Brian Shean, Sr., 37, of Derry Township, Pennsylvania, was killed by a falling tree in February, as he, his father Terry, and a third man attempted to keep it from toppling. Shean family lawyer Jason Hines “said Monday that the lawsuit was only a means to ensure the future of the Sheans’ son, Brian Jr.” [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]
Archive for 2009
“Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of All Time”
A New York Daily News compilation; I don’t see any stories we’ve overlooked previously.
Quinnipiac manipulated rosters in pursuit of Title IX quotas
The Connecticut institution dropped men from its sports rosters, but apparently not in numbers great enough to keep it from being sued.
“The pet door is a really serious hazard”
How “safety” news gets shaped: a litigation consultant “at the request of trial lawyers … combed through hundreds of coroner’s reports and media accounts” and before long ABC had an alarming story to run. More: Check our comments, where readers have been digging up further interesting information about “PetAccessDangers.org”.
Wall Street Journal on banana-suit scandal
It’s in this morning’s paper; I call attention to a few highlights at Point of Law.
Not even in California
Even in California, you may not be able to sustain a class action lawsuit against a product that worked fine and didn’t harm you [Cal Biz Lit, Drug & Device Law]
LawLine.com blog of the week
LawLine.com (“Celebrating 10 Years of Online CLE”) has begun a new weekly series that “will recognize some of the most notable legal blogs on the web”, and is kind enough to begin it with this one. Christie LaBarca says she enjoys running across “unique” and even sometimes “outlandish” stories that other law blogs don’t pick up on. She quotes me on a couple of theories that might explain the blog’s longevity (as I’ve mentioned, it’s coming up on its tenth anniversary in just a month and a half).
Speaking of kind things people say about us, I don’t think there’s any way I’m going to live up to the headline on Brandon Martin’s generous column at Daily Uprising.
The case for tissue-box lawyers
For reasons that should be fairly obvious, there’s quite a bit I disagree with in Eric Turkewitz’s impassioned defense (in the context of selecting potential judicial nominees) of injury and criminal-defense lawyers. But I’m still glad I read it.
Consolation prize: script rights?
Noting that a litigant’s choice of counsel is to be given weight in such matters, a court in Stamford, Ct. has ruled against a husband’s request to disqualify the opposing attorney on the grounds that that attorney “simultaneously represents the defendant’s first and second wives”. [“Motion To Disqualify Lawyer Representing Both Wives Denied,” Connecticut Law Tribune, May 11 (pay section of site)(Voruganti v. Voruganti, Malone, J.)]
Security guard who slept on job loses lawsuit
Night-shift security guard Theodore Rongers had argued that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, his hospital employer “had a duty to reasonably accommodate the side effect of his heart medication by permitting him to sleep during his shift”. [Ohio Employer’s Law Blog; Rongers v. University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Ct. of Appeals, May 7 (PDF)] I discussed sleeping guards who were more successful in saving their jobs in my book The Excuse Factory (Google Books, limited search), published a decade ago and excerpted at the time in Washington Monthly (see also).