Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

USAir Hudson-landing emotional distress, cont’d

Press coverage has been rather hostile toward AIG, which insures USAir, for its reluctance to cut large checks for therapy and the like to passengers aboard the miracle flight. (One major reason for it to balk may be the lack of any showing that the airline was negligent; also, passengers got $5,000 checks right after the rescue.)

Given the insurer’s status as public relations pariah, it’s interesting to note that at least one voice has been raised in its defense from a perhaps unexpected quarter: Ron Miller of Maryland Injury Lawyer. His “plea to every lawyer in the United States: please don’t file a lawsuit in these cases to get your name in the paper.” Earlier here and here.

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“Lawyer blames his BMW for speeding and loses”

“A Portland attorney who blamed his German luxury car for a speeding ticket was told he was responsible, not the automaker,” reports AP/OregonLive: C. Akin Blitz brought in a PowerPoint presentation and the testimony of a mechanic to bolster his argument “that he had no idea his BMW 535xi was going 76 mph in a 55 mph zone because of its handling characteristics”, but Clatsop County Circuit Judge Philip Nelson disagreed and fined Blitz $182.

P.S.: Ken at Popehat: “Legal realism note: as a rule, you will not find traffic court judges sympathetic to the defense ‘Your honor, I am not guilty because my German luxury car is too awesome.”

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NY Times sends nastygram to satirical website

The Corzine Times, a website of the Republican Governors Association publicizing negative news stories about the politically vulnerable New Jersey governor, received a cease and desist letter from The New York Times, which so far doesn’t seem to have seen fit to include that fact for its readers, though other papers have at least blogged about it. [WaPo; USA Today]

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Slavery apologies and the reparations question

“The Senate unanimously passed a resolution [Thursday] apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2 1/2 centuries of slavery.” [WaPo] Not altogether surprisingly, if you ask leading reparations advocates Randall Robinson and Charles Ogletree, Jr., whether this should reignite talk of reparations, they say yes. My City Journal article of last year explains why I think the latter very bad idea never picked up the political momentum its advocates expected.

Stephen Bainbridge has this response to the resolution’s sponsor:

“You wonder why we didn’t do it 100 years ago,” Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), lead sponsor of the resolution, said after the vote. “It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice.”

Memo to Senator Harkin: We had a collective response. It was called the Army of the Potomac.

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