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May 18-20 -- "Couple
sues for doggie damages". Claiming that their 4-year-old
golden retriever Boomer was hurt by an "invisible fence" electronic collar
device, Andrew and Alyce Pacher, of Vandalia, Ohio, want to name the dog
itself as a plaintiff in the suit. "It's my opinion that it's clear
dogs cannot sue under Ohio law," says the fence company's lawyer.
But the Pachers' attorney, Paul Leonard, a former lieutenant governor and
ex-mayor of Dayton, says that's exactly what he hopes to change: he's "hoping
to upgrade the legal status of
dogs in Ohio." ("Damages for Injuries Caused by Invisible Fence
Sought for Dog", AP/FoxNews.com, May
11).
May 18-20 -- "Fortune
Magazine Ranks ATLA 5th Most Powerful Lobby". The business
magazine finds that plaintiff's lawyers have more clout in Washington than
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or the AFL-CIO; more than Hollywood or the
doctors or the realtors or the teachers or the bankers. (Fortune,
May 28; ATLA jubilates over its rise
from 6th to 5th, May
15).
May 18-20 -- Batch
of reader letters. Our biggest sack
of correspondence yet includes a note from a reader wondering if some
open-minded attorney would like to help draft a loser-pays initiative for
the ballot in Washington state; more about carbonless paper allergies,
the effects of swallowing 9mm bullets, the Granicy trial in California,
and "consumer columns" that promote lawyers' services; a link between ergonomics
and gun control controversies; and a reader's dissent on the case of the
boy ticketed for jaywalking after being hit by a truck.
May 17 -- "Crash
lawyers like Boeing move". Attorneys who sue after
midair mishaps are pleased that Boeing is planning to relocate its headquarters
to Chicago. They say the courts of Cook County, Ill., hand out much
higher verdicts than those of Seattle, the aircraft
maker's former hometown. Some lawyers in fact predict that domestic
crashes, at least when the plane is Boeing-made, are apt to be sued in
Cook County from now on regardless of where the flight originated or went
down; under the liberal rules of forum-shopping that prevail in American
courts, most big airlines may be susceptible to venue in the Windy City
since they do at least some business there. (Blake Morrison, "Crash
lawyers like Boeing move", USA Today, May
16).
May 17 -- Like
a hole in the head. As if the nine private law schools
in the state of Massachusetts weren't enough, proponents now want to establish
a public one by having the state take over the struggling Southern New
England School of Law at North Dartmouth, near New Bedford. (Denise
Magnell, "Crash Course", Boston Law Tribune, May
1).
May 17 -- Lessons
of shrub-case jailing. The months-long contempt-of-court
jailing of John Thoburn of Fairfax County, Va. for refusing to erect enough
trees and shrubs around his golf driving range is a good example of the
excesses of bureaucratic legalism, says Washington Post columnist
Marc Fisher ("In Fairfax shrub fight, Both Sides Dig In Stubbornly", April
26). Some of the county's elected supervisors voice few
misgivings about the widely publicized showdown, saying their constituents
want them to be tougher in cracking down on zoning
violations. (Peter Whoriskey and Michael D. Shear, "Fairfax Zoning
Case Draws World Attention", Washington Post, April
21) (freejohnthoburn.com).
May 16 -- No baloney.
"A suspected drug dealer who was served a bullet-and-bologna sandwich wants
a side of lettuce -- about $5 million worth. " Louis Olivo says he
was given an officially prepared lunch during a break in a Brooklyn Supreme
Court hearing last week, and felt something "crunchy" which turned out
to be a bullet. Surgery (not syrup of ipecac?) is expected to remove
the 9mm bullet from Olivo's stomach; his lawyer wants $5 million (Christopher
Francescani, "$5M Lawsuit Over Bulletin in Bologna", New York Post,
May 15)
(& letter to the editor, May
18)
May 16 -- "Who's
afraid of principled judges?" More questions should
be raised about a retreat held at Farmington, Pa. earlier this month in
which 42 Democratic Senators were lectured on the need to apply ideological
litmus tests to judicial nominees, writes Denver Post columnist
Al Knight. (May
13). "Liberals rightly decried efforts a decade ago to turn membership
in the American Civil Liberties Union into a disqualification for high
office; current efforts to do the same thing to the Federalist Society
are equally wrong. ... In fact, they are the only group, liberal or conservative,
that regularly sponsors debates throughout the nation's law schools on
important public-policy issues." (Howard Shelansky, "Who's Afraid
of the Federalist Society?", Wall Street Journal, May
15).
May 16 -- Drawing
pictures of weapons. In Oldsmar, Fla., an eleven-year-old
"was taken from his elementary school in handcuffs after his classmates
turned him in for drawing pictures of weapons." (Ed Quioco and
Julie Church, "Student removed from class because of drawings", St. Petersburg
Times, May
11; "Pinellas fifth grader cuffed, sent home after classmates turn
him in for drawing weapons", AP/Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, May
11). In Sunderland, England, police raided Roland Hopper's 11th
birthday party and arrested him as he cut the cake after he was seen playing
with the new pellet gun his mother
had bought him ("Armed Police Raid 11th Birthday", Newcastle Journal,
April
10). And the website ztnightmares.com,
which developed out of a controversy at Lewis-Palmer High School in Monument,
Colo., "publicizes the downside or evils of zero tolerance school discipline
policies" and has a noteworthy list of outside links as well as horror
stories.
May 15 -- "Judges
or priests?". Why have judicial nomination fights
taken on the intensity and bitterness once associated with religious disputes?
"The only places left in this country that could be described as temples
-- for that is how we treat them -- are the courts. ... They are temples
because the judges who sit in them now constitute a priesthood, an oracular
class ... we have abdicated to them our personal responsibility and, in
many cases, even what used to be the smallest judgment call a citizen had
to make for himself." (Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ OpinionJournal.com,
May
11).
May 15 -- Techies
fear Calif. anti-confidentiality bill. Trial lawyers
have been pushing hard for the enactment of legislation granting them wide
leeway to disseminate to anyone they please much of the confidential business
information they dig up by compulsory process in lawsuits. (At present,
judges are free to issue "protective orders" which restrain such dissemination.)
Proponents say lawyers will use this new power to publicize serious safety
hazards that now remain unaired; critics predict they will use it to stir
up more lawsuits and for general leverage against defendants who have been
found guilty of no wrong but who don't want the inner details of their
business to fall into the hands of competitors or others. A lawyer-backed
bill had been hurtling toward enactment in California following the Firestone
debacle, but now a counterforce has emerged in the person of high-tech
execs who say the proposal "could expose confidential company information,
stifle innovation and encourage frivolous litigation. ... TechNet CEO Rick
White called the bills 'the most significant threat to California's technology
companies since Prop. 211.' White was referring to the 1996 initiative
that would have made company directors and high-ranking executives personally
vulnerable to shareholder lawsuits." (Scott Harris, "Old Foes Squabble
Over Secrecy Bills", Industry Standard/Law.com, May
10).
May 15 -- Canadian
court: divorce settlements never final. The Ontario
Court of Appeal has ruled that courts may revisit and overturn former divorce
settlements if a "material change of circumstances" has taken place
since the original deal. "Tens of thousands of people who believed
they had agreed to a 'final' divorce settlement could face more financial
demands ... Family law lawyers predict a surge of legal attacks on separation
agreements and marriage contracts as a result of the ruling." (Cristin
Schmitz, "Divorce deals never final: court", Southam News/National Post,
April
28).
May 14 -- Write
a very clear will. Or else your estate
could wind up being fought over endlessly in court like that of musician
Jerry Garcia (Kevin Livingston, "Garcia Estate Fight Keeps On Truckin'",
The Recorder, April
25; Steve Silverman, "Online Fans Sing Blues About Garcia Estate Wrangling",
Wired News, Dec.
16, 1996; Don Knapp, "Garcia vs. Garcia in battle for Grateful wealth",
CNN, Dec.
14, 1996). Or actor James Mason (A Star is Born, North
by Northwest) ("He would have been horrified by all this. ... he hated
litigation") (Caroline Davies, "James Mason's ashes finally laid to rest",
Daily Telegraph (London), Nov.
25, 2000). Or timber heir H.J. Lutcher Stark of Orange, Texas,
who died in 1965 and whose estate, with that of his wives, has spawned
several rounds of litigation which look as far back for their subject matter
as 1939 and are still in progress (William P. Barrett, "How Lawyers Get
Rich", Forbes, April
2 (reg)).
May 14 -- City
gun suits: "extortion parading as law". To curb
the use of officially sponsored litigation as a regulatory bludgeon, as
in the gun suits, the Cato Institute's
Robert Levy recommends "a 'government pays' rule for legal fees when a
governmental unit is the losing plaintiff in a civil case". (Robert
A. Levy, "Pistol Whipped: Baseless Lawsuits, Foolish Laws", Cato Policy
Analysis #400 (executive
summary links to full
paper -- PDF))
May 14 -- Update:
"Messiah" prisoner's lawsuit dismissed. In a 22-page
opinion, federal district judge David M. Lawson has dismissed the lawsuit
filed by a Michigan prisoner claiming recognition as the Messiah (see April
30). The opinion contains much to reward the curious reader,
such as the list on page 5 of the inmate's demands (including "5 million
breeding pairs of bison" and "25,000 mature breeding pairs of every creature
that exists in the State of Michigan," and the passage on page 18 citing
as precedent for dismissal similar previous cases such as Grier v. Reagan
(E.D. Pa. Apr. 1, 1986), "finding that plaintiff’s claim she was God of
the Universe fantastic and delusional and dismissing as frivolous complaint
which sought items ranging from a size sixteen mink coat and diamond jewelry
to a three bedroom home in the suburbs and a catered party at the Spectrum
in Philadelphia"). (opinion dated April
26 (PDF), Michigan Bar Association site) (DURABLE
LINK)
May 11-13 -- Welcome
Aardvark Daily readers (NZ). "New Zealand's leading
source of Net-Industry news and commentary since 1995" just referred us
a whole bunch of antipodal visitors by featuring this website in its "Lighten
Up" section. It says we offer "an aggregation of quirky and oddball
legal actions which go to prove that the USA has far too many lawyers for
its own good". (Aardvark.co.nz).
For NZ-related items on this site, check out July
26, Sept. 8 and Oct.
31, 2000, as well as "Look for the Kiwi Label", Reason, July
2000, by our editor.
May 11-13 -- New
York tobacco fees. "An arbitration panel has awarded $625
million in attorneys' fees to the six firms that were hired by New York
state to sue the tobacco industry, say sources close to the arbitration
report." The well-connected city law firm of Schneider, Kleinick,
Weitz, Damashek & Shoot (which last year was reported to be renting
office space to New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver; see May
1, 2000) will receive $98.4 million. Three firms that took a
major national role in the tobacco heist will share $343.8 million from
the New York booty, to add to their rich
haul from other states; they are Ness Motley, Richard Scruggs' Mississippi
firm, and Seattle's Hagens & Berman. (Daniel Wise, "Six Firms Split
$625 Million in Fees for New York's Share of Big Tobacco Case," New
York Law Journal, April
24). Update Jun. 21-23,
2002: judge to review ethical questions raised by fee award.
May 11-13 -- "Judges
behaving badly". The National Law Journal's fourth
annual roundup of judicial injudiciousness
includes vignettes of jurists pursuing personal vendettas, earning outside
income in highly irregular ways, jailing people without findings of guilt,
and getting in all sorts of trouble on matters of sex. Then there's
twice-elected Judge Ellis Willard of Sharkey County, Mississippi, who allegedly
"fabricated evidence such as docket pages, arrest warrants, faxes [and]
officers' releases." That was why he got in trouble, not just because he
was fond of holding court in his Beaudron Pawn Shop and Tire Center, "a
tire warehouse flanked by service bays on one side and a store that holds
the judge's collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia." (Gail Diane Cox,
National Law Journal, April
30).
May 11-13 -- Update:
Compaq beats glitch suit. In 1999, after Toshiba ponied
up more than a billion dollars to settle a class action charging that its
laptops had a glitch in
their floppy drives, lawyers filed follow-on claims against other laptop
makers whose machines they said displayed the same problem. But Compaq
refused to settle, and now Beaumont, Tex. federal judge Thad Heartfield
has felt constrained to dismiss the suit against it on the grounds that
plaintiff's lawyer Wayne Reaud had failed to show that any user suffered
the requisite $5,000 in damages. (Daniel Fisher, "Billion-Dollar
Bluff", Forbes, April
16 (now requires registration)).
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