I’ve got some thoughts on the subject at Point of Law.
Archive for 2008
Fourth graders told: don’t “spill” to the cops
Kwitcher snitchin’, and your confessin’ too: The Southwest Juvenile Defender Center runs a visit-the-schools program called “Why a Lawyer” which is “one of several such programs taught in schools and detention facilities throughout the country by groups worried that children don’t know their basic rights — including the right to remain silent.” At the private Shlenker School in Houston, fourth graders were asked to answer questions from a “police officer” (played by a University of Houston law student) about a prank call to a neighbor’s house. The student who said least was then singled out for praise for not “spill[ing] her guts”. When questioned by cops who are responding to reports of mischief, it seems, the recommended approach for preteens is “Give your name, your age and then ask for an attorney and ask for your parent.” Malikah Marrus, a researcher for the U-of-H-based Defender Center, complains that it’s an uphill battle getting kids to clam up when questioned by the authorities: “Their impulsive behavior gets them to spill their guts right away.” (Sarah Viren, “Programs teach legal rights to elementary school pupils”, Houston Chronicle, Feb. 14).
The Hess Kennedy “Legal Debt Center” scheme
According to a lawsuit filed by Chase, two Coral Springs attorneys are scamming their clients by promising to eliminate their debts, and then diverting debt payments for legal fees to file meritless lawsuits challenging credit card debts. The attorneys general of Florida, North Carolina, and West Virginia are also involved, and the Florida bar has moved to suspend the license of Laura Hess. “Defendants’ ulterior goals are to extract fees from card members who should be paying the money to Chase to satisfy their debts and to maliciously harass Chase in an improper (albeit unsuccessful) attempt to coerce the elimination of their clients’ legitimate debts.” (Bud Newman, “Chase Bank Accuses Florida Law Firms of Running Debt-Relief Scam”, Daily Business Review, Mar. 6).
Update: See also Mar. 6 Business Week; on-line at the self-reported Rip-Off Report; and WATE (Tennessee), Apr. 2. “‘The programs typically require financially strapped consumers to pay fees up front, so they make money whether or not any useful services are performed,’ says Philip Lehman, an assistant attorney general in North Carolina.”
Scruggs scandal update: sweet potatoes by the acre
Some developments of the past ten days or so:
* In major blow to defense, Judge Biggers denies motions to suppress wiretap evidence and evidence of similar bad acts [Rossmiller]
* Balducci says he and Patterson got $500K from Scruggs to influence AG Hood to drop indictment of State Farm, motive being to advance civil settlement [Folo]
* WSJ gets into the act with some highlights of wiretap transcripts [edit page; earlier here]
* Sen. Trent Lott says he’s a witness, not a target, of federal investigation [Anita Lee, Biloxi Sun-Herald]
* Scruggs off the hook on Alabama criminal contempt charge [WSJ law blog, Rossmiller, Folo]
* “Mr. Blake has served for many years as a conduit and a layer of separation, if you will, between Mr. Scruggs and other people on sensitive issues.” (Balducci transcript highlights, Folo; more)
* In effort to get Zack Scruggs indictment dismissed, his lawyers dwell on switch from “y’all” to “you” as implying shift in persons addressed from plural to singular [Folo first, second; Rossmiller first, second; on a “sweet potatoes” point, NMC @ Folo and sequel; also]
* DeLaughter/Peters branch of scandal reaches deep into Jackson legal community [Adam Lynch, Jackson Free Press]
* Article in new American Lawyer notes that Scruggs’s ambitious suits have lately hit a big losing streak, notably those against HMOs, nonprofit hospitals and Lehman Brothers [Susan Beck]. And Lotus catches an interestingly lawyerly wording on John Keker’s part [Folo]
* I’m quoted and this site is discussed in an article on blog coverage of the case; my lack of clarity as an interviewee probably accounts for Scruggs being said to have addressed audiences at the Manhattan Institute “a few” times, when if memory serves the correct reference is “twice”. [Patsy Brumfield, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo) @ Folo]
* For more background see our Scandals page; also YallPolitics.
Ending software patents
Has the time come? (Roger Parloff, Fortune “Legal Pad”, Feb. 28).
Escalator mishap: federal judge wanted $21 million
A jury, however, sent away U.S. District Judge George P. Schiavelli away with nothing at all, ruling that the firm responsible for maintaining the escalators at the Encino Shopping Center was not to blame for the injuries the judge suffered in a 2005 mishap. After the verdict the plaintiff’s lawyer in the case, Browne Greene, charged the jury with partiality: “The bias against judges in today’s world is just palpable,” he said. (Robert J. Lopez, “Encino judge gets no award in escalator fall”, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 26; “Jury Unanimously Rejects Judge’s $21 Million Personal Injury Suit”, PRNewswire/Fox Business, from defense firm Murchison & Cumming, Feb. 25; Greene’s press release)(via Perlmutter/Schuelke). More on escalator suits at this link.
Wikiality, part 732: The Federalist Society
There are numerous scholarly books and law review articles on the history of the Federalist Society. The only book or article the Wikipedia article cites in its references section? “101 People Who Are Really Screwing America,” also cited 9 times in the article. Second is the People for the American Way’s hit piece on the organization, cited five times. Also cited: Daily Kos. Welcome to Wikipedia’s NPOV policy, where the N apparently stands for Nader, rather than neutral.
“Senate CPSC Bill: A Boon for Trial Lawyers at the Expense of Product Safety”
Andrew M. Grossman and James L. Gattuso analyze the CPSC Reform Act, S. 2663 (the update to S. 2045). We discussed Feb. 20 and Feb. 25, as well as briefly Jan. 1. Update: After the jump, Senator DeMint’s office provides the “Top Ten Reasons to Oppose the CPSC “Reform” Act (S. 2663)”
U.K.: Injures finger dropping junk mail in letterbox
Paul O’Brien of Leeds, Great Britain, says the Royal Mail letterbox in his house is just like every other one in the development and that mail carriers have had no problem using it. Still, he’s being sued by cake decorator Joy Goodman, who says her finger was badly hurt when the thing snapped as she was pushing a leaflet, less charitably termed junk mail, through it; she can no longer pursue her trade. Says O’Brien: “I just cannot believe someone who came on to my property uninvited, to put junk mail through my door that I didn’t want, can now sue me because she hurt herself. … It seems like we’re becoming more and more like America. Everyone wants compensation.” (“Homeowner sued after woman delivering junk mail claims she injured her hand in letterbox”, Daily Mail, Feb. 21).
Special master: Coughlin Stoia paid for “stolen” Coke documents
Do they often do business this way? The law firm of Coughlin Stoia, known as Lerach Coughlin before the departure of now-disgraced Bill Lerach, has been vying for lead counsel status in a shareholder class action against Coca-Cola. Now Roger Parloff at Fortune “Legal Pad” (Feb. 28) reports that a special master on the case has recommended that the firm be disqualified for “extremely troubling” conduct which it then defended after exposure using “pretextual” arguments. It seems two former Coke executives approached the law firm of Milberg Weiss (predecessor before its split of Coughlin Stoia), one of them in possession of more than 3,000 company documents he’d taken on departure, many stamped “confidential”. The law firm then agreed to pay the execs at least $75,000 to serve as “consultants”, part of the deal consisting of access to the documents, which it then used in its complaint.
When the consulting agreement came to light more than a year ago, Coughlin Stoia lawyers backed [Greg] Petro’s claim that neither he nor they had thought he was taking Coke documents without authority because, among other things, Petro had been ordered, when terminated, to “clean out his office.” Special Master [Hunter] Hughes found that such a command could not “rationally be construed to authorize Petro to walk off with company documents, any more than it authorized him to take the company’s desk, chairs, and computer.”
Hughes also rejected arguments that the firm was not really buying the documents, just entering into a consulting agreement, and a public-policy style argument that Petro’s conduct should be condoned because he was a whistleblower trying to expose corporate wrongdoing.
In a footnote, Hughes found that public policy arguments weighed in the other direction: “On a very practical level, for the Court to give Plaintiffs’ counsel a pass on this conduct, would simply invite terminated employees, particularly of public companies, to on a wholesale basis remove company documents following their termination in hopes they can sell them should the company be sued.”
More: San Diego Union-Tribune, ABA Journal, WSJ law blog (where several comments defend the law firm’s conduct).