- New York State Sen. Jim Alesi drops much-criticized suit against constituent couple in whose house he was injured while trespassing [WHEC, Techdirt]
- “Distracted moving”: campaign heats up for laws prohibiting pedestrians from texting [Alkon, Greenfield, Popehat]
- “Good News: Tort Costs Eased in 2009. Bad News: They Still Totaled $248 Billion.” [CJAC, Insurance Journal, Towers Perrin report (PDF)]
- As Wisconsin moves to limit tort suits, lawyers race to file cases before deadline [Journal-Sentinel, NAM, NJLRA]
- Settling scientific and scholarly quarrels in France by way of defamation actions? Criminal libel complaints? [Ron Bailey] Update on Joseph Weiler criminal libel case [Heller, Opinio Juris, earlier here, etc.]
- NPR interview with Seth Mnookin on vaccine book [via TortsProf, earlier; plus, New York Observer]
- “HP Tries a Coupon Settlement” [PoL]
- “Strange but true” role of former Republican Senator Fred Thompson lobbying for Tennessee trial lawyers will not particularly surprise Overlawyered readers [WSJ Law Blog; background here, here, etc.]
Archive for January, 2011
Slipping in the grocery aisle, accidentally on purpose
CBS News takes a look at some instances in which in-store cameras captured footage of, e.g., victims carefully positioning the spills on which they intended to slip. More: Legal Blog Watch.
Trade protectionism, the UPL way
Connecticut state representative Patricia Dillon, seeking to protect the job market for U.S. lawyers’ services, has introduced a bill that would ban as “unauthorized practice of law” various types of outsourced legal work (such as document review, which some law firms now farm out to workers in India). Some don’t think the idea will fly: Westport-based law firm consultant Peter Giuliani “said the doc review-type tasks being done overseas is more like paralegal work. ‘You don’t need a license anywhere in the U.S. to do what they’re doing,’ he said.” [Connecticut Law Tribune via ABA Journal]
Speaking tour on Schools for Misrule
I’m beginning to set up the speaking tour on my forthcoming book (background) and from the invitations already on hand it looks as if over the next few months I’ll be visiting New York, Texas, the Midwest, northern California and the Rocky Mountain states, often speaking to Federalist Society chapters. Why not invite me to your area, or check about adding your venue to an already planned swing? Diane Morris at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. is taking the lead in handling arrangements; you can reach her at 789-5226, area code 202, or at dmorris – at – cato – dot – org.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit just contributed this great blurb for Schools for Misrule:
Every year I hire as law clerks some of the best and
brightest law students in the country, and spend a year
wringing out of them all the wrong-headed ideas their law
professors taught them. Now I know why.
To see what newsman John Stossel, author Philip K. Howard and Georgetown lawprof Randy Barnett said about the book, check out the jacket (PDF).
Rep. Dennis Kucinich sues House cafeteria over olive pit in sandwich
He bit into a sandwich wrap in 2008 and encountered an olive pit, and now he wants $150,000. [Cleveland Plain Dealer, Wonkette, Memeorandum]
P.S. Gawker finds video taken five days later on the House floor in which the Ohio representative “looks fine and talks normal” notwithstanding the “serious and permanent dental and oral injuries requiring multiple oral and dental surgeries.” And Daniel Fisher at Forbes:
No indication why Kucinich mulled this lawsuit for three years before filing it…..* The lawsuit alleges negligence and breach of implied warranty.
*Commenter “Mattie” says the SOL in DC for this type of suit is indeed three years, though it would be one year for some other torts.
Who besides the People’s Congressman would be willing to name America’s olive pit safety crisis and call out the Big Pit interests responsible?
P.P.S.: As someone was asking, wasn’t generous government-furnished health insurance — like the kind available to Members of Congress — supposed to cut down on the need for personal injury suits? And Matthew Heller at OnPoint News finds some precedent for the suit.
And further: That was fast, Kucinich says he’s settled the suit (Jan. 28).
Undoing a tax paperwork mistake
Chris Edwards, Cato: The President in his speech last night “supported repealing an idiotic IRS requirement in the 2010 health care law that mandated hundreds of millions of additional 1099 tax forms. … Now it’s the GOP’s job to get him legislation to repeal this provision tomorrow.”
January 26 roundup
- Cato Institute scholars liveblog reaction to State of the Union speech and GOP response, plus video on Facebook with Gene Healy and Julian Sanchez, more video;
- Private store owners get beaten up for lack of ADA ramps. On the other hand, when the federal government is building courthouses… [Sun-Sentinel; earlier here and here]
- “Securities suits filed in 2010 again a record” [Business Insurance]
- Do mass tort “claims facilities” enable participants to bypass the strictures of legal ethics? [Monroe Freedman, Legal Ethics Forum]
- Latest workplace-retaliation ruling once more undermines “pro-business Supreme Court” narrative [Bader, Examiner, more]
- Jacob Sullum reviews Daniel Okrent book on Prohibition [Reason]
- Another “lawyers excited about coming wave of bet-the-company climate change suits” article [AFP]
- Dickie Scruggs: “It was never about the money for me, this litigation” [four years ago on Overlawyered]
“Dog dressed as Che Guevara” image
It draws a lawsuit in France from the holder of the rights to the notorious killer’s famous 1960 photo. [The Sun, U.K.]
Litigation Lobby: president’s med-mal SOTU remarks “disgusting”
David Ingram, National Law Journal:
The New York-based Center for Justice and Democracy, which describes its mission as “protecting our civil justice system,” released a statement calling Obama’s remarks “disgusting” because many proposed changes would affect cases with merit. “The Republican proposals would weaken the legal rights of sick and injured patients and lessen the accountability of incompetent doctors and unsafe hospitals,” the statement said.
I haven’t seen a direct link to the “disgusting” statement yet, only the NLJ/Legal Times coverage, so I’ll try not to jump to conclusions. (Update: link here, h/t gitarcarver). But I’ve wondered before whether the tone taken by the misnamed Center for Justice and Democracy is so harshly abrasive and shrill that it actually alienates the sorts of centrists and moderate liberals that its trial-lawyer constituency should be trying to win over. Earlier on CJD here, here, here, here, etc.
Court tosses Alan Grayson calling-card suit
Washington, D.C.: “The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled Friday that two plaintiffs who hoped to bring claims under the Consumer Protection Procedures Act did not have reason to do so. One of those plaintiffs was former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, who called himself a ‘whistleblower’ when he sued AT&T over unused balances on calling cards.” [John O’Brien, Legal NewsLine via David Freddoso, Examiner]