Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2015

Anti-drug-overdose compound could save lives…

…but counsel for the Maryland State Medical Society told a panel in Annapolis that doctors fear liability should they prescribe it. In recent years police and first responders have increasingly been trained in the use of the emergency drug Naloxone, which counteracts overdoses from heroin and opiates, and a proposed bill would allow physicians to prescribe the substance to users, family members, and others who might intervene in case of an overdose. [Rebecca Lessner, Maryland Reporter]

George Tolley, representing the Maryland Association of Justice, a trial lawyers group, asked that the immunity provision be taken out of the bill, over a concern that it would have “a domino effect” and could impact people administering other emergency drugs, such as for epilepsy and diabetes.

“If (doctors) exercise reasonable care, then they cannot be sued,” Tolley said.

Bill Sponsor Sen. Katherine Klausmeier, D-Baltimore County, responded “That’s the crux of this whole bill.”

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Schools roundup

  • Has it gotten too easy to breach the ordinary protections of academic freedom by charging that research is unethical? [Alice Dreger, Retraction Watch; The Guardian with more on complaints against University of Queensland economist over Brisbane, Australia bus study]
  • “Good reformist energy in NYC to decriminalize student misbehavior. Big, unreported obstacle? School security guards are all NYPD personnel.” [Chase Madar on Twitter]
  • “What is Obama’s big idea regarding day care? Well, to make it even more expensive” [Nick Gillespie citing Abby Schachter]
  • “Why no one, but no one, trusts a campus sexual assault proceeding.” [Judith Shulevitz; Volokh (16 Penn Law profs)] Remarkable story of student investigated because he reminded woman of man who had attacked her thousands of miles away [Janet Halley/Harvard Law Review, see text between footnotes 23 and 24 near end, but interesting throughout] Two views of new advocacy film The Hunting Ground [David Edelstein, New York; Lizzie Crocker, Daily Beast]
  • We never followed up at the time on what happened in the 2008 Billy Wolfe bullying story out of Fayetteville, Ark., but suffice it to say it’s not flattering to New York Times coverage [Eighth Circuit 2011 opinion; earlier here, here, and here]
  • Quaker schools in United Kingdom resist mandate that all schools teach “fundamental British values” [Guardian] Non-Oxbridge universities to be brought into line rather sharply on teach-against-terror agenda [Chris Bertram, Crooked Timber]
  • How does your pension compare? “Nearly 5,000 [New York] teachers cashing in on six-figure pensions” [New York Post]

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Abraham Lincoln, “bet the company” litigator

Friend of Overlawyered Margaret Little recently reviewed for the WSJ a new book about Abe Lincoln’s greatest law case: “While Judd, like many a flamboyant trial lawyer, opened with the big themes of crime and political influence, it was the technical case advanced by Lincoln that won the day. Mr. McGinty illustrates how central Lincoln’s understanding of river currents, bridge engineering and steamboat operation was to the success of the defense. … (Lincoln was the only president to hold a patent, for a boat-lifting device.)”

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“‘Violent sleepwalking’ defense clears father in son’s death”

Duel of the expert witnesses: “The ‘violent sleepwalking’ defense worked for a man who strangled his 4-year-old and tried to kill his other two children. A jury decided unanimously that Joseph Anthony Mitchell is not guilty of murder and attempted murder after an expert witness said he was effectively unconscious at the time of his attacks four years ago.” [AP/Fayetteville, N.C. Observer]

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Scottish man jailed for 4 months for singing sectarian song

For singing a song? “Scott Lamont, from Glasgow, was heard singing the words of the Billy Boys song on Cathcart Road on 1 February. The 24-year-old admitted the charge at Glasgow Sheriff Court.” Via Spiked Online, which has more on Scotland’s legislation against sectarian football songs. More on Scotland’s recent policing of offensive tweets and other online speech here.

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“Roanoke County police launch ‘No Refusal’ sobriety checkpoints”

“During this weekend’s St. Patrick’s Day festivities, motorists in Roanoke County who are suspected of driving while impaired and refuse breath tests could be ordered to submit to blood tests. … According to state law, anyone who operates a motor vehicle on a road has consented to have samples of blood, breath or both taken for a test to determined the level of alcohol or drugs in his blood.” [Roanoke Times; earlier on “no refusal” blood tests for drivers here, here, here, etc.]

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A minimum wage non-paradox

Obama wage-hour chief David Weil told the Wall Street Journal that leaders of the National Retail Federation approached him urging a hike in the federal minimum wage. Apparently readers are meant to infer that this policy is so obviously fair, or overdue, or beneficial to the national economy, that even big business leaders who will be paying the higher wages favor it. The anecdote is not even the tiniest bit paradoxical, however, once you realize that major national retail operators already tend to pay over the minimum and wouldn’t mind kneecapping their smaller, less-established, or lower-margin competitors who don’t [WSJ and blog, Donald Boudreaux, Tim Worstall]

Meanwhile: “More Seattle restaurants close doors as $15 minimum wage approaches” If only anyone could have predicted! [Shift WA via J.A. Cohen] But note this Seattle Times piece in which the owners of the four closing restaurants say the wage hike wasn’t the reason.

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Washington, D.C.: “Court orders man to stop smoking in his own home”

Lawyers Brendan and Nessa Coppinger moved into their row house in Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill neighborhood last September. They have now gotten a judge to agree to a temporary restraining order prohibiting their neighbor, Edwin Gray, from smoking or allowing anyone to smoke on his property. The Coppingers say the smoke is getting onto their premises through openings between the connected structures and “is harming them and their children”; they also want cash damages. The Gray family has owned the house next door for 50 years. [AP/ABC13 via ABA Journal; Washington Post]

Benjamin Freed at Washingtonian was kind enough to quote me at length making several points about this and similar litigation: 1) it would have been thrown out over most of the course of legal history because courts insisted that nuisance and similar claims (in this case couched as “negligence, nuisance, and trespassing”) exceed a de minimis standard and, in a claim for damages, required proof of actual harm going well beyond “you hit me with a molecule and that could kill me”; 2) smoking is uniquely disapproved nowadays which means some courts are willing to entertain de minimis claims that they would not for other common neighborhood nuisances; 3) if carcinogenic smoke drifting across property lines is to be stopped, both backyard grills and barbecues and common fireplaces are in trouble, at least if courts behaved logically — a very big if, of course. (It should be noted that the lawsuit includes some claims — such as that an unrepaired chimney at the Grays’ is contributing to the smoke problem — that might fit more readily into traditional legal categories.)

The temporary court order, incidentally, also bars the Gray family from allowing any smoking of now-legal marijuana in their house, which prompts this additional thought:

“It does make you wonder why conservative opponents of marijuana would bother to fight legalization in DC when instead they can let it go through and get rich suing over it,” Olson says.

Whole thing here.

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