Archive for May, 2008

Canadian loses bottled-fly-in-water case

Martin Mustapha of Windsor, Ont. had won $340,000 over the fly for emotional distress and phobic reaction, though neither he nor any family member had come in contact with the water in question, since they spotted the insect before opening the bottle. Now the Supreme Court of Canada has refused to disturb an appeals court’s reversal of the award, and has ordered that Mustapha pay the water company’s legal costs. (“SCC quashes man’s suit over fly in bottled water”, CTV, May 22; earlier here and here).

Marc Rodwin and the Massachusetts medical malpractice crisis

A Health Affairs paper by Suffolk University Law Professor Marc Rodwin et al. has been generating a lot of press and blog attention for its claim that there is no medical malpractice crisis in Massachusetts.  He and I have been debating the paper at Point of Law (Frank; Rodwin; Frank); as I show, that conclusion is highly suspect and seems divorced from the underlying data.

Congress: let’s sue OPEC

This wretched proposal to pursue sensitive foreign policy goals by way of treble-damage antitrust suits against sovereign nations is met by a hail of dead cats from Below the Beltway, Gateway Pundit, Liberty Reborn, Buffalog, Coalition of the Swilling, Sense of Events, Q and O, Coyote, Politics in the Zeros, Socrates’ Academy, It’s a Funny Thing, Bronze Blog, Discerning Texan, Blog About Nothing, It Looks Obvious, NoBrainer’s, Wheeling Intelligencer, and Collideoscope, among others. Earlier here.

And yet more: Perry de Havilland, Samizdata (“a derangement of legislators”)(via ASI).

“Lawsuits that benefit only lawyers”

Hard-hitting column by Stuart Taylor, Jr. on the destructiveness of the current legal actions

seeking more than $400 billion from companies that did business in South Africa during apartheid, [which] score high on what I call Taylor’s Index of Completely Worthless Lawsuit Indicators:

• The lawsuits will do victims of wrongdoing little or no good.

• They will penalize no human being who has done anything wrong.

• They will deter more conduct that is beneficial than harmful.

• The legal costs and any damages will come at the expense of the general public.

• The lawsuits therefore serve no purpose at all but to enrich lawyers and provide ideological power trips for some judges as well as lawyers.

American Isuzu Motors v. Ntsebeza, recently allowed to go forward, is being led by (among others) class-actioneer and frequent Overlawyered mentionee Michael Hausfeld.

The apartheid lawsuit is one of dozens seeking to pervert the Alien Tort Statute to mulct companies for ordinary commercial conduct in countries accused of human-rights violations. Caterpillar, for example, was sued for selling bulldozers that Israel used to destroy suspected Palestinian terrorists’ homes. (The case was dismissed.) “The American bar is actively soliciting alien plaintiffs” to try out novel theories, State Department legal adviser John Bellinger noted in a recent speech. Because so many federal judges have smiled on such suits, Bellinger added, foreign governments increasingly regard the U.S. judiciary “as something of a rogue actor.”

With added commentary on the Kivalina climate-change class action, Rhode Island lead paint, shareholder litigation, and Lerach, Weiss, and Scruggs. (National Journal, May 17, will rotate off page so catch it now).

Sen. Cornyn introduces lessons-of-Lerach bill

The Texas Republican, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is introducing legislation that

would make several key reforms to current securities class action law to increase the accountability of and transparency for attorneys filing these lawsuits and the institutional plaintiffs they often represent. Specifically, it would require:

DISCLOSURE OF PAYMENTS BETWEEN PLAINTIFFS AND ATTORNEYS

Plaintiffs and attorneys would submit sworn certifications identifying any direct or indirect payments, promises of such payments, and other conflicts of interest between them, as well as all political contributions made to elected officials with authority or influence over the appointment of counsel in the case.

COMPETITIVE BIDDING FOR LEAD COUNSEL

Courts would include a competitive bidding process as one of the factors for the selection and retention of lead counsel for a class of plaintiffs.

STUDY TO DETERMINE APPROPRIATE ATTORNEYS FEES

GAO would commission a study of the last 5 years of fee awards in securities class action cases to determine the average hourly rate for lead counsel.

(release, Congressional Record statement). (cross-posted from Point of Law). More: hailed by Lisa Rickard of U.S. Chamber.