In the April American Spectator, William Tucker has a lengthy piece on the question of whether scandals, legislative setbacks and a more critical public view toward litigation together signify that the power and influence of the trial bar has peaked. This site is mentioned in the piece and I’m quoted, observing that “People have called the top of this market before and they’ve always turned out to be wrong.” (not online, apparently; Jane Genova discusses).
More on the World Trade Center bombing decision
I have an op-ed in today’s New York Sun on the affirmance of the “Port Authority is 68% responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center car bomb” verdict. Earlier.
Connecticut: timed fireman test violated ADA, cont’d
Updating our Jan. 18, 2007 post: “Connecticut’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities says that the city of Stamford violated anti-discrimination law because they wouldn’t give extra time on a promotion exam to David Lenotti. Lenotti is a fire lieutenant with attention deficit disorder.” [Excerpting coverage in the Apr. 15 Stamford Advocate*]:
The city defended the denial by claiming a fire captain, the position Lenotti sought, must be able to read and process information quickly at a fire scene. But state officials said the city never proved that was true, never consulted with disability rights experts and does not use a promotional test that actually measures how fast a candidate can read.
(Dave Statter, Apr. 20; Created Things, Apr. 16; decision in PDF format). More: Daniel Schwartz has more analysis (May 3): if you want a fire captain to be able to read quickly at emergency scene, gotta spell that out explicitly in the job description.
*An odd aspect of the Stamford Advocate article, preserved on GoogleCache: it quotes disability consultant Suzanne Kitchen making the very same comment, word for word, that we criticized her for making more than a year ago. Does Ms. Kitchen really repeat herself so precisely?
New faculty hire at Berkeley law school
Eric Muller has details.
Newstex syndication
Overlawyered is now among the blogs carried by the “content on demand” news service.
“Appeals court tosses out NYC lawsuit against gun industry”
A major victory for the good guys, of which Ted has a discussion at Point of Law. I would add that Mayor Bloomberg and other promoters of the gun litigation should take very little comfort from Judge Katzmann’s dissent, which is based on two themes — that the majority could have decided the case without reference to constitutional analysis, and that it could have certified the case to the New York courts for an authoritative account of local law — that in no way imply any endorsement of the city’s case on the merits. (Larry Neumeister, AP/SFGate, Apr. 30).
More from Hans Bader: “The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has claimed that the law violates “separation of powers” by changing the outcome of pending court cases (an argument that, if taken to its logical conclusion, would require invalidating the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it legislatively overturned trespass convictions of civil-rights demonstrators who engaged in sit-ins).”
Suit: “Lesbian” should mean we residents of Lesbos
AP @ Volokh, from Greece:
Three islanders from Lesbos … have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word lesbian in its name. …
“My sister can’t say she is a Lesbian,” said Dimitris Lambrou. “Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos,” he said.
High school pitcher: team’s fault I overused my arm
Sports doctors say more youngsters are coming in with arm injuries from excessive hard pitching on the baseball field. In Washington state, Jason Koenig has lost his lawsuit claiming that North Mason High School was negligent in not overriding his wishes to stay in for all nine innings, 140 pitches, in a game in April 2001, resulting in injury to his arm. (Tom Wyrwich, “Former high school pitcher hopes rules are changed to protect young arms”, Seattle Times, Apr. 29).
“Hard lemonade, hard price”
47-year-old archaeology professor Chris Ratte is perhaps not the most careful of parents; he says he didn’t realize when he bought a $7 “Mike’s Hard Lemonade” at a Tigers game, it was an alcoholic beverage (all of 10 proof), and let his 7-year-old son Leo drink the 12-ounce bottle. A vendor noticed the boy with the drink; the boy had no symptoms of inebriation but said he was nauseated; and stadium officials, in a prime example of defensive overreaction, summoned an ambulance, which found Leo fine with no trace of alcohol in his system.
Silly enough so far, no harm, no foul, but Michigan Child Protective Services intervened, held Leo in foster care for two days (refusing to release him to the custody of his aunts, who drove from New England on short notice for just such a possibility), and forced Ratte to move out of the house until a second hearing okayed his return. If Ratte and his wife weren’t upper-middle-class academics with access to the University of Michigan Law School clinic professors, it could have been much worse. “Don Duquette, a U-M law professor who directs the university’s Child Advocacy Law Clinic, represented Ratte and his wife. He notes sardonically that the most remarkable thing about the couple’s case may be the relative speed with which they were reunited with Leo.” (Brian Dickerson, Detroit Free Press, Apr. 28 (h/t B.C.)).
Some policy proposals are for taxpayers to fund attorneys to defend parents victimized by Child Protective Services; some go so far as to call it a constitutional right, albeit one having nothing to do with the underlying text of the Constitution. But that would only treat the symptom and ossify the underlying problem of abusive government intervention into the home.
Appellate Division upholds ludicrous 1993 WTC bombing verdict
In the wake of the September 11 bombings, Congress established a Victims Compensation Fund and limited liability for a number of deep-pockets who were also victimized by the attacks. A number of academics questioned that it was even conceivable that innocent third parties could be held liable for a terrorist attack. Anthony J. Sebok, What’s Law Got to Do With It? Designing Compensation Schemes in the Shadow of the Tort System, 53 DEPAUL L. REV. 901, 917 (2003); RICHARD A. NAGAREDA, MASS TORTS IN A WORLD OF SETTLEMENT 104 (2007); Peter Schuck, Special Dispensation, AM. LAWYER (June 2004); see also LLOYD DIXON AND RACHEL KAGANOFF STERN, COMPENSATION FOR LOSSES FROM THE 9/11 ATTACKS (RAND Institute for Civil Justice 2004).
Overlawyered readers knew better, because they had seen the Port Authority get socked with a $1.8 billion verdict (Oct. 27, 2005; Oct. 29, 2005; Nov. 2, 2005) after being held 68% responsible for the deliberate bombing of the World Trade Center by terrorists in 1993. The Port Authority appealed the absurd ruling, but the Appellate Division has affirmed unanimously (via) since, after all, such absurdities are central to the modern tort regime and thus not “legal error” to abandon the centuries-old concept of intervening causation. As I noted in a related Wall Street Journal editorial, contingent-fee attorneys’ incentives are not to seek out the truth behind wrongdoing, but to construct a narrative that will hold the deepest pocket the most responsible, regardless of the effect on justice. This distortion has worked its way into popular culture; a survey of family members of September 11 decedents found that the median respondent held the terrorists only 30% responsible for losses. Gillian Hadfield, Framing the Choice between Cash and the Courthouse: Experiences with the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, 42 L. & SOC. R. __ (forthcoming 2008). See also my House testimony on the expansion of the 9/11 Fund.