“A handful of new schools charge up to $140,000 a year to educate an autistic child. Who can pay that much? Anyone with the right lawyer.” (Alyssa Katz, New York, Oct. 30)(via Common Good).
Archive for 2006
Cops sue over pot-sprinkled burgers
Police officers Mark Landavazo and Henry Gabaldon say three rogue employees at the Burger King in Los Lunas, N.M., spitefully (or was it company policy?) put marijuana on their hamburgers, so they want the fast-food chain to pay them money for “personal injury, negligence, battery and violation of fair practices”. (“N.M. Cops Sue Burger King Over Marijuana-Laced Hamburgers”, AP/FoxNews.com, Nov. 7).
“The US election: how did the lawyers fare?”
My new column, on Tuesday’s vote, is up at the online Times (UK). “The result didn’t hang on a chad this time, but lawyers still played a starring role”. I make various comments about Eliot Spitzer and his brethren, the importance of winning by a vote “beyond the margin of litigation”, and the return of John Dingell and Henry Waxman (Nov. 9).
Poll: 85% of voters support litigation reform
From the Institute for Legal Reform:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – November 8, 2006
Contact: Larry Akey
202/463-5824 or 202/580-9313Voters Want Congress to End Lawsuit Abuse, Poll Shows
Chamber: Overwhelming Bipartisan Support Makes Legal Reform a Key Issue
Swing Voters “More Favorable” if Legal Reform is Part of Democrat Agenda
WASHINGTON, DC – As the newly elected Congress looks to set its legislative agenda, one issue that enjoys broad bipartisan support from voters is legal reform, according to a poll released by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR).
“Voters across the political spectrum expect their elected officials to curb frivolous lawsuits and abusive practices like fraudulent medical screenings and excessive discovery,” said ILR President Lisa Rickard. “We will urge the newly elected Congress to respond to their concerns.”
The survey shows that 85 percent of the people who voted in the mid-term election think frivolous lawsuits are a serious problem, and 86 percent say the next Congress should continue to reform the lawsuit system. Three-quarters of those who say they are strong Democrats regard frivolous lawsuits as a problem.
“In an increasingly polarized electorate, very few issues command this much bipartisan support,” said pollster Bill McInturff, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, the firm that conducted the election night survey of 800 people who voted on November 7. The margin of error for the survey is +/- 3.5 percent.
The voters who most helped shape the newly elected Congress say action on legal reform will affect the way they will vote in the future. Among swing voters – people who call themselves political independents and those who have only a weak affiliation to a political party – 63 percent say they will have a more favorable impression of Democrats in Congress if their agenda includes reforms to end lawsuit abuse.
The survey also shows that 81 percent of all respondents think there are too many lawsuits filed in America, raising the price of everyday goods and services, and 84 percent think the number of lawsuits clogs up the court system, making it harder for truly injured people to get justice.
CAN-SPAM Act
Didn’t work very well, it seems:
While there has been some progress in the fight against spam, it’s mostly come from improving filter technology. In the meantime, however, CAN SPAM’s continued uselessness is highlighted in this new report showing that the amount of spam that “complies” with CAN SPAM disclosure rules is at an all-time low of 0.27 percent.
(TechDirt, Nov. 1)(via Jim Harper, Cato-at-Liberty).
Election observation
I seldom agree with Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly, but I don’t think he’s entirely off base here about one of the factors behind yesterday’s Republican wipeout:
* Terri Schiavo and Katrina. This is sort of a gut feeling on my part, but I think it was the combination of these two things within a couple of months of each other that really hurt Republicans last year, not either one alone. The contrast was deadly: the Republican Party (and George Bush) showed that they were capable of generating a tremendous amount of action very quickly when the issue was something important to the most extreme elements of the Christian right, but were palpably bored and indifferent when the issue was the destruction of an American city. It’s hard to think of any two successive issues painting a clearer and less flattering picture of just what’s wrong with the Republican Party leadership these days.
November 8 roundup
- Post-election roundup from me and Walter. [Point of Law]
- Black helicopter crowd calls 90-10 Amendment E (Oct. 27) loss a fraudulent conspiracy. [Lattman]
- University of Michigan seeks to engage in frivolous litigation to strike down measure barring racial preferences. [Bernstein @ Volokh]
- Patron drinks, dances on bar, sues bar when she falls down. [Above the Law; Lattman; TortsProf]
- Can KFed use custody battle to renegotiate “ironclad” prenup? (NB that, unless prenup says otherwise, Britney Spears may be required to spring for Federline’s attorneys.) [TMZ via Defamer]
- Speaking of which, here’s a divorce case with a legal bill of $3M and counting. [Forbes]
- The litigious Michael Crook, unhappy that others are posting screen-caps of his mug. [Boing Boing]
- “Sometimes patients and their families DON’T want to hear good news.” A tale of a Social Security disability seeker. [Rangel]
Following the election results
At the Point of Law election roundtable, I’ve got a periodically updated post giving results on some races of legal interest. P.S. And keep scrolling there for comments from Ted on results in California, Michigan, Connecticut…
November 7 roundup
- My informal debate with Professor Silver over the effect of reform on physician supply continues. [Point of Law; Silver]
- If you’ve been intrigued by Professor E. Volokh’s idea of medical self-defense (and thus payment for organs) as a constitutional right, he’ll be discussing it with Richard Epstein and Jeffrey Rosen at AEI. [Volokh; Harvard Law Review @ SSRN; AEI]
- Peter Wallison on how over-regulation and over-litigation is killing American competitiveness in the capital markets. [Wall Street Journal @ AEI]
- Press coverage is finally starting to break through in the Milberg Weiss scandal with a lengthy Fortune profile. [Point of Law]
- Economists and scholars file Supreme Court amicus brief calling for federal preemption of state “anti-predatory lending laws” in important Watters v. Wachovia case. [Zywicki @ Volokh; CEI]
- One-sided coverage by the New York Times on the issue of web accessibility for the blind. Earlier: Oct. 27; Feb. 8. [New York Times]
- Deep Pocket Files update: MADD tries to intervene in stadium vendor case where appellate court tossed $105 million verdict because of unfair trial. See Aug. 4 and links therein. [New Jersey Law Journal]
- Lawsuit: my dead father’s baseball card mischaracterizes his nickname. [Lattman]
- Lawsuit: I have legal right to the letter W. [Times Record News via Bashman]
- Samuel Abady and Harvey Silverglate on libel tourism. [Boston Globe via Bashman]
- Another roundup of Justice Robert Thomas libel lawsuit stories. [Bashman]
- $15M Minnesota verdict blaming a delayed delivery for cerebral palsy, despite evidence it was caused by an unrelated infection. [Pioneer Press]
No on state marriage amendments
“The irony in Virginia is that conservatives fearful of an out-of-control judiciary are in fact inviting the judiciary to get involved in micro-managing family law.” (David Boaz, “Marriage measure is an amendment too far”, Examiner.com, Oct. 30). For more of the many, many reasons to vote no, see Sept. 20, 2006, May 31 and Nov. 2, 2004, etc., etc.
Update: David Frum gloats — and quite prematurely, it would seem.