Are you an Overlawyered reader and a student in the greater Washington DC area? Do you have any interest in interning for the new AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest? We’re looking for someone to put in 15-20 hours a week on administrative matters, but working at AEI (one of Washingtonian magazine’s fifty-five great places to work in DC) also gives one the opportunity to attend amazing public-policy conferences and do some writing as well if one is inclined.
Archive for October, 2007
Fans sue relocating sports teams
“Two Sonics and Storm season-ticket holders plan to file a lawsuit today, accusing the new team owners of defrauding ticket buyers who believed assurances that they intended to keep the teams in Seattle.” The franchises have announced plans to move to Oklahoma City, but some fans say it won’t be as much fun to watch them in the mean time knowing they’re destined to leave. Seattle personal injury lawyer Michael Myers is representing Carolyn Bechtel and Patrick Sheehy in the suit, which was arranged by Save Our Sonics and Storm, a local group trying to block the move. (Jim Brunner, Seattle Times, Oct. 1). Separately, Seattle city officials have sued on different grounds: “The city wants a court order forcing the team to play out its lease at KeyArena through September 2010 instead of paying a cash settlement to leave early.” Owners say the team lost $17 million playing in Seattle last year. (“Blame flies as city sues Sonics”, Sept. 25).
“Defendants See a Case of Diagnosing for Dollars”
Adam Liptak’s latest Sidebar column reviews the case of an asbestos plaintiffs’ lawyers’ doctor who should know better, as he testified in the Judge Jack silicosis proceedings. I have uploaded the motion to exclude Dr. Segarra’s testimony.
Watch what you say about lawyers dept.: Amiel Cueto
A month ago St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan wrote a less-than-respectful column reporting on the course of a controversial defamation suit filed by disbarred local attorney Amiel Cueto. Now Cueto has notified McClellan that he regards him as having acted as an “agent” of the defendant in the suit, the Madison-St. Clair Record, and he’s threatening him with compulsory process as a witness. McClellan, whom Overlawyered readers will remember as having been the target of appalling legal bullying from Metro-East plaintiff’s lawyers in the past, retains his cheerful tone in a new column. (Bill McClellan, “Amiel Cueto has a gift, or maybe he doesn’t”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 31; “Accusations, lawsuit make me nostalgic”, Sept. 30).
The underlying action arose from an item that ran in the U.S. Chamber-supported Madison-St. Clair Record on Jan. 30, 2006, alleging that Cueto, who served six years in prison on an obstruction of justice conviction, had been spied at a meeting of St. Clair County judges. “Once one of the most powerful lawyers in Southern Illinois, Cueto was said to have ‘owned’ fifteen of St. Clair County’s seventeen judges in the mid-1990s,” the column further asserted. Cueto sued the paper, in a hard-fought action currently in process. In other actions, as Ted noted Feb. 26, Cueto has sued the Illinois Civil Justice League and its political action committee over a campaign ad, and a local resident over a letter to the editor in the Belleville, Ill. News-Democrat (Malcolm Gay, “Power Broken”, Riverfront Times, Sept. 5; Ann Knef, “Amiel Cueto takes aim at ICJL”, Madison-St. Clair Record, Feb. 20; ICJL, Dec. 4, 2006).
Canada: class action plaintiff’s lawyers on the hook?
Canada has moved toward more liberal allowance of class-action litigation in recent years; it has also, like most non-U.S. countries, chosen to retain its historic principle of “loser-pays”, or “costs follow the event”, fee shifting. What happens when prevailing defendants seek an award of costs against losing class plaintiffs, assuming that the individual class members cannot be reached for the purposes of assessing costs? In a bitterly fought lawsuit over unclaimed veterans’ pension accounts, the federal government in Ottawa went after three class lawyers for C$4 million in costs out of their own pockets. The Ontario Court of Appeal denied its petition, but the lawyers say they feel chilled from organizing more such suits. In all, the federal government spent an estimated C$6 million in legal fees and C$10 million in other costs successfully defending the pension suit. (Randy Richmond, “Ottawa claimed denying justice”, London Free Press, Sept. 20). Earlier London Free Press reports by Randy Richmond on underlying lawsuit: “One Last Battle: Dark Politics”, Oct. 30, 2006; “An ugly fight for veterans’ benefits”, Oct. 31.