Watch what you say about lawyers dept.: a jury will consider the claim of East Texas intellectual property litigator Eric Albritton that he was defamed by Richard Frenkel at his lawyer-critical Patent Troll Tracker blog. The suit also names Frenkel’s employer, Cisco. The blog has “gone private” and is now for invited readers only. [Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, Texas Lawyer] More: AmLaw Daily. Sept. 18: Joe Mullin, IP Law and Business (reporting blog now entirely defunct except as archive for use in defending case).
U.K.: “Scouts banned from carrying knives”
“Penknives may have formed as much part of the scouting experience as badges and campfires, but according to advice from the Scout Association they must no longer be brought on camping trips, except when there is a ‘specific’ need.” [Times Online via Free Range Kids]
Tax Court: NYC lawyer can’t deduct $100K+ for sex “therapy”
TaxProf: “The Tax Court yesterday denied a New York tax lawyer’s claimed $100,000+ medical expense deduction for the costs of prostitutes and pornographic material.” Earlier here. More: Gothamist last year on related state-tax enforcement action (“The state auditor also argued that ‘in addition to being illegal in New York State, these expenses are not substantiated with receipts.'”
Foreclosure-relief scams
The incoming president of the state bar of California is blasting lawyers for their role. [L.A. Times]
September 15 roundup
- It’s almost as if Arizona wants to encourage broken-windshield fraud [Coyote]
- “They are so greedy that — how awful! — they are selling food cheap.” [Ann Althouse takes out after Michael Pollan]
- Tom Freeland examines “Clarksdale sugar daddy” prosecution [Northern Mississippi Commentor; cf. Radley Balko]
- “Fire-safe” cigarettes are apparently not pleasurable to smoke, which may be part of their appeal to backers [Sullivan]
- “Justices: Bags of cash, guilty plea merit Seattle lawyer’s disbarment” [Seattle Times]
- Facebook plays a revenge prank on TechCrunch, and there’s a lesson there for the thin-skinned [Ken at Popehat]
- “The Rubber Room: The Battle Over New York City’s Worst Teachers” [Steven Brill, The New Yorker; Joanne Jacobs]
- One trial lawyer’s anything-but-supportive view of “runners” and “chasers” [Turkewitz]
“Plaintiffs’ Firm Sued by Potential Client After Chair Collapse”
Lowering the Bar has the story of Robert Friedrich, who after being in a car accident took up the Palm Beach, Fla. firm of Fetterman & Associates on its offer of a free office consultation. “He left with more legal options than he had come in with, because during that consultation the chair he was sitting in collapsed and he hit his head on another piece of furniture in the firm’s conference room.” The resulting $2.2 million jury verdict was divided between the law firm and a furniture store; the law firm said the chair was defective and that the manufacturer should have been responsible.
“Court: Employer must pay for weight-loss surgery”
“An Indiana court has ruled that a pizza shop must pay for a 340-pound employee’s weight-loss surgery to ensure the success of another operation for a back injury he suffered at work — raising concern among businesses bracing for more such claims.” The case was decided under workers’ compensation law, which is generally more coverage-friendly than workplace liability law. [AP] More: NLJ.
$11 million verdict against pediatrician
Two sisters were repeatedly raped and sexually abused by their older half-brother. This is, a federal jury decided, the fault of their pediatrician, Dr. Patricia Monroe, who failed to report the abuse–though there was no evidence she was aware of the scope of it. Monroe’s attorney “says that’s because the girl refused to speak to Monroe and because the incident wasn’t reportable to Child Protective Services.” The decision will be appealed. (Chris Knight, “Monroe to appeal $11M verdict”, Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Sep. 3).
A message has been sent: make defensive reports to Child Protective Services, and parents will all be worse off when CPS overreacts.
Welcome Wall Street Journal readers
I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on CPSIA (the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) and Congress’s unwillingness to reform it despite its calamitous and unnecessary impacts on the children’s product business, especially its smaller participants. If you’re new to this site, here are some pointers for further reading about the issues raised in the piece:
- General coverage of the law;
- Congress’s role, and last Thursday’s hearing;
- The postponement until February of the main testing rules and the minibike and bicycle bans;
- The law’s effects on secondhand stores, on pre-1985 books, and on the toy and apparel businesses;
- The tracking label rules, which became effective last month;
- The exemption of industry giant Mattel from third-party independent lab testing;
- The push for “traceability” in food and farm safety.
Readers who use Twitter may also want to follow this stream, which includes regular updates from my @overlawyered and @walterolson accounts as well as from many other persons who follow the law.
PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGES from Ethel Everett, illustrator, Nursery Rhymes (1900), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org. 
U.K.: Strongly held views on climate change may trigger job-bias coverage
Religious discrimination is prohibited, the logic goes, and the views in the case at hand were intense enough to count as akin to religion. Critics are said to fear a “flood of litigation” on behalf of other workers whose strongly held beliefs bring them into conflict with co-workers or employers. [Guardian]