As a remedy for being sued wrongly or overzealously, malicious prosecution actions are traditionally extremely hard to win. However, should a court happen to allow a counterclaim for emotional distress, watch out — we’ve got a “thin skull plaintiff”. (Recording Industry Versus the People, Mar. 27).
Archive for April, 2007
Disbarred, but not gone
Despite the disbarment of its 78-year-old namesake over a long and colorful catalogue of misdeeds, the Kenneth Heller Law Office on lower Broadway in Manhattan has not closed its doors, according to the New York Law Journal. And where exactly are the elusive 47 boxes of litigation files that Heller is refusing to hand over to a widow-client until he gets paid? (Mark Fass, “Sheriff’s Raid Can’t Pry Client Files From Disbarred Lawyer’s Grip”, New York Law Journal, Mar. 28). More: Apr. 24.
“Why is it okay if a dog does it?”
Comedian Will Ferrell, on Saturday Night Live, impersonates dog-suing lawyer Wade Blasingame (some tasteless content):
EEOC launches hiring crackdown
Per the NLJ, it’s employers’ lucky day:
The federal government has launched an initiative aimed at cracking down on discriminatory hiring practices in the workplace — a program that could land unsuspecting employers in court, employment attorneys are warning….
Specifically, the EEOC will focus on hiring decisions that are based on names, arrest and conviction records, employment and personality tests and credit scores — all of which may disparately impact people of color….
Many states have laws that restrict employers from asking about or considering criminal records when hiring. The EEOC holds that if an employer denies a job to an applicant because he or she has a criminal record, it could be considered discrimination if the person is a minority.
For more on efforts to keep employers from taking applicants’ criminal records into account, see Feb. 13 and links from there (cross-posted from Point of Law).
Arizona to Zillow.com: stop estimating homes’ value
“Arizona regulators have ordered a Seattle-based online home price estimator to stop doing business in the state.” Zillow.com has won wide popularity by applying algorithms to publicly available data to come with rough estimates of the value of existing homes, which it makes available for free through its site. The Arizona Board of Appraisal says that Zillow should not be dispensing such information without an appraiser’s license. (“Arizona bars online home price estimator”, AP/Tucson Citizen, Apr. 15)(& Coyote Blog).
John O’Quinn update
Judge Denise Page Hood has issued an order to show cause why the O’Quinn law firm (many entries; also POL Jul. 15, 2005, POL Jul. 10, and POL Aug. 3) should not be held in contempt for improperly withholding breast implant settlement money from their clients. There is no press coverage of this brewing scandal.
There has, however, been plenty of press coverage of one of O’Quinn’s other clients, Anna Nicole Smith’s mother. In that circus, O’Quinn finds himself a defendant in a civil defamation suit brought by Smith’s, er, widower, attorney Howard K. Stern, for going on national television and accusing Stern of murdering Smith. [AP/ABC News] The fact of having this client gave cause TMZ.com to dig up some of the more obvious scandals in O’Quinn’s past, though they still missed the more recent ones covered by Point of Law.
Elsewhere in O’Quinn news: the firm settled its $1 billion fen-phen verdict (Apr. 28, 2004) for an unknown amount on the eve of appeal as part of a global settlement of O’Quinn’s caseload of fen-phen cases. (Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, “$1 Billion Fen-Phen Case Settles Before Appellate Oral Arguments”, Texas Lawyer, Apr. 16). The verdict was tainted because the plaintiffs blamed fen-phen for Cynthia Cappel-Coffey’s PPH, but Ms. Cappel-Coffey had been taking four other diet drugs since fen-phen had been pulled from the market that had the known risk of causing PPH. Yet that evidence was excluded from the jury, though the Texas Lawyer coverage barely touches upon this outrage. The state court in judicial hellhole Beaumont also improperly applied Texas caps on punitive damages.
Complete text of the breast implant order after the jump, if you don’t want to read the order in PDF format.
A week in the life of Jarek Molski
As Ted reported Mar. 23, a Ninth Circuit panel lately took an indulgent line toward notorious ADA mass filer Jarek Molski, reversing a ruling by Judge Tevrizian of the district court. (More on that ruling from Law.com). “Army Lawyer” in the comments at Patterico (via Coyote) passes along this classic bit of Molskiana (from the earlier round of litigation before federal judge Rafeedie):
Although this complaint appears credible standing alone, its validity is undermined when viewed alongside Molski’s other complaints. In Molski v. Casa De Fruta, L.P., Case No. C04-1981 (N.D. Cal. 2004), Molski alleges that he sustained nearly identical injuries on the exact same day, May 20, 2003. In Casa de Fruta, Molski alleges that he and significant other, Brygida Molski, patronized Casa de Fruta for the purpose of wine tasting….
It would be highly unusual — to say the least — for anyone to sustain two injuries, let alone three, in a single day, each of which necessitated a separate federal lawsuit. But in Molski’s case, May 20, 2003, was simply business as usual. Molski filed 13 separate complaints for essentially identical injuries sustained between May 19, 2003 and May 23, 2003. The Court simply does not believe that Molski suffered 13 nearly identical injuries, generally to the same part of his body, in the course of performing the same activity, over a five-day period. This is to say nothing of the hundreds of other lawsuits Molski has filed over the last four years, many of which make nearly identical allegations.
Officiously to keep alive
In West Palm Beach, Fla., a jury has held a nursing home liable for resuscitating a 92-year-old Alzheimer’s patient who had signed an advance directive indicating that she did not want to be kept alive by artificial means. And although an obstacle to even an otherwise well-founded “wrongful resuscitation” case might be the question of damages, the jury in this case awarded the estate of Madeline Neumann $150,000. (Rebecca Riddick, “Fla. Nursing Home Faulted for Ignoring End-of-Life Wishes”, Daily Business Review, Mar. 20; CourtTV coverage). An attorney for the physician defendant (who, unlike the nursing home, was found not liable in the case) said that despite do-not-resuscitate orders, medical personnel often make a judgment that a patient could potentially benefit from rescue efforts, and that had they failed to make such an effort in Mrs. Neumann’s case they might have faced legal risk: “If you call 911, you get sued,” he says. “If you don’t call, you get sued.” (Laura Parker, “In a crisis, do-not-revive requests don’t always work”, USA Today, Dec. 19, 2006).
Giuliani and the gun litigation
Something you’d think he’d want to address/get out of the way/rethink/apologize for sooner rather than later, since it calls into question his judgment in a whole range of different ways (Jacob Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”, Apr. 12; “The Right to Hunt in Montana”, Reason/syndicated, Apr. 11). Earlier: Jun. 21 and Jun. 28, 2000, etc.
Update: Mysterious Wal-Mart suit
On Nov. 3, 2005, I wrote:
One can understand why Wal-Mart is upset that a former executive, Tom Coughlin, allegedly swiped a half-million dollars, and wants to stop paying him in addition to referring the matter to federal prosecutors. But one doesn’t understand why Wal-Mart, in an effort to recover a fairly small sum, is arguing to the court that it should disregard the mutual waiver and release that Coughlin signed with Wal-Mart when he left the job. Surely the corporation would be better off on the whole with a legal rule that strictly enforces releases than one that judges the validity of a release on a case-by-case basis.
(See also.) Coughlin has since pled guilty to fraud, was sentenced to 27 months of home confinement, and ordered to pay $400,000 restitution. Yesterday, the Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously held that that Wal-Mart’s suit to recover retirement benefits can go forward on a theory that the release was fraudulently induced, notwithstanding the language in the release that both parties waived all claims, “known and unknown.” (cross-posted at Point of Law)