“For some Fiesta revelers who love the madcap irreverence of Cornyation, it just isn’t the same event without the flying tortillas.” A San Antonio tradition for the past 15 years, the flinging of the circular staples of Tex-Mex cuisine among the audience was halted this year because of a you-know-what. (Lisa Marie Gómez, San Antonio Express-News, Apr. 27). Strange in San Antonio has more (Apr. 27). On the throwing of sacks of peanuts to the audience at Boston’s Fenway Park, see May 8, 2000.
Archive for 2006
“No defense for this insanity”
Drop whatever you’re doing and read it right now: Sebastian Mallaby on the Vioxx madness (Washington Post, May 1)(via Ted at Point of Law).
Lied about her age to get into wet T-shirt contest
Not only that, but she assumed the whirring video cameras were just for onlookers’ personal use. Certainly she wasn’t expecting the spring break footage to turn up in commercially available compilations. So Monica Pippin is now extracting legal settlements from entities including Playboy and Anheuser-Busch; however, the Daytona Beach hotel at which the contest took place objects to being sued on the grounds that it “had no role in producing or distributing the videos and did not profit from them”. (Kevin Graham, “Lawsuit says video exploits teen’s naivete”, St. Petersburg Times, Apr. 28). Similar: Sept. 28-30, 2001; Mar. 6-7, 2002.
Banning smoking in cars
Two years ago (see Apr. 30, 2004) the California Assembly narrowly defeated a bill that would have banned smoking in cars when kids were present, but now Arkansas has enacted such a bill, applying to cars in which younger (age 7 and below) children are present (Virginia Vickery, “Some in Siloam Springs worry about statewide smoking ban”, Benton County Daily Record, Apr. 30). The bill provides for “primary enforcement” of the ban, meaning that police officers can pull over a car in which they observe the offense, rather than just write it up after pulling a car over for other reasons. (Jake Bleed and Michael R. Wickline, “Lighting up with young kids in vehicle banned under bill”, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Apr. 8). Michael Siegel, whose fascinating weblog on tobacco policy for some reason had escaped my notice up to now, has a discussion (Apr. 26) (via Sullum). In a separate post (May 1), Siegel notes that some anti-smoking activists in the Pacific Northwest are pursuing an “informal, unorganized and quiet movement toward making it a criminal act to smoke around kids” under any circumstances, including in parents’ own homes, which would be categorized as child abuse (Dan Tilkin and staff, “Doctor pushes to make smoking an act of child abuse”, KATU, Apr. 27). More: Jacob Sullum comments at Reason “Hit and Run” (May 2).
“Eye-popping” class action fees
Norm Pattis, who says he has litigated scores of unreasonable search claims on behalf of individual plaintiffs, has some thoughts (Apr. 18) on excessive class action fees, occasioned by the news that in Connecticut, “a simple case against the Department of Corrections involving strip searches of inmates is about to yield a $2.5 million settlement. Of that [sum], about $834,000 will go to attorney’s fees.”
Update: Jury clears Diaz of tax evasion charges
In the latest chapter of the long-running Mississippi judicial scandal (Dec. 10, etc.), a jury has cleared Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. of federal tax evasion charges. (Jimmie E. Gates, “Jury clears Diaz”, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Apr. 28; Julie Goodman, “Diaz acquittal fuels election questions”, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Apr. 29). Earlier, a jury had acquitted Diaz of corruption charges while failing to resolve charges against several other figures in the long-running case, who face retrial in August.
“Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Burkhalter said loans backed by prominent attorneys Richard Scruggs and Paul Minor were not repaid by the Diazes, ‘who used substantial amounts of the money for personal use. They didn’t put it on their tax return.'” (Shelia Byrd, “Diaz attorney says client didn’t deliberately withhold tax information”, AP/Biloxi Sun-Herald, Apr. 25). “Defense attorneys described Diaz as a disorganized fellow who left details such as taxes and finances to his wife and who would not knowingly hide income from the government.” (“Jury acquits Diaz in tax case”, AP/Biloxi Sun-Herald, Apr. 27; Jimmie E. Gates, “Prosecutor: Diaz didn’t report all funds to IRS”, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Apr. 26).
Latest newsletter
Isn’t it time you signed up to receive our free periodic newsletter? The latest installment went out to subscribers Friday afternoon, summarizing highlights of recent postings in terse yet wry style. To read the latest issue — or to join or leave the list, change your address, etc. — visit this page (requires Google registration).
Florida “pit bull lawyers” case
“Shaking down the defendants for ubiquitous trivia”
Guestblogger Peter Morin earlier this month took note of a bracing decision by Judge David Sills, presiding justice for a California court of appeal, overturning a $540,000 settlement in a Proposition 65 toxic-warning case filed by what he called “bounty hunters”. The National Law Journal has followed on with more details of the case, Consumer Defense Group v. Rental Housing Industry Members, in which a law firm, acting on behalf of a supposed consumer group and complainant, “sued 170 apartment building owners around California and the Rental Housing Industry trade association for failure to warn of the danger of cigarette smoking by tenants anywhere in the building and parking lots where auto exhaust might expose tenants to carcinogens. … the ultimate global settlement included a promise to post a generic warning on buildings and a laundry list of potential sources of cancer provided on a Web site, including furniture, paint, construction materials, cleaning supplies, swimming pool chemicals, pest control and landscaping.” It gets better:
“Trade group wanted to buy its peace and was willing to pay off the law firm to obtain it, in return for which the owners would also get a favorable deal with regard to any future litigation concerning Proposition 65 violations,” Sills wrote. But he saved his wrath for Graham & Martin. “Consumer Defense Group and McKenzie are simply straw plaintiffs set up to enable the law firm of Graham & Martin to obtain legal fees in Proposition 65 litigation. We will therefore refer to the ‘plaintiffs’ by the title most substantively accurate: Graham & Martin,” said Sills.
For our earlier coverage of Prop 65 bounty-hunting, see May 26, 2005 and links from there (Pamela A. MacLean, “Calif. Judge Blasts Firm in Toxic-Warnings Case”, National Law Journal, Apr. 13).
Site outages
Like many other blogs, Overlawyered was down for much of Friday because of a DOS (denial-of-service) attack aimed at our hosting service, Hosting Matters. Michelle Malkin has some details, here and here. More: Webloggin has some observations about the nature of the DOS attack, while Dad29 proffers an Overlawyered-centric explanation for the whole affair.