Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for February, 2006

Update: Silver’s office settles sex claim

New York: “The leadership of the State Assembly has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former legislative aide who said she had been raped by the chief counsel to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver….[former counsel J. Michael Boxley] will make a small payment toward the settlement, but most of the money will be taxpayers’ funds.” (Jennifer Medina, “Assembly Settles Suit on Sexual Misconduct”, New York Times, Jan. 28). See our coverage of Jun. 15, 2004. In a Summer 2004 City Journal piece, Stefan Kanfer sketches out a couple of the background aspects that make the whole episode piquant for Albany-watchers, if not for the parties involved:

Up in Albany, Sheldon Silver is speaker of the Democrat-controlled assembly — just the sort of guy a hard-line feminist could love, ever eager to promote laws punishing cads who take advantage of women. …Furthering the irony, Silver in his spare time is counsel to Weitz and Luxenberg, one of New York’s most influential law firms, known to prosecute torts like the one confronting the speaker.

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Trademark Dilution Revision Act (H.R. 683)

We regularly cover how big business can abuse trademark litigation to attempt to squelch critical commentary or creativity. (E.g., Jan. 3, May 28, Jan. 4, 2005, Nov. 7, 2004, Jun. 29, 2004, Aug. 31, 2003). The Senate is contemplating legislation, already passed by the House, H.R. 683, that would make such litigation easier “regardless of the presence or absence of actual or likely confusion, of competition, or of actual economic injury”: more “Harm-Less Lawsuits.” The bill is meant to undo the Supreme Court interpretation of the Lanham Act in Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, Inc., 537 U.S. 418, 123 S.Ct. 1115 (2003). The Electronic Frontier Foundation is on the case. Chris Rush Cohen commented back on March 16.

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Update: U.K. Commons revolt on bill curbing religious speech

Civil libertarians take a stand in Britain: by single-vote margins, the House of Commons has surprisingly voted to water down significantly the bill introduced by the Blair government to attach legal penalties to various types of speech critical of religion. In particular, the bill “was stripped of measures to outlaw ‘abusive and insulting’ language and behaviour as well as the crime of ‘recklessness’ in actions that incite religious hatred.” Earlier, the House of Lords had heeded protests from free-speech advocates including comedian Rowan Atkinson by lending its support to amendments to the bill. “In a humiliating blow to Mr Blair, who has a 65-seat Commons majority, 21 Labour rebels voted with Opposition MPs while at least 40 more were absent or abstained.” (David Charter, “Religious hate Bill lost after Blair fails to vote”, The Times, Feb. 1; Greg Hurst and David Charter, “Racial hatred Bill threatens our civil liberties, say rebels”, Feb. 1; Greg Hurst and Ruth Gledhill , “How comic’s supporters kept their heads down and used their cunning”, Feb. 2). Earlier coverage: Jul. 16, 2004; Jun. 11, Jun. 27, Aug. 17, Oct. 19, and Oct. 29, 2005.

The Blair government’s primary motivation for the bill is considered to be to cater to the sensitivities of British Muslims, and many commentators (such as Charles Moore) make the obvious connection with the situation in Denmark (see Feb. 1). Meanwhile, violent threats continue against Danes, cartoonists, and liberal-minded Europeans generally. And some 500 lawyers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, are supporting a project “to take legal action against” those who insult or demean the founder of their religion with one goal being “to enact laws that would incriminate abuse of religions and prophets in all countries,” as a spokesman puts it. (P.K. Abdul Ghafour & Abdul Maqsood Mirza, “Lawyers Vow Legal Action in Cartoons Row”, Arab News, Feb. 4). Michelle Malkin has much, much more (plus this).

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Update: $1.3M legal malpractice verdict overturned

We covered the verdict two years ago, noting an editorial that said “Pundits have argued that real tort reform will only come when the lawyers start suing the other lawyers…. that time has arrived.” But the Mississippi Supreme Court held that the lawyers had not committed malpractice as a matter of law.

Perhaps correct, and I shed no tear for the plaintiff’s loss of a windfall. But it sure would be nice if doctors got the same benefit of the doubt. Instead, when medical experts differ over whether a doctor acted reasonably, courts throw up their hands and decide it’s okay for a jury to decide. Lawyers seem not to have to worry about being held to that sort of second-guessing standard. (Baker Donelson Bearman & Caldwell, P.C. v. Muirhead, 2006 WL 177593 (Miss. January 26, 2006).) David Rossmiller discusses the case, but dodges all of the substantive issues.

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“It’s not spam when I send it”

“Attorney general Charlie Crist was an integral player in getting an anti-spam law passed last year in the state of Florida. Under the law, offenders are subject to fines of up to $500 for every e-mail sent. Now running for governor, someone on the Crist campaign is responsible for sending e-mails to promote the candidacy and solicit campaign donations. Recipients have reportedly attempted to unsubscribe without success.” A Crist spokeswoman says the emails don’t count as spam because they’re not deceptive. (Clickz blog, Jan. 9; Adam C. Smith, “Crist e-mail draws ire”, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 21; “From anti-spam stand to e-mail campaign”, AP/Miami Herald, Dec. 23; Brian McWilliams, Dec. 24; Geek.com). For more on anti-spam laws and related issues, see, e.g., Jul. 25, 2005 and Dec. 3, 2003.

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Nominate-a-case thread

Here’s another experiment: use the comments section to suggest a legal case or news story you think belongs on this site. A few ground rules:

* Only stories with live links, please. No stories that have happened to you or a friend personally, no matter how compelling, unless you can point to someone’s already-published writing or reportage on it.

* It doesn’t have to be something that just happened, but if it’s not new, do check our archives to see whether we’ve already covered it. Here’s a stored Google search to start you off.

* As usual, comments are held for review, along the lines of a letters to the editor section.

Litigious French parents: “a problematic American reflex”

Crossing the Atlantic dept.: “In what educationalists have derided as ‘a problematic American reflex’, parents are jumping to the defence of misbehaving or underperforming pupils by calling in lawyers,” reports London’s Daily Telegraph. “Teachers who summon pupils for a disciplinary hearing over even minor incidents often find themselves facing not only the youngster and his mother and father, but also a fully-robed advocate. …French teachers are taking out insurance against legal charges.” (Kim Willsher, “Pupils turn to the law over bad reports”, Jan. 22).

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Steve Berman sues Apple over iPods

Specifically, Seattle attorney Steve Berman (Nov. 24, 2003 and links therein), on behalf of a Louisiana man, accuses Apple of selling a “defective” product because it can cause hearing loss if one turns up music to maximum volume using headphones. The lawsuit, filed in San Jose, seeks class action status, even though each member of the putative class will come to the table with different pre-existing knowledge about audio safety and different usage patterns for their device. (Many iPod users don’t use headphones at all.) Each iPod comes with a warning that “permanent hearing loss may occur if earphones or headphones are used at high volume,” but, of course, the lawsuit alleges that the warning is insufficient. The plaintiff, John Kiel Patterson, doesn’t even claim that his hearing has been damaged, thus making it a typical “Harm-Less Lawsuit.” (Dan Goodin, AP/Yahoo, Feb. 1, h/t W.F.)

Update: a pdf copy of the complaint.

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