An interview with FEC Commissioner Brad Smith (Nick Schulz, “An End To ‘Everybody’s Press’?”, TechCentralStation, Jun. 13). See May 20, Mar. 31, etc.
Archive for 2005
Blawg Review #10
…is up at InternetCases.com. Coverage includes our reparations posts.
Michael Jackson verdict
Hamptons Indian land claim
It’s one thing when heavily lawyered-up Indian tribes bid to eject the residents of, say, Syracuse or Binghamton. But this is the Hamptons! It’s, like, a real news story now (Ann Givens and Andrew Metz, “Pricey bay tops tribal wish list”, Newsday, Jun. 12; Bruce Lambert, “Shinnecock Tribe Plans Suit, Claiming Land in Hamptons”, New York Times, Jun. 12).
Feds’ tobacco-suit shift, cont’d
L.A. Times has some good coverage of the Justice Department’s much-criticized decision last week (see Jun. 10) to scale back the damages it’s asking in its wretched Clinton-legacy tobacco suit:
Law professor Turley [Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, not suspected of overmuch sympathy with the views of this page] said he believed “legal realism and political realism” were the main reasons for the 11th-hour retreat.
The Justice Department had “seemed to be in institutional denial,” Turley said of the consequences of the appeals court defeat [in February, before a D.C. Circuit panel]. “By reducing the (requested) damages it brings the case more in line with that ruling.”
Noting that the case has lasted six years at huge cost to the government, Turley said Justice officials are “very sensitive about the ‘resume factor’ in this case.” The change “lays the groundwork for the spin that they labeled the industry as racketeers and they got the damages they asked for,” he said.
Tobacco lawyers have ridiculed the new proposal. Ted Wells, a lawyer for Philip Morris USA, said it was a $280 billion case, then a $130 billion case, now a $10 billion case and “eventually it will be a zero-dollar case.”
(Myron Levin, “Civil case against tobacco is turning to ash”, Los Angeles Times/Detroit News, Jun. 11).
More on pill-splitting
Does a health insurer risk legal liability if it urges its insureds to save money on prescriptions by splitting pills in two, and even provides them with pill-splitting devices to do so? On Mar. 25 Ted reported on the apparent failure of one such lawsuit; now Beldar (Jun. 10) and his commenters are having an extended discussion of the question.
Events: N.Y. doctors, Ariz. lawyers
Last Monday I addressed Manhattan physicians at the annual meeting of the New York County Medical Society (more on its views). And this coming Friday I’ll be on a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Arizona Bar Association in Tucson. If you’re interested in booking either Ted or me for appearances, just email.
Update: Mississippi scandal latest
When prominent Mississippi trial lawyer asked his old law school classmate Leonard Radlauer to do him a favor — serve as the go-between in a transaction in which Minor paid off a $118,652 loan owed by former circuit judge John Whitfield — Minor was quite concerned that the local media not get wind of the transaction, according to Radlauer’s testimony in the ongoing corruption trial. Oops… (Jimmie E. Gates, “Minor’s money transfer recalled”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Jun. 7). More: Apr. 30, 2005, Sept. 20, 2003 and many others.
Publicity roundup
Texas Lawyer has a well-reported and personality-filled article, unfortunately not online, detailing how the state’s plaintiffs lawyers became “in many ways…the victims of their own success”; it happened when “tort reformers, provoked by the plaintiffs bar’s hubris, particularly as it was asserted at the state Capitol in Austin, galvanized themselves over the past 15 years to topple the trial lawyers’ dominance over Texas politics.” Also a lot about asbestos-suit reform (Miriam Rozen, “Paradise Lost; Plaintiffs Bar Bemoans End of an Era as Tort Reformers Target Asbestos”, Texas Lawyer, Feb. 28, not online). A Medill News Service dispatch from last December quotes me on the subject of class action jurisdiction (Betsy Judelson, “On the Docket: Getting Out of Madison County”, Medill News Service, Dec.). And Automotive Industries, in an ambitious backgrounder on the liability explosion, mentions my Hillsdale College speech of last year (Gary Witzenburg, “Urgent Need for Tort Reform”, April).
Update: Oriana Fallaci
Blasphemy laws vs. free speech: The courageous Italian journalist has been ordered by a judge in Bergamo, Italy, to stand trial on charges of defaming Islam in her book “The Strength of Reason”. (Marta Falconi, “Judge Orders Italian Author to Stand Trial”, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, May 25; Stefan Beck, New Criterion “Armavirumque”, May 25; Jun. 11-12, 2002). For more on European blasphemy and “hate speech” laws, see Aug. 23-25, 2002 (prominent French author tried and acquitted on charges of “insulting Islam”); Mar. 17, 2005. For similar proposals in Great Britain, see “Rushdie fears govt bill will undermine freedom of speech”, ABC (Australian), Jun. 10; Jul. 16, 2004.