By reader acclaim: Arelia Margarita Taveras, once hailed as an up-and-coming lawyer and media commentator who represented 9/11 and air crash victims, says her gambling addiction lost her nearly $1 million; she has admitted dipping into client funds and was disbarred last June. Now she’s suing six Atlantic City casinos and one in Las Vegas for $20 million, saying they had a duty to stop her as it became clear her gambling was out of control. Taveras’s law practice at one point brought her $500,000 annually, and she appeared on TV and radio shows to discuss legal issues. (“Compulsive Gambler Files $20M Suit Against Casinos”, AP/CBS13.com, Mar. 8; Christina Boyle, “Scamming lawyer for 9/11 victims sues casinos for her gambling addiction”, New York Daily News, Mar. 8). More: New York Post, Associated Content.
Archive for 2008
“The Weirdest Legal Pleading Ever”
You guessed it: it’s the Jack Thompson Florida folly discussed here a couple of weeks ago (Bonnie Goldstein, Slate, Mar. 7). Bonus: the court includes a reference to the precedents set by Montgomery Blair Sibley in his struggles with the Florida bar (earlier). P.S. More from Dennis McCauley at GamePolitics who exchanges emails with Thompson regarding his use of a photo of burned-out Hiroshima to presage what may “figuratively” happen to the Florida bar if he gets sanctioned.
Althouse on AutoAdmit
Advice to ponder (Mar. 6):
George Harrison once sang: “You serve me and I’ll serve you/Swing your partners, all get screwed/Bring your lawyer and I’ll bring mine/Get together, and we could have a bad time.”
If you sue me, I’m going to do my best to figure out how I can sue you. You want to think about that dynamic before you sue somebody. …
The decision to file a lawsuit is a momentous one. Think hard and think many steps ahead before you bring the courts into your life. Don’t sue angry.
More on the new suit filed by Anthony Ciolli, who had been named as a defendant in the earlier suit: Above the Law. Earlier on AutoAdmit/Xoxohth: Jun. 15 and Oct. 29, 2007.
Letter to the editor
Dana Milbank’s Feb. 28 column on Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker operates on the premise that the winner of any Supreme Court argument should be whoever can best appeal to the justices’ sympathies regardless of the merits of the case. Such an approach is more appropriate for coverage of television game shows than the law.
The Post would do better to treat its readers like grownups and have its Supreme Court reporting done by journalists who don’t “yawn” at questions about the appropriateness of jury instructions.
— Theodore H. Frank
Washington
The writer is director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Legal Center for the Public Interest.
Another giant L.A. crash-faking ring
Los Angeles police arrested 20 suspects, with warrants for another 20 still outstanding, in what the department said was another massive auto accident claim fraud ring, headed they say by Curtis H. Connor with involvement from many members of his family. After faking accidents, investigators say, the Connors would “use lawyers in on the scam to submit claims and demand payments for both injuries and damage to the car.” A chiropractic office and auto body repair shop were also part of the family enterprise. (Joel Rubin and Ken Bensinger, “Family members held in major insurance scam”, L.A. Times, Mar. 7). Earlier coverage here, here, here, etc.
Pellicano trial begins
“Anthony Pellicano, the so-called private eye to the stars, masterminded a ‘thriving criminal enterprise’ that used illegal wiretapping and bribery to squash the legal problems of Hollywood’s rich and famous, a prosecutor told a Los Angeles court yesterday. … Pellicano has worked for lawyers who represented Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor.” (Catherine Elsworth, “Pellicano’s Hollywood criminal enterprises”, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Mar. 7). Earlier here.
Anonymous jury in Scruggs trial
Judge Biggers grants the prosecution’s unusual request, citing not only media coverage and its potential to subject jurors to “intimidation or harassment”, but also the “past attempts by the defendants to interfere with the judicial process”. (Patsy Brumfield, “Scruggs-Backstrom Case: Jurors will be nameless, for both sides”, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Mar. 6; Folo and more; Rossmiller; order in PDF format).
Charged with racial harassment…
…for reading a book? And an anti-racist book at that? That’s what FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) says happened to Keith Sampson, a student with a sideline job on the IUPUI (Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis) janitorial staff who ignored co-workers’ objections to a book he brought in to read on his break time about the struggle against the Ku Klux Klan. (Azhar Majeed, “Read a Book, Harass a Co-Worker at IUPUI”, Mar. 5; follow-up, Mar. 6 with links to coverage by Paul Secunda and David Bernstein). Note, in the Secunda comments, that the school appears to have later rescinded the discipline and assured Sampson that he is free to read the book — which the IUPUI library itself stocks — on break if he likes. And: Eugene Volokh, Howard Wasserman.
Torkelsen Lerach scandal, cont’d
Turns out when Bill Lerach cut his plea deal with the feds, they not only agreed to spare him prosecution on other matters, but also agreed not to press charges against former Milberg lawyers (and current Coughlin Stoia partners) Patrick Coughlin and Keith Park over their dealings with Torkelsen. Another sign, perhaps, that Lerach managed to cut himself and his circle a good deal in the plea negotiations. (WSJ law blog, Mar. 6; earlier).
Homeschooling ban in California?
“Parents who lack teaching credentials cannot educate their children at home, according to a state appellate court ruling that is sending waves of fear through California’s home schooling families.” (Seema Mehta and Mitchell Landsberg, “Ruling seen as a threat to many home-schooling families”, Los Angeles Times, Mar. 6)(via Malkin). More: Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason “Hit and Run”.
More: Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades writes that this is a false alarm and that the L.A. Times account misses crucial elements of the case which distinguish the family under review from homeschoolers generally. But the normally well-informed Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle sums up the case in terms much like those of the L.A. Times, as imperiling the legality of all arrangements in which children are not taught by credentialed tutors or at accredited or public schools. More: Betsy Newmark, Protein Wisdom, Eugene Volokh, Hans Bader @ CEI, Time.
And an update from Egelko, “Homeschoolers’ setback sends shock waves through state“: “A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution. The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming. …The ruling was applauded by a director for the state’s largest teachers union.”
Update Aug. 9: appeals court reverses itself.