The Los Angeles Times reports that the eight-year-old legal battle over scientists’ attempts to study the 9,300-year-old bones (Feb. 14) is probably not over, even though Indian tribes and the Department of Justice decided not to appeal the Ninth Circuit’s ruling to the Supreme Court. Before, Clinton administration objections under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act prevented study. Now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has custody of the bones, is objecting under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 to anthropologists’ plans to study the skeleton. And the tribes have filed papers expressing their intent to continue litigating. In the words of the Houston Chronicle’s headline-writers in reprinting the LA Times article, “Curse of lawyers surrounds ancient skeleton.” (Tomas Alex Tizon, “Skeleton Case’s New Bone of Contention”, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 2 (via Bashman); Eli Sanders, “An 8-Year Fight Ends Over a 9,200-Year-Old Man”, New York Times, Jul. 20; Tim Sandefur, Panda’s Thumb blog, Mar. 25; Bonnischen v. United States; Friends of America’s Past website and Aug. 4 press release).
Archive for 2004
Lerach to Google: cough up bettor bucks
“Lerach Coughlin Stoia & Robbins …filed a class action against Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and 10 other Internet search engines that claims they have been promoting illegal gambling on their Web sites and requests that they fork over the ad revenue. The complaint, filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court, requests that the search engines put revenue from advertising Internet gambling into a fund that would provide restitution to California Indian Tribes or other licensed gambling businesses in California. The complaint says money in the fund would also go to the spouses of gamblers who have had community property taken away as a result of illegal gambling and to the state treasury.” (Brenda Sandburg, “Casino Come-Ons Return Bad Result for Search Sites”, The Recorder, Aug. 5; David Legard, “Gambling lawsuit filed against top Web content sites”, IDG/Computerworld, Aug. 4). For questions about the legality of accepting advertising from offshore casinos, see Apr. 21. Earlier lawsuits have gone after credit card companies for facilitating offshore gambling transactions (see Dec. 7, 1999), but a Lerach attorney said this was the first suit against search engines.
Super-sized something
“Although [filmmaker Morgan Spurlock in Super-Size Me] generally presents critics of McDonald’s as public-spirited activists, he can’t resist taking a shot at Samuel Hirsch [Jul. 25 and Sept. 12, 2002; Jan. 23, Mar. 25-30 and Jun. 20, 2003], the lawyer who filed the first two obesity lawsuits against fast food restaurants. When Hirsch is asked his motive for getting involved in such litigation, he looks puzzled. ‘You mean, motive besides monetary compensation?’ he says. ‘You want to hear a noble cause?’ That’s his only appearance in the film.” (Jacob Sullum, “Big Mac Attack”, Reason, Jul.). Update Mar. 23, 2005: Hirsch sues Spurlock and film distributor.
U.K.: terrors of the magazine intern
Want to spend a bit of your summer holiday helping out around the office of a venerable British periodical? Before you can start filing or photocopying, you’d better prepare for a government-mandated mini-seminar in workplace hazards. “The fact remains that the only job her week at The Spectator prepared Lucy for was that of a health and safety officer, or a serial bringer of law suits against employers with loose telephones and no barrier creams.” (Mary Wakefield, “Work experience is all about health and safety”, Daily Telegraph, Jul. 26).
“$112 Million Medical Malpractice Verdict Dismissed”
“A Brooklyn, N.Y., judge [last month] dismissed a $112 million medical malpractice verdict — the third-largest in the state’s history — saying a local hospital could not be blamed for an aneurysm that left a man a quadriplegic. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Melvin S. Barasch said that although the case was ‘one of the saddest’ he had heard, the jury had no rational basis for its verdict.” David Fellin’s lawyer had played the jury a “day-in-the-life” video of his disabled client “in a nursing home, where he needs constant care. He also told the jury about Fellin’s mother, whose life, according to Barasch, now revolves around visiting and caring for her son. The judge said the film ‘brought tears to everyone’s eyes.'” However, the judge said, that’s no substitute for showing that defendant Long Island College Hospital had negligently caused Fellin’s injuries, which he said the plaintiff’s side hadn’t shown. (Tom Perrotta, New York Law Journal, Jul. 15).
Long weekend
I’ll be traveling on business, so there’ll be no more posting from me until Sunday or Monday. See you then.
Where does your state rank?
Martin Grace of Georgia State has a neat table (PDF) listing last year’s per capita expenditures in each state on liability insurance defense costs, with a separate breakout for med-mal defense costs. That and much more is available this morning at my other website, Point of Law.
Kerry malpractice plan
According to one of his health care advisers, the Massachusetts Senator actually supports “meaningful but enactable” malpractice reform, according to a new report. (Mark A. Hofmann, “Adviser says Kerry supports malpractice reform”, Business Insurance Daily News, Aug. 4). The Kerry campaign website has more (scroll down). George Wallace at Decs & Exs (Aug. 4) doesn’t think there’s much here that’s new, but we’re not so sure, especially on the punitive damages language and in the failure to raise federalism objections which ordinarily are front and center in Democratic resistance to liability reform at a national level.
“Asbestos X-rays rechecked”
“A new look at X-rays used to help win billions of dollars for asbestos victims detected abnormalities in only 4.5 percent of the X-rays — not in 96 percent, as medical experts intitially testified. The study by Johns Hopkins University radiologists found that medical experts who testified on behalf of plaintiffs in asbestos suits almost always found something suspicious on their X-rays, whether it was asbestos dust or a likely malignant tumor.” The study appeared in this week’s Academic Radiology, a scientific journal. (Bill Scanlan, Rocky Mountain News (Denver), Aug. 5; Reed Abelson, “Study Raises Questions of Witnesses”, New York Times, Aug. 4). See, among many other entries on this site, Jan. 21. More: the journal Nature weighs in (Emma Marris, “Asbestos study suggests bias in experts”, Aug. 5). Yet more: GeekPress, MichMedMal.
“Grandparents sue over jailhouse baby”
Knoxville, Ga.: “The grandparents of a child conceived while her parents were both in the Crawford County Jail want the county to help them support the baby. LaTonya Finney and boyfriend, Adrian Howard, were jailed in 2002 to await trial on robbery charges. While they remained behind bars, Finney became pregnant.” Finney’s parents now say that because their daughter was impregnated while in prison, “Crawford County Sheriff Kerry Dunaway shares some of the responsibility — and the cost — while the tot’s parents are both serving prison terms.” The couple say the sheriff granted them a conjugal visit, but he says the man picked a lock and gained access to the women’s portion of the prison to see his girlfriend.
“‘I just think it’s a very, very bizarre social conscience these people have that their daughter conceives a child and they think the sheriff is responsible,’ said county attorney David Mincey Jr. The sheriff said he wasn’t even aware of Finney’s pregnancy until Howard filed suit demanding to be released from prison to care for Adrianna. That case is still pending.” (AP/CNN, Aug. 2).