“Lawyer charged with stealing over $600,000 in client settlement money”

According to Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau, New York lawyer Marc Bernstein “settled these cases pretty cheap, then took the money and ran.” [NY Daily News, press release] Meanwhile: “Prominent Arkansas plaintiffs securities lawyer Gene Cauley is expected to plead guilty for failing to pay clients $9.3 million in settlement funds he was supposed to be holding as their escrow agent.” [ABA Journal, earlier] According to a report dated February (PDF) from the ABA’s Center for Professional Responsibility, New York is among the states that have adopted payee notification reforms intended to catch this category of fraud at an early stage; Arkansas has not. For more on payee notification, see my 2006 paper with Peter Morin.

New CPSIA “primer” site

New resource recently launched by the crafter/activist who did business as Whimsical Walney, with help from the one who does business at Organic Baby Farm: WhatIsTheCPSIA.com, a site for everyone trying to get up to speed on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and the reasons it needs reform. Among the many common questions it seeks to answer (with new material being added steadily): “I thought CPSIA is a toy law, why do you have to test clothes?”, “Why does CPSIA affect home crafters?”, “Can’t CPSC make exemptions to CPSIA for certain products?”, “Why does CPSIA affect schools?”. Worth checking out. (Corrected to add proper credit to Whimsical Walney; more.)

Swine farms and fishing expeditions

Texas lawyers are seeking discovery against hog-raising giant Smithfield Foods to determine whether a swine operation it partly owns in Mexico might have contributed to the death of a Harlingen woman in the H1N1 flu outbreak. “Mexican health officials have found no connection between the swine flu virus and the pig farm. Nevertheless, residents there have long blamed the farming operation for a variety of illnesses, UPI reported.” The lawsuit might seek $1 billion. [Brownsville Herald, May 12]

“UK chiropractors try to silence critic with libel claim”

“The British Chiropractic Association is using the libel laws to try and silence Simon Singh’s discussion of some of the more, uh, unusual claims they make for Chiropractic treatments (such as curing Colic and Asthma).” [Boing Boing, Orac first and second posts, Jack of Kent] And Dave Gorman writes really carefully about the case.