Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Telling blonde jokes in workplace

Reversing a trial court that had granted summary judgment to the defense, a court of appeals in Washington state has reinstated a suit entitled Strong v. Wright in which

the plaintiff sued her former supervisor because he told “blonde jokes” (apparently plaintiff was blonde), made fun of her house, ridiculed her husband’s job, and referred to her as a “bum mother” because she put her son in therapy. The plaintiff alleged that this treatment “caused her to vomit and to have anxiety attacks, depression, and heart palpitations.” Really. Blonde jokes=heart palpitations.

Dennis Whitlind at World of Work has more (Nov. 14)(via O’Keefe).

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Lawyers! Getcher hot “pearl-shucked” case leads!

Readers keep sending me examples of what they say are unsolicited emails in which a marketing firm that calls itself ServicesToLawyers offers “pearl-shucked” personal injury case referrals, along the lines of the sample emails reprinted here and here, though with variations in the particular mass tort or torts for which leads are being hawked (Avandia, etc.) An April email attributed to the same sender offers the tempting chance to become “King of Motorcycle Accidents“, or at least King for one’s own locality, since “Not All States [Are] Available”.

Virginia personal injury law blogger Ben Glass wonders (Nov. 5) who would knowingly engage a lawyer who had purchased case leads drummed up in such a manner.

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Annals of public employee tenure, cont’d

Assume a false identity and file a bogus misconduct complaint that gets your boss fired. Claim whistleblower protection and transfer to a nice job in another department. When the imposture is discovered, the state won’t be able to do more than slap your wrist. That’s been the happy experience of a lawyer with Connecticut’s state ethics bureau (!) in a case provoking considerable, though apparently futile, outrage in the Nutmeg State. (Point of Law, Nov. 25; Dan Schwartz, Nov. 17).

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Pork-handling and religious accommodation, cont’d

Hasanali Khoja, a Muslim chef employed by London’s Metropolitan Police as a catering manager, has filed a discrimination claim after being asked to prepare breakfasts with pork sausages and bacon, saying he had been assured he would not have to handle the meat products. (David Barrett, “Muslim police chef claims religious discrimination over sausage and bacon breakfasts”, Telegraph, Nov. 2). The Minnesota meat-packing case discussed earlier is here.

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“The video that helped put a man in prison for 22 years for running a stop sign”

Negligence lawyers have long reaped great benefits by introducing “day-in-the-life” videos that arouse jurors’ sympathy for injury victims. Now prosecutors are learning how to get enormous mileage from “victim TV” as well. Fair play? Should defense lawyers be allowed to introduce counter-videos of how horrible prison is and what it does to clients sent there? (Ann Althouse, Nov. 30).

More: Commenters say “for running a stop sign” much under-describes the crime at issue in the case.

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“He’s not a klutz”: $4.5 million for NYC cop shot in tippy chair

A Brooklyn jury has awarded $4,548,000 to Anderson Alexander, a former New York City police detective injured when the office chair he was sitting on tipped over and he shot himself in the knee with a 9 mm Smith & Wesson he was holding.

“This case is not about him shooting himself,” Alexander’s lawyer Matthew Maiorana told the Daily News. “This case is about a broken chair and an unsafe workplace.”…

Alexander, 49, who retired on a three-quarters-pay disability pension, moved to South Carolina, where he works as a sheriff’s deputy.

(Scott Shifrel, “Ex-city cop wins huge award after chair he sat in broke, sending bullet into his knee”, New York Daily News, Nov. 26).

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