Updating our Jun. 5 post: noting that the conduct sued over “was mostly just offensive name-calling,” a judge in Alameda County, Calif. last month reduced the damages in two Lebanese-American men’s harassment-on-the-job lawsuit against Federal Express from an eye-popping $61 million to a mere $12.4 million. The latter number is presumably not as unreasonable even if it, too, might give off an air of having been pulled from a hat (Matthew Hirsch, “Calif. Judge Slashes $61 Million FedEx Verdict”, The Recorder, Sept. 14).
Archive for 2006
YouTube: “They are going to be toasted”
George Will on Carlson-Wilbur case
Judicial elections and the New York Times
For decades, plaintiffs’ attorneys and labor unions have worked together to elect judges favorable to their interests, and for decades, these elected judges have systematically moved American law in a direction unrecognizable and ridiculed in the rest of the world to create a tort system that takes up a share of the economy more than twice as large as any other Western nation. In response, the business community started supporting judges who had track records of actually following the law; the electorate tended to support these judicial candidates over the plaintiffs’ bar’s candidates. Because these judges aren’t in the pockets of the plaintiffs’ bar, they don’t reflexively vote for the meritless positions taken by the litigation lobby—and now the New York Times and the press suddenly finds it interesting that judges face elections where they fund-raise, and that campaign funds are more likely to be donated to candidates who are sympathetic to the funder’s view of the law. (Adam Liptak and Janet Roberts, “Campaign Cash Mirrors a High Court’s Rulings”, New York Times, Oct. 1).
Update: Peach family lawsuits
On Apr. 10 of last year Ted introduced readers to the far-flung class actions and other lawsuits filed by mother-daughter team Armettia Peach and Ashley Peach of Madison County, Ill., as represented by the Lakin Law Firm of that celebrated county. Now Steve Korris reports in the Madison County Record that the various Peach family lawsuits have not been faring well of late — the details get so intricate that we won’t even try to summarize them, so just go check out the piece (“Dynamic suing duo fizzling in court”, Aug. 24).
“Aren’t exactly melting any panties”
Oh, honestly, now. We never claimed to.
Guesting at Above the Law
I’m guest-blogging for the entertaining David Lat at his Above the Law site today. Here’s a sample post:
NAACP suit: unlawful for clinic to close on Jewish Sabbath
The Spring Valley, N.Y. chapter of the NAACP “has filed a complaint accusing the Ben Gilman Medical and Dental Clinic of religious discrimination for closing on Saturdays. The complaint, filed Sept. 6 with the state’s Division of Human Rights, alleges that the clinic’s practice of remaining closed Saturdays in observance of operators’ Jewish Sabbath, unlawfully imposes their religious beliefs on others.” (Suzan Clarke, “NAACP sues Spring Valley clinic”, White Plains, N.Y. Journal-News, Sept. 15). Eugene Volokh has a thorough discussion (Sept. 25).
Court: DeLuise can sue lawyer over lawsuit
Notwithstanding various impediments which ordinarily restrain civil defendants from filing countersuits — and particularly from naming their adversaries’ lawyers in those countersuits — a “Superior Court judge rejected a motion [last] Friday to throw out comedian Dom DeLuise’s lawsuit claiming his former daughter-in-law caused him emotional and financial distress when she sued him for $2 million.” Among defendants named in the lawsuit was attorney Steven Zelig and his law firm, which had represented Brigitte deLuise in her allegedly wrongful suit. Zelig argued that the state’s “SLAPP suit” statute should bar the comedian’s counteraction, but “Judge Judith C. Chirlin disagreed. ‘I find that there were sufficient grounds for the lawsuit to have been filed,’ she said. “There is a likelihood of it prevailing on the merits.'” The AP coverage doesn’t specify what the alleged problems were with the original suit, however (merely unfounded in law and fact? scandalous as well?) so it’s hard to know what implications there might be for the rights of defendants in other cases. (“L.A. Judge Lets DeLuise Lawsuit Proceed”, AP/CBSNews.com, Sept. 23). More: George Wallace, Decs and Excs, Sept. 29.
Lawyer-ad Hall of Fame: DivorceEZ.com
Florida divorce lawyer Steve Miller wants your business if “you and your spouse hate each other like poison”. Just a few easy steps, and “you’re on the way to getting rid of that vermin you call a spouse.” His YouTube video is discussed by Carolyn Elefant (Aug. 30), Greedy Trial Lawyer (Sept. 2), and Jacobson Attorneys in South Africa (Aug. 31) which contributes a Flickr photo documenting a marketing effort by divorce attorneys in that country (“Cheating Bastard!”). Miller’s site is here.