They quote Ted twice.
“I am sorry….”
October 6 roundup
All-blog edition:
- Judges overheard chatting in coffee shop about sweetheart class settlement [WageLaw via Paul Karlsgodt’s weekly class action blog roundup]
- More attempts to sue/uncover anonymous blog commenters: “I was subpoenaed for a discovery deposition about one of my posts on this blog.” [Medblogger Dr. Wes]
- Thoughts prompted by the latest (NYC) round of litigation over “ladies’ nights” at drinking establishments [David Giacalone, f/k/a]
- Head of state (Bolivia’s Morales) to his lawyer: “If it’s illegal, go ahead and make it legal. That’s what you went to school for.'” [Cato at Liberty]
- Everybody run! Perennial Overlawyered mentionee Steve Berman has a blog [Class Action Law Today via his P.R. guy in Kevin O’Keefe comments]
- When infamous NYC lawyer Burt Pugach calls, hang up [Greenfield]
- Colleague described as “a soap opera doctor” elects to spend more time in the courtroom than in the operating room [Throckmorton]
- Dear Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee: “Please resist the efforts of vaccine-injury plaintiffs’ advocates to define themselves as representatives of ‘the autism community.'” [Kathleen Seidel, Neurodiversity]
Ontario forensic pathologist scandal
“Ontario vowed to overhaul its pediatric forensic pathology system yesterday following a highly critical report citing the ‘woefully inadequate’ training of pathologist Dr. Charles Smith and the inaction of his supervisors in the coroner’s office who ‘actively protected’ him despite ‘warning signs’ about errors he made that led to wrongful prosecutions.” A 1,000-page report by Justice Stephen Goudge found that Smith’s testimony blaming child deaths on family members resulted in numerous wrongful prosecutions and erroneous convictions, including that of William Mullins-Johnson of Sault Ste. Marie, who “spent 12 years in prison after he was convicted of murdering his four-year-old niece. The conviction was quashed last year after the expert evidence was dismissed as unreliable.” (Jordana Huber, “Inquiry blasts Ontario pathologist”, Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 2; CBC; ABA Journal; Goudge inquiry website and report).
Microblog 2008-10-05
- Are Citi-Wachovia-Wells Fargo doomed to relive Texaco-Getty-Pennzoil in court? [Ethan Leib, Prawfsblawg; more here, here] #
- GOP petrified at prospect of filibuster-proof Democratic Senate [Politico] #
- Iceland’s once high-flying banks: will bailout needs overwhelm small nation’s govt? [Salmon] #
- Splog rips off Blawg Review #175 in its entirety from rightful author J. Spencer. Will Blogspot do anything? [don’t give ’em a direct link] #
- A peek at a revamped Amazon Kindle due out for Xmas? [Carnoy, CNet “Crave”] #
- Courtesy Kevin O’Keefe, “Beer for Bloggers” event in Manhattan Monday evening [see you there?] #
- Good article on pressures on Fannie Mae to plunge into risky lending 2005-08 [Kudos to NYT] #
Mental health “parity” insurance mandate
This was the week that Congress passed and the President signed a new law requiring that most health insurers (if they cover mental health treatment at all) pay for lots and lots of talk therapy and addiction rehab the same way they pay for lots of angioplasties or appendectomies, in the name of “parity” and “nondiscrimination”. Very optimistically — it won’t be Congress writing the checks — the ten-year cost is projected at only $3.4 billion. (Judith Graham, “Triage”/Chicago Tribune, Oct. 3). Next week lawmakers will go back to complaining that health insurance has become prohibitively expensive and that much of the population is priced out of buying it altogether. Mickey Kaus remembers where we’ve seen this sort of feel-good short-circuiting of underwriting standards before (Oct. 2).
Annals of traffic-cams
The traffic camera automatically recorded the license plate of the vehicle going too fast, so the owner (in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa) was automatically mailed a ticket. The only problem: the vehicle was being towed by a tow truck at the time. (Stumblng Tumblr, Aug. 5).
More from commenter Cathy Gellis: “I know someone who canceled her Fastrak/EZ Pass automatic toll account and was charged when the device passed through a toll while being mailed back.”
“…His penchant for litigation as a form of costless entertainment”
In the past two years Tyrone Hurt has filed more than seventy appeals with the D.C. Circuit, whose judges observe (PDF):
In just the last couple of years, Hurt has sued the Declaration of Independence, Black’s Law Dictionary, the United Nations, agencies of the District of Columbia and the Federal Government, and various courts and their officers. Hurt has . . . demanded the deportation of a Spanish-speaking government employee.
Finding that Hurt has abused the privilege of having filing fees waived for indigence (“in forma pauperis”) the court dismissed his forty-four pending cases and decreed that he will have to pay ordinary filing fees if he wishes to bring any more pro se actions in that court. Hurt’s various failed lawsuits have demanded “sums of money dwarfing the size of the Federal Government’s annual budget”. (WSJ law blog, Oct. 3).
Microblog 2008-10-03
- Game-geek nostalgia: the “Play Generated Map and Document Archive” [Feral Child] #
- “A lawyer charging extra for stamps and copies is like a car wash charging extra for water.” [Matt Homann, The (Non)-Billable Hour] #
- Aside to attorney Stephen Otto, who asked about a mail- and copy-intensive bankruptcy case: I guess that might be the exception, like the desert car wash that you can understand might for water use by the gallon #
- Some reasons why Washington Mutual failure and rescue was a big deal [Kevin LaCroix, D&O Diary] #
- Analysis of bailout’s “excessive executive compensation” provisions [Hodak Value] #
- Roundup of credit crisis links [Point of Law] #
Scooping up police crash reports, cont’d
Two Milwaukee-based law firms, Hupy & Abraham and the McNally Law Offices, have been gathering up vehicle-crash police reports in the famously litigation-friendly Illinois counties east of St. Louis, and then soliciting persons named in the reports to file injury claims. “Some local police departments, including Belleville, Edwardsville, O’Fallon and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department,” have resisted the demands, based on worries about citizen privacy and identity theft, or have sought to charge for per-report access, which would discourage mass scooping up of names. The McNally firm, however, “sends a copy of a letter from Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office, which states the police have to allow viewing of the reports, at no charge.” (Brian Bruegemann, “Ambulance chasing? Lawyers zero in on metro-east clients”, Belleville News-Democrat, Sept. 28). Ron Miller at Maryland Injury Lawyer says the practice contributes toward giving the plaintiff’s bar a bad name, and corresponds with attorney Michael Hupy whose firm figures in the story. We covered the phenomenon earlier here and here.