Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2008

How trial lawyers made American pedestrians less safe

Michael Lewyn writes:

In recent decades, American state and local highway officials have built wide streets and roads designed primarily to accommodate high-speed automobile traffic. However, such high-speed streets are more dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists than streets with slower traffic, and thus fail to adequately accommodate nondrivers. Government officials design streets for high-speed traffic partially because of their fear of tort liability. An influential street engineering manual, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ Green Book, has generally favored the construction of such high-speed streets, and transportation planners fear that if they fail to follow the Green Book’s recommendations, they are more likely to be held negligent if a speeding driver is injured on a street designed for relatively slow traffic.

Changes in the Green Book may ameliorate such design considerations in the future.

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April 2 roundup

  • Judge expresses surprise at how many law firms want in on fees in Visa/MasterCard issuer settlement [NYSun]
  • Mississippi bill would require a lawyer’s presence at real estate escrow closings; so rude to cite the profession’s self-interest as a factor [Clarion-Ledger]
  • Following Coughlin Stoia’s lead, Mark Lanier announces he’s expanding into intellectual property litigation [The Recorder]
  • Maryland legislation would require state-aided colleges and universities to report on what they’re doing to advance “cultural diversity” [Examiner via Bader/Open Market]
  • New era at UK pubs? Under new directive, “employers will risk being sued if a bar worker or waitress complains of being called ‘love’ or ‘darling’, or if staff overhear customers telling sexist jokes.” [Daily Mail]
  • ACLU just sued city of San Diego and snagged $900K in legal fees, but that’s no impediment to the city’s council’s enacting a special day of tribute to the group [House of Eratosthenes]
  • George Wallace, who’s guestblogged here, hosts twin editions of Blawg Review #153 at his blogs Declarations & Exclusions and A Fool in the Forest, on piratical and Punchinello themes;
  • Obama won’t support lowering drinking age [Newsweek]
  • Such a shame for entrepreneurial plaintiffs, post-Proposition 64 if you want to sue a California business you might actually need to have been injured [CalBizLit]
  • Time mag appeals $100 million Suharto libel ruling [IHT]
  • Hey, no fair enforcing that fine print disclaiming liability for sweepstakes misprints [three years ago on Overlawyered]

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Miami archdiocese liable for students’ at-home drinking party

A jury held Archbishop Coleman Carroll High School liable for $14 million on the theory that its officials knew of an underage drinking party to be held at the home of two students, but did not notify authorities. Two of the drunken revelers sped off into a single-car accident in which one was killed. (Adam H. Beasley, “School found negligent in booze party crash”, Miami Herald, Mar. 31).

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State AGs vs. JuicyCampus.com

As an online phenomenon, JuicyCampus.com sounds more than a little familiar to those who followed the AutoAdmit/XOXOXTH controversy: message boards open to bathroom-graffiti anonymous posts about named fellow students. The difference this time is that the attorneys general of New Jersey and Connecticut have jumped in with legal action apparently premised on the unusual, and expansible, legal theory that the site violates consumer fraud statutes by not enforcing its own announced ground rules on posting, or at least principles that it “suggests” it will follow. (ABA Journal and again; Volokh).

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“Owner Charged With Cruelty for Failing to Treat Cat’s Ailments”

Visit the vet, or else? “A cat owner who did not seek treatment for his pet’s serious ailments during the cat’s last year of life can be charged with animal cruelty, a Manhattan judge has ruled. Allegations that the defendant left a ‘swollen and bleeding’ paw and other conditions untreated ‘sufficiently demonstrate that the animal was subjected to unjustifiable physical pain,’ Criminal Court Judge ShawnDya L. Simpson wrote. The owner allegedly admitted that he had owned the cat for 15 years and never took him to the veterinarian.” (Noeleen G. Walder, New York Law Journal, Mar. 24).

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The Jonathan Lee Riches docket

We’ve covered the litigious inmate fantasist before, but this is still a striking statistic: “Thirty-nine percent of the 491 cases filed so far this month in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia have been filed by one man: Jonathan Lee Riches. …Some of Riches’ prior complaints have been dismissed, including a $662 trillion suit filed in the Northern District last summer against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. The suit alleged that Vick was attempting to ‘kidnap’ Riches’ mind and to force him to lose weight, and demanded that the $662 trillion be delivered — in ‘British gold’ shipped via truck — to the front gates of the prison where Riches is incarcerated.” (Janet L. Conley, “Inmate’s Frequent Filings Take On Targets Ranging From Spitzer to Van Halen”, Fulton County Daily Report, Mar. 25).

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NY Times on Ground Zero dust lawyer

In Sunday’s Times reporter Anthony DePalma takes a much-needed look at attorney Paul Napoli and his Napoli Bern law firm, which is now representing thousands of plaintiffs claiming injury from 9/11 dust inhalation and before that made its name in the fen-phen litigation. Among the controversies that have trailed it to the present day from that affair: charges that it divvied up settlements in a way favorable to its own fee interests, and that it used unreliable “echo mill” expert reports from echocardiologists attesting injury to fen-phen claimants. Prof. Lester Brickman, friend of this site, is quoted extensively. See our extensive earlier coverage at Overlawyered: Dec. 16, 2002, Sept. 21, 2003, etc. (echo mills); Dec. 28, 2001, Feb. 14, 2005, and Mar. 29, 2007 (settlement practices); Feb. 25, 2008 (broad net cast in 9/11 suits)(cross-posted from Point of Law).

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Against victim impact statements

I’ve never liked this innovation in the criminal justice system and explain why in this comment left at Scott Greenfield’s:

What seems to me most obviously wrong in Judge Cassell’s outline [a lecture by lawprof, formerly judge, Paul Cassell, for National Crime Victims Rights Week] is his point #4, about how impact statements restore to victims “some of the dignity that was taken from them by criminal offenders”. Every day these procedures induce family members to stand up in court and read aloud “rot in hell, you’ve destroyed our family” statements which are then reported in the local press. I can’t be the only one who sees these statements as a grievous surrender of victim families’ dignity. And family members who might prefer silence as the more dignified course must often feel intense pressure to make a statement, the more demonstrative the better, for fear of appearing in others’ eyes as insufficiently loving or appreciative of the victimized member. (The figure of Cordelia comes to mind.)

I have no idea what effect victim impact statements have on the guilty person being sentenced; I think they are worth opposing because of their barbarous effect on the innocent.

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