The golf accident in Hillsborough County, Florida resulted in a $1 million payout. Several legal bloggers discussed the case on Twitter and Nicole Black picked us up on her compilation site, LegalTweets (which is worth checking out generally).
Archive for January, 2009
Schrenker’s fender-bender splendor
After your low-speed accident outside New York City’s Port Authority, you suspect there’s something a tad suspicious about the resulting $15 million neck-and-back-injury claim against you by the occupant of the limo you hit, a man named Marcus Schrenker. And then one day he turns up on all the front pages…
Inaugural as federal “emergency”
The declaring of a federal “emergency” because of the long-anticipated event, writes Mark Steyn, is “almost too perfect an emblem of American government today”.
Law firm website disclaimer
Shoplifter steals shark
The Long Island man smuggled it out of a pet store under his jacket and used credit card fraud for another aquarium acquisition, notes Lowering the Bar. When the next fish you steal/Is a dangerous eel/That’s a moray….
CSPI: “Vitamin Water” not good for you
Mike Cernovich thinks the plaintiff suing over the sugar-laden beverage might have spared himself a lot of trouble by, you know, reading the label.
Coach’s wife: hubby’s litigation ruined our sex life
“Loss of consortium” claims are familiar when the underlying claim of injury is physical in nature. But for defamation and other verbal entanglements? The wife of Ole Miss basketball coach Andy Kennedy is advancing those claims in a suit against a Cincinnati taxi driver who charged Kennedy with assault, and a valet driver who backed up his claims. [Deadspin, NMC @ Folo]
CPSIA, continued
On Friday there was a noteworthy development on CPSIA: Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) sent a letter to Nancy Nord, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, endorsing some softenings in the law’s regulatory interpretation, which seems to represent a modest shift (if not an admitted one) from their earlier position. At the same time, Waxman, Rush et al held the line against any demand to revise the law itself, despite the outcry being heard from small producers, retailers and secondhand sellers across the country (more: my recent Forbes piece, some reactions).
On the same day they sponsored a closed-door briefing for Hill staffers which was billed as correcting supposed misreporting and confusion about the law and its onerousness. Such briefings are common when members’ offices are being hit by a torrent of constituent inquiries and want to know how to respond.
An editor at a large publication has asked me to write something about these new developments, so I’ll be working on that piece over the next day or two. In the mean time, let me recommend as a good place to start two excellent blog posts by Rick Woldenberg of Learning Resources Inc. (first, second).
The first post responds to the apparent new strategy of Waxman and Co. of proposing to exempt a couple of categories of generally safe products (ordinary children’s books, fabric-only garments with no plastic or metal fasteners) in the apparent hope that 1) Congress will look like it’s reasonable and “trying to do something”; 2) a few of the more visible (and politically salient) critics of CPSIA will be placated, at least for the moment. (One might add a third objective, whether consciously formulated or not: running the clock until Feb. 10 in the expectation that many of those protesting will at that point be out of the game — no longer in the kids’ product business — and so in less of a position to cause them political mischief.)
Read On…
“Just to be sure”
White Coat begins taking notes on how many times he practices defensive medicine in the course of a day in his emergency room, and concludes that, no, the whole phenomenon isn’t just a figment of his imagination the way so many lawyers say it is. More: Max Kennerly takes an opposing view, and White Coat returns for a followup post.
Update: Armettia Peach leaky-roof suit
Readers may remember the extensive litigation in and around Granite City, Illinois, involving the frequently aggrieved Peach family. Now Armettia Peach has settled with the last defendant, Kevin Link, in the suit described here, here, and here. (Madison County Record).
Unrelatedly, the Lakin Law Firm, which has represented the Peach family in numerous cases, has changed its name to LakinChapman LLC.