Ultralitigious inmate Jonathan Lee Riches has filed a motion attempting to insert himself into the Bernard Madoff legal quagmire, but a federal court has rebuffed his efforts. That may make Riches the only person in the country not to have a legitimate legal grievance against Madoff [NYT DealBook via Christopher Fountain]
Archive for February, 2009
Co-worker’s perfume disabled her
You might think Doris Sexton’s main problem is the chronic lung condition she’s got from smoking a pack a day for 43 years. The smell of the co-worker’s perfume, however, she argues, exacerbated that ailment. A New Jersey court has allowed her workers’ compensation lawsuit to go forward. [Insurance Journal] For ADA lawsuits involving perfume, follow links from here.
The American Gallery of Juror Art
The tedium of legal process can provide the occasion (and sometimes also the inspiration) for creative efforts that transcend the doodle form. (Techotic, gallery at Anne Reed’s Deliberations).
Kenneth Ross on CPSIA stay
The attorney (Bowman & Brooke, Products Liability Prof Blog) has written a three-page summary memo (PDF) on the CPSC enforcement stay announced Friday. Earlier in the week, he notes, the National Association of Manufacturers had petitioned (PDF) for a stay; more on that here.
Some blog reactions to the stay: What Do I Sell, Domestic Diva with many links, Common Room. And a couple of comments from Twitter: the stay “bought time to get reform” (@PersonallyYours); it “looks like our fight has changed from a sprint to a marathon” (@bitofwhimsy).
More reactions: Handmade Toy Alliance/Little Ida, CPSIA blog 600ppm. And in the Washington Post, a longtime trial lawyer ally says the stay “does not seem consistent with the intent of the law.” Well, as they say, duh.
(Public domain image: Grandma’s Graphics, Ruth Mary Hallock).
Warning: “milk bottle contains, er, milk”
The warning on a bottle from Asda, a large U.K. grocery chain, is “indicative of a policy by supermarkets and food manufacturers to liberally stamp warnings on products to avoid legal complications.” [Daily Mail]
Update: Insurance law Hall of Fame
“An insurance company with a potential $25 million liability from a fatal 2007 Houston office fire announced [Jan. 21] that it will drop its legal argument” that it shouldn’t have to pay for smoke inhalation deaths because they supposedly resulted from “pollution”, a risk excluded under the policy, as opposed to the actual flames. [Houston Chronicle; earlier].
Podcasts on CPSIA: CraftSanity, “America’s Business”
I was a guest this week on the 93rd podcast in Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood’s CraftSanity series, talking about the Consumer Product Improvement Safety Act. As readers know, the CPSC issued a one-year stay of enforcement of some of the law’s provisions on Friday; the interview was recorded two days before that, on Wednesday, so inevitably some of the issues we discuss are of less immediate urgency now (though kicking them down the road is not the same thing as solving them).
Also recorded on Wednesday, I did a (shorter) prerecorded interview on CPSIA as a guest on the National Association of Manufacturers’ weekly audio show “America’s Business”, hosted by Mike Hambrick. Same caveats apply.
February 1 roundup
- A “retired Reserve captain is threatening to sue her local California school board if the board’s members do not address her by her military title” [Navy Times, Popehat]
- Members revolt at Florida bar’s selling their email addresses to marketers; general counsel of bar suggests they maintain multiple email addresses [Daily Business Review]
- “Panel Upholds $17M Attorney Fee Award, Cites Bad-Faith Patent Litigation by Drug Companies” [NLJ; fees awarded to Takeda Chemical Industries against Mylan Laboratories and Alphapharm Pty. Ltd.]
- Much of what you think you know about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is wrong [Stuart Taylor, Jr./National Journal; Point of Law, more]
- Not only prejudicial, but a whiskery urban legend to boot: fictional “Winnebago tale” (man thinks cruise control function will drive RV for him, sues after crash) makes its way into an Australian lawyer’s courtroom argument [Rees v. Bailey Aluminium Products]
- Posner was scathing about the class action lawyers’ conflicts of interest in the Mirfasihi v. Fleet Mortgage Co. case, but Max Kennerly thinks the judge got the case wrong [Litigation and Trial, earlier]
- Fight erupts over fee split in Blue Cross eating-disorder class action settlement [NJLJ, earlier]
- “Many attorneys from both parties also marvel at the sheer number of lawyers Obama has picked so far” in staffing White House [Washington Post]