local press is outraged. (R. Joseph Gelarden, “Couple to sue over son’s death”, Indianapolis Star, Apr. 5; Editorial, “Don’t blame road for this tragedy”, Indianapolis Star, Apr. 7; Editorial, “Lawsuit instigators attempt to defer responsibility”, Purdue Exponent, Apr. 7).
Foam dance lawsuit
Tissue analysis and toxicology tests are still being performed to determine the cause of death of Margaret Piton, a 21-year-old with a heart condition who was found dead with a .260 blood-alcohol level (three times the legal limit) after a “foam party” in a South Padre Island nightclub, but her family’s lawyers have already filed a lawsuit blaming the death on “excessive foam.” (Allen Essex, “Parents file suit against SPI club”, Valley Morning Star, Apr. 7; “Report: Woman found dead had .260 blood alcohol, heart condition”, AP, Mar. 26).
Moody’s blamed for Bolshevik bond renunciation
The French Association of Russian Bondholders (or AFPER) is unhappy that the government of the Soviet Union repudiated the debts of its czarist predecessor, leaving it (or, more accurately, its members’ predecessors) with worthless paper. So in an interesting inversion of causality, in June 2001 it misguidedly sued Moody’s and S&P for providing ratings to the debt of the new post-Soviet Russian government in 1996, and sought to hold the rating companies liable for the debts of the earlier iterations of the Russian government. A Paris court finally got around to throwing the case out today. (Reuters, April 6).
Update: California french-fry suit
Approximately forty percent of the food the world eats contains acrylamide, a chemical that is formed by cooking starches and that has uncertain carcinogenic effect. The LA Times reports on the pending lawsuit against fast food vendors in California under Proposition 65 (Sep. 19; Dec. 27, 2002), which requires labeling of all carcinogenic substances with warnings–never mind that if a warning is posted everywhere, it effectively renders all the warnings meaningless, as they essentially are in California, where the warning can already be found in nearly every parking garage. While Burger King and other large corporations are fighting against extending the labeling requirements to french fries, it’s hypothesized that smaller mom-and-pop shops will simply cave and post warnings rather than pay lawyers to defend the use of heat in preparing food. (Miguel Bustillo, “Are We Ready to Fret About Our Fries?”, LA Times, Apr. 6; Andrew Bridges, “Studies find no acrylamide, cancer link”, AP, Mar. 29; Center for Consumer Freedom, “Wayward Warnings”, Aug. 5).
Epstein on class actions
University of Chicago Law School Professor Richard Epstein has a concise essay in the National Law Journal explaining what is wrong with current class action procedure and where reform is needed. (“Warping the law”, Mar. 22).
Madison County lawyers get $84M, class members get $8M
“Lawyers took home 10 times more than their clients in a $350 million settlement with AT&T and Lucent Technologies Inc. that ended a class-action suit in Madison County, according to figures provided recently by Lucent.” Even though class members only received $8.4 million, compared to the $84.5 million paid out to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, the settlement was announced as a $350 million settlement. Thus, in the well-publicized, but flawed, Eisenberg-Miller study that purports to show that plaintiffs’ lawyers aren’t overpaid in state court (Feb. 20 and Jan. 16), it would be counted as a return of 24%, rather than over 90%. Class lawyer Stephen Tillery, who is regularly in the news (e.g., Jan. 2), and whose firm collected $16 million of the fees, has suddenly decided that ethical obligations regarding current litigation prohibit him from discussing numbers when asked for his version of the figures, which he initially disputed. (Trisha Howard, “Lawyers profit most in suit, defendant says”, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Mar. 30).
Update, April 8: Professor Eisenberg disingenuously defends as an “exception” the Lucent settlement against a USA Today editorial–based on his own flawed study! (Theodore Eisenberg, “Separate myths from facts”, USA Today, Apr. 7; Editorial, “Fees line lawyers’ pockets”, USA Today, Apr. 7) (via Bashman).
“Bizarre Hoaxes On Restaurants Trigger Lawsuits”
If it becomes just a little more expensive to get a fast-food meal these days, it’s in part because a hoaxer–perhaps a single individual in north Florida–is calling restaurants around the country and persuading gullible managers to strip-search employees and customers. Restaurants, fearing lawsuits, are conducting defensive training to inculcate the common sense needed to avoid being fooled by such a call. (Steven Gray, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 30; Editorial, “Strip search is no ‘prank'”, Arizona Republic, Apr. 4; Charles Williams, “Restaurant Industry Warns Members to Beware Strip-Search Hoax”, Charleston Post and Courier, Apr. 2; “Lawsuit Filed After Strip Search Hoax”, WCVB, Feb. 26).