May 6 roundup

  • Raelyn Campbell briefly captured national spotlight (“Today” show, MSNBC) with $54 million suit against Best Buy for losing laptop, but it’s now been dismissed [Shop Floor; earlier]
  • Charmed life of Florida litigators Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt continues as Miami judge awards them $218 million for class action lawsuit they lost [Daily Business Report, Krauss @ PoL; earlier here, here, and here]
  • Lerach said kickbacks were “industry practice” and “everybody was paying plaintiffs”. True? Top House GOPer Boehner wants hearings to find out [NAM “Shop Floor”, WSJ law blog]
  • It’s Dannimal House! An “office rife with booze, profanity, inappropriate sexual activity, misuse of state vehicles and on-the-job threats involving the Mafia” — must be Ohio AG Marc Dann, of NYT “next Eliot Spitzer” fame [AP/NOLA, Adler @ Volokh, Above the Law, Wood @ PoL; earlier]
  • Sorry, Caplin & Drysdale, but you can’t charge full hourly rates for time spent traveling but not working on that asbestos bankruptcy [NLJ] More: Elefant.
  • Fire employee after rudely asking if she’s had a face-lift? Not unless you’ve got $1.7 million to spare [Chicago Tribune]
  • Daniel Schwartz has more analysis of that Stamford, Ct. disabled-firefighter case (May 1); if you want a fire captain to be able to read quickly at emergency scene, better spell that out explicitly in the job description [Ct Emp Law Blog]
  • As expected, star Milberg expert John Torkelsen pleads guilty to perjury arising from lies he told to conceal his contingent compensation arrangements [NLJ; earlier]
  • Case of deconstructionist prof who plans to sue her Dartmouth students makes the WSJ [Joseph Rago, op-ed page, Mindles H. Dreck @ TigerHawk; earlier]
  • How’d I do, mom? No violation of fair trial for judge’s mother to be one of the jurors [ABA Journal]
  • First sell the company’s stock short, then sue it and watch its share price drop. You mean there’s some ethical problem with that? [three years ago on Overlawyered]

“U.S. Companies May Be on Hook for Libyan Terrorism”

It’s like magic, we’ll just make Big Business pay:

Washington, D.C., lawyer Thomas Fay has spent years hounding the Libyan government for money on behalf of victims of terrorist attacks. Now he’s hoping to collect — from American companies.

Fay has sent letters to 13 brand-name corporations, including Exxon Mobil and Chevron, notifying them that if he wins his case against Libya, he’ll be coming after them. He has even sent one to White & Case, the prominent law firm that recently signed on to defend Libya.

The gambit stems from a change in the law meant to make it easier for plaintiffs to secure judgments and collect from countries found responsible for sponsoring terrorist attacks. Until recently, those who had prevailed in court had few options for collecting.

But on Jan. 28, President George W. Bush signed a bill amending the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to allow plaintiffs to seek any asset owned by the terrorist-sponsoring country in reach of American courts, including frozen accounts or property managed by others. The amendment also permits victims to request punitive damages, which they couldn’t before, and eliminates some avenues for appeal. Under the new law, plaintiffs with pending cases had 60 days to file or refile claims.

Attorney Fay was among those lobbying for the new provision, which was sponsored by Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). (W.J. Hennigan, Legal Times, Apr. 15).

“Suing Over What Your Co-Workers Listen To”

The Eleventh Circuit on Monday “held that Ingrid Reeves could proceed to trial with her hostile environment harassment claim — which is to say, that if the jury agrees with her on the facts, it’s entitled to award potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages — even though the case didn’t involve any sexual extortion, any offensive touching, any sexual propositions, or even any insults targeted to her personally. Rather, her complaints, as described by the Eleventh Circuit were chiefly related to “sexually crude language that offended her.” Among the sources of that offense, per the court opinion, was “a radio program that was played every morning on the stereo in the office”, per Eugene Volokh “a morning program on Birmingham’s 107.7 FM during 2002-03, according to one brief”. (May 2; title post borrowed from Bader). More: Fulton County Daily Report, Evil HR Lady (“And you wonder sometime why we HR types put a damper on the fun.”).

Don’t X

Another bunch of things not to do if you’re a member of the legal profession.

  • Send insulting letters to opposing counsel. (G.F. Pignato, ordered to write an article about civility.) [Legal Profession Blog via ABA Journal]
  • Leave your innocent client in jail by failing to act on new evidence. (William S. Gebbie, surrenders his California license; also accused of stealing client funds.) [ABA Journal]
  • Use the NY Yankees trademark without permission in advertising for asbestos clients. [ATL]
  • Make “jerk-off” motions in court. (Adam Reposa, Texas, sentenced to ninety days for contempt of court; many in blogosphere are appalled at what they call an overreaction.) [ATL; Simple Justice; Mark Bennett and again; and Patterico notes an interesting coincidence]
  • Mock the plaintiffs’ attorney at a jury trial with “Overruled” signs and soccer-style red cards. (Judge James M. Brooks, admonished.) [ATL]
  • As a prosecutor, conceal exculpatory evidence. (Former Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Brooke Halsey Jr., suspended.) [ABA Journal]
  • And even if you’re a pro se, don’t send a death threat to opposing counsel by fax. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]

Earlier: Feb. 24.

May 2 roundup

  • Contriving to give Sheldon Silver the moral high ground: NY judges steamed at lack of raises are retaliating against Albany lawmakers’ law firms [NY Post and editorial. More: Turkewitz.]
  • When strong laws prove weak: Britain’s many layers of land use control seem futile against determined builders of gypsy encampments [Telegraph]
  • “U.S. patent chief: applications up, quality down” [EETimes]
  • Plenty of willing takers for those 4,703 new cars that survived the listing-ship near-disaster, but Mazda destroyed them instead [WSJ]
  • “Prof. Dohrn [for] Attorney General and Rev. Wright [for] Secretary of State”? So hard to tell when left-leaning lawprof Brian Leiter is kidding and when he’s not [Leiter Reports]
  • Yet another hard-disk-capacity class action settlement, $900K to Strange & Carpenter [Creative HDD MP3 Player; earlier. More: Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”.]
  • Filipino ship whistleblowers’ case: judge slashes Texas attorney’s fee, “calling the lawyer’s attempt to bill his clients nearly $300,000 ‘unethically excessive.'” [Boston Globe, earlier]
  • RFK Jr. Watch: America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® endorses Oklahoma poultry litigation [Legal NewsLine]
  • Just what the budget-strapped state needs: NY lawmakers earmark funds for three (3) new law schools [NY Post editorial; PoL first, second posts, Greenfield]
  • In Indiana, IUPUI administrators back off: it wasn’t racial harassment after all for student-employee to read a historical book on fight against Klan [FIRE; earlier]
  • Fiesta Cornyation in San Antonio just isn’t the same without the flying tortillas [two years ago on Overlawyered]

Welcome New York Times readers

This website is mentioned in an article on allergies and chemical sensitivities in the workplace, specifically on the case of Susan McBride, who’s suing her employer, the city of Detroit, for not preventing a co-worker from wearing perfume to the office (see Jul. 6 and Jul. 18, 2007; earlier Detroit case, May 25, 2005). (Lisa Belkin, “Sickened by the Office (Really)”, May 1).