Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2008

Archives; welcome Google News readers; tags

I’ve now succeeded in transferring the site’s pre-2003 archives to the new WordPress platform, which means they’ll be indexed along with more recent posts; no more having to do separate searches in each of two indexes. Moreover, I’ve gotten the old URLs of those archives to redirect seamlessly to the new. Coming up soon: getting the old URLs of the MT-based 2003-2008 archives to redirect to the new, as much as possible.

One unexpected result of the archive changeover: Google News interpreted the arrival of the archived files on WordPress as if they’d been newly published, which has (temporarily) much expanded our presence on that site. Fortunately, the archives are prominently marked as such, which should keep readers from mistaking them for recent reportage.

Also, Ted and I have been busy “tagging” a selection of recent and older posts. Tags display on the post itself, and those most used appear in a “tag cloud” toward the bottom of the rightmost column. Bear in mind that we’ve only made a small start toward tagging past posts, so if you follow the “California” tag, for instance, it will lead you to only seven California-related posts as of the moment.

Finally, the little gavel favicon in the navigation bar is back.

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May 19 roundup

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“Newark must pay $4.1 million for missteps in student’s death”

New Jersey: “An Essex County jury has ordered Newark to pay $4.1 million to the family of a murdered Seton Hall University student because of mistakes made by a police dispatcher and 911 operator during her abduction. The jury’s verdict came after the attorney for Sohayla Massachi’s family argued that prompt action by the Newark police may have prevented her murder after she was abducted by a jilted boyfriend in May 2000.” The jury attributed 25 percent of its $5.5 million award to Seton Hall and its security agency, Argenbright Security Inc., but those defendants had already settled. (William Kleinknecht, Newark Star-Ledger, May 16).

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Shoemaker’s lawyers respond to Seidel

Attorney Clifford Shoemaker has now filed a memorandum in support of his harassing subpoena of blogger Kathleen Seidel. The memorandum, signed by attorneys John F. McHugh and Brian T. Stern, is every bit as absurd and internally-self-refuting as one might have dared hope. Seidel skillfully marks it up with links on key phrases, some providing substantive background on the controversy, other ironically commenting on the apparent belief of Shoemaker & Co. that a court will agree to construe as “a series of intentional torts” a blogger’s investigative journalism based on publicly available sources. Earlier posts here. More: Orac.

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“Parents to Sue Maker of Metal Baseball Bats Over Son’s Injury”

“A New Jersey couple, whose son was struck in the chest with a line drive, is planning to sue the maker of a metal baseball bat used in the game.” The family of Steven Domalewski “contends metal baseball bats are inherently unsafe for youth games because the ball comes off them much faster than from wooden bats. The lawsuit will also be filed against Little League Baseball and a sporting goods chain that sold the bat.” (AP/FoxNews.com, May 18). Earlier: Apr. 19 and Dec. 30, 2002.

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Medical liability case selection

“Here’s one of their secrets: They’re not looking merely for cases of physician error; they’re also looking for unsympathetic defendants — for physicians who seem unfeeling.” (Shirley Grace, “The Law: Trial Lawyers Tell All”, Physician’s Practice, Apr. 1 (via KevinMD).

More: Coincidentally, the Times covers the “medical apology” movement this morning: Kevin Sack, “Doctors Say ‘I’m Sorry’ Before ‘See You in Court'”, New York Times, May 18.

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“Why Doctors Are Heading for Texas”

Tort reform, of course, resulting in substantially lower medical malpractice premiums and expenses, and an influx of 7000 doctors, including into many underserved regions. One indirect benefit: with less money spent on medical malpractice lawyers, self-insuring hospitals can spend more on doctors and on medical practice:

Take Christus Health, a nonprofit Catholic health system across the state. Thanks to tort reform, over the past four years Christus saved $100 million that it otherwise would have spent fending off bogus lawsuits or paying higher insurance premiums. Every dollar saved was reinvested in helping poor patients.

Also of relevance: the amusing results when Texas added evidentiary standards of medical harm to their asbestos and silicosis docket. Suddenly, over 99% of the cases went away because so few suing plaintiffs had a doctor willing to certify harm. (Joseph Nixon, WSJ, May 17). Related: POL Nov. 6, 2006 and POL Nov. 7, 2006, where I debate Texas law professor Charles Silver on these issues. Suffice it to say that the last year and a half has provided more support for my position than his.

Update: more data at Texas Medical Association website.

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