35-year-old Mark Reynolds was attacked and half-eaten by a mountain lion, while he crouched to fix his bicycle along Cactus Ridge Trail on January 8, 2004. The same day, the same cougar attacked Anne Hjelle, who was rescued. Reynolds’s family sued Orange County, California, but dropped the suit in the face of pressure from Reynolds’s fellow cyclists, who were worried that the lawsuit would provoke the county into prohibiting wilderness cycling. (Rachana Rathi, “Mauled Cyclist’s Family Drops Lawsuit”, LA Times, Mar. 29; Rachana Rathi, “Fatally Mauled Biker’s Parents Sue O.C.”, LA Times, Mar. 26; LA Times Editorial, “Joy, and Danger, of Wilderness”, Mar. 27; another website summary of lion attacks; Dan Koeppel, “The jaws of death”, Mountain Bike, Summer 2004). Wildlife officials destroyed the cougar responsible for the attacks, but California law otherwise prohibits hunting or killing mountain lions.
Archive for March, 2005
Today’s police chase lawsuit round-up II
So, you’re a police officer and you see a Nissan truck zoom through a stop sign at 40 mph. You give chase, but the car speeds up and drives even more erratically. Do you:
(a) View this as a sign that this maniac driver must be stopped?
or
(b) Stop the chase. The guy is driving dangerously!
Lawsuit after lawsuit posit that police act inappropriately by not stopping the chase — even though that effectively creates a policy that rewards, and thus encourages, miscreants who put other drivers at risk by trying to escape the police. Simply put, policy (b) is the policy that will guarantee that drivers try to drive dangerously to force police to peel off, while policy (a) encourages all but the most wildly irrational to pull over.
In California on March 16, 2003, Joseph Boldt, allegedly under the influence of meth, sped up in his stolen vehicle after running the stop sign, and Sergeant Mark Farber followed. Boldt decided to try to escape by going southbound in the northbound lanes of I-280, at speeds of up to 110 mph, causing three other accidents before smashing into an innocent driver, Girish Wadhwani, critically injuring him. Boldt’s passenger, Bobby Luke Kleinheinz, also wanted on an arrest warrant at the time, wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and was killed; the wheelchair-bound Boldt faces second-degree murder charges, though his trial has been postponed at least a couple of times because of crash-related health problems. Kleinheinz’s family is, of course, suing the police, rather than Boldt. The Association of Bay Area Governments paid Wadhwani $3.15 million for his broken bones. “Millbrae officials said they believed Farber acted appropriately but agreed to the settlement for fear of losing an even larger award during a civil trial.” (Ryan Kim, “$3.15 million settlement in high-speed crash”, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 26; AP, Mar. 26; Amy Yarbrough, “Man awarded $3.15 million in damages after police chase”, San Mateo County Times, Mar. 19; “Crash trial postponed”, SF Examiner, Sep. 14; Ethan Fletcher, “Chase case heads for trial”, San Francisco Independent, Jul. 23; Michelle Durand, “Fatal wrong-way driver begins murder trial today”, San Mateo Daily Journal, Jun. 8; Michelle Durand, “Murder trial delayed for fatal wrong way driver”, Dec. 24, 2003; WPIX-5, Mar. 19, 2003; previous OL posts on high-speed chases: Mar. 15 & Sep. 21, 2003)(& letter to the editor, Apr. 12).
Disbarred in Florida
Florida, like many states, prohibits attorneys from actually chasing ambulances, but some lawyers try to circumvent this. David A. Barrett had one of his paralegals take training to be admitted as a hospital chaplain, whereupon he would solicit clients for Barrett while wearing a pastor’s uniform. The Florida Supreme Court did not look kindly upon this when he was caught. David Giacalone has enough links to all the details to shake a stick at.
Honeymoon shark attack lawsuit
Nahid Davoodabadi, honeymooning in Hawaii in 1999, disappeared while kayaking. Her husband, Manouchehr Monazzami-Taghadomi, said she was killed by a shark, and set about suing the kayak rental company, Extreme Sports Hawaii, for the accident and the federal government for failing to rescue him. Extreme noted to a jury that the company had told the couple to kayak in an area close to shore protected from winds. Extreme also noted that Maui police found the kayak, its paddles, and a lifejacket–the latter without any tears or bites (though with all the buckles unbuckled). The police also found two paddles near the kayak, one leaning against rocks, though Monazzami said, among other fishy things, that he lost one of the paddles in the shark attack. (Police never charged Monazzami, who successfully petitioned a Hawaii court to have his wife declared dead, rather than missing.) The jury exonerated the company. The Ninth Circuit recently issued a ruling affirming on technical grounds the district court’s summary judgment for the government. It appears Extreme settled the case for some unknown amount rather than go through the expense of litigating the appeal. (Monazzami-Taghadomi v. United States (9th Cir. Mar. 22, 2005); Debra Barayuga, “Company not guilty in Maui kayak death”, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, May 9, 2003; “Kayak business cleared in 1999 death”, Honolulu Advertiser, May 12, 2003; Reuters, Mar. 23, 1999; Jaymes K. Song and Gary T. Kubota, “‘Unusual’: No blood on kayak”, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Mar. 26, 1999; Charles Memminger, “Shark tale now is part of our history”, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Mar. 26, 1999; Brian Perry, “Tourists wary in wake of latest shark attack”, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Apr. 1, 1999; Monazzami-Taghadomi v. 25 Knots Inc. (D. Hawaii, No. CV01-00171 ACK-KSC)). For legal scholars: one asks whether anything remains of the doctrine of “assumption of the risk” if a company called “Extreme Sports Hawaii” can’t invoke it without going through a trial and an appeal.
Patriot Ledger on Massachusetts malpractice
“We are seeing medical students today who are making their career decisions based on the risk of liability in that speciality,” says Dr. Alan C. Woodward, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. (Sue Scheible, “Docs’ nightmare: Getting sued; Fear of malpractice can drive how treatment progresses”, Mar. 19).
Welcome Forbes readers
We’re honored for this website to have such a prominent place in a column in the latest Forbes. (William Baldwin, “Seventh-Amendment Follies”, Apr. 11). Links to the stories mentioned: $27 million Ford Escort verdict; $49 million punitive damage Dodge Caravan verdict and follow-up; $4.9 billion Chevy Malibu verdict. You may also be interested in our related site, Point of Law, which has a more academic focus, including a section on the issue of science and the courts.
The latest issue of Forbes also has an excellent story about the junk science behind mold litigation. Dr. Gary Ordog travels the country, diagnosing just about every conceivable illness as being caused by exposure to mold.
A California judge once said Ordog “lacks credibility completely” after he testified that he was chief toxicologist at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Santa Clarita, which has no such department; that he’d published “hundreds” of scholarly articles, when a search of the PubMed database turns up fewer than 70, almost all of them dealing with gunshot wounds and trauma; and that former President Bill Clinton called him personally to run a special mold commission for the Environmental Protection Agency, even though an EPA spokesman says the agency’s authority doesn’t include indoor air quality. Ordog “is completely abusing the system,” says James Robie, a defense lawyer with Robie & Matthai in Los Angeles who has cross-examined Ordog several times. “He is possibly the most dishonest man I have ever met.”
(Daniel Fisher, “Dr. Mold”, Apr. 11). For more on mold litigation, see May 26 and links therein.
Florida’s legislature inviting plaintiffs’ lawyers to re-enact Scopes?
Two bad ideas in one: A Florida state House committee voted 6-2 to forward on H-837, a bill some legislators say will give university students a legal cause of action to sue universities and professors who “ridicule” their beliefs.
“Some professors say, ‘Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design, and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,'” [Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala] said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.
The bill is expected to pass the Florida House. It’s not quite clear that the bill will have the effect of opening the courtrooms to every crackpot student offended by a professor’s lecture, but it’s not comforting to see the absence of a denial. (James Vanlandingham, “Capitol bill aims to control ‘leftist’ profs”, Independent Florida Alligator, Mar. 23; Joe Follick, “House OKs Student `Free Speech’ Bill”, Lakeland Ledger, Mar. 23; James Vanlandingham, “Pending academic freedom bill comes under fire”, Independent Florida Alligator, Mar. 24).
Pill-splitting lawsuit
Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports and prominent member of the Litigation Lobby, recommends that readers save money on prescription drugs by buying higher dosage pills and dividing them with a pill-splitter to get the correct dosage. They’re not the only ones who try to save money this way: many HMOs implement the same policy. There’s no evidence that this has injured anyone, but plaintiffs’ lawyers sued Kaiser, anyway, claiming it was consumer fraud, and seeking half a billion dollars. Kaiser disputes the contention that the policy is mandatory; they say their policy is voluntary, and applies only to a handful of “scored” pills where differences in dosage would not be critical. Lower courts granted summary judgment on the case, and this week the California Supreme Court gave it the final coup de grace by refusing to hear an appeal. While press coverage suggests that the retroactivity of Proposition 64 could have been decided by this case, the lower courts decided it without resort to the new law, which would’ve precluded the suit in the first instance. (Dan Walters, “Businesses win twice in tort battles, but …”, Sacramento Bee/Victorville Daily Press, Mar. 9; Vicki Lankarge, “Study: Pill-Splitting Saves Money, Is Safe”, Health Care News, Dec. 1, 2002; “Kaiser sued over pill splitting”, American Medical News, Dec. 25, 2000; CJAC press release, Mar. 8; Timmis v. Kaiser Permanente, No. A102962, 2004 Cal App Unpub Lexis 11553 (Dec. 21, 2004)). More: see Jun. 13.
Australia: City 75% liable because “No Diving” sign wasn’t explicit enough
Philip James Dederer acknowledges seeing a “No Diving” sign on the Foster/Tuncurry Bridge in New South Wales, but dove anyway, and the 14-year-old became paralyzed as a result. He sued: “[The sign] just told me I shouldn’t dive – it did not put any danger into it.” The court bought the argument, and Australian taxpayers are now on the hook for A$1,050,000. (Dederer v. Roads and Traffic Authority, 2005 NSWSC 185; “Bridge diving victim awarded $1m”, Sydney Morning Herald, Mar. 18). An Australian blawger, David Starkoff, defends the judgment.
Weidner v. United States: blame the controllers because pilot became disoriented
Yet it has become customary for lawsuits to make grand charges that controllers are responsible for crashes — even in cases where the responsibility clearly resided between the left and right earcups of the pilot’s headset. Why do they do this? It isn’t because lawyers are against controllers (at least, not any more than they are against all of us). It’s because controllers work for the FAA — part of the federal government — the ultimate in deep pockets. In other words, it’s the reason lawyers do anything: in the legal profession, it’s all about money.
Aero-News.Net has an impressive refutation of a ruling against the FAA in a case involving the crash of an inexperienced lawyer-pilot, Donald Weidner, that killed him and three passengers. The FAA, found 65% responsible by Judge Timothy Corrigan in a bench trial, settled for $9.5 million. (Kevin R.C. O’Brien, “I Blew The ILS: It Must Be YOUR Fault”, Mar. 21 and Mar. 22; “FAA To Pay $9.5 Million To Families From JIA Plane Crash”, WJXT-4, Mar. 9; “Judge Finds FAA Largely To Blame For 2001 Plane Crash”, WJXT-4, Nov. 16; Case No. 3:02-cv-01114-TJC-MCR (M.D. Fla.)).