More malpractice insurers are requiring doctors to take personality tests or their equivalent: “Doctors who fare ‘poorly’ on the assessment [at Iowa-based United Medical Liability Insurance Co.] have to go through a coaching session, at no cost to them, on how to improve their communication skills if they want coverage.” (Amy Lynn Sorrel, “Medical liability insurers adding personality tests to application process”, American Medical News, Oct. 1)(via KevinMD). Related: Apr. 12.
Archive for 2007
Farmers market victims can sue Santa Monica
Reversing a lower court, a California appeals court “reinstated allegations that the city had failed to adequately shield marketgoers from motorist George Russell Weller, who was 86 when he crashed his car through barricades and into crowds of pedestrians at the popular open-air market”. (John Spano, “Farmers market crash victims can sue Santa Monica, court rules”, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 17; Terence Lyons, “City Back In Farmers’ Market Lawsuits”, Santa Monica Mirror, Oct. 18-24). Earlier: Jul. 14, 2004.
October 21 roundup
- Some suits are too silly even for Florida: teen steals OxyContin, dies from OD, family sues Eckerd. [On Point]
- Jack Goldsmith’s four questions for AG nominee Mukasey. [NY Times/AEI; see also Ornstein]
- You may already be Pacman Jones’s co-defendant. [TortsProf]
- A contrarian opinion on Judge Sam Kent. [Beldar]
- Chris Dodd goes to bat for trial lawyers suing telephone companies that dared to comply with a government request to assist in terrorism investigations. [Slate]
- Suit: TJ Maxx catches pervert taking surreptitious upskirt photos; female victim sues store for waiting to gather conclusive evidence. Convicted pervert, serving 2-4 years, not sued. [AP/Fox News]
- Op-ed: Kellogg’s “wimped out” by not calling bluff of frivolous obesity lawsuit. [The Bulletin]
- DC puts the “dysfunctional” into “district”: fire department; Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services [Washington Post]
- Not that the TSA boondoggle is any better. [Cafe Hayek]
Guestblogging opening
Ted and I both have onerous deadlines to meet over the next two weeks, so we’ve got an opening for a guestblogger or two who might like to drop by for a week’s stint. Those who’ve guested before are welcome to consider a return engagement, too. Contact editor – [at] – this domain name.
Don’t link, criticize, use our name, refer to us, view our source code…
Just by browsing the website of a company called Inventor-Link, visitors supposedly consent to abide by the terms of a “user agreement” which “strictly” prohibits them from using not only any of the site’s content but even its name without express permission. “Furthermore, we strictly prohibit any links and or other unauthorized references to our web site without our permission.” The company is invoking these terms in a cease and desist letter “in an attempt to stop criticism of the company that appears on InventorEd.org, a website that provides information about invention promotion businesses and scams.” Inventor-Link’s law firm? None other than Dozier Internet Law, criticized in this space and many others last week over its claim that its nastygrams are themselves the subject of copyright and cannot be posted on the web. And the Dozier firm’s own website has a user agreement that purports to prohibit “linking to its website, using the firm’s name ‘in any manner’ without permission,” and, weirdest of all, even looking at its source code by clicking on your browser’s “view source code” command. (Greg Beck, Consumer Law & Policy, Oct. 17). More: Boing Boing, TechDirt (including comment that reads, in its entirety, “You are not allowed to read this comment”), Slashdot.
October 19 roundup
- SueEasy.com is new website that will take in complaints from potential plaintiffs and relay them (OK, sell them, actually) to lawyers [TechCrunch]
- 6-year-old girl in Park Slope, Brooklyn, faces $300 fine for drawing pictures with sidewalk chalk [Brooklyn Paper]
- 30-year-old presents at ER with chest pain. Better order up the works, right? [Shadowfax first and second posts; more on emergency rooms/care here, here, here, etc.]
- More on donor bundling, lawyers and candidate John Edwards [WSJ sub-only, yesterday; Edwards-critical site]
- Monsanto, criticized for aggressive lawsuit campaign against farmers over its patented seeds, loses a patent case against four seed companies [BLT; Liptak/NYT 2003; critics of company]
- A corpse is a corpse, of course, of course/And no one can sue for a corpse, of course: more on that class action that keeps going with dead guy as named client [Madison County Record; earlier]
- While mom is taking bath in motel room her two young daughters somehow manage to change the channel to pr0n; jury awards mom $85,000 [L.A. Times]
- Another case history in how you can buy yourself a world of trouble when you try to fire your contingent-fee lawyer [Texas Lawyer (Law Offices of Windle Turley v. Robert L. French et al.)]
- Hey, you’re pretty good yourself [Marty Schwimmer, Trademark Blog]; just one link can give such a thrill [Cal Blog of Appeal]
- Tuck it in and turn out the light? Court won’t reopen Pooh heirs’ long-running suit against Disney [Reuters/NYT; earlier]
- Texas couple ordered to pay $57,000 for campaign ads criticizing judge [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
Welcome New York Times readers
Ted has already mentioned today’s front-pager on Milberg Weiss campaign donations, which is kind enough to quote me. I was particularly glad that reporter Mike McIntire took note of some of Milberg’s connections on Capitol Hill, which tend to get less attention than its Presidential campaign donations:
Beyond campaign contributions, Milberg Weiss became deeply ingrained in the financial firmament of the Democratic Party in other ways. Members of the firm gave $500,000 toward construction of a new Democratic National Committee headquarters, and some became partners in a private investment venture with several prominent Democrats. They included former Senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey, who is a fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton, and Leonard Barrack, a Philadelphia trial lawyer who was once the national fund-raising chairman for the Democratic Party.
Along the way, as Milberg Weiss’s brass-knuckles legal strategy made it a target for Republicans advocating limits on class action suits, it usually could count on Democrats in Washington to protect its interests. After federal prosecutors indicted the firm in May 2006, four Democratic congressmen issued a joint statement, posted on Milberg Weiss’s Web site, accusing the Bush administration of persecuting lawyers who take on big businesses.
The statement, signed by Representatives Gary L. Ackerman, Carolyn McCarthy and Charles B. Rangel, all of New York, and Robert Wexler of Florida, contained several passages that appear to be lifted directly from a “class action press kit” distributed by a national trial lawyers group. All but Mr. Wexler have received campaign contributions from Milberg Weiss partners.
(Mike McIntire, “Accused Law Firm Continues Giving To Democrats”, New York Times, Oct. 18).
MSM finally notices: Milberg Weiss Continues Giving to Democrats
The New York Times finally gets around to exploring the ties between indicted Milberg Weiss, convicted Bill Lerach, and John Edwards and the Clintons (as well as the four Democrat representatives who parroted statements about Milberg’s supposed innocence). Walter is quoted. (Mike McIntre, “Accused Law Firm Continues Giving to Democrats”, Oct. 18). Regular readers of Overlawyered and Point of Law knew all this months ago. Useful comparison: MSM mentions of Enron ties to the Republican party compared to the much-more culpable Milberg Weiss much-more extensive ties to the Democrats—especially given the political favors done for the parasitical law firm that have allowed it to extract billions of dollars from investors.
You mean it’s not the videogames?
This can’t be true — too many policymakers and activists have invested careers in the contrary:
It is not the cartoons that make your kids smack playmates or violently grab their toys but, rather, a lack of social skills, according to new research.
“It’s a natural behavior and it’s surprising that the idea that children and adolescents learn aggression from the media is still relevant,” says Richard Tremblay, a professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and psychology at the University of Montreal, who has spent more than two decades tracking 35,000 Canadian children (from age five months through their 20s) in search of the roots of physical aggression. “Clearly youth were violent before television appeared.”
(Nikhil Swaminathan, “Taming Baby Rage: Why Are Some Kids So Angry?”, Scientific American, Oct. 16).
The hydrangeas’ fateful tint
If you think our post on the bride’s flower lawsuit has had a busy comments section, check out the WSJ law blog, where the number of comments is now up to 181.
P.S. But Above the Law still leads the field, with 214 comments on its first post and 94 on its second.