Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2013

Great moments in public employee tenure

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, an Illinois prison official “with a lengthy criminal history” has returned to the state payroll despite a record of “lewd and inappropriate emails” on the taxpayers’ dime and falsifying an earlier job application [Chicago Sun-Times]:

…Still, Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration struck a settlement with McCraven and his union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees….

In June, [after withdrawing a lawsuit] he then dropped a union grievance and accepted a 10-day suspension, got six months of back pay and was transferred to the job he now holds as senior adviser to the chief of parole with the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Asked to explain why McCraven was allowed to stay on the state payroll, the Quinn administration cited the potential financial costs of losing a grievance case. …

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday that McCraven is working for the state prison system despite being arrested “at least” 24 times on charges including arson, illegal gun possession, attempted robbery, drug possession and aggravated assault.

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Video slots as next-tobacco?

We haven’t reported on the doings of Prof. Richard Daynard for a while, but here’s this Oregonian item about his institute at Northeastern University:

Mark Gottlieb, executive director of the Boston-based Public Health Advocacy Institute, said a handful of groups are looking at the potential for a broad product liability lawsuit over the addictive nature of the machines. …

“There are some similarities [with tobacco],” Gottlieb says. “We are talking about a product that is engineered to make people do something that is basically destructive and causes an economic injury.”

Portland attorney Greg Kafoury says he is part of “a team of national lawyers” looking at a potential class-action suit. He wouldn’t go into detail but called it “a major, long-term project.”

There is nothing new, however, about lawyers’ yearning to crack open this particular well-guarded vault. See our reports from May and September 2002, for example. Hope springs eternal?

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Secondhand smoke: study unable to find lung cancer link

Considering that whole edifices of regulation are built on the premise of the lethal nature of “passive” smoking, you’d think the press might pay at least passing attention to reports like this one: a big study of more than 76,000 women found no link between lung cancer and secondhand smoke, which tends to confirm earlier studies also consistent with zero or undetectable association. [Journal of the National Cancer Institute; Christopher Snowdon] More: Jacob Sullum (“Now they tell us.”)

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Med-mal meets Culture War: ACLU sues bishops over abortion policy

“The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal action against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, alleging that its ethical guidelines given to Catholic hospitals resulted in negligent care for a miscarrying woman.” The suit, in the name of a Muskegon, Mich. woman who allegedly experienced pain and suffering by not being advised at once to abort a doomed fetus, also names as defendants three individuals who have chaired a church-affiliated body by the name of Catholic Health Ministries. The suit does not however name as a defendant Mercy Health Partners, where plaintiff Tamesha Means was treated, nor does either the Bishops’ Conference nor CHM own Mercy. So what’s the legal theory? Well, the bishops issued ethical guidelines they expected Catholic-affiliated hospitals to follow, and CHM acted as Mercy’s “Catholic sponsor” vouching for its compliance with those guidelines. So maybe the theory consists of “incitement to commit malpractice.” Is it rude to point out that the law recognizes no tort of that sort? [ABA Journal, MLive, Alex Stein/Bill of Health (background on Michigan med-mal law)] See also: Seth Lipsky, N.Y. Post (“astounding” suit menaces defendants for hewing to their view of spiritual truths).

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Surveillance roundup

  • “That Thing They Said They’re Not Doing? They’re Totally Doing.” [Daily Show with Jon Stewart] “Exactly What the State Says to Deceive You About Surveillance” [Conor Friedersdorf]
  • “Warrantless Cellphone ‘Tower Dumps’ Becoming Go-To Tool For Law Enforcement” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt; Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post; David Kravets, Wired; USA Today (local law enforcement using, not just federal)]
  • Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, AOL, LinkedIn, but telecoms absent: “U.S. Tech Industry Calls for Surveillance Reform” [Corporate Counsel, EFF, Marvin Ammori/USA Today]
  • New Federalist Society symposium on NSA/FISA surveillance and bulk data collection includes names like Randy Barnett, Jim Harper, Jeremy Rabkin, Stewart Baker, Grover Joseph Rees [Engage, Randy Barnett]
  • Nowadays “law enforcement can feel free to admit their traffic stops are pretextual” Thanks, Drug War! [Popehat] “Sobriety Checkpoints Paved Path to NSA Email Spying” [Wired]
  • FATCA, the intrusive overseas tax enforcement law, isn’t couched in public controversy as a federal data-snooping issue, but it should be [Radley Balko, McClatchy]

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Remembering “elf”-‘n’-safety at holiday time

Organizers at a church in Neath, Wales don’t mind rules requiring the donkey-riding Mary in a childrens’ Nativity play to be wearing a crash helmet, or as the case may be “riding hat.” They say the eight-year-old’s costuming can readily be arranged to conceal the anachronistic headgear during the Christmas procession. No word on whether, as at petting zoos, participants coming in contact with the animal will need to apply hand sanitizer before proceeding. Critics term the rule “‘elf – ‘n’ – safety.” [BBC, Telegraph]

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Politics roundup

  • “Who’s Afraid of Political Speech?” (spoiler: incumbents) [Roger Pilon, Cato] “None of this was perceived as a major problem so long as the 501(c)(4) category was dominated by the political left” [Brad Smith, WSJ]
  • Texas trial lawyers not all of one mind over extent of political involvements [Texas Tribune, Southeast Texas Record]
  • Sen. Mark Pryor, a key architect of the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad CPSIA law, faces tough re-election race in Arkansas [Politico]
  • RNC asked to take stand for Americans overseas hurt by FATCA tax law [McClatchy]
  • Richard Epstein recalls Chris Christie’s unlovely tactics as a prosecutor [Ira Stoll, Future of Capitalism]
  • That time Texas politico Wendy Davis sued the Fort Worth paper over its coverage of her campaign [Andrew Stiles, NRO]
  • “Low political knowledge levels mainly due to lack of demand for info, not lack of supply” [Ilya Somin, Jack Shafer]
  • SEC backs off plan to expose companies to harassment over outlays to politically oriented nonprofits, and NYT (thinking only of shareholders’ welfare of course) is sad about that [Marc Hodak, David Silvers/CEI, NYT] Sen. Warren seems to enjoy new capacity to use position, Durbin-like, to punish political foes [David Henderson]

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