- Forensics gone wrong: Alabama mom spends nine months in jail after medical examiner misdiagnoses stillbirth as murder [Patrick @ Popehat]
- Bouncer shot outside bar going after owners individually to collect $1.5 million verdict [W.V. Record]
- “Feds Seize Assets of Companies Suspected of Hiring Illegal Aliens” [Reisinger, Corporate Counsel]
- Dealing with compulsive-hoarder tenants who fill apartment up to the ceiling with trash can be legally tricky [San Francisco Weekly]
- NYC has paid more than a half billion dollars over past decade to settle police misconduct suits [NY Post]
- Los Angeles schools taking aim at state laws that make it near impossible to fire teachers [L.A. Daily News via Kaus]
- Another parent put through mistaken-identity child-support hell, this time in Pennsylvania [Harrisburg Patriot-News via Amy Alkon] For a similar case from California, see August 7-8, 2001;
- Disabled man finds vehicle towed, wheels himself in cold to distant lot, catches pneumonia. Liability for tow company and parking lot owner? [John Hochfelder, who also hosts Blawg Review #209 this week on a theme of remembering his father, a veteran of the WWII battle of Iwo Jima]
“Well, in OUR culture, we take a man at his word”
Marc Randazza talks back to the New Guinea tribesman who says he’s suing Jared Diamond and the New Yorker for reporting as fact what he says were merely tall tales he spun about blood feuds on the island (earlier).
“Sailor sues over safety of pirated Maersk Alabama”
AP: “A member of the crew on the U.S.-flagged ship hijacked by African pirates sued the owner and another company Monday, accusing them of knowingly putting sailors in danger.”
Goodyear v. Kirby
19-year-old Sidney Odom happily went along when 20-year-old Travis Kirby and 18-year-old Riley Strickland asked “Who wants to go to the Beacon?”—a bar in Terry, Mississippi. A long night of drinking and driving came to an end at about 3 am when Kirby’s Camaro hit a tree at about 90 mph. As none of the three were wearing seatbelts, all were ejected from the vehicle. Kirby, whose blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit at 0.25%, died at the scene; the other two were injured.
Since we’re talking about the case, you can guess that the three blamed everyone except the underage drunk drivers: in this case, the car seller, the tire installer, and the tire manufacturer, Goodyear Tires. The car seller settled for about half a million dollars; a Copiah County jury found the other defendants liable for an additional $2.1 million. Goodyear appealed, complaining about various prejudicial statements made by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, such as introducing evidence from other lawsuits about other types of tires, but the Mississippi state appellate court affirmed. (Holbrook Mohr, “Miss. court agrees tire, not alcohol caused crash”, AP/Washington Post, Apr. 22; Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Kirby (Miss. App. 2009)).
“Cops: Teen burglarized cars to help pay for a lawyer”
Wisconsin: “A Beloit teen faces three felony charges after allegedly burglarizing cars in Janesville to help pay for a lawyer, according to a criminal complaint.” [Beloit Daily News via Obscure Store]
Judge: banana-pesticide suits were “a pervasive conspiracy to defraud”
And attorneys were the brains of the operation, according to Judge Victoria Chaney (transcript, PDF, courtesy American Lawyer). Ben Hallman of American Lawyer calls it “the most egregious plaintiffs lawyer extortion and fraud allegations we’ve seen this side of criminal indictment”:
After several days of testimony on defense allegations of Dominguez’s misconduct [Los Angeles plaintiff’s lawyer Juan Dominguez], Chaney tossed the tort cases before her. “I find that there is and was a pervasive conspiracy to defraud American and Nicaraguan courts, to defraud the defendants, to extort money from not just these defendants — but all manufacturers of DBCP and all growers or operators of plantations in Nicaragua between 1970 and 1980,” she said from the bench. Her ruling puts in doubt $2 billion in pending judgments Dominguez won in dozens of similar suits. Chaney also said she would refer the matter to state bar associations and to prosecutorial agencies. …
The court testimony that led to Chaney’s ruling detailed how a group of Nicaraguan lawyers, in apparent collusion with local officials, judges and lab technicians, rounded up 10,000 men whom they coached to claim sterility — and to blame that sterility on Dole’s chemicals.
When Dole attempted to investigate the claims, its representatives were harassed and some plaintiff’s lawyers even put out a bounty seeking the identity of witnesses. Chaney said that she did not suspect a Sacramento law firm that also represented the plaintiffs of being involved with the fraud. I’ve started a new tag to collect our coverage of the scandal.
“Felon posing as lawyer spoke at local legal seminar”
You supply the quips: “Dozens of Milwaukee-area lawyers earned education credits a little while back for attending a local seminar featuring a convicted felon posing as an expert on criminal sentencing.”
Goodwill Industries: A voice for CPSIA reform
Save kids’ resale: The charitable/job assistance giant has its annual advocacy day in Washington, D.C. tomorrow, where it will recommend “that Congress pass legislation that excludes used children’s products from the CPSIA” (more; via ShopFloor; our earlier coverage of CPSIA and resale).
Double jeopardy and the federal hate crimes bill
Hans Bader points out that a very important motivation for the pending expansion of federal hate-crimes law is to exploit a loophole the Supreme Court has created in its application of the important Constitutional principle, by exposing defendants to jeopardy a second time despite acquittal or dropping of charges in state courts.