According to UCLA lawprof Lynn LoPucki, about 60 percent of recent big corporate bankruptcies have been filed in courts away from the companies’ hometowns. Although not all motives for selecting a distant bankruptcy venue are improper, forum-shopping can assist incumbent managers in finding a court that will cede them broad control during a reorganization (including the payment of large “retention” bonuses), while lawyers and other professionals may seek to steer filings into courts that are indulgent about approving fee requests. Among the losers: many creditors, which in some cases may include the companies’ workers. An opponent dismisses the charges as “baseless and offensive”, but some judges agree that the indictment holds merit. The Southern supermarket chain Winn-Dixie filed in New York City, then after a furor agreed to move the proceedings to its home state of Florida. (Pamela A. MacLean, “Forum Shopping Alleged in Chapter 11 Cases”, National Law Journal, May 3). See, among other posts, Mar. 8, 2004. More: Larry Ribstein (Jun. 22) has some thoughts on the market for jurisdiction-shopping.
Archive for May, 2005
Batch of reader letters
Four more missives from our ever-interesting readers appear on our letters page. Among the topics this time: caprice in the workings of the death penalty, lawyers’ fees and fen-phen fraud, gamblers suing casinos, and pharmacists’ rights.
Norway: porn-surfing on the job not a firing offense?
The Norway Supreme Court has ruled that Conoco Phillips owes two workers about $40,000 each for firing them for looking at Internet porn on the job. (Jonathan Tisdall, “Final porn decision”, Aftenposten English, Apr. 22).
The Aftenposten story has been widely repeated on the web, but it’s worth noting that the supposed decision has not yet been catalogued on the English version of the Norges Høyesterett website, though that site is only up to date to March 31. That said, this page looks suspiciously like the decision in question, though my Norwegian language skills are decidedly limited. I further note that it is utterly charming that Norway is sufficiently non-litigious otherwise that its Supreme Court apparently has the time to regularly decide appeals of speeding tickets. (& letter to the editor, Jul. 13).
Two more thoughts on the $45,000 cat
There’s an unspoken implication of a decision valuing a housepet at $45,000. If one is driving a vehicle of average value in Washington state, and sees a pet dart out in front of the car, the state would apparently prefer that you total your car to avoid hitting the animal. Just make sure that the tree or wall or parked car you hit instead doesn’t also have non-economic sentimental value.
And why isn’t it contributory negligence to leave a housecat outside? The press coverage doesn’t say if this was raised in the litigation.
“My patient lived — so she sued me”
Woman awarded $45,000 after dog kills cat
Seattle: “A woman who sued a neighbor after his dog mauled her cat to death has been awarded more than $45,000. Retired teacher Paula Roemer’s 12-year-old cat, Yofi, was attacked in her back yard in February 2004 by a chow belonging to her neighbor, Wallace Gray. The dog had repeatedly escaped in the past, according to the lawsuit.” (“Woman Gets $45K for Cat Killed by Dog”, AP/Las Vegas Sun, May 9). The award included $30,000 for the personal value of the cat — tying a record for a pet, according to her lawyer — plus $15,000 for emotional distress; Ms. Roemer “was so traumatized that she began having sleep disturbances and panic attacks, sank into depression and began smoking heavily, she wrote in a sworn declaration.” (Jessica Blanchard, “Woman awarded $45,000 in cat death”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 9). More coverage: Seattle Times, KOMO-TV. Meanwhile, a timely op-ed spells out why damage awards reflecting pets’ sentimental value, by scaring away veterinarians and other caretakers, could lead to needless animal deaths. (Emily Laird, “See Spot Sue”, New York Times, May 8). A similar case has been made many times in this space: see Mar. 15 (letter to the editor) and links from there.
Email boilerplate
If you ever receive email from lawyers — or from anyone who works at a law firm or in-house legal department — you’ll probably recognize some of the boilerplate formulas that Ernie the Attorney has fun with here (May 9). And: a follow-up from Ernie (May 10).
Patent Troll-Be-Gone?
Major software and hardware companies, tired of facing financial demands from companies organized for the purpose of buying up and suing over otherwise dormant patent rights, are calling for a change in patent law so that owners who are not using their patents would no longer have the right to sue for injunctions against alleged infringers (suits over damages could still be filed). Support for the idea is far from unanimous even among manufacturers, however. For more on the controversy over patent-licensing firms, see May 2, etc. (Brenda Sandburg, “A modest proposal”, The Recorder, May 9).
Clarence Stowers
Should we name him this site’s Man of the Year? Last week, after finding the freshly cut fingertip of an employee in his frozen custard at a Wilmington, N.C. dessert stand, Mr. Stowers “refus[ed] to return the evidence so it could be reattached. And now it’s too late for doctors to do anything for 23-year-old Brandon Fizer.”
Soon after Stowers found the finger in a mouthful of chocolate soft-serve he bought Sunday at Kohl’s Frozen Custard in Wilmington, he put it in his freezer at home, taking it out only occasionally to show to television cameras.
He refused to give it to the shop’s owner, and refused to give it to a doctor who was treating Fizer, who accidentally stuck his hand in a mixing machine and had his right index finger lopped off at the first knuckle.
Medical experts say an attempt to reattach a severed finger can generally be made within six hours.
But according to the shop’s management, Stowers wouldn’t give it back when he was in the store 30 minutes after the accident.
“The general manager attempted to retrieve it and rush it to the hospital,” reads a statement posted Thursday on Kohl’s Web site. “Unfortunately, the customer refused to give it to her and declared that he would be calling the TV stations and an attorney as he exited the store.”
What attorney decided to represent Mr. Stowers? Glad you asked; it’s Lee Andrews of Greensboro, N.C., who
wouldn’t say if a lawsuit against Kohl’s is planned, saying he needed “to get some more facts.”
But Andrews said his client is concerned about possible disease in the fingertip and kept it because he wanted someone to test it for “all the diseases that are out here now.”
“He’s upset to the point that he’s been debilitated to some degree,” Andrews said. “Emotionally, it’s been very upsetting to him.”
(“Fight over finger found in custard”, AP/CNN, May 6).
Mother’s Day custody special
Her kids are “too attached” to her, she was told by her soon-to-be-ex husband. Huh? Well, maybe there’s more to it than that: “His lawyer had advised him that to get what he wanted in the divorce, he would need to take a hard line on custody because that’s what mattered most to me.” (Katie Allison Granju, “Losing Custody of My Hope”, New York Times, May 8). And divorced British fathers crusade against a court system they see as stacked against them (Susan Dominus, “The Fathers’ Crusade”, New York Times Magazine, May 8).