Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for October, 2006

Inviting conservative author = hostile environment?

Two teachers have sued an elite Seattle private school charging race bias in the terms of employment: “Among the plaintiffs’ complaints was Lakeside’s invitation to conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza to speak as part of a distinguished lecture series.” (John Iwasaki, “Teachers accuse Lakeside School of bias”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oct. 13)(via Taranto). More: Paul Secunda agrees something is amiss here (Oct. 19).

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October 17 round-up

  • Interview with ICJL’s Ed Murnane on Madison County judiciary elections. [Madison County Record; see also Illinois Justice Blog]
  • London pension fund: oops, we just sued BP [Point of Law]
  • New York court throws out mold suit with systematic rebuttal of the junk science involved. [Point of Law]
  • Next mass tort: anti-psychotic drugs. [Mass Tort Litigation Blog]

  • “Vibrant, dynamic, gravitas, ambitious, hungry and 17 other words or phrases have been banned by one of Britain’s top recruitment agencies for fear of falling foul of new anti-ageism laws.” [Telegraph (h/t F.R.)]
  • Israel Supreme Court: compensatory damages don’t include cost of prostitute visits. This actually reversed a lower-court decision to the contrary. [Avi Bell/PrawfsBlawg via Above the Law]

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Police sued after man in 15-hour standoff kills self

Pennsylvania: “The widow of an upper Bucks County man [John Heckenswiler] who killed himself after a 15-hour standoff has filed a federal lawsuit against authorities, claiming they threatened and harassed her unstable husband so severely that he chose suicide over surrender. Deborah Heckenswiler retained an attorney with a record of success in suing police — John P. Karoly Jr. of South Whitehall, who has won multimillion-dollar settlements in brutality and misconduct suits against the Bethlehem and Easton police departments in recent years. … Police violated Heckenswiler’s ‘federally guaranteed right to be free from discrimination on the basis of disability’ because of policies and practices that encouraged negligence and excessive force in dealing with the mentally ill, the suit claims.” (Daniel Patrick Sheehan, “Widow sues police; Karoly takes case”, Allentown Morning Call, Oct. 14). More: complaint here in PDF format courtesy SuicideMalpractice.Net, a website critical of lawsuits seeking to blame third parties for acts of suicide.

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Great moments in predatory lending law

Paternalism in Chicago, working about as well as paternalism usually does:

The South Side neighborhoods affected by a controversial mortgage law designed to protect would-be homeowners from being gouged have seen a 45 percent drop in home sales in the law’s first month. …

Under the law, if a borrower’s credit score is 620 or less, or if there are other triggers, a borrower must get financial counseling from a U.S. Housing and Urban Development-approved counselor to make sure the borrower knows what he’s getting into, though a counselor can’t stop the loan.

The mortgage broker must pay $300 for counseling….

Some lenders have pulled out of the ZIP codes because they don’t want to deal with the accompanying paperwork. Real estate professionals have also complained that the four-year pilot law is discriminatory, because it is limited to just 10 ZIP codes.

Additionally, borrowers working through state or federally chartered banks are exempt from the law.

(Mary Wisniewski, “Mortgage law socks home sales”, Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 16).

Postal worker’s discourtesy didn’t cause $250K injury

When Lucille Greene went to the Magnolia, Del. post office to mail holiday fruitcakes for her relatives and friends, a postal worker said “What kind of explosives do you have in here?” and shook the box. Others laughed. The humiliation and emotional anguish, she said, reduced her to tears and caused her to trip in the parking lot with consequent injury. A federal judge has dismissed her $250,000 suit, however, “because Greene had a prior eye condition, and contradictory testimony”. (“Grandmother Mails Fruitcakes, Sues USPS”, AP/ABCNews.com, Oct. 12).

WHYY Philadelphia, “Radio Times”

I was a guest this morning on host Marty Moss-Coane’s radio program, debating Yale professor Kelly Brownell on proposed trans fat bans. For more information on that and other food issues, see this site’s Eat Drink & Be Merry page.

P.S.: Prof. Brownell claimed the proposed New York City regulation banning most uses of trans fats wouldn’t be burdensome to restaurant owners, and quoted the owner of the Carnegie Deli, which has managed to dispense with most (though not all) use of those fats. Through the miracle of Google I was able to track down the New York Times’s coverage as we spoke and so was able to read the audience the entire quote from Carnegie Deli owner Sanford Levine, which included a portion Prof. Brownell was not so eager to quote: “They shouldn’t tell a businessman how to run a business,” Levine said. “They can make suggestions, but I don’t think it should be the law.” Prof. Brownell also claimed that there had been no great outcry in New York over the rules. The Times’s headline told a different story: “Big Brother in the Kitchen? New Yorkers Balk“.

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Cruise ship should have stocked opiate-antagonist meds

That’s attorney Gloria Allred’s complaint on behalf of the survivors of Ashley Barnett, who appears to have ingested Vicodin, methadone or some combination of the two while onboard the ship. Carnival says the late Ms. Barnett “was deceased well before medical assistance was summoned”. (Lisa Richardson, “Death on Ship Prompts Lawsuit”, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 13). Commenters at KevinMD do not appear impressed with the suit (Oct. 13).

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