Evicted — by his own class action lawyers

The Center for Public Representation, a Massachusetts “public interest law” group that specializes in disability-related lawsuits, filed a civil-rights class action in the name of 640 profoundly mentally disabled residents of nursing facilities demanding that the state Department of Mental Retardation move them into group homes, the better to be part of the “community”, as the catch-phrase has it. A judge agreed and ordered the transfer. Among the 640 patients was Eric Voss, who is severely disabled and has been living for seven years at a Groton pediatric nursing facility called Seven Hills. Now Eric’s parents, Frank and Barbara Voss, are fighting the order, saying that their son never had any choice about joining the action and that forcing him out would endanger the quality of his care and deprive him of surroundings and staff that have become like home. “U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, has filed legislation that requires parents and guardians to be notified about class-action suits, and to allow them to opt out.”

“Our children can’t speak for themselves, so we will fight for them,” Voss said. “If individuals like Eric are moved, they won’t live long. They shouldn’t have to give their lives for a lawsuit that has nothing to do with them.”

(Rita Savard, “‘We’re prepared to fight'”, Lowell Sun, Oct. 12; alternate version; Rolland v. Patrick settlement agreement, PDF; AvertRollandTragedy.org, advocacy site).

MP3 takedowns, the pre-emptive way

Takedowns without DMCA takedown notices: a hosting company pulls down a user’s posted MP3 song files because the user, an indie record label, can’t produce a copyright registration certificate for them — and never mind that they’re the label’s own material posted with the okay of its artists. (Tamera Bennett, Oct. 20, Gordon Firemark, Oct. 21; via Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion).

Microblog 2008-10-27

DRI charity-race “Assumption of Risk and Waiver of Rights”

It was only natural for the professional organization of the civil defense bar, the Defense Research Institute, to include bulletproof disclaimer language when sponsoring a charity race for its own lawyer-members at its annual meeting, which took place earlier this month in New Orleans. As Robert Ambrogi points out, the waiver/disclaimer warned of the risks of high altitude (in a famously low-altitude city) and asked the signer to affirm that various horrific-sounding risks, such as those of terrorism, “contribute to my enjoyment and excitement and are a reason for my voluntary participation”.

Obama and judicial activism

David Bernstein @ Volokh — not one to be suspected of sugar-coating his treatment of the subject — listens to the Democrat’s 2001 Chicago public radio interview, and finds reasons to be cautiously optimistic about Obama’s view of the role of courts:

…Obama was clearly influenced by [the] Rosenberg/Klarman thesis that the Supreme Court rarely diverges much from social consensus, and can’t be expected to.

On the issue of whether Obama endorses redistribution of wealth through the courts, it certainly sounds to me like he thinks the Rodriguez case (holding 5-4 that unequal funding of public schools does not violate the Equal Protection Clause) was wrongly decided, and that state courts that have mandated equal funding for public schools are correct. But he also seems to think that it was a huge error for activists to try to achieve more general redistribution through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (In the waning days of the Warren Court, there was a movement to try to constitutionalize a right to a minimum income.) Co-interviewee Dennis Hutchison even suggests that in pre-interview conversation, Obama agreed with him that Goldberg v. Kelley, establishing procedural protections for welfare recipients, was wrongly decided, or at least promised much more than it could possibly achieve.

Based on this interview, it seems unlikely that Obama opposes constitutionalizing the redistributive agenda because he’s an originalist, or otherwise endorses the Constitution as a “charter of negative liberties,” though he explicitly recognizes that this is how the Constitution has been interpreted since the Founding. Rather, he seems to think that focusing on litigation distracts liberal activists from necessary political organizing, and that any radical victories they might manage to win from the courts would be unstable because those decisions wouldn’t have public backing. The way to change judicial decisions, according to Obama, is to change the underlying political and social dynamics; changes in the law primarily follow changes in society, not vice versa. Again, he’s channeling Rosenberg and Klarman. And this attitude on Obama’s part shouldn’t be surprising, given that he decided to go into politics rather than become a full-time University of Chicago constitutional law professor, as he was offered. Had he been committed to the idea that courts are at the forefront of social change, he would have been inclined to take a potentially very influential position at Chicago. (And judging from this interview, he would likely have been a great con law professor, both as a teacher and scholar, and, had he been so inclined, legal activist.)

P.S. Was “cautiously optimistic” the right phrase to describe David Bernstein’s reaction? Read his whole post as updated, as well as Ted’s contributions in comments.

Update: Florida Supreme Court rejects “false light” theory

The Florida high court has rejected the invasion-of-privacy tort theory under which a defendant can be held liable for a publication setting forth individually true facts which collectively create a misleading impression. We’ve extensively covered one of the two lawsuits on which the court ruled, in which famed attorney Willie Gary obtained an $18 million jury verdict against Gannett for investigative journalism it perpetrated against one of his clients. An appeals court later threw out the verdict. (WSJ law blog, Pensacola News-Journal, St. Petersburg Times editorial).

However, Marc Randazza at Citizen Media Law Blog (Oct. 24), analyzing the second of the two Florida cases, Rapp v. Jews for Jesus, warns that the decisions fell far short of being the free speech victories some have taken them as, because the Florida court endorsed and strengthened theories of “defamation by implication” which will usually be available in suing over the same fact patterns, the difference being that suits alleging “defamation by implication” must overcome more robust First Amendment defenses. Similarly: Elizabeth Spainhour, Newsroom Law Blog, Oct. 24.

October 27 roundup

  • NYC judge tosses injury suit against Lawyers Athletic League filed by a player on Milberg’s team [NYLJ]
  • Kentucky fen-phen lawyers Gallion and Cunningham disbarred [Lexington Herald-Leader]
  • Worker’s comp doc claims he noticed abnormal lab result and told patient to check with his primary doc. Patient didn’t and harm ensued. Malpractice? [CalLaw Legal Pad, KevinMD, Happy Hospitalist]
  • Federalist Society publishes text of Judge Dennis Jacobs’s speech on pro bono, but Chemerinsky digs in rather than apologize [PoL]
  • Are HIPAA privacy rules suspended during emergencies? No, and what lovely situations that’s likely to cause [HIPAA blog, more]
  • One of the more unusual personal injury lawyer websites is “like a touchy-feely hybrid of Myst and The Office” [Above the Law]
  • Gold-collar criminal defense work? McAfee decides $12 million too rich a sum for defending CFO Prabhat Goyal [Bennett & Bennett, Greenfield]
  • Sounds promising: “Texas Supreme Court decision could end peremptory strikes in jury selection” [SE Texas Record]

Microblog 2008-10-24

  • Legal risks posed to employers by Web 2.0 [HR Exec Online h/t Nicole Black] #
  • Another take on pro bono and its discontents [Carolyn Elefant in ’91] #
  • Stock market “capitulation” is another of those unhelpful concepts w/o real-world referent [Surowiecki] #
  • “In conference call, no one can hear you knit” [Connie Crosby] #
  • October Black Friday crash = “hedge fund going out of business sale” [Ray Lehmann] #
  • What’s the opposite of “peak oil” theory, anyway? Trough oil? #