I’ll be away on family business for a while, but our newest guestblogger, research director David Kopel of the Colorado-based Independence Institute, should have no trouble filling the gap. Well known as a participant at the Volokh Conspiracy, Dave is among the nation’s most prominent scholars on firearms and Second Amendment controversies, as well as a columnist at Denver’s Rocky Mountain News and a commentator on many other issues related to individual liberty. Welcome!
Archive for 2006
One-stop Shopping for Gun Thieves
In today’s National Post, Canadian columnist Lorne Gunter reports an interview with John Hicks, the former Webmaster for the Canadian Firearms Centre (CFC). The CFC is the national gun control center, which is supposed to maintain the registry of all rifles and shotguns which was created by the former Liberal government in 1995 legislation. According to Gunter, Hicks “contends that anyone with a home computer, an Internet connection and a little patience can hack into the national firearms database and find out who owns guns, where they live and what makes and models they possess.” The CFC computers are known to have been breached 306 times between 1995 and 2003. The computer registry has cost over half a billion Canadian dollars so far, and still doesn’t work. Gunter reports that last December, the contractor “flew in folks from around Canada with the intention they would stay in Ottawa and do testing for six weeks.” But “After one day, all were sent home because the application crashed over 90 times with over 30 Severity-1 crashes.” The new Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised to abolish the dysfunctional long gun registry, and spend the savings on the police; however, Harper leads a minority government so it is not clear if he will be able to accomplish his objective. A research paper by professor Gary Mauser for the Fraser Institute provides the full story on the long gun registry debacle.
Lawyers’ reputations soaked in Poland Spring fight
“Mutually assured character destruction”: that’s what Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam says to expect from a trial that started March 7 in Portland, Me. federal court that pits some of the country’s better-known members of the plaintiff’s bar against each other. Among the cast of characters: Jan Schlichtmann, of “A Civil Action” fame, Steve Berman of Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, and Massachusetts tobacco litigator Thomas Sobol of the same firm, and Alabama’s Garve Ivey. At issue is whether lawyers breached legal ethics or sold out the interests of class members in their sharp-elbowed maneuvers to control the process of litigation and reach a lucrative settlement with Poland Spring’s parent company, Nestle. Also testifying is celebrity enviro-pol Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had signed up a water company he controls as one of the plaintiffs — gee, who knew RFK Jr. was tied in with hotshot plaintiff’s lawyers? (Alex Beam, “An uncivil action in Maine”, Mar. 8; Gregory D. Kesich, “Water bottlers in court to recoup lost settlement”, Portland Press Herald, Mar. 8; “Law firm’s handling of Poland Spring case at issue in trial”, AP/Boston Globe, Mar. 8; Gregory D. Kesich, “Water case puts lawyers’ ethics on trial”, Portland Press Herald, Mar. 10; “Witnesses tell of how Nestle case fell apart”, Mar. 17). The trial is expected to conclude this week. For more on the Poland Spring class actions, see Sept. 10, 2003, Feb. 2, 2004 and Jun. 25, 2004.
“Public health” imperialism
Once upon a time, the main mission of “public health” was to prevent the spread of contagious illnesses, and handing the members of that profession a lot of coercive power may have seemed like a sound idea. But now many of the profession’s members are demanding that government intervene against unhealthy individual lifestyle choices. Keep your laws off our bodies, please (Ronald Bailey, “Is Diabetes a Plague?”, Reason, Mar. 17).
Update: Danish Muslim groups to sue over cartoons
27 Muslim groups in Denmark have announced their intent to sue the newspaper Jyllands-Posten for defamation in a Danish court, and also plan to “report Denmark to the UN Commissioner on Human Rights for failing to prosecute the newspaper that first published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad”. (Jenny Booth and news agencies, “Danish Muslims sue over Muhammad cartoons”, The Times (U.K.), Mar. 17). Earlier coverage: Mar. 4, Feb. 14 (Muslims in Calgary, Alberta plan to sue), Feb. 10, etc.
Katrina medical volunteers, cont’d
“Dozens of federally insured medical providers have been blocked from helping the Gulf Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina because their medical liability protection doesn’t apply outside their own states.” (“Law keeps federally insured doctors on sidelines in disasters”, AP/Biloxi Sun-Herald, Feb. 9). More on Katrina medical volunteers: Sept. 19, Sept. 6, Sept. 2, Aug. 31.
Update: tasty BlackBerry fees
Having represented patent-holding company NTP Inc. in its lengthy and much-criticized suit against BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (Mar. 4, etc.), the 250-lawyer Washington, D.C. law firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding is going to be pocketing a contingency fee of roughly a third of the $612.5 million settlement, or $200 million plus. That exceeds the entire 2004 revenue of WR&F, which has heretofore been better known for its Washington regulatory practice than for plaintiff’s contingency-fee work. (“NTP lawyers laughing all the way to the bank”, Mobile Magazine, Mar. 17; Ashby Jones, Wall Street Journal law blog, Mar. 17).
Scientology and South Park
The incident we reported on Feb. 28 has developed into quite a news story — see, for example, Andrew Sullivan, Mar. 16 and many other recent posts.
$6.5M for not promoting agoraphobic employee
Sonoma County, Calif., allowed health care caseworker George Alberigi, 52, to interview Medi-Cal clients by phone from his home, by way of accommodating his psychiatric conditions, namely panic disorder and agoraphobia (fear of public places). Then in 2001 he applied was considered for a promotion. The county turned him down on the grounds that the higher-level job The county discontinued his at-home accommodation and unilaterally transferred him to a position that required meeting clients in person. Disheartened, Alberigi went on permanent medical disability. Now a jury has awarded him $1.5 million in lost wages and $5 million in other damages including pain and suffering. The county will probably seek a new trial, according to its lawyer. “Alberigi also won attorney fees, which could add another six figures to the county’s cost, said his lawyer, Steve Murphy of San Francisco.” (“Jury awards $6.5M to panic disorder patient in job bias suit”, AP/Sacramento Bee, Mar. 16). Update May 21: judge cuts award to $2.5 million.
More: Jon Coppelman at Workers’ Comp Insider (May 24) says that contrary to our first account the promotion in question was not one that Alberigi sought, but was imposed by the county, which did not wish to continue with the at-home-interviewing accommodation. More broadly, Coppelman is far more impressed with the case’s merits than we are, finding it significant that 1) Alberigi’s psychiatric disabilities were undisputedly genuine; 2) kind things had been said about him in earlier performance evaluations. In revamping their prerequisites for caseworker jobs in a way disadvantageous to Alberigi, he writes, management “decided to shake up his narrow world and force him out of a nurturing situation” and “need to be held accountable for their actions”.
Nurse Cullen’s references, VI
The notorious killer nurse is back in the news, and Philip K. Howard recalls the background of his crimes:
During his 16-year nursing career, Cullen was able to move from one hospital to another – to 10 medical facilities in all – because fear of litigation prevented those hospitals from giving him a bad reference. …
Even the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees the state nursing board and had been warned about Cullen’s penchant for diverting medications, could not comment on his reputation. “Legally, we can’t speak about any information we receive that doesn’t result in disciplinary action,” a spokesman said….
America’s lawsuit culture has bred all kinds of bizarre changes to our society – warning labels on coffee cups, and doctors squandering billions in defensive medicine, to name just two. But the inability to be honest about how you feel about other people is one of the most destructive. Making judgments about people is the currency of a social interaction in a free society. Who tries hard? Who has good judgment? Who is a pleasure to deal with? And who acts in a way that makes your skin crawl?
(“When fear is deadly”, New York Sun, Mar. 14, reprinted at Common Good site). Earlier on Cullen: Aug. 10, 2005, Mar. 30, 2004, etc.