Around the country, courts have thrown out suit after suit by private hospitals, health insurers and benefit funds seeking to tag tobacco companies with the cost of smokers’ illnesses. A suit on behalf of various Missouri hospitals still hasn’t flickered out and is being litigated expensively, with Richard Daynard’s Northeastern University-based Tobacco Product Liability Project doing its customary cheerleading. (Heather Ratcliffe, “Hospitals’ suit against tobacco industry is large in every dimension”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 15).
Archive for 2008
Twitter for 2008-09-20
- I editorialize against state (anti-gay) marriage amendments [Overlawyered] #
- Wonderful hi-resolution historical photo site [Shorpy] #
- For my inner chemgeek [U. Notts “Periodic Table of Videos”] thanks @lilyhill #
- Thanks Laurie @halosecretarial for suggesting Twitterfeed for my blogs, seems to work perfectly #
- Sea shanties Pandora channel thanks @gwachob [my channels] #
- Japanese schoolgirl craze for virtual boyfriends thanks @TechCrunch #
- Ladies Nights at bars a civil rights violation? [Overlawyered] #
Ladies’ Nights at bars, cont’d
Steve Chapman talks some common sense on sex-discrimination lawsuits filed by purportedly offended men, a perennial topic at this site, and many commenters @ Volokh chime in (syndicated/Reason, Sept. 18; Somin @ Volokh).
“Metrolink Train Accident Attorney Lawyer Los Angeles”
It doesn’t actually hang together as a phrase, but it does contain plenty of promising keywords for lawyers trolling for business from the fatal commuter wreck north of Los Angeles, so it rates highly on Google. (Kevin O’Keefe, Sept. 19).
Twitter for 2008-09-19
- Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator; mine is Pie Gallon Palin. #
- McCain assails SEC’s Cox, but Bainbridge is going with Cox; #
- Yes, racial profiling figures into use of peremptory challenges [Sommers, Psychology Today via Deliberations] #
- SEC’s net capital rule waivers to blame for credit blowup? [NYSun] #
- NY Observer’s Doonan cool to Palin eyeglass craze; #
- Business lobbies went along with expansion of ADA litigant categories [Point of Law] #
- @teafortillerman I think “trough gutted palin” is the best I’ve seen yet #
- Don’t blame Gramm-Leach-Bliley for housing bubble [MargRev] #
- Experimentally incorporating Twitter into Overlawyered; #
- @kevinokeefe I’m using Firefox and “follow” button on Twitter fails until I refresh. #
- PR firm retracts Tweet that sought to scare up class action plaintiffs [O’Keefe] #
Lawyers and White House nominations
It seems from the numbers that in recent decades the Democrats have tended to nominate lawyers for President and Vice President, and that the Republicans have tended not to. (Volokh, Sept. 18).
Did I say anything about punitive damages?
If it’s going to put me in danger of removal from state to federal court, I guess it must have just been a typo. An Arkansas federal court bought the argument. (CAFA Law Blog, Sept. 18).
State marriage amendments: thumbs down
This November, voters in California, Arizona and Florida will decide on proposals to amend their state constitutions to include permanent bans on same-sex marriage. A new Field poll indicates that California voters are leaning heavily against that state’s Proposition 8 by a 38 to 55 percent margin, almost double the margin by which the measure was failing in July, despite an intensive “pro” campaign by conservative religious forces. A recent Quinnipiac poll in Florida shows the amendment there still in the lead, but not by the 60 percent majority needed to pass a constitutional change under that state’s law. Arizona voters rejected a ballot measure of this sort two years ago, and opponents have high hopes of defeating it again.
I’ve editorialized repeatedly against these measures in this space and will repeat some of what I wrote four years ago Read On…
Twitter integration
As alert readers may have noticed, I began using Twitter recently (@walterolson) and have been experimenting over the past week with what it can do. I’ve now added Alex King’s Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress, which makes it possible to integrate blog functions with those of Twitter. I’m giving a tryout to two new functions:
* Now featured atop the rightmost column of this site is a list of my five most recent Twitter posts. Some are ultra-brief summaries of Overlawyered or Point of Law posts, while others point to law-related articles or news stories in lieu of writing them up at full post length, and yet others contain non-law-related or even personal content. If you want to keep abreast with these in something close to real time without coming back to visit the site itself, “follow” @walterolson (on your Twitter account) or use the @walterolson RSS feed (distinct from the regular Overlawyered posts and comments feeds).
* Once a day Twitter Tools will generate an Overlawyered post like this one summing up the last day’s Twitter mini-posts (“tweets”). In their native form, these roundups have a rather raw look, replete with artificially truncated URLs (of the tinyurl and is.gd variety), often not identifying the article source, etc. If time and inclination permits, I’ll try to clean these up and make them more Overlawyered-relevant by reinserting “real” URLs, via links, earlier/further reading, etc., maybe cutting pure personal stuff, etc.
* Here’s a list of lawyers and law types on Twitter. I’m listed at #230.
* This is all, obviously, experimental, and aimed at seeing whether the new formats appeal to existing readers and reach new ones. If it does work well, I might take further steps, such as systematically broadcasting Overlawyered content on Twitter (a reader volunteer might come in really useful on that). One step at a time, though.
* More: If you’re a reader whose Twitter posts might furnish good story tip material for this site, and I realize that, there’s a good chance I’ll try following you; I’ve already done three posts using material I found in Twitter streams. (This is by contrast with Facebook, where I follow a more conservative policy, and mostly accept as friends only those I “really” know or at least have emailed with a fair bit).
“Vexatious” to post motions on anti-RIAA blog?
Attorney Ray Beckerman is “one of the nation’s few attorneys who defends accused file sharers” and runs a blog called Recording Industry vs The People that is often cited in coverage critical of Recording Industry Association of America and its massive litigation campaign. Now RIAA is seeking sanctions against Beckerman in a case in which he is defending Marie Lindor. Among its allegations (PDF): Beckerman “has consistently posted virtually every one of his baseless motions on his blog seeking to bolster his public relations campaign and embarrass plaintiffs.” And: “Such vexatious conduct demeans the integrity of these judicial proceedings and warrants this imposition of sanctions.” Although RIAA is seeking to voluntarily dismiss its case against Lindor, it wants sanctions against her too, saying that she obstructed its attempts to ascertain whether she was responsible for file-sharing. (David Kravets, Wired/Threat Level, Sept. 17).