Filling in a detail readers wondered about before, on why Little League was named as a defendant: “The game in which Steven Domalewski sustained the injury was a Police Athletic League contest rather than a Little League event. Attorney Ernest Fronzuto countered that Little League Baseball officially approved the bat and by its actions led players, coaches and parents to believe the bat was safe for play among 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds.” (Bob Condor, “Living Well: Youth baseball injury stats: Ouch!”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jun. 1).
Archive for 2008
“Patent Failure”
The patenting of software, in contrast to the patenting of chemical and pharmaceutical compounds, generates relatively high litigation costs and low benefits (Pete Warden, Jun. 3, via our comments section; Tim Lee, guesting at Megan McArdle’s, has a three-part review of “an important new book by James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer” on the subject (first, second, third)).
Overlawyering in venture startups
A venture capitalist complains that law firms hired to assist in start-up financings almost seem to want to make work for themselves. (Jason Mendelson, Jun. 1, reprinted at Private Equity Hub)(via The Recorder). (Title altered so as not to leave the impression that the originally invoked “Silicon Valley” was a geographic reference.)
A right to a jury consultant?
Unless defendant Neil Entwistle is provided with a jury consultant at Massachusetts taxpayer expense he won’t stand a chance of a fair trial in his much-publicized murder trial, or so runs his defense lawyer’s claim (Ambrogi; The Jury Box). More: Greenfield.
Breaking: New Jersey Supreme Court rejects Vioxx medical monitoring class action
Mark Herrmann has details of Sinclair v. Merck. The decision also suggests that the New Jersey Supreme Court is going to affirm the intermediate McDarby decision rejecting the use of consumer-fraud law for product-liability claims in New Jersey.
Sebok on the Rhode Island Supreme Court lead paint arguments
According to professor Tony Sebok, both sides botched the May 15 oral argument (available on webcast) over the multi-billion dollar lead-paint “public nuisance” judgment, but the plaintiffs botched it worse. Sebok predicts “that the Rhode Island Supreme Court will understand what is at stake in this case, and do the right thing. It will act like a responsible common law court and interpret the doctrine of public nuisance in a principled way—which in this case means drawing the line between tort and public nuisance, and drawing that line in favor of the defendants.” A decision is expected by July 4.
(Disclosure: I purchased stock in Sherwin-Williams and NL Industries shortly after the oral argument.)
“The paid plaintiffs and their corrupt attorneys”
Judge Walter, pronouncing sentence, wasn’t buying any of the “victimless crime” spin from the Mel Weiss camp:
The wrongdoing, which included submitting false statements to courts overseeing the lawsuits, “strikes at the core — at the heart of the judicial system,” the judge said. …
Judge Walter said he was dubious of arguments that the conspiracy was a “victimless crime” because the firm, best-known simply as Milberg Weiss, vigorously represented investors in the cases that were brought. “In effect, the absent class members were at the mercy of the paid plaintiffs and their corrupt attorneys in this invidious scheme,” the judge said. The lead plaintiffs taking the secret payoffs may have been more interested in boosting Milberg’s fees than in getting the maximum recovery, the judge said.
Josh Gerstein at the Sun has more on the sentencing, including hints as to the curious role of a Denver, Colorado lawyer named Gary Lozow. (“Lawyer Weiss Gets 30-Month Sentence for Kickbacks”, Jun. 3).
McCain-Feingold and the Fieger acquittal
Terry Carter in the ABA Journal has more on the legal background:
The straw-donor law invoked against Fieger has been around since 1972, though Congress upped the ante and made it a felony as part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, known as the McCain-Feingold Act. In all these years there has been but one jury verdict concerning the law, before it was a felony, and it was for acquittal. (There have been several plea agreements in recent years.)
Thus no court has crafted an opinion concerning the law itself, according to some of the few experts in this narrow slice of election law.
Spence told the jury that the government tried to use snippets of law to go after Fieger, a prominent plaintiffs lawyer and former Democratic candidate for governor in Michigan, for political purposes. The campaign finance law (2 U.S.C. § 441f) says:
“No person shall make a contribution in the name of another person or knowingly permit his name to be used to effect such a contribution, and no person shall knowingly accept a contribution made by one person in the name of another person.”
The defense argued that the law, as worded, does not prohibit reimbursing people who make contributions.
If in fact Fieger’s acquittal will be cited in favor of the notion that the use of straw donors reimbursed after the fact is lawful after all, that might seem to blow a rather large hole in the side of the McCain-Feingold law — which makes it all the odder that the Fieger trial drew so little attention from either backers or critics of that law on the national level.
Hot coffee data point: Thomas Skaggs v. Pilot Travel Center
If you recall, the theory of defenders of the McDonald’s coffee case was that McDonald’s, and only McDonald’s, served coffee so hot as to burn, and thus merited special disapprobation.
As Overlawyered readers know, that just ain’t so. The recommended serving temperature of coffee can cause third-degree burns; coffee-drinkers prefer coffee that is that hot. Thus, lots of vendors sell coffee that causes third-degree burns when spilled.
Add to that list the Pilot Travel Center truck stop in Mount Sterling, which is the defendant in a Kentucky suit brought by Thomas Skaggs, who says he spilled coffee on his leg in December and got a third-degree burn. The skimpy press coverage on WLKY.com gives no further details other than an unimpressive photo.
Kenneth Mollins, attorney for peanut-suer Tehmina Haque
Walter’s post about Tehmina Haque‘s lawsuit against American Airlines over her “fear” of an unrealized peanut allergy is not the first time her attorney, Kenneth Mollins, has attempted such a tactic.