- Educator acquitted on charges of roughness toward special ed student sues Teacher Smackdown website over anonymous comments criticizing her [NW Arkansas Morning News, Citizen Media Law Project, House of Eratosthenes]
- Lorain County, Ohio judge who struck down state’s death penalty has Che Guevara poster in his office, though Guevara wasn’t exactly an opponent of killing [USA Today]
- Privatization of U.S. Senate food service is a parable for wider issues [Tabarrok]
- Low-end strategies for acquiring criminal-law clients include trolling the attorney visiting area at the federal lockup, paying the hot dog guy in front of the courthouse [Greenfield]
- A Canadian Senator on why his country’s medical malpractice law works better than you-know-whose [Val Jones MD leads to audio]
- U.K.: convicted rapist sexually assaults and murders teenage girl after housing authority is told evicting him would breach his human rights [Telegraph]
- No word of legal action (yet, at least) in Salina, Kansas car crash that driver blames on “brain freeze” from Sonic restaurant frozen drink [AP/K.C. Star]
- In Michigan, some mysterious entity is trying to drop an electoral anvil on two of our favorite jurists [PoL]
Archive for 2008
Haywood Rosales v. Home Depot: a “glued to his seat” encore
It appears an ill-natured prankster spread adhesive on the toilet seat of a Home Depot in Florissant, Mo., in suburban St. Louis. The hapless patron who was next to sit down claims in his suit that the earlier, similar incident in Colorado (which we covered here and here) should have put Home Depot on notice that “a strong possibility that instances of copycat behavior would occur”. With that awareness in hand, the retail chain could have — what? sent in an employee to check for seat-gluing after each time a customer used the facility? (The Smoking Gun, Jun. 13).
Added to the favorites column
Added to the favorites sidebar on the right: our contemporaneous coverage of the case of the finger in the Wendy’s chili. Any other favorites you’d like to see there?
Judge Zilly’s sanctions order against Cyrus Sanai; Kozinski recuses himself
The furor over the Kozinski web site pseudo-scandal over what Wonkette calls “the sort of naughtiness you’d find in the dirty birthday cards section at Spencer Gifts” has caused Judge Alex Kozinski to recuse himself from the obscenity trial, resulting in a mistrial. Kozinski is known for his ethical rectitude, which is perhaps why he did so, but one wishes that he didn’t permit the appalling LA Times coverage to create a perception of a perception of a bias, much less agree that that provides grounds for recusal. But with some implausibly calling for his resignation, discretion is perhaps the better part of valor. Still, as Jesse Walker notes, “There has been no shortage of free-speech trials in which the presiding judges had a moral objection to essentially innocuous material. I don’t see any reason why such a case shouldn’t be heard by a jurist with a history of tolerance.” And one wishes that the conservatives calling for Kozinski’s resignation would use that powder for Ninth Circuit judges who act ultra vires rather than for the jokes judges share in their own time.
Paul Krugman and tainted tomatoes
The Times columnist’s rants on the supposed collapse in food safety (which he keeps blaming on, of all people, Milton Friedman) appear to be not well borne out by the actual numbers (Alex Tabarrok, Jun. 13).
New Steve Chapman blog
My favorite syndicated columnist, based at the Chicago Tribune, started blogging last month, and has been commenting on such subjects as the Vioxx verdicts, the (possible) end of the Second Amendment debate, and imagined vs. real spending on schools.
Operation “Staged Impact”
The FBI undercover crash-fraud investigation netted 35 defendants, including 31 patients faking injury supposedly arising from car crashes and three “runners”. It also caught lawyer Jordan Luber (Luber & Cataldi) of Philadelphia. Per the Philadelphia Business Journal:
The sting included a fake chiropractic clinic the FBI set up in Northeast Philadelphia called Injury Associates. Instead of providing care it generated paperwork to make it appear patients received treatment so they could file fake claims.
According to prosecutors: Two agents posing as cleaning women told Luber they went to Injury Associates and wanted to pursue claims. They admitted on audio and video recordings to Luber that they had not received any treatment and had created fake medical records. Luber still pursued the claims, telling an insurer they were in an accident and received treatment. He negotiated a settlement of $7,500 each.
Luber, who is reported to have kept $6,000 of the $15,000 or 40% as his fee, drew a sentence of two months plus a year of supervised release and 100 hours of community service. He is “also prohibited from practicing law for a year.” The Philadelphia Daily News account says he’s surrendered his license, although the only report I could find online is of a suspension (PDF). So it sounds as if, assuming equal luck in any bar disciplinary process, he might reapply for the license and be back practicing law before too long. Won’t that bolster confidence in our court system? (IFA Webnews via P&S weekly roundup).
Deep pocket files: The Great White shakedown winds down
Sealed Air makes polyethylene foam for packaging material. The Great White plaintiffs allege that polyethylene foam in the soundproofing was part of the reason the Rhode Island Station nightclub fire spread so fast, killing 100–though they have no evidence that Sealed Air manufactured the foam in the club, not to mention the fact that the packing foam was never intended to be used as building material. Not to worry: with joint and several liability in Rhode Island, Sealed Air faced billions of dollars of potential liability because all of the other deep pockets (dozens of defendants ranging from a radio station to four other foam manufacturers to Anheuser-Busch to the bus that transported the band to the concert to a television station that covered the fire) have settled, Sealed Air couldn’t risk being held even 1% liable, especially given that at a trial plaintiffs would have no incentive to blame empty-chair or empty-pocket or settling defendants. Sealed Air will pay $25 million in protection money. (AP; Providence Journal; TortsProf). The miscarriage of justice continues, but the remaining defendants are apparently judgment-proof.
Knology arbitration clause
Overlawyered favorite Justinian Lane thinks he’s discovered a smoking gun in the Knology arbitration clause:
All disputes arising out of or relating to this agreement (other than actions for the collections of debts you owe us) including, without limitation, any dispute based on any service or advertising of the services related thereto, shall be resolved by final and binding arbitration… (Emphasis added.)
“He took the style and the delivery”
“Former heavyweight boxer Mitchell Rose has filed an $88 million dollar copyright lawsuit against Jay-Z in Brooklyn Federal Court, AllHipHop.com has learned.” Rose says he gave Jay-Z a demo tape in 2001 and that the musician took from it a style of rhyming, a “whispering” delivery, “and even certain lyrics” for which he should owe compensation. “Rose, 39, is also a personal injury lawyer who wrote a book called Mike Tyson Tried To Kill My Daddy.” (Nolan Strong, AllHipHop.com, Jun. 12). While we’re at it, my Manhattan Institute colleague John McWhorter has a new book out entitled “All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save Black America“.