Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2006

Australia: Ed dept. lawyer to teachers – don’t criticize students

Teachers are being warned to watch what they write and say about students because of the risk of being sued for defamation. …

The advice comes as anger has exploded in schools over new student reports which grade students on a scale of A to E for academic performance. …

Teachers’ Federation vice-president Angelo Gavrielatos said threats to sue meant Australia was “importing the worst of American culture”.

“It reflects, regrettably, that we do live in an increasingly litigious society and that is sad,” he said.

“All too often we hear threats of litigation . . . and what we are seeing imported into Australia and into our schools is that litigious environment or mindset that is so prevalent in the United States.”

(Bruce McDougall, “Teachers warned off criticism”, News.com.au, Nov. 6 (via Jacobs via Tongue Tied)).

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Warning: do not apply directly to forehead

The Metafilter folks aren’t especially impressed with a mother’s complaint that her son’s rubbing “Magic Eraser” on himself caused a rash and that more warnings are needed on the package:

“Also, don’t let your kids drink Round Up. Or put Tide in their eyes.”

“It seems to me that if a product is known for scouring markings off of nearly any surface, some degree of it not being like Oil of Olay moisture rich foaming face wash should be assumed.”

“I just checked my box of SOS steel wool soap pads and they don’t have any warning either! Won’t somebody think of the children?”

“The kid didn’t rub his face with the eraser, Mom did. She cleaned his face with sandpaper that didn’t look like sandpaper to her, and his face got all red, and she freaked out that he was “burned”, because she still doesn’t believe the erasers are sandpaper. Not a chemical burn. A friction burn. Caused by Mom.”

“Things I have learned today on Metafilter: 1. Do not rub your kid’s face with a cleaning pad that can take permanent marker off a hard surface with only a couple of mild scrubs.”

To the mother’s credit, she says she isn’t interested in suing. (h/t Slim.)

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November 12 roundup

  • “[W]e can’t develop good drugs … if after the fact somebody comes in and makes a false claim of credit.” Genentech beats Niro firm (Jul. 21) in billion-dollar patent case. [Legal Intelligencer]
  • Excellent new blog on science evidence issues. [Science Evidence; Point of Law]
  • Easterbrook: mandating software be free is not “price fixing” injurious to consumers. Duh. [Seventh Circuit via Bashman; see also Heidi Bond via Baude]
  • Missouri high court upholds reform law barring some types of dramshop liability against equal protection challenge. [Snodgras v. Huck’s; AP/Columbia Daily Tribune]
  • Insurance company profits: the complete story. [Grace]
  • I address Hyman & Silver’s latest paper on medical malpractice. [Point of Law]
  • Seattle cop spends $10,000 of taxpayer money on lap dances in unsuccessful officially-authorized quest for prostitution violations. [Seattle Times]
  • Peter Lattman discovers Willie Gary’s website. Overlawyered readers were there two years ago. Gary himself is being hoisted by a litigation and advertising petard. [WSJ Law Blog; Fulton County Daily Report]
  • Andy Griffith sues Andy Griffith for use of Andy Griffith name. [AP/CNN]
  • The $2.1 million deposition. [Above the Law; Kirkendall; New York Times]
  • Scalia and Man at Yale. [Above the Law; Yale Daily News; Krishnamurthy via Bashman]
  • Wallison: Deregulation works. [AEI]
  • Must-read: An agenda for the Bush White House in the Democratic 110th Congress. [Frum @ WSJ @ AEI]
  • Clegg: Learn from the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. [NRO]
  • Krauthammer points out that both parties have moved right this election. [WaPo]
  • Will: “About $2.6 billion was spent on the 468 House and Senate races. (Scandalized? Don’t be. Americans spend that much on chocolate every two months.)” [WaPo]
  • At least we’re not Iran: sex video has criminal consequences there. [Daily Mail]

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UK free speech, cont’d

Too much liberty of expression survives in that country for the government’s liking:

New laws to clamp down on racism are being prepared by the Government after the leader of the far-right British National Party was cleared of stirring up racial hatred by attacking Islam.

Gordon Brown swiftly pledged to bring in tougher powers to raise the chance of convictions in similar cases, calling the BNP’s statements offensive.

His intervention came after an all-white jury decided that Nick Griffin, the BNP chairman, broke no law when he condemned Islam as “a wicked, vicious faith” at a secretly filmed meeting.

Plans for an offence of incitement to religious hatred were thrown out in a rare Commons defeat for the Government in February after a campaign led by the comedian Rowan Atkinson.

(Andrew Norfolk and Greg Hurst, “Race-hate laws to be changed after BNP case fails”, Times Online, Nov. 11). More: Feb. 4, etc. Comment: Rod Liddle.

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Taxpayer bill for dog food meal: $2.7 million

Not including defense attorney costs. Jorge Arvelo served spaghetti with a dog food sauce to Tennie Pierce at his firehouse as a prank, and alleged racial discrimination. The three firefighters behind the joke said it was just firehouse tomfoolery, but Pierce’s attorney found a professor willing to say otherwise: “The association of a black man and dog food resonates with the deep historical roots of slavery and the corresponding dehumanization,” said sociologist David Wellman, who further opined that “[Blacks] have a gyroscope that picks up hostile stuff that somebody else would not see as hostile.” The City Council voted 11-1 to settle for $2.7 million; it’s not their money, after all. Pierce also gets to take a year off on fully paid administrative leave, and then collect a full pension. The LA Fire Department is 47% minority. (Sandy Banks, “Black firefighter settles suit over racial prank”, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 9).

Note to Los Angeles residents: I’ll eat dog food and let firefighters laugh at me for doing so for a tenth that price.

Update, November 22: Mayor vetoes settlement in response to taxpayer outrage.

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Update: “Gentle Wind drops lawsuit against couple”

The Kittery, Me.-based Gentle Wind Project “has agreed to drop a defamation lawsuit against two former members who wrote articles comparing the self-styled spiritual healing group to a ‘mind control cult.'” (see Aug. 30, 2004). Last year a federal court threw out the group’s lawsuit against Jim Bergin and Judy Garvey, a married couple from Blue Hill, Me. (see Jan. 19, 2006), but the family of project director John Miller refiled the action in state court. Miller “claimed that he could communicate with the ‘spirit world’ [and] said he received designs for ‘healing instruments’ that resembled cards and hockey pucks, and could cure physical and emotional damage caused by illnesses ranging from alcoholism to paralysis.” (Gregory D. Kesich, Portland Press-Herald, Nov. 10).

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“Shameful, discouraging, tragic”

That’s restaurant bad boy Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential), on Chicago’s foie gras ban. Bourdain told interviewer Baylen Linnekin that if America does turn into a Singapore-style nanny state, “I can only hope we’ll have food as good as they do.” Asked about fast food: “People should be teased and humiliated for eating at McDonald’s,” he says. “I don’t think we should legislate them out of business.” (“Anthony Bourdain, Just Like Me: Is the Kitchen Confidential author-turned-television star a libertarian?”, AFF DoubleThink, Oct. 29).

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Oops — we sued our own viral marketers

A classic, from TechDirt (Oct. 30):

It appears that Universal Studios recognize that the followers of the cult favorite TV show Firefly would be a great source of viral marketing for the movie based on the show, Serenity. They put together a huge viral marketing campaign…. However, as with so many of these things, it appears that the marketers at Universal forgot to tell the lawyers at Universal, who recently decided to send out cease and desist letters to a bunch of the guerilla marketers they had pushed to promote the film.

More: Tijir, Oct. 28.

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Breaking: Obnoxious Chi Psi frat boys sue Borat

Two of my least favorite things—misogynistic frat-boys and frivolous lawsuits—together at once. Three Chi Psi fraternity brothers from the University of South Carolina, after signing waivers and getting paid $200, got caught drunkenly wishing for slaves and making other obnoxious sexist and racist remarks on film to Sasha Baron Cohen in his character of Kazakh journalist Borat; those scenes appeared in the movie. They’re now suing, wanting takebacks. TMZ has the Los Angeles Superior Court complaint, which asks for an injunction, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees. (I look forward to the discovery on the “false light” claims that suggest that the plaintiffs never would say such things as they were recorded being said.) Earlier, a friend of one of the frat boys asked Metafilter for advice. The complaint is filed by John Does, but Chi Psi David Corcoran has already bragged about the experience to FHM. Frat president Todd Bailey talks about the story to the local paper.

(Update: Upon further review, I see that the complaint alleges that the movie “falsely depicted them as insensitive to minorities.” There is no allegation that the movie falsely depicted them as insensitive to women. In the trade, that’s known as a negative pregnant.)

(Second update: Bashman with a roundup of links and Lat with sardonic commentary.)

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