Archive for February, 2005

“Music Industry Sues 83-Year-Old Dead Woman”

“Gertrude Walton was recently targeted by the recording industry in a lawsuit that accused her of illegally trading music over the Internet. But Walton died in December after a long illness, and according to her daughter, the 83-year-old hated computers.” (AP/ABCNews, Feb. 4). Glenn Reynolds (Feb. 5) guesses that it’s another “bot-based complaint” (more).

“The ad FOX won’t run”

If you’ve spend much time browsing weblogs lately, you’ve probably noticed the near-ubiquitous blog ad, placed by a trial-lawyer-allied group, complaining that Rupert’s minions won’t air their broadcast commercial supportive of medical malpractice suits. But the blog ad conceals a rather significant fact about the controversy, as I point out at Point of Law this morning. Lots of other good new stuff there too, including Ted on revelations of silica/asbestos double-dipping; a new column by Stuart Taylor, Jr. critical of the tort reform ideas popular at the moment in Congress (Jim Copland summarizes); welcoming a new weblog on international law; Vioxx and the quest for “smoking guns”; a P.R. exec is chosen to head ATLA; and Ted on historic preservation.

NY Times op-ed: city gun-liability law

I’ve got an op-ed in today’s New York Times criticizing the new Gotham law, signed by Mayor Bloomberg last month, which presumes to impose liability for street crime on gun manufacturers and dealers unless they adopt a strict “code of conduct” for their sales nationwide, not just in New York City. I note that it will add impetus to the drive in Congress for a law pre-empting abusive gun lawsuits. The new law “insults the right to democratic self-governance of the 273 million Americans who don’t live in New York City. …The mayor and City Council of New York seem to think they can make laws that bind the rest of the country. That’s an arrogant stance — and when the rest of the country is heard from, it’s apt to be a losing stance as well.” The piece is part of the Times’s new geographically zoned Sunday op-ed program and ran in city but not suburban editions of the paper. (Walter Olson, “The wrong target”, New York Times, Feb. 6). For the other side, here’s the press release and bill description from the measure’s sponsor, Councilman David Yassky, the city council’s press release (PDF), and the bill text. (bumped Sun. evening 2/6) Update Feb. 20: Yassky responds.

If the government wants to save money, it could start here

Logan Young loves Alabama football. He loves it so much that he paid a Memphis-area high school coach $150,000 in exchange for the coach steering a top recruit to Alabama. This act was certainly immoral and violated about twenty NCAA violations. But because the coach works for a public school, the act was also bribery of a state official. And so the federal government prosecuted Young under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), and convicted him for conspiracy, bribery and money laundering. (AP, “Shady boosters can now fear federal prosecutors,” (Feb. 5); “The real outrage was Young’s conduct,” Birmingham News, Feb. 6). Was this really the best use of government resources? RICO, a statute originally targeted at organized crime, has been extended far beyond this purpose and is now used to go after abortion protestors and immoral boosters. I do not agree with what Logan did, but I would argue that the detriment to society is not so great to warrant such an expenditure of tax dollars and judicial resources.

Irate sports parent ends up in court

A few days ago I noted that a high school coach landed a $700,000 victory against an out-of-control parent (Feb. 4). Now another irate sports parent has ended up in court. Demetri Antoniou approached a player he felt was threatening his son and warned him to “stay away from my (expletive) kid.” “The Dec. 10, 2001, incident was over in a matter of seconds. The man…never made contact with the boy…” But the parents of the boy he approached took offense and filed a lawsuit for unspecified damages. “Antoniou’s attorney says his client admits that he said things he now wishes he hadn’t. But he denies threatening Hale and thinks a lawsuit is an out-of-proportion response to the situation.” (Gregory Kesich, “Outburst at son’s game lands father in court,” Portland (ME) Press Herald, Feb. 4).

Neil Pakett v. Phillies

You may recall the Center for Justice & Democracy’s Zany Immunity Law Awards criticized the three states that provided immunity to baseball stadiums for spectator injuries. The immunity is based on the common-law doctrine of assumption of the risk, made explicit on the back of baseball tickets and announcements at baseball games. Nevertheless, dentist Neil Pakett is suing the Phillies for compensation for injuries he received when he unsuccessfully tried to catch a foul ball hit by shortstop Jimmy Rollins. The case has been thrown out by the trial court, but Pakett is arguing that the fact that the Phillies built a backstop creates a duty for them to have built a backstop that would’ve protected him. The Phillies will likely win, but they’ve sure spent a great deal of money defending themselves against the eventuality that they have a judge who wants to make new law, and a statutory immunity law would’ve provided a clearer rule that would have discouraged the suit in the first place. (Mark Levy, AP/LA Times, Feb. 4). Update: Phillies’ win affirmed.

Accept cookies? [Y/N/Sue]

Hundreds of blogs have noted the case from Durango, Colo. (see our Feb. 4 post) in which Wanita Renea Young sued teenagers Taylor Ostergaard and Lindsey Jo Zellitti, who’d baked homemade cookies, delivered them to various homes including Young’s as a surprise, and in doing so scared Young by banging on her door at 10:30 p.m., causing her an anxiety attack. A selection of comments:

* “I find it a bit amusing that the lady is claiming that the banging on the door made her think that burglars were present…we all know how burglars knock before entering…” (commenter Mark Noonan at Dean Esmay)

* “Young said she believes that the girls should not have been running from door to door late at night. “Something bad could have happened to them,” she said.

Something bad….yeah, like getting sued!” (all-encompassingly)

* “I hate articles like this. You can’t get any decent coverage of a legal issue unless it’s coming from a legal source. … We can’t fairly critique [the judge’s] decision because we don’t know what evidence it was based on. We don’t know what evidence it was based on because the article is clearly and fundamentally biased in favor of the defendants.” (Drew Vogel of the Terminus blog, commenting at Dean Esmay)

* “The karmic beauty, of course, is that for $900 this lady will be known the world over for fifteen minutes of ignominy and a couple of decent girls will wind up on the talk show circuit or have some good material for college essays.” (commenter docpops at Metafilter)

A sampling of others (warning, serious rudeness in some): BoingBoing, Ben Kepple, WizBang, RajeRant (“It’s times like this that I’m ashamed to be a lawyer”), Cliffs of Insanity, FishTown Chatter, Distorted Perspective, Ambulance Down.

Appeals panel rejects tobacco disgorgement

In a severe blow to the federal government’s wretched racketeering lawsuit against major tobacco companies, a panel of the D.C. Circuit, split 2-1 along ideological lines, has held that the Justice Department can’t seek disgorgement penalties of $280 billion against the companies. (AP/Forbes; Fox News). For our commentaries on this bipartisan disgrace of a lawsuit, see Sept. 21 and links from there, as well as Sept. 24. Reactions: Competitive Enterprise Institute, Mike DeBow, Anthony Sebok.

Yogi Berra v. “Sex In the City”

By reader acclaim: “The Yankee legend has filed a $10 million lawsuit against Turner Broadcasting Systems for using his name in a ‘hurtful’ advertisement for its ‘Sex and the City’ reruns.” (Dareh Gregorian, “Unberrable ‘Sex'”, New York Post, Feb. 2; “Yogi Berra sues for $10M over sex ad”, CNN/Money, Feb. 3; complaint at The Smoking Gun). At his Sports Law blog, Greg Skidmore, our guestblogger, thinks there may be something to Berra’s claim (if not its $10 million demand) under the current state of the law.