Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for September, 2006

New Times column — BlackBerry suits?

My latest column for the Times Online (U.K.) is now up and deals with one academic’s recent prediction that employers would become targets of lawsuits based on their workers’ BlackBerry addictions. An excerpt:

…it made a perfect hey-Martha-look-at-this story, arriving amid the August silly season. As it happens, media people love to confess to their own BlackBerry addictions, which subtly reflect their own importance (people need to reach me day and night!) and in any case make a more agreeable topic of conversation than their gin, shopping or sex addictions….

All that having been said, it’s very unlikely that employers need worry about BlackBerry-addiction suits. Despite rumors to the contrary, American courts have not in fact been much inclined to let sunken-eyed Jane blame her addictions on deep-pocketed James. Compulsive gamblers’ suits have mostly flopped so far – as have those alleging videogame addiction – while the very modest success enjoyed by plaintiffs in fast-food lawsuits has come on other legal theories, such as ingredient mis-labelling.

(Walter Olson, “BlackBerry suits?”, Sept. 18). For earlier posts on the subject, see Aug. 25 (Ted), Sept. 8 (me)(bumped from mid-morning post).

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Upwardly mobile GOP trial lawyers, cont’d

Florida gubernatorial nominee (and incumbent state AG) Charlie Crist (Feb. 3) has picked Jeff Kottkamp, a “mostly conservative” state representative, to be the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor. Kottkamp, a plaintiff’s lawyer, was the only Republican to break ranks and vote against joint-and-several liability reform. (Brian E. Crowley, “Conservative trial lawyer joins Crist on GOP ticket”, Palm Beach Post, Sept. 14). See also Aug. 18, 2005, and other related: May 21 and Jan. 17, 2006, as well as Ted’s of Aug. 22, 2005, etc.

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Jailed for 11 years — so far — in divorce

Is H. Beatty Chadwick concealing major assets, as his ex-wife’s lawyers contend and as a court has agreed? Or is Chadwick right in his story about not being able to lay hands on the money? And is Chadwick stubborn enough to have stuck with a false story through 11 years — so far — of imprisonment for contempt of court? (“A divorce case’s singular result: 11 years in jail … and counting”, AP/Baltimore Sun, Sept. 17).

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Claim: toupee dispute caused heart attack

When Paula’s Wig Boutique in Orange, Conn., filed a small claims action against Paul Lewis for $1,200, the cost of a hairpiece he hadn’t paid for, he countersued seeking more than $15,000 in damages saying that the boutique’s collection efforts had caused him a heart attack. (Dirk Perrefort, “Milford man counter-sues in hairpiece lawsuit”, Connecticut Post, Sept. 15; “Man: Toupee almost killed me”, AP/Danbury (Ct.) News-Times, Sept. 15).

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Patent trolls and Paul Allen

In his New York Times column today, Joe Nocera recounts a battle between a company called Audible.com, headed by Donald R. Katz, and one called Digeo, backed by Paul Allen of Microsoft fame, over whether Audible was infringing on Digeo’s patents. The column is behind the TimesSelect screen (“Tired of Trolls, a Feisty Chief Fights Back”, Sept. 16), but David DeJean at ComputerWorld summarizes some of the relevant content and poses some pointed questions for Mr. Allen (” Patent troll? Say it ain’t so, Paul Allen”, Sept. 16).

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Justinian Lane: reform supporter?

Until now, we’ve ignored a small left-wing think-tank’s admitted attempt to create a Bizarro-world version of Overlawyered. The writers are a recent college graduate and a recent law-school graduate who don’t appear to have actually read anything reformers write in support of reform. (For example, one post links to Overlawyered when defending the infamous McDonald’s coffee lawsuit, but fails to address any of Overlawyered’s arguments for why the McDonald’s coffee case is meritless, and simply repeats ATLA propaganda that Overlawyered refuted.) The blog has consisted mostly of thoughtless regurgitation of trial-lawyer talking points; when original analysis is attempted, it rises to the level of self-parody, such as an analysis of Leonard v. Nationwide (see POL Sep. 7 and links therein) that ignores the language of the insurance policy, the relevant Mississippi precedent, the existing discussion in the blogosphere, and any semblance of public policy rationalization in lieu of a Wikipedia definition to argue that the decision (and the defendant) are racist because some African-American plaintiffs might lose as a result.

Another such post is Justinian Lane’s “The Myth of the Frivolous Lawsuit.” The standard trial-lawyer talking point on such issues is to redefine “frivolous lawsuit” to consist of an exceedingly narrow subset of what it is laypeople are talking about when using the term “frivolous lawsuits,” note that the legal system has some mechanisms to address this narrow subset of cases, and then conclude that there’s no problem and thus no need for reform. (Or, as per John Edwards, announce Potemkin legislation to tackle this artificially constrained set of “frivolous lawsuits” that does nothing to actually address the problems of the tort system.) But Lane, perhaps because of his unfamiliarity with the legal system, bites off more than he can chew and inadvertently proves the reformers’ point.

Read On…

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One year for mouse-in-soup scam

Ricky Lee Patterson had been seeking a $500,000 settlement from Cracker Barrel restaurant. “Prosecutors brought charges after an examination of the mouse found that it died of a fractured skull, had no soup in its lungs and had not been cooked – all of which suggested the rodent was dropped into the customer’s soup after it had died.” (AP, Sep. 14).

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Sacked for on-air threats, radio host wants $10M

“A morning radio host fired after he threatened the wife and young daughter of a rival during on-air rants has sued his former employer for breach of contract, alleging his comments did not breach acceptable decency standards.” Troi Torain, who broadcast under the name “Star”, was fired by Clear Channel’s Power 105 and later arrested for threatening to commit grotesque acts of abuse upon the 4-year-old daughter of a rival DJ, Raashuan Casey. A judge dismissed the charges on condition that Torain stay out of trouble for six months. His new suit says the episode wasn’t significant enough to warrant his dismissal; $10 million would help make things better. (Joshua Rhett Miller, “Star on attack with Clear Channel suit”, New York Metro, Sept. 14). More: Rafer Guzman, “Star: Notoriety good for business”, Newsday, Aug. 30.

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