| ARCHIVE -- AUGUST 2000 (III) |
August 31 -- Update:
Alabama campaign-tactics case. A judge has sentenced
prominent Alabama trial lawyer Garve Ivey to 30 days in jail after a jury
convicted him on misdemeanor charges arising out of a smear campaign against
the state’s Lieutenant Governor, Steve Windom (see Sept.
1 and Aug. 26, 1999). Shortly
before the 1998 election, with Windom
running a hard-fought race against a trial lawyer-backed opponent, a former
prostitute and heroin addict named Melissa Myers Bush stepped forward with
a lawsuit dramatically charging that Windom had raped and beat her seven
years earlier when she worked for an escort service. Ivey, who was
serving at the time as an official of the state trial lawyers association,
paid to have 300 copies made of a videotape of Bush describing her charges,
"which were distributed to news outlets across the state”. But as
questions arose, Bush soon recanted and said she'd been paid to tell her
story and that it was false. According to later testimony at
trial, Bush accepted $2,700 from Birmingham businessman Scott Nordness,
money that was later reimbursed by Ivey. Nordness was granted immunity
by prosecutors seeking his testimony and charges were filed against Ivey
and a private investigator who'd worked with him, Wes Chappell.
On June 22 a Mobile County jury acquitted Chappell of the charges and
rendered a split decision in Ivey's case, acquitting him on the felony
count of bribing Bush to give false testimony while convicting him on two
misdemeanor counts of witness tampering and criminal defamation.
According to AP, the witness tampering charge arose from Ivey’s having
gotten Nordness to sign a sworn statement after Bush's lawsuit which, in
prosecutors' view, seemed to suggest that no money had changed hands in
the case. Windom says he feels vindicated after two years and expects
an apology from the state trial lawyers’ group, which he says tried to
dodge the appearance of involvement in the smear efforts when trial testimony
indicated the contrary. “The evidence clearly showed that there was
a great deal of involvement at every stage. They need to come clean with
the public and with their own members," he said. (The AP coverage
does not include a response from the trial lawyers' group.) Ivey’s
lawyers plan an appeal; still pending as well are civil suits that Ivey
and Windom have filed against each other over the affair. Update:
in July 2001 the Alabama Supreme Court reversed these convictions and ordered
Ivey acquitted of the charges (see July 7,
2001).
SOURCES: “Ivey sentenced to 30 days in jail on witness
tampering”, AP, August 9, not online, available on NEXIS; Garry Mitchell,
“Chappell cleared, Ivey found guilty in Windom trial”, AP/Decatur Daily,
June
23; Garry Mitchell, “Windom wants apology from trial lawyers”, AP state
and regional wire, June 23, not online, available on NEXIS; Gary McElroy,
"Former call girl testifies", Mobile Register, June
16; "Chuck's Page"
(page by Chuck Harrison, a witness called in the case; scroll down halfway
to "Just Desserts").
August 31 -- "Diva
awarded $11M for broken dream". Last week a Little Rock,
Ark. jury awarded aspiring opera singer Kristin Maddox, now 23, $11 million
"for injuries she suffered when an American Airlines jet
went off a runway last year while landing in a thunderstorm". Maddox
was studying opera in hopes of becoming a star but says damage to her voice
box and hands in the crash ruined her professional chances. Her lawyer,
"Bob Bodoin, told jurors that no amount of money would make up for her
pain and the loss of a career that could have rivaled opera stars Beverly
Sills or Luciano Pavarotti's". However, a university voice teacher
who evaluated one of Maddox's pre-crash performances on video said she
had a voice that, while "lovely", was also too light to fill an auditorium
in the Sills or Pavarotti manner. (AP/Philadelphia Daily News,
Aug.
25; discussion
on Professional Pilots Rumour Network boards).
August 31 -- "Breaking
the Litigation Habit". The business-oriented Committee
for Economic Development released a report in April which "calls our litigation
system 'too intrusive, too slow, and too expensive.' The current
system does not adequately or fairly compensate people for injuries; it
imposes costs that threaten to impair economic innovation; and it undermines
the trust and civility among our citizens that are essential to a well-functioning,
democratic society." The report goes on to endorse "Early Offers"
and "Auto Choice" reforms, both aimed at providing rapid compensation for
injuries without litigation (introductory
page links to executive
summary and full report
in PDF format).
August 29-30 --
Back-to-school roundup: granola bars out, Ritalin in. The
Fallingbrook Community Elementary School, in an Ottawa
suburb, has "banned all snacks except fruits and vegetables in an attempt
to protect children with allergies". Children in K-4
"have been asked not to bring cheese and crackers, dips, yogurt, candy
bars or homemade muffins for snacks" for fear of triggering reactions in
other kids with peanut, dairy, egg or other allergies. Fallingbrook
parent Theresa Holowach would like to send cereal bars or homemade muffins
with her eight-year-old son and kindergartner-to-be daughter but was willing
to settle for rice cakes, cheese and crackers; her requests, however, "were
refused on the grounds that the school would be legally liable if actions
were not taken to limit the risks for children with serious allergies.
'To me the school is going to have serious liabilities if my child chokes
on a carrot because you've forced me to give her raw fruit and vegetables,'
said Ms. Holowach". (Gina Gillespie, "School bans all snacks except fruit,
vegetables", Ottawa Citizen/National Post,
Aug.
26).
Meanwhile, both the New York Law Journal and USA Today
say there are other cases, besides the recently reported one near Albany,
N.Y. (see July 26), in which schools
are resorting to legal action to compel unwilling parents to dose their
children with Ritalin, the controversial psychiatric drug. (John
Caher, "New York Ritalin Case Puts Parents, Courts on Collision Course",New
York Law Journal, Aug.
18; Karen Thomas, "Parents pressured to put kids on Ritalin", USA
Today,
Aug.
8). The Christian Science Monitor also reports on a different
kind of legal pitfall that may await the non-medicating parent: in 1995
the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a $170,000 jury verdict against parents
whose fourth-grade special-ed student attacked his teacher after they took
him off medication that had reduced his aggressive behavior. (Katherine
Biele, "When students get hostile, teachers go to court", Christian
Science Monitor, Aug.
22). However, the Wisconsin court stressed in that case that
it was not imposing on parents a duty to keep the child on medication,
but rather a lesser duty to warn the school if they decided to discontinue
the drug (summary
on Spedlaw.com website of Nieuwendorp v American Family Ins Co.,
22 IDELR 551 (1995)).
The Monitor reports that educators are taking kids themselves
to court over an ever-wider range of misconduct, especially defamation
(see Sept. 28, Nov.
15). Most students are deemed "judgment-proof" but state laws
specify a limited measure of parental financial responsibility for kids'
misbehavior, usually limited to such sums as $1,000 or $2,500, which can
however escalate to unlimited amounts if the parents are deemed negligent,
as in the Wisconsin case. And in Rhode Island, to update an earlier
story (see April 19), two years of wrangling
over whether Westerly High School sophomore Robert Parker was out of line
to wear a rock band T-shirt displaying the numerals 666 have ended, with
the school facing a cumulative bill for the dispute of $60,000. (American
Civil Liberties Union/AP, July
6).
August 29-30 --
Denny's bias charges: let's go to the videotape. Another
day, another discrimination suit demanding money from the Denny's restaurant
chain on charges of racially based denial of service. But it so happened
that a security video camera was running during the alleged Cutler Ridge,
Fla. incident, and the story told by its tape was so at odds with the story
the complainants were telling that their lawyer, Ellis Rubin of Miami,
felt obliged to withdrew from the case for fear of facing sanctions if
he continued. "In 1994, Denny's settled a $46 million class action
with hundreds of black customers who had alleged that they were refused
service at the chain's restaurants"; despite the diversity training it's
instituted since then it still faces many new public-accommodations suits,
but its management vows to fight those that it considers opportunistic.
(David E. Rovella, "Denny's Serves Up a Winning Video", National Law
Journal, Aug.
24) (see also Sept. 29).
August 29-30 --
Welcome Yahoo Internet Life readers. Last Friday's
installment of "Ask the Surf Guru" carried this nice accolade: "*** Special
to Gwendolyn: Like Cassandra said in Mighty Aphrodite, "I see disaster.
I see catastrophe. Worse, I see lawyers." But better is seeing Walter Olson's
daily odes to odious lawyering at Overlawyered.com,
where he chronicles how attorneys clog the drain of American life with
lawsuits that redefine the word 'frivolous.'" Thanks! (ZDNet/Yahoo
Internet Life, Aug.
24 -- final item).
August 29-30 --
"Lawyers want millions as cut of Holocaust settlement".
"On April 12, 1997, Arthur Bailey, one of the dozens of lawyers who helped
negotiate a $1.25 billion settlement finalized last month between Swiss
banks and Holocaust survivors, bought a copy of the book 'Nazi Gold' by
Tom Bower and spent 8.6 hours reviewing it. Cost to plaintiffs: $2,365,
or $275 an hour." Lengthy telephone conversations between lawyers
and a half-hour interview granted by a lawyer to the Washington Post
are among other outlays of lawyers' time for which reimbursement is being
sought in the $13.5 million fee request, which Elan Steinberg, executive
director of the World Jewish Congress, described as "outrageous": "We said
from the beginning that the lawyers should be acting pro bono,"
i.e., without compensation. (Steve Chambers, Newhouse News Service/Cleveland
Plain
Dealer, Aug.
15).
August 29-30 --
Imagine if she'd had a photo of a gun too. Police in Davidson,
North Carolina "are defending an officer's decision to search a woman's
car for drugs after spotting a photo of a marijuana plant on the cover
of a newspaper in her car." The driver, when stopped at 1 a.m., had
a copy of an alternative weekly in her car with a cover story on police
use of helicopters against marijuana growers, and consented to the search
request, police said. A journalism professor says carrying such material
could not possibly be probable cause for a car search. Nothing unlawful
was found in the vehicle. ("Police say photo of marijuana plant sufficient
cause for drug search", AP/Raleigh News & Observer, Aug.
25) (via Progressive Review).
August 28 -- "Man
killed in gas explosion told to clean up rubble". "One
day after a Brooklyn couple died in a gas explosion at their home, city
officials fired off a letter to the dead husband insisting that he was
responsible for immediately cleaning up the rubble." On July 11 a
massive blast leveled the home of Leonard Walit, 72, and his 66-year-old
wife Harriet, who were buried under the rubble of the four-story brownstone
with a third victim. "The responsibility to [repair or demolish the
premises] is yours, and because of the severity of the condition, the work
must begin immediately," declared the form letter from building commissioner
Tarek Zeid, which warned the deceased couple that if they delayed the city
would perform the necessary work and bill them for the expenses.
Critics say the city should have known better given that the blast made
big headlines, and a spokesman for the Buildings Department has apologized.
(AP/Yahoo, Aug.
26).
August 28 -- Campaign
consultants for judges. At $15,000 a pop it gets
expensive fast to hire professional campaign help, but elected Florida
judges increasingly feel they have to shell out for two, three or four
of the hotshot local consultants -- especially since if they don't put
them on retainer, they might just find themselves facing a challenger who
has. It's another reason reformers are hoping to move to an appointive
system. (Tony Doris, "Full-Court Press", Miami Daily Business
Review, Aug.
23).
August 28 -- "Relatives
find 'proof' they own New York". "Descendants of an 18th-century
privateer are hoping that a copy of an ancient lease discovered in an attic
in South Wales may finally prove that they are the rightful owners of the
world's most valuable piece of real estate," reports London's Sunday
Times. "For 120 years the descendants of Robert Edwards have
been trying to establish their rights to 77 acres of Manhattan on which
now stand Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange, [lower] Broadway and
the World Trade Center." And who's to say they won't succeed, given
the enthusiasm shown by American courts for hearing Indian land suits (see
Feb.
1), liability claims arising from the sale of products in the first
years of the Twentieth Century, and perhaps, before long, slavery reparation
cases as well? (Simon de Bruxelles,
Sunday Times (London),
Aug.
22).
August 25-27 --
Mich. high court: tough on working (arsonist) families.
As the nasty race for the Michigan Supreme Court heats up (see May
15, May 9, Jan.
31), opponents have rolled out television ads assailing three Republican
justices as "antifamily" and biased toward business, on the strength of
43 decisions they've rendered that supposedly fit that pattern. However,
when the Detroit Free Press's Dawson Bell looked into the details,
he discovered that among the rulings being flayed as "antifamily" is one
from last year denying insurance coverage to "a pair of convicted arsonists
who burned down a row of buildings". A look at the rest of
the cited court decisions likewise "indicates that the content provided
in the ads borders on the bogus." For example, in six cases the ad-makers
counted government defendants in lawsuits -- that is to say, the taxpayers
--
as "corporations"; they omitted a half dozen cases that obviously didn't
fit their pattern, while including "at least seven cases in which an individual
won, or a corporation wasn't a party;" and they included fourteen cases
in which the court's Democrats agreed with the outcome. Where's the
state Democratic Party getting the money for its big ad buy trashing the
GOP judges? It's hard to know for sure, but trial lawyers are said
to have privately pledged millions to defeat the trio at the
polls (see May 9). (Dawson
Bell, "Party politics enters high court race", Detroit Free Press,
Aug.
3; Kathy Barks Hoffman, "Chamber runs ads to counter Democrats' attacks
on justices", AP/Detroit News, Aug.
17; Charlie Cain, "High court race will be nasty, pricey", Detroit
News,
June
23). Opponents of the three justices have mounted not one but
two websites:
AgainstMichiganFamilies.com
and The Justice Caucus.
But in fact "Michigan's Supreme Court may be the nation's best example
of a court committed to interpreting the law -- not manufacturing it,"
contends National Review Online contributor Peter Leeson ("Michigan's
Supreme Court Is Supreme",
Aug.
22). That makes it a notable contrast with the high court in
neighboring Ohio, where a narrow majority of justices last year (see Aug.
18, 1999) used activist reasoning to strike down legislated liability
limits, and are now being heavily backed by trial lawyers in their re-election
bids (Thomas Bray, "A Nation of Laws, or of Judges?", Opinion Journal,
Aug.
17).
August 25-27 --
"Albuquerque can seize homes hosting teen drinking". Under
a bill approved by the city council of New Mexico's largest city, you can
now look forward to losing your house if the neighbors complain about repeated
gatherings of tippling teens while you're away. (Kate Nash, Albuquerque
Tribune/Nando
Times, Aug.
23).
August 25-27 --
"How do you fit 12 people in a 1983 Honda?" Brazen, well-organized
car-crash fraud rings thrive in the Big Apple, according to a series of
New York Post exposés this summer. Other states are
well ahead of New York in enacting legislation aimed at curbing fraud;
meanwhile, the "Pataki administration is in court trying to overturn a
decision in which the trial lawyers and medical
profession successfully sued to have the state's existing no-fault
regulations thrown out." June
25 (related
story); June
26; June 27;
July
16 (related
story); August
6). Last year New York City recouped $1 million following the racketeering
and fraud convictions of attorney Morris Eisen, a one-time major filer
of injury claims who prosecutors say introduced fraudulent evidence in
at least 18 cases, including three against the city (press release from
office of Comptroller Alan Hevesi, May
18, 1999).
August 25-27 --
Retroactive crash liability. Following years of lobbying
by trial lawyers, Congress passed and President Clinton signed in April
a new law retroactively raising the amounts payable in lawsuits to relatives
of those killed in three air crashes
over international waters, including the loss of TWA Flight 800.
The little-publicized passage, "nestled on page 71 of a 137-page budget
bill ... carries an effective date of July 16, 1996" -- almost four years
before its signing. It abolishes old limitations on lawsuits set
by the historic Death on the High Seas Act so as to expand the sums recoverable
for "non-pecuniary" losses, such as the "care, comfort and companionship"
of the deceased. The result is to ensure substantially higher
payouts in litigation over the TWA crash, for which that airline and Boeing
are being sued, as well as the Atlantic downings of Swissair Flight 111
and EgyptAir Flight 990. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), who represents
Boeing's home state, had argued to no avail that it was unfair to expand
the companies' obligation retroactively. (Frank J. Murray, "Retroactive
move allows big awards in TWA crash", Washington Times, Aug.
24).
August 23-24 --
Class actions: are we all litigants yet? If you're
a member of American Airlines' frequent-flier plan, you may have received
by now a class action settlement notice
in which the airline agrees to make legal amends for the atrocity of having
raised from 20,000 to 25,000 miles the point level needed to claim a free
coach round-trip. After slogging through the legal jargon, St. Petersburg
Times
columnist Susan Taylor Martin finds that the "most that 'class members'
in my category can expect is this: a 5,000-mile discount on a frequent-flier
award or a certificate for $75 off on a ticket costing at least $220.
Wow. But let's read on. In return for negotiating this settlement,
the lawyers representing me and other plaintiffs will apply for fees 'not
to exceed $25 million.' No wonder we're such a lawsuit-happy nation.".
She asks her newsroom colleagues if they've been represented in class actions,
and they inundate her with responses. Then she goes on to cite this
website, quote a number of comments from our editor, discuss proposed reforms
that would redirect nationwide class suits to federal courts, and finally
take up the much-recurring question: what's the best way to discourage
further legal excesses of this sort, to fill out and return the claims
form, or toss it in the waste basket? (Susan Taylor Martin, "Is anyone
not involved in a class-action lawsuit?", St. Petersburg Times,
Aug.
20). Also see Sarah Haertl, "Bill Limits Class-Action
Fees for Attorneys", Office.com, June
19.
August 23-24 --
Funds that don't protect. "Client protection funds"
are supposed to reimburse persons who fall victim to thievery
by their lawyers, but a National Law Journal investigation finds
the funds "poorly endowed, stingy about payouts and virtually a secret,
even to many lawyers, whose bar dues help finance them". Many victims
get just pennies on the dollar, or nothing at all: "cheated clients are
getting twice betrayed by the legal professionals who should be protecting
them". ("Wronged Clients Face an Empty Promise in Some States", Aug.
21).
August 23-24 --
Fateful carpool. The consent of one's spouse is no excuse
for violating a restraining order
obtained by her earlier, as Blaine Jeschonek has learned to his sorrow
in Bedford, Pennsylvania. When Jeschonek, 44, arrived in court accompanied
by his estranged wife Beth, Judge Thomas Ling promptly ordered him arrested
and charged with criminal contempt for violating a court order forbidding
him to have contact with her. "The Jeschoneks had traveled together
to court to ask Ling to dismiss the restraining order. 'I will not tolerate
these orders being violated in my presence, under my nose, in my own courtroom,'
Ling said." ("Pennsylvania man carpools to court and faces contempt",
AP/CNN, Aug.
14).
August 23-24 --
Bankrupting Canadian churches? A remarkable legal
story is unfolding in Canada, where
down through the 1960s the country's major churches, under an arrangement
with the national government, administered residential schools for youths
from Indian tribes. A significant share (perhaps 20 percent) of all
school-age Indians attended these schools, thus being separated from native
communities for much of their childhood. As ideas of multiculturalism
made headway, the schools with their premise of assimilation to English
culture came to be regarded as an embarrassing legacy, though at the time
they had enjoyed the support of most Indian bands. In recent years
adults who attended the schools in their youth have filed legal actions
against the school proprietors, originally in small numbers over claims
of past physical and sexual abuse, but more recently in much larger numbers,
more than 7,000, with the predominant alleged injury among new cases being
"cultural deprivation" years or decades earlier. Claimant recruitment
by attorneys has played a major role in the expansion of the dispute; one
lawyer alone, Tony Merchant of Regina, Saskatchewan, has assembled no fewer
than 4,300 former school residents from across Western Canada to press
claims. Although very few cases have yet reached court, early rulings
suggest that the litigation may inflict money transfers and legal costs
so large as to bankrupt or financially cripple some or all of the church
defendants: the Anglican Church of Canada, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian
Church of Canada and Roman Catholic Church of Canada (David Frum, "The
dissolution of Canadian churches", National Post,
Aug.
19; "Tending the flock", editorial, Aug.
16; Richard Foot, "Deputy PM to meet Church leader over bankruptcy
crisis", Aug.
16; Ian Hunter, "Paying for past injustice is unjust", July
20; "Sins of the fathers", editorial, July
17; Ferdy Baglo, "Canada’s
Anglican Church Considers Possibility of Financial Ruin", Christianity
Today). (DURABLE LINK)
MORE RESOURCES: Law
Commission of Canada; Anglican Church of Canada (main
page; apology;
in
Oji-Cree syllabics (pdf)); United Church of Canada (FAQ,
news);
Turtle Island Native Network (resources,
news);
Diane Rowe for White
Oppenheimer & Baker (plaintiff's law firm); Jane O'Hara and Patricia
Treble, "Abuse of Trust", Maclean's, June
26; "Residential
Schools: An Essential Component of Genocide" (University of Victoria);
Jay Charland, "St. Paul diocese part of $195M suit", Western
Catholic Reporter; Patrick Donnelly, "Scapegoating the Indian Residential
Schools", Alberta Report, Jan.
26, 1998, reprinted at Catholic Educator Resource Center.
August 23-24 --
Welcome screenwriters. It's hard to beat what goes
on in courtrooms for sheer drama, which may be one reason at least two
sites catering to professional screenwriters link to Overlawyered.com.
CreateYourScreenplay.com
gives us a nice encomium on its "Research" page (scroll down to "O") and
we also figure on the "Miscellaneous" links page of DailyScript.com.
August 21-22 --
Tobacco- and gun-suit reading. National Journal
columnist Stuart Taylor, Jr. pens a powerful critique of the tobacco
litigation ("Tobacco Lawsuits: Taxing The Victims To Enrich Their Lawyers",
Aug.
1; quotes our editor). The American Tort Reform Foundation has
published a review of the state tobacco suits, with particular attention
to the questionable interrelationships between private for-profit lawyers
and state attorneys general; the authors are well-known Wall Street
Journal editorialist John Fund and Martin Morse Wooster ("The Dangers
of Regulation Through Litigation: The Alliance of Plaintiffs’ Lawyers and
State Governments," March 30, available
through ATRF). Prof. Michael Krauss, of George Mason University
School of Law, has written an analysis for the Independent Institute exploring
the manifold legal weaknesses of the recoupment actions filed by states
and cities against both firearms and
tobacco makers ("Fire and Smoke", orderable
through II). And we've now posted online our editor's op-ed from
last month on the Florida jury's $145 billion punitive damage award in
Engle
v. R.J. Reynolds (Walter Olson, "'The Runaway Jury' is No Myth",
Wall
Street Journal, July
18).
August 21-22 --
A thin-wall problem. A suburban Chicago attorney with
Tourette's Syndrome, the neurological condition that causes its sufferers
to experience tics often in the form of uncontrollable utterances or gestures,
is going to collect upwards of $300,000 in settlement of a lawsuit against
the condominium association of which he and his wife were members.
Jeffrey Marthon, 54, agreed in exchange to move out and to drop his suit
contending that the association had violated fair-housing
laws by attempting to evict him; the association had filed a legal action
complaining of the noise from his involuntary hooting and foot-stomping.
"Several neighbors said in affidavits that they were losing sleep because
of noises coming from Marthon's third-floor condo," and engineers said
it was impossible to install soundproofing to mitigate the problem. (Dan
Rozek, "Man with Tourette's cuts deal vs. condo", Chicago Sun-Times,
Aug.
18).
August 21-22 --
Fit to practice? The California Supreme Court, reversing
a lower panel, has unanimously ruled against granting a law license to
convicted felon Eben Gossage, a scion of an affluent San Francisco family
who says he's turned his life around and is fit to become an attorney notwithstanding
an extensive record of past trouble with the law, most notably a manslaughter
conviction for having brutally killed his own sister (Kevin Livingston,
"Convicted Killer Denied California Bar Card", The Recorder/CalLaw,
August
16). At a June hearing, Justice Joyce Kennard "made it
clear she was bothered by Gossage omitting 13 of his convictions on his
Bar application." ("How Long Is Long Enough?", June
7). Several prominent Bay Area politicians had appeared as witnesses
for Gossage, among them state senate president John Burton; after the one
nonlawyer member of the lower disciplinary
panel dissented from the panel's decision that Gossage should be allowed
to practice law, Burton introduced and helped secure passage of a bill
which abolished that nonlawyer's seat on the panel, sending, in the view
of commentator George Kraw, an unsubtle message -- "Don't antagonize important
legislators" ("Friends in High Places",
July
31; Mike McKee, "Court Sounds Leery of Bar Court Shuffle", May
4; Mike McKee, "State Bar Court Braces for Upheaval", June
29, reprinted at Kerr & Wagstaffe LLP site). Meanwhile, at
least two lawyers implicated in California's famous "Alliance" scandal
are trying to regain their licenses to practice; the "Alliance", a covert
joint venture between plaintiffs' and defense lawyers to manufacture and
prolong legal claims for which the insurers would be obliged to employ
legal counsel, bilked large insurance companies out of hundreds of millions
of dollars in the 1980s (Mike McKee, "Scoundrel -- or Scapegoat?", The
Recorder/CalLaw, June
13; more about Alliance
(Kardos CPA site)).
August 21-22 --
Watch those fwds. Last month "Dow Chemical, the
No. 2 U.S. chemical company, fired about 50 workers and suspended another
200 for up to four weeks without pay, for sending or storing pornographic
or violent e-mail messages. " The "range of material" involved includes
"stuff that would be in a swimsuit edition" as well as more offensive material,
the company says; in a fit of mercy, it did not discipline workers who
merely received such material as email and did not forward it to others.
Under widely accepted interpretations of harassment
law, companies that fail to take action against circulation of ribaldry
in the workplace face possible liability for allowing a "hostile working
environment". ("Dow Scrubs 50 for Eyeing Porn", Reuters/Wired News,
Jul.
28). Workers who imagine that their email
is private, readily deleted, and secure don't seem to realize the current
state of the law and the technology, says a risk-consulting division of
law firm Littler Mendelson (Chris Oakes, "Seven Deadly Email Thoughts",
Wired News, Aug.
8). Nor are "anonymous" postings to bulletin boards really anonymous
once the legal actors -- including private lawyers -- launch their subpoenas
(Carl S. Kaplan, "In Fight Over Anonymity, John Doe Starts Slugging", New
York Times, June
2; Michael J. McCarthy, "Can Your PC Be Subpoenaed?", ZDNet, May
24; Lauren Gard, "Yahoo Hit With Novel Privacy Suit", The Recorder/CalLaw,
May
15).
