Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2006

Update: $9,500 fine for Edwards campaign finance violations

Peter Lattman reports:

The Federal Election Commission has fined an Arkansas law firm for making illegal contributions to John Edwards’ 2004 presidential campaign. Tab Turner solicited four $2,000 contributions from his co-workers at Little Rock law firm Turner & Associates in January 2003 and illegally reimbursed them for their contributions using a company credit card, according to the FEC. He also used a company credit card to make an illegal campaign contribution in his own name and to pay for various campaign expenses. Federal law prohibits donors from making contributions in others’ names and prohibits direct corporate contributions to a federal candidate. Edwards for President also agreed to pay a $9,500 fine, and called the commission’s announcement “old news,” reported the AP.

We covered the laundering story Apr. 28, 2003.

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Clarifying note by W.O. [editor], Jan. 25, 2014: This archival post has drawn reader interest in light of more recent straw-donor enforcement controversies. It is worth noting that while the Edwards campaign paid only a $9,500 civil fine for accepting the illegal contributions, the lawyer and law firm that arranged the donations paid a larger fine of $50,000, several times the size of the original contributions, in a civil (not criminal) penalty.

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Department of Stupid Criminal Defense Attorney Excuses

Teacher Heather Faria defrauded her co-workers of $37,000 by falsely claiming to have cancer. Defense attorney Francis O’Boy is pleased with her sentence, stating “This isn’t a crime of violence. This was a situation where she couldn’t stand the pressure of opportunity.” Ah, it was the pressure of opportunity’s fault. (AP/Boston Globe, Jun. 15). Jay Nordlinger is suitably aghast. Previously: Jan. 11, 2005.

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Irony and the Illinois Supreme Court

Two decisions came down yesterday, but it’s not clear if the Illinois Supreme Court recognized that it was engaging in self-parody.

In the Tri-G legal malpractice case, Tri-G’s case against its bank was dismissed with prejudice when its law firm failed to be ready to try the case. Tri-G accused its law firm of losing a lawsuit, and sought to recover the damages, including punitive damages, it would have won had the lawsuit been appropriately prosecuted. The Supreme Court held the law firm immune from paying those lost punitive damages, because “holding the [law] firm liable for the intentional or willful and wanton misconduct of a third party” would be inappropriate. (I commented on the different standards for legal and other malpractice at Point of Law.) Effectively, Illinois plaintiffs’ lawyers are now immune from malpractice claims for any failure to achieve punitive damages.

Meanwhile, the same day, in the case of Marshall v. Burger King, which we covered Aug. 3, the Illinois Supreme Court held that Burger King could be held liable for a case where the decedent plaintiff “was killed when a car driven by Fritz crashed through the wall of the Burger King restaurant where the decedent was eating and fatally injured him.” Justice McMorrow’s dissent notes:

According to the majority, a duty to protect a business invitee from the negligent driving of a third person exists where: the landowner’s property is not inherently dangerous or defective and the landowner’s own conduct has not created any risk of harm to the invitee through negligent design or construction; the landowner has complied with all applicable building codes and safety regulations; the landowner has experienced no previous incidents of any sort involving automobile-related accidents, whether similar or not; the parking lot is unremarkable, a sidewalk is present, and the invitee is inside a building behind a half-brick wall; and the only means of protecting the invitee from the negligent driving is to construct an impregnable barrier around the building that, even if possible to construct, may have a negative effect on the safety of business invitees in other circumstances. If there is an affirmative duty to protect a business invitee from out-of-control vehicles on these facts, then such a duty exists for every business which owns a building that abuts a road or parking lot.

The majority’s holding is exceptionally broad and has the potential to alter substantially the function and appearance of every city in the state. With its far-reaching implications, I do not believe that the adoption of the duty of protect, as described by the majority, is an appropriate undertaking for this court.

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MySpace Cross-Complaint?: Alleged rapist blames site

Via Childs, Pete Solis, the 19-year-old who allegedly sexually assaulted a 13-year-old Austin, Texas, girl whose family is suing the MySpace website where the two met, is, Time Magazine reports, contemplating his own litigation against MySpace on the grounds that it made him think he was meeting a 15-year-old.

“MySpace wasn’t there when they went to Whataburger. MySpace wasn’t there when they went to the movie and MySpace wasn’t there when they climbed in the backseat,” [Solis attorney Adam] Reposa said. “Meeting on MySpace — if that alone is enough, then we can make the same claim for damages.”

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“Lawyers took our diving board”

“Hard data are difficult to come by, but Pool and Spa News estimates that, out of the millions of jumps and dives off high boards each year, there are, on average, fewer than 20 spinal injuries. Most head injuries actually occur from people diving off the pool’s ledge into the shallow end. Diving boards actually reduce these types of injuries because they visually tip off swimmers about which end of the pool is deep.” (Steve Moore, “Off the deep end”, Wall Street Journal/OpinionJournal.com, Jun. 23). More: Sept. 6, 2004 and links from there.

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Update: Alcohol-marketing suits go flat

Lawsuits accusing Heineken and other tipple-makers of targeting youth in their promotions were unveiled with great fanfare (see Dec. 1, 2003), but haven’t been doing well: courts have thrown out four of seven already. Moreover, the law firm of celebrated litigator David Boies, which was associated with the suits’ filing, has since withdrawn, leaving the action to the much less well-known firm of Boies and Straus, led by Boies’s son, David Boies III. (Carlyn Kolker, “David Boies III’s Message in a Bottle”, American Lawyer, Jun. 9).

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Down repressed-memory lane, cont’d

The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled that if plaintiffs claim to have repressed their memory of the bad things that happened to them, they may succeed in suspending for years and even decades the statute of limitations on the resulting tort actions. The court reinstated a suit by a man who said he had been sexually abused at Chaminade College Preparatory School 30 years ago, but had repressed the memory of the episode for 25-odd years. (Robert Patrick, “Repressed memory abuse suits supported”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jun. 13). Reader Patrick R., who sent the item along, says: “This is an invitation to fleece churches and insurance companies through fraudulent claims and an invitation for claimants to sleep on their legal rights.”

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Zoning against fast food

Councilman Joel Rivera, who heads the New York City Council health committee, likes that idea on grounds of protecting city residents from their own choices (as opposed to on grounds of protecting neighbors against traffic, litter, etc.) (“Councilman: Limit fast food places to fight fat”, AM New York, Jun. 21; Carl Campanile and Mathew Charles, “Make That Fast Food ‘To Go’: Council Big”, New York Post, Jun. 22; KipEsquire, Jun. 22; The Rant Shack, Jun. 22). Similarly, from Ireland: Feb. 17, 2004.

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“Erin Brockovich Takes Role as Plaintiff in Medicare Suits”

For those who never expected to see the words “glamourpuss” and “Medicare” in the same sentence: “The onetime legal assistant, whose environmental crusade against a utility company inspired a hit movie starring Julia Roberts, has lent her name as plaintiff in lawsuits against several California hospitals and convalescent homes.” Two law firms, including Wilkes & McHugh, have engaged Brockovich as the public face of bounty-hunting “whistleblower” suits pursuing the adventuresome theory that hospitals defraud the government by accepting Medicare reimbursement for further medical care occasioned by their own earlier errors, even when no legal process has yet determined the earlier medical decisions to have been erroneous. The “lawsuits do not involve specific allegations of wrongdoing “. Ms. Brockovich is managed by the William Morris talent agency. (Daniel Yi, Los Angeles Times, Jun. 7). For much more on her activities, follow links from Nov. 3, 2005. Update Nov. 18: federal judge in San Diego tosses two suits.

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Lawsuits it would be prudent not to become involved in

An example: one would not wish to be sued for defamation by the chief justice of one’s own state, as is happening at the moment to the Kane County Chronicle, which is facing a lawsuit from Illinois Supreme Court Justice Bob Thomas over a series of critical columns in the suburban paper. Noway, nohow would one wish one’s name to turn up as the defendant in such an action (Christi Parsons, “Chief justice doesn’t just get mad, he sues”, Chicago Tribune, Jun. 18).

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