- Election day is tomorrow; the roundtable is still going on our sister website. [Point of Law]
- One reason the election is important: judicial nominations. Bill Clinton appointed 378 judges; Bush, in six years, 266, with 45 vacancies. [National Law Journal]
- Update: Illinois appellate court rejects Judge Maag’s $110M libel suit. (Earlier: Dec. 23, 2004 and links therein.) [Bashman]
- Does Professor Charles Silver’s single-variable time series on Texas doctor supply tell us anything about reform, as he claims? Did doctors push reform down the throats of an “anonymous and dispersed” group? I argue no. [Point of Law; Silver @ Bizarro-Overlawyered]
- Professor Paul Horwitz questions the convenience of the death-bed statements of the decedent in Williams v. Philip Morris. [PrawfsBlawg]
- More threatened Borat-related litigation (Nov. 29) from Mahir “I kiss you” Cagri and from Gypsies. The latter is resulting in film censorship in Germany. [Wired; Sydney Morning Herald]
- “We live in a very litigious society; it makes it more difficult for a physician to be a good Samaritan.” [MetroWest Daily News via Kevin MD]
- Add Art Bell to the list of people threatening to sue bloggers. [Workbench]
- Twenty years of Scalia. [Weekly Standard]
Archive for November, 2006
Better not cross this developer
We would never call him litigious or anything, but Morton A. Bender seems to have quite a reputation around Washington, D.C. and environs:
Bender, a 73-year-old native Washingtonian who made a fortune in the family construction business, is one of the most determined men in town, both admirers and detractors say. This is not a man who likes to negotiate. He enjoys a good fight.
The local and federal courts hold stacks of cases in which he is sometimes the defendant but more often the plaintiff. He says he can’t keep track of all the people and institutions he’s currently suing and doesn’t know how many lawyers he’s hired. “I saw the mayor at an event, and he said, ‘How many cases do you have against the District?’ and I said ‘a few,’ ” Bender said….
“I stand up to be counted,” Bender is fond of saying. “No one stands up for rights anymore.”…
Early discussions between Bender and the neighbors about his plans went nowhere. He ended up suing one neighbor over a retaining wall that encroached 15 inches onto his new property. He won in D.C. Superior Court but not before the judge questioned why Bender brought the case.
“It seems to be the height of folly, laced with a bit of vindictiveness the source of which is unknown to the court, for plaintiff to insist that this attractive and necessary wall be removed simply so that it can be reconstructed about two feet further down the hill,” Judge Geoffrey M. Alprin wrote.
(Lyndsey Layton, “In D.C., It’s Big Names Vs. a Litigious Developer”, Washington Post, Oct. 30).
Update: verdict against hip-hop magazine
Andrew Sullivan, “The Conservative Soul”
I’ve got a review in today’s New York Post of Andrew Sullivan’s new book, The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How To Get It Back. A brief excerpt:
The “conservatism I grew up with,” notes Sullivan, stood for “lower taxes, less government spending, freer trade, freer markets, individual liberty, personal responsibility and a strong anti-communist foreign policy.” Defining figures such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher spoke regularly of human freedom as the great aim of political life. “It has long been a fundamental conviction of the Republican Party,” declared the 1980 GOP platform, “that government should foster in our society a climate of maximum individual liberty and freedom of choice.”
Somehow from there we arrived at the presidency of George W. Bush, whose pronouncement on the state’s proper role – “When someone hurts, government has got to move” – owes more to LBJ than to Barry Goldwater.
Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum brusquely waves aside “this whole idea of personal autonomy,” this “idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do.” Ex-Democrats of the McGovern-Dukakis era once popularized the line “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me”; if the Santorums prosper, plenty of old-line Republicans will be ready to sing the same refrain.
(Walter Olson, “Reforming the Right”, Nov. 5). Andrew Sullivan responds here.
“Next to go: duck-duck-goose”
Some thoughts on the “safety”-driven (in fact, lawsuit-driven) repression of schoolyard play: “I feel very sorry for elementary school teachers if the kids don’t run around the playground chasing one another. All that energy is going to come out one way or the other – better outside than in.” (Dean P. Johnson, “Schools are banning tag. What’s next: musical chairs?”, Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 3).
Update: Calif. ADA lawyer suspended
Setbacks for key figures in a prominent disabled-access filing mill:
Two of the attorneys behind an onslaught of ADA lawsuits in California — including at least 20 involving Monterey County restaurants and wineries — have run into serious legal troubles of their own.
Thomas Frankovich, who represented plaintiff Jarek Molski in hundreds of handicapped-access lawsuits over the last five years, was suspended June 19 from practicing in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The six-month suspension came after one judge on the court, Edward Rafeedie, declared Frankovich a “vexatious litigant” and said he would recommend Frankovich for disciplinary action because of his “abusive and predatory litigation practices.”
(Paul Miller, “Indictment, suspension for two ADA lawyers”, Carmel Pine Cone, Jul. 21). 
Also in June, as was mentioned here in a post at the time (Jul. 5; see also Patterico, Jul. 1), Los Angeles attorney Stephen Yagman, who had represented Frankovich in defense of his ADA practice, was himself indicted on federal charges of tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud. In February 2005, after Judge Rafeedie had threatened Frankovich with sanctions, Yagman had said that “Judge Rafeedie’s mean-spiritedness, his cruelty, and his contempt for civil rights make Hitler look like a humanitarian.” (Paul Miller, “ADA lawyer’s new strategy: Insult the judge”, Feb. 11, 2005). More on Yagman: Jessica Seigel, “Cop griller”, George, Mar. 1998; Patterico, Jun. 3, 2004.
More Carmel Pine Cone coverage of Frankovich and Molski here, here, here and here. Our coverage: Sept. 21 and Dec. 12, 2004, Jan. 8 and Mar. 18, 2005. And for a very different point of view, once again, here’s Mary Johnson, “Jarek Molski’s problem — and I don’t mean access”, Ragged Edge, Oct. 24, 2005, arguing that Frankovich and Molski just aren’t good enough at getting their story out.
November 3 roundup
- Don’t forget Point of Law’s featured roundtable discussion on the midterm elections. [Point of Law]
- Public Citizen’s consumer law blog is holding a book club, and they’ve invited AEI’s Michael Greve into the hostile territory to discuss his book on consumer-fraud class actions. Both the book and the discussion are must-reading. [CL&P; CL&P; CL&P]
- Lester Brickman and others talk about mass tort screening fraud on your iPod. [Federalist Society]
- November 8 in DC: the Kaiser Family Foundation is hosting a big panel on health courts. [Common Good]
- Roundup of links on the outrageous Illinois Chief Justice Robert Thomas libel suit. This really deserves a longer post by itself. [Bashman]
- Melvin Dummar is back in court with his implausible Howard Hughes lawsuit. [AP/MSNBC via ATL]
- Barney Frank also doesn’t like the internet gambling ban. [Frank via Evanier]
- Today’s outrageous Ninth Circuit decision: a 2-1 invalidation of a meth-addict’s guilty plea for murder. Judge Bybee’s dissent tears it apart. [Smith v. Baldwin; The Recorder; Above the Law]
- Clint Bolick of Institute for Justice, on the other hand, defends judicial activism in an interview with Russell Roberts. [Cafe Hayek]
- Have we mentioned the new website with all of Judge Richard Posner’s opinions in one place? [Project Posner]
“Citing stress, cop sues man whose life he saved”
A heartwarming human-interest story, indeed: police Sgt. Ron Nametko of Denville, N.J. was hailed as a hero two years ago 
when he “talked a suicidal sheriff’s officer into putting down his weapon and surrendering. Now the sergeant, who has since retired with a disability, is suing the man who pointed a loaded gun at him, citing emotional distress from the incident.” Nametko’s suit also names a neighbor, Doug Wilkins, accusing him of aiding and abetting Patrick O’Connor’s actions. (AP/Newsday, Nov. 2; Bill Swayze and Margaret McHugh, “After saving man’s life, ex-Denville cop decides to sue him”, Newark Star-Ledger, Nov. 2).
Teenager accused of possessing painkillers…
…so prosecutors in Morris County, N.J. seized his family’s three cars. “Neither of the parents were aware of their teenage son’s prescription painkiller use, nor were any of the cars registered in his name. The family currently has no means to get to work or transportation. Gerald Trapp Sr. is a Bloomfield police officer.” The youngster, Gerald Trapp Jr., 19, accepted a diversion program for first-time offenders in lieu of trial but did not admit any wrongdoing. (Peggy Wright, “Prosecutor wants to keep 11 seized cars”, Oct 27; TheNewspaper.com, Oct. 28)(via Nobody’s Business, Oct. 28).
Just to see if they were paying attention
Someone messed up big by failing to remove this amusing little bit of verbiage hidden away in a patent application (Eugene Volokh, Nov. 1).