“Judge Marlon Polk threw it out stating that [Nebraska state Sen. Ernie] Chambers can’t sue God if he can’t serve papers on him.” (WOWT, Oct. 15; earlier).
“Lawyers Hope Bailout Bill ‘a Full Employment Act’ for Law Firms”
Snuggling in under the TARP. (Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal, Oct. 15).
October 15 roundup
- Litigants’ “not about the money” assertions: Mark Obbie has further thoughts on reporters’ uncritical deployment of this cliche, and kind words for our archive of posts on the subject [LawBeat]
- Lawyer on the other side of that much-circulated “I’m sorry” deposition-dispute letter has his say [Markland and Hanley via Turkewitz and Above the Law]
- Local authority in England tells gardener to remove barbed wire from wall surrounding his allotment, thieves might get hurt on it and sue [Never Yet Melted, Steyn/NRO Corner]
- Same-sex marriage in Connecticut through judicial fiat? Jonathan Rauch says no thanks [IGF]
- Lawyers are back suing despite reform of FACTA, the credit-card-receipt “gotcha” law, but insurance might just dry up [Randy Maniloff at Point of Law]
- “Racing to the trough” — auto lenders latest to ask bailout though original TARP rationale of liquidity fix seems remote [Naked Capitalism]
- “To be a green-certified property (pretty important in crunchy Portland) there must be an absolute prohibition on smoking, including outdoor spaces.” [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason “Hit and Run”]
- (Failed) claim in trademark case: “the term ‘electric’ is not commonly used by the general public to describe a source of power for watches” [TTAB via Ron Coleman]
ER nurse: “you can stay if you want, but this condition does not appear to be serious nor life-threatening”
“Obviously if I said any of that, that would be an EMTALA violation.” (Nurse K, commenting, at All Bleeding Stops (Shadowfax), Oct. 14). Or is the risk not one of EMTALA but of malpractice liability, as a second commenter asserts?
“If you or a loved one…”
Reader Milan Vydareny of Chicago writes:
I was watching CNN the other day while on a treadmill at the gym at 5:00 AM. There was a commercial from a legal firm seeking to promote litigation over some medical device that had been recalled. The announcer intoned “If you or a loved one have died because of using….”
The thought that came to my mind was: “Just how many dead people are listening to CNN at this hour?”
Nevada data encryption law
On October 1 a new law went into effect in Nevada requiring businesses to encrypt all “personal identifying information” (things like Social Security and drivers’ license numbers and credit card numbers) of customers in email and “electronic transmissions” more generally. The law has raised concern among, e.g., law offices and medical providers which often work with client documents containing such numbers; it will now be unlawful (say) to email such documents from a professional’s workplace to his or her home office absent encryption. Howard Marks at Information Week (Oct. 13):
Electronic transmission isn’t defined, so one interpretation would include the telephone — so if you forget the password to your online banking account, your bank will have to snail mail or fax you a new one. It does say “to a person outside of the secure system of the business,” so you don’t have to run out and encrypt all your disks like the vendor that brought this to my attention would like.
Don Sears at Baseline (Sept. 19) cites a Las Vegas lawyer on such problems with the law as “the lack of coordination with industry standards and the unclear nature of penalties both criminal and civil” and concludes “once again, the legal system and the IT industry are faced with potentially bigger compliance and liability issues than they probably intended.” At Davis Wright Tremaine’s Privacy and Security Law Blog (Feb. 27), Randy Gainer cites similar (but not identical) mandates moving forward in other states and also notes, “the overwhelming majority of reports of stolen and lost consumer data relate to stored data, not data in transit…. The limited, data-in-transit, encryption mandate in the Nevada statute will therefore do little to stem the tide of stolen and lost consumer data.” Marian Waldmann at Morrison & Foerster (Oct. 2007) notes California’s more sweeping but less specific mandate for businesses to implement and maintain “reasonable security procedures and practices”, and also points out that the determination of whether an out-of-state entity dealing with Nevada residents is “doing business” in the state, and therefore subject to legal mandates of this sort, has been described by the Nevada Supreme Court itself as “often a laborious, fact-intensive inquiry resolved on a case-by-case basis” in litigation. Other commentary: Sidley Austin, Lori MacVittie/DevCentral.
“Woman didn’t know she was pregnant, gives birth”
And now here comes the lawsuit against the hospital, blaming it for the baby’s deficits. Attorney Harold “Tripp” Sebring III has couched the suit against University Community Hospital in Tampa as one on behalf of the child, Brianna Rose Lumley, rather than the mother, Robin Lumley. Per Chicago psychiatric trauma specialist Alexander E. Obolsky, the suit represents “chutzpah”: “This is America. You’ve got to love this country. This woman doesn’t know she is pregnant, but somebody else should.” (Colleen Jenkins, “St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 7).
“No way for a lawyer to steal”
Reacting to a case from Connecticut, Scott Greenfield deplores the apparent decline of standards among double-dealing criminal defense attorneys: “For God’s sake, man, if you are going to engage in flagrantly unethical behavior, at least avoid being a moron while doing so.” (Oct. 13; Hilda Munoz, “Attorney Found Guilty Of Bribing, Tampering With Witness”, Hartford Courant, Oct. 10).
NewTalk: “What should universal national service look like?”
Can we make “nonexistent” one of the options?
P.S. Relatedly, or not, Democratic candidate Obama has called for making women register for the draft.
October 14 roundup
- Don’t miss Roger Parloff’s tour de force coverage in Fortune blowing whistle on that dodgy suit in Moscow against Bank of New York Mellon, adorned by participation of lawprofs Dershowitz and Blakey [PoL overview, main article]
- Digital remixes and copyright law [Lessig, WSJ]
- Surgeon at Connecticut’s Greenwich Hospital revealed as drug abuser, Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder now pressing suit on behalf of general class of patients, which sounds like it means “whether harmed or not” [Greenwich Time, Newsday via TortsProf weekly roundup]
- Chicago sheriff halting foreclosures, or maybe not, reportage is confused [Reuters, big discussion at Steve Chapman blog] And is Obama taking the idea national with bid for 90-day moratorium on foreclosures? [AP]
- Foie gras-style financial gavage? “None of banks getting government money was given a choice about it, said one of the people familiar with the plans.” [Bloomberg, Bernstein @ Volokh] More: Ann Althouse, Kuznicki/Cato at Liberty.
- Trey Allen law firm in Dallas agrees to pay $840,000 restitution after profiting from staged car crash scheme, but Allen’s lawyer says client wasn’t aware of any fraud [ABA Journal]
- Smoking bans, alcohol taxes contributing to steep decline of English village pubs [Newsweek]
- Bias-law panel rules Wal-Mart within its rights not to hire a female applicant for Santa Claus position [eight years ago on Overlawyered]