And now Grant Faber of Hillsboro, Ore., is in a fair bit of trouble. [Oregon Live via Obscure Store, Legal Blog Watch]
Archive for May, 2009
Medical negligence in the military
Litigation’s not the only way to respond to the issue of compensation, as I argue this morning at Point of Law.
New CPSIA “primer” site
New resource recently launched by the crafter/activist who did business as Whimsical Walney, with help from the one who does business at Organic Baby Farm: WhatIsTheCPSIA.com, a site for everyone trying to get up to speed on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and the reasons it needs reform. Among the many common questions it seeks to answer (with new material being added steadily): “I thought CPSIA is a toy law, why do you have to test clothes?”, “Why does CPSIA affect home crafters?”, “Can’t CPSC make exemptions to CPSIA for certain products?”, “Why does CPSIA affect schools?”. Worth checking out. (Corrected to add proper credit to Whimsical Walney; more.)
Swine farms and fishing expeditions
Texas lawyers are seeking discovery against hog-raising giant Smithfield Foods to determine whether a swine operation it partly owns in Mexico might have contributed to the death of a Harlingen woman in the H1N1 flu outbreak. “Mexican health officials have found no connection between the swine flu virus and the pig farm. Nevertheless, residents there have long blamed the farming operation for a variety of illnesses, UPI reported.” The lawsuit might seek $1 billion. [Brownsville Herald, May 12]
“UK chiropractors try to silence critic with libel claim”
“The British Chiropractic Association is using the libel laws to try and silence Simon Singh’s discussion of some of the more, uh, unusual claims they make for Chiropractic treatments (such as curing Colic and Asthma).” [Boing Boing, Orac first and second posts, Jack of Kent] And Dave Gorman writes really carefully about the case.
Lawyer ads: Esquire’s best-of-the-worst
The magazine picks five TV ad campaigns that are unlikely to get their attorney-perpetrators on anyone’s list as Supreme Court material.
Welcome Orlando Sentinel readers
I’m quoted in Sandra Pedicini’s report on the settlement (with $9 appetizer vouchers) of a lawsuit charging the Olive Garden restaurant chain with “printing the last six digits of customers’ credit-card numbers on receipts. The limit under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act is five.” Under FACTA, lawyers need not show that class members suffered actual damages from the violation; instead, they can claim statutorily prescribed damages, multiplied by the (usually large) number of customers involved. In most such cases, there are no reports of any identity theft because of the breaches: “It’s like reckless driving in which no one had an accident and except for the lawyers, no one even noticed the car speeding,” I’m quoted as saying. [“Olive Garden diners may be eligible for $9 voucher”, May 19]
For CPSIA reform, unexpected bedfellows
It’s often been observed that the movement to reform CPSIA brings together people with remarkably diverse cultural, political, and social backgrounds, in a coalition that includes small-town woodcrafters and urban libertarians, homeschooling moms and regulatory economists, back-to-the-land localists and NPR-fan library administrators, and so forth. In her much-awaited article for the June Reason, now online, Katherine Mangu-Ward profiles people in groups like the Handmade Toy Alliance, Etsy, and the craft-fair world, few of whom ever expected to find themselves in a pitched battle against the regulatory state. Further discussion: Reason “Hit and Run“.
“Million Dollar Advocates Forum”
Prestigious honorific? Marketing gimmick? Eric Turkewitz does some digging, and also passes along this tangential but memorable anecdote:
My father likes to tell the story of the first lawyer to lose a million dollar malpractice case in New York. Rather than hurting his reputation, he became the million dollar go-to lawyer for the big cases.
Allegation: “‘General counsel’ to biker gang”
Not necessarily a line you want on your resume as a lawyer, especially if you practice with the respectable Detroit firm of Miller Canfield.