Advice to Harvard professors: do not get into a battle of wits with Richard Epstein if you’re showing up unarmed.
Archive for August, 2007
Business Week on arbitration clauses
The Ninth Circuit, bound by California Supreme Court precedent, struck down a class-action waiver in an arbitration clause in a Cingular cell-phone contract. As I note to Business Week, forcing consumers to keep legal rights that they may not want ex ante raises prices: better to permit consumers and businesses the choice of how best to arrange their business affairs through freedom of contract. This is largely unpopular with the 17 commenters to the article.
“The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese”
In the mail, not read yet but looks amusing: The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese by Adam Freedman, “Legal Lingo” columnist for the New York Law Journal Magazine. Freedman observes that “For better or worse, the instruction manual for today’s world is written by lawyers” and aims to reach an audience of “everyone befuddled, enraged or intrigued by legalese — even lawyers.” Freedman’s website features a “Golden Gobbledygook” contest and “Legalese Hall of Shame”; you can order the book through Amazon here.
August 22 roundup
- Criminal charges dropped against Oregon 13-year-olds over fanny-swatting in school corridors [CBSNews.com, Malkin, KGW.com and AP; earlier]
- Elasticity of “medical error” concept: Medicare will stop paying hospitals for treatment of “reasonably preventable” injuries that happen in hospitals, such as patient falls — we all know those are preventable given enough duct tape [NCPA, Right Side of the Rainbow; and before assuming that bed sores invariably result from negligent care, read this](more: Turkewitz)
- Yale University Press beats back libel suit in California court by Muslim charity over allegations in book scrutinizing terrorist group Hamas [Zincavage]
- Law firms, including Philadelphia’s senatorially connected Kline & Specter, already advertising for clients following Mattel toy recall [Childs]
- First class action against RIAA over its scattershot anticopying suit campaign [P2PNet]
- Four Oklahoma inmates claim copyright to their own names, demand millions from warden for using those names without permission, then things really start getting wild [UK Telegraph and TechDirt via Coleman]
- UCLA’s Lynn LoPucki, scourge of corporate bankruptcy bar, has another study out documenting soaring fees [WSJ Law Blog]
- Man who knifed school headmaster to death is expected to win right to remain in Britain on grounds deporting him would violate his human rights [Telegraph]
- Among targets of zero tolerance bans: jingle of ice cream trucks in NYC, screaming on Sacramento rollercoasters [ABCNews.com]
- Does California antidiscrimination law require doctors to provide artificial insemination to lesbian client against religious scruples? [The Recorder]
- Alabama tobacco farmers got $500,000 from national tobacco settlement, though fewer than 300 acres of tobacco are grown in Alabama [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Jackpot Justice or Insurance Fair Conduct?
The Washington Legislature recently passed and governor signed the “Insurance Fair Conduct Act” allowing first party claimants to recover treble (triple) damages and attorney fees for claims unreasonably denied. The Seattle Post Intelligencer’s story here lays out the pending battle between insurers and the trial bar. You see, the legislation is up for public vote in November and each side is scurrying to curry favor with the electorate.
Now, as an insurance consumer myself I expect high marks from my insurance company in the event of a loss. And, I have from time to time witnessed the recalcitrance of other insurers when tendering defense and indemnity to them (particularly in additional insured scenarios.) Few would disagree that insurers should promptly and cheerfully pay those claims they owe, period.
“Nappy-headed ho’s” = defamation?
The debate sparked by David N.’s post of last week on the Don Imus defamation suit has drawn 62 reader comments so far, a veritably Althousian volume. As I’ve noted before, it seems the best way for me to enliven the site is to go off on vacation.
P.S. More at Beldar’s.
New Guest Blogger / Court’s ruling bites
Greetings! Thanks to Walter Olson for allowing me the opportunity to guest blog this week at Overlawyered. I am Jason Barney and have worked for self-insured corporations as a claims investigator, a mid-sized northwest-based insurer investigating casualty and property claims, and now a large, self-insured northwest municipality as a tort claims investigator. All told, I have nearly ten years of claims and litigation management experience.
First things first: I have significant and genuine respect for attorneys and other legal professionals. I don’t take this blog as an opportunity to bash lawyers, but to “[Chronicle] the high cost of our legal system.” And, as it turns out there is a lot of that to be had.
One story that recently caught my eye and has been covered in these pages of late is a Washington Supreme Court ruling that reversed an appeals court ruling in favor of a dentist’s insurer for refusing to defend him for a practical joke gone wrong. The court’s ruling was recently criticized by The Seattle Times here and the insured’s counsel responded via letter to the editor here (scroll down to fifth letter – “The justices get it”.)
Blogger sued for book review
PZ Myers wrote two posts tearing to shreds Stuart Pivar’s book, LifeCode: The Theory of Biological Self Organization as factually inaccurate. Now he reports on Boing-Boing that Pivar is suing him. (Boing Boing says that Pivar is suing for assault, but this isn’t true: for whatever reason, the district court groups “assault, libel, and slander” in the same category when classifying complaints, and the complaint is just for libel.)
The complaint focuses on Myers’s language calling Pivar “a classic crackpot.” And we all know that the way to prove that one is not a classic crackpot is to sue a blogger for $15 million over a bad book review in a complaint that misspells “its” and the defendant’s name and brags about the plaintiff’s affiliation with Andy Warhol and Prince Charles. Pivar’s attorney is Michael J. Little of New York.
Here is the complaint for your perusal.
Update: Jim Lippard comments, and also has a copy of the complaint. Also: Scientific American notes that Pivar has been a plaintiff 25 times in New York state court; Wired Science also comments.
In Alabama, the tusks are looser II
We covered this case back in June 2005, and updated it July 27. Now, via Volokh, read Adam Scales on how a dentist assaulted a patient and won a million dollars, Part I and Part II. (Update: And further comment from our guest blogger, Jason Barney.)
Update: and excellent and lengthy analysis from David Rossmiller.
Forbes on pro se cases
Kai Falkenberg’s September 3 story in Forbes quotes me (though I promise I told the fact-checker that the Chung’s legal bills were only $83,000) and Overlawyered guest-blogger Steve Hantler. The sidebar to the article lists a number of cases Overlawyered readers might be familiar with.
Before David Giacalone jumps down my throat, let me say that I had a lengthy interview with Falkenberg, detailing my views on pro se litigation, but only the throw-away anecdote about Roy Pearson’s pants suit made it in. (Interestingly, the Supreme Court’s decision this spring in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly helps resolve the problem I complained about in that December post.)
Update: Falkenberg writes to let me know that “Regarding the Chungs, the $100,000 references not just the $83,000 in legal fees but other costs associated with Pearson’s claim and was confirmed with their lawyer, Chris Manning.” Fair enough (though I think Manning is including lost sales from Pearson’s picketing the Chungs’ shop, which one might argue does not really reflect legal costs). Let me clarify that I thought that Falkenberg wrote an excellent piece, especially given the limitations of space. Quote of note:
In a study of pro se suits brought between 1995 and 1999 in the federal district court in Manhattan, attorney Jonathan Rosenbloom found that a “disturbing” number of pro se cases were dismissed for asserting claims that were “delusional” or “wholly incredible.” … Rosenbloom also found a lot of frequent filers: Nearly half of the study’s 765 pro se litigants filed at least one previous suit in that court, including one who filed 57 complaints in one year.