Archive for April, 2008

Latest claimed IP infringements

Both via Ron Coleman: “Deutsche Telekom / T-Mobile demands Engadget Mobile discontinue using the color magenta” (Engadget, Mar. 31)(via). And Major League Baseball apparently makes bold to own all combinations of characteristic team colors and “baseball lettering” on shirts, even when the actual shirt message is something unrelated to baseball, such as “Obama” (Susan Scafidi/CounterfeitChic, Mar. 18) (via).

“The Worst Places To Get Sued in America”

Forbes compiles its list and is kind enough to quote me at some length. Scariest of the scary? Los Angeles (ADA filing mills); Miami (med-mal); Atlantic County, N.J. (pharmaceutical); Starr County, Tex. (personal injury); Cook County, Ill. (product liability; I’m quoted on the Cook premium for otherwise routine injury cases); Mississippi (class actions; more properly, group and other mass actions, given the state’s peculiar way of handling such claims); Clark County, Nev. (construction litigation); West Virginia (environmental lawsuits); Philadelphia (I’m quoted on the city’s tradition of libel suits by public officials); (William Pentland, Forbes, Apr. 7; slideshow).

Miseries of software upgrade, cont’d

Site search, which has been broken for the past couple of days, is back working now. Pre-2003 archives are now broken, but I expect to get them reinstalled fairly soon. (Update: fixed now.)

Unfortunately, the inherent limitations of Movable Type and its upgrades are forcing a retreat from one of my long-held objectives, namely to provide this site’s archives with stable longterm URLs. The previous URL formats we used are not supported by MT 4, which means that after our upgrade-in-progress is finished, existing links to individual posts published before March 2008 will mostly break. With minor exceptions the material itself will not vanish from the site, but it will reside at new URLs and you will need to do more searching for it. Sorry.

Update: Panel recommends penalty for Boston judge over settlement demands

“The Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended a $25,000 fine, a 30-day suspension without pay and a public censure for state court Judge Ernest B. Murphy for sending improper letters to Boston Herald publisher Patrick J. Purcell that demanded settlement of Murphy’s libel lawsuit against the newspaper.” (Sheri Qualters, “Suspension, Fine Recommended for Boston Judge Who Sent Improper Letters to Newspaper”, National Law Journal, Apr. 2). For more on Judge Murphy’s “fascinatingly repellent” letters and their “‘Surrender, Dorothy’ flavor”, see Dec. 23 and Dec. 8, 2005.

April 5 roundup

  • Ninth Circuit, Kozinski, J., rules 8-3 that Roommates.com can be found to have violated fair housing law by asking users to sort themselves according to their wish to room with males or other protected groups; the court distinguished the Craigslist cases [L.A. Times, Volokh, Drum]
  • Class-action claim: Apple says its 20-inch iMac displays millions of colors but the true number is a mere 262,144, the others being simulated [WaPo]
  • U.K.: compulsive gambler loses $2 million suit against his bookmakers, who are awarded hefty costs under loser-pays rule [BBC first, second, third, fourth stories]
  • Pittsburgh couple sue Google saying its Street Views invades their privacy by including pics of their house [The Smoking Gun via WSJ law blog]
  • U.S. labor unions keep going to International Labour Organization trying to get current federal ground rules on union organizing declared in violation of international law [PoL]
  • Illinois Supreme Court reverses $2 million jury award to woman who sued her fiance’s parents for not warning her he had AIDS [Chicago Tribune]
  • Italian family “preparing to sue the previous owners of their house for not telling them it was haunted”; perhaps most famous such case was in Nyack, N.Y. [Ananova, Cleverly]
  • Per their hired expert, Kentucky lawyers charged with fen-phen settlement fraud “relied heavily on the advice of famed trial lawyer Stan Chesley in the handling of” the $200 million deal [Lexington Herald-Leader]
  • Actor Hal Holbrook of Mark Twain fame doesn’t think much of those local anti-tobacco ordinances that ban smoking on stage even when needed for dramatic effect [Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times]
  • Six U.S. cities so far have been caught “shortening the amber cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners.” [Left Lane via Virtuous Republic and Asymmetrical Information]

Zombie Litigation

My latest Liability Outlook examines the problems of retroactive lawmaking and litigation, especially reviver statutes, and even Obama fans will find something to like:

The controversy over whether and how to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations at the Democratic National Convention shows the danger of changing rules midstream and upsetting settled expectations. Reviver statutes not only obviate statutes of limitations, which are a critical aid to justice, by “reviving” claims that have expired or never existed, but they can also pose the danger of undoing the benefits of future prospective legislation. In evaluating laws, the issue is not merely one of retroactivity, but of the importance of promoting legal certainty. For example, the FISA Amendments Act, S. 2248, while ostensibly acting retroactively to grant immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s antiterror surveillance program, works to protect settled expectations.

Among matters discussed: litigation against the Catholic church over child abuse by priests and the Michigan legislature’s proposed retroactive repeal of pharmaceutical tort reform in H.R. 4045. Walter has previously discussed the subject.

Blogosphere reacts to Seidel subpoena

We’ve updated our post below, but it’s worth noting separately that some of the biggest guns in the blogging world, such as Glenn Reynolds, P.Z. Myers/Pharyngula (where we get attacked by a couple of commenters), and Orac/Respectful Insolence, have weighed in over the last 24 hours on the punishingly broad subpoena that vaccine lawyer Clifford Shoemaker has aimed at autism blogger Kathleen Seidel of Neurodiversity. Others: PalMD, Pure Pedantry, I Speak of Dreams, Law and More, Open Records, Matt Johnston, and my own cross-post at Point of Law. And: Family Voyage, Jack’s NewsWatch, Autism Street, Eric Turkewitz/New York Personal Injury Law Blog, Elf M. Sternberg, PopeHat, PooFlingers, Women’s Bioethics Blog, Asperger Square 8, Rettdevil’s Rants, and longer list at Liz Ditz/I Speak of Dreams. Plus: Carolyn Elefant @ Legal Blog Watch.

P.S. One lawyer friend wrote to say “I dunno, it’s only a subpoena”, to which I replied that I was reminded of my gun-enthusiast friends who say things like, “it’s only a semi-automatic”.

P.P.S. More press coverage here.

Disbarment possible for Harpreet Brar

The mills of California lawyer discipline grind exceeding slow: five years after the scandal over Brar’s mass-mailing of extortionate demands to small businesses under the state’s unfair business practices act, and after Brar’s jailing for federal tax evasion as well as well as contempt of court for pursuing legal harassment, a state bar judge has recommended that he lose his license to practice. (In the matter of Harpreet Singh Brar, PDF, via CJAC). Earlier here, here, here, here, etc.