And the husband is going to hold her to the letter of that, even though Patricia Craissati’s “cohabitation” is with a cellmate at the prison where she’s serving time for a DUI accident. A dissenting judge called it an “absurd result”. (Susan Spencer-Wendel, “Ex-wife’s alimony cut off because she has cellmate”, Palm Beach Post, Dec. 10).
Archive for 2008
Manhattan Institute, City Journal now on Twitter
The Manhattan Institute, with which I’m associated as senior fellow, is now on Twitter , as is its superlative policy magazine, City Journal, for which I’ve often written. Follow both today! Just as a reminder, you can also follow me here (mix of legal, business, journalistic and other content), as well as feeds for all my blogs (Point of Law, Overlawyered, etc.). (Cross-posted, slightly altered, from Point of Law).
Elton John loses Guardian libel case
Another indication that British courts may be steering defamation law away from its highly pro-plaintiff posture of the past: “In a groundbreaking libel decision, the judge said that ‘irony’ and ‘teasing’ do not amount to defamation.” The entertainer Elton John had sued over a spoof “diary” that depicted his involvement in a major AIDS charity as insincere and self-serving.
“It’s significant,” said media law expert Mark Stephens of the ruling. “What [Mr. Justice] Tugendhat has done is move us closer to the US system where you can’t get damages for satire and humour, except in the most exceptional cases.”
(Duncan Campbell, The Guardian, Dec. 13).
Altria v Good affirmed 5-4
The Supreme Court rejected (h/t Beck/Herrmann) tobacco companies’ argument that the FTC’s use of the Cambridge Filter Method standard of measuring tar and nicotine impliedly preempted lawsuits against the tobacco companies for advertising their cigarettes using data from the Cambridge Filter Method standard of measuring tar and nicotine. The fact that the federal government disavowed preemption lends another data point in support of Professor Catherine Sharkey’s argument that the Court tends to defer to the Solicitor General’s position on preemption disputes. Justice Thomas’s dissent, which would undo the unworkable Cipollone plurality, appears to me to be the stronger argument, but it didn’t carry the Kennedy Five.
The fact pattern is the subject of numerous multi-billion dollar lawsuits against tobacco companies alleging that their sales of light cigarettes are fraudulent. The light-cigarette consumer fraud litigation still suffers from constitutional flaws relating to due process in aggregate litigation, but these remain to be resolved.
Langston’s leniency letters
The lawyer defending disgraced Mississippi plaintiff’s lawyer Joey Langston asked that the hundreds of letters pleading for leniency in his sentencing be kept off limits to the general public — seems they were too personal in tone. Nonetheless, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal has a list of the letter-senders, a group more local in flavor than the cadre of national big-namers who wrote letters on behalf of Master of the Universe and judge-briber Dickie Scruggs. One of the nearly 340 letters was from Langston’s “longtime friend and business partner”, U.S. Rep. Travis Childers, who wrote, “I only wish that every town and county in America had someone like Joey Langston.” (Patsy R. Brumfield, “Hundreds of Langston letters asked for leniency”, NEMDJ, Dec. 11; YallPolitics, Dec. 10). “Langston faces up to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to influence a circuit judge to help resolve a legal-fees lawsuit against then-Oxford attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs.” (related, same day). Because he has cooperated with prosecutors, Langston is expected to be given a reduced sentence; some of his supporters, including Rep. Childers, asked that he be let off with probation.
“A Lawyerly Holiday Party Invite”
Reprinted at Above the Law (Dec. 13).
Wheelchairs, theaters, and “comparable viewing angles”
CalBizLit (Dec. 12) provides a guided tour to an area of disabled-rights litigation we’ve touched on several times in the past: see Aug. 1, 2004, Nov. 11, 2003, and links from there.
Comments policies
Overlawyered is lucky to have a valued set of commenters from whom I often learn things, and it’s been quite a while since our comments section has suffered from any outbreak of bad commenter behavior, flame wars, or that sort of thing. I was reminded of our good fortune since several bloggers have recently added guidelines on comments moderation or otherwise outlined their views. At Volokh Conspiracy, known for its busy and high-quality comments section, Orin Kerr has posted a “Clarified Comments Policy” which with perhaps a slight change here or there could also serve as a comments policy for this site. Meanwhile, the site I helped launch a couple of weeks ago, Secular Right, from almost its first day attracted a high comments volume (more than 2,000 comments in the first two weeks) including more than a few that were contentious or uncivil — not an unexpected consequence when there are sharp disagreements on the topic of religion. After one blowup I noted the following:
Read On…
Tyna Marie Robertson back in the news
Readers may remember the episode in which Michael Flatley, impresario of the “Riverdance” and “Lord of the Dance” Irish extravaganzas, was falsely accused of rape by a woman who then demanded money. After the California Supreme Court, in a pioneering ruling, found that Flatley could countersue for extortion, he obtained a large default judgment against Tyna Marie Robertson, who, as noted in a news report we quoted at the time, “had dated other wealthy and well-known men through the years — relationships that sometimes ended in litigation”.
Now Robertson is back in the news leveling bizarre charges against another of her former paramours, Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher. Lowering the Bar has details (Dec. 14).
The accomplishments of Marc Dreier
Even after being jailed in Toronto, the litigator managed to grift $10 million from an escrow into his personal account. And he let the malpractice insurance on his law practice lapse, as his horrified colleagues are now finding out. (Alison Leigh Cowan, Charles V. Bagli and William K. Rashbaum, “Lawyer Seen as Bold Enough to Cheat the Best of Investors”, New York Times, Dec. 13).
P.S. Eric Turkewitz (Dec. 14) has a sobering analysis of possible liability exposure for the non-equity partners of Dreier LLP.