You know you want to discuss it, so go ahead (news reference).
Blind item
Eugene Anderson, of Anderson Kill & Olick, on the Business Week website:
Personal experience has forged my attitude about class actions. Forty years ago, I represented a financier claimant in a lawsuit against a major financial scam operation. Our financier’s case was consolidated with a class action against the same scam. I cooperated with the class action lawyers and thought that we were brothers. Their part of the arrangement was that the class action lawyers would keep all the case files. After several years of litigation, I learned that the class action lawyers had settled their case with the defense lawyer. (I still suspect that there was a symbiotic relationship there.)
All discovery files, documents, etc., had been returned to the defendant. These included my firm’s detailed notes regarding the documents and somewhat less detailed notes about witnesses. I never suspected that the defendant would ask for the files, and was completely confounded when I learned that the class action lawyers had agreed.
At the next hearing the judge was furious at me and so was my client. Eventually my client settled for peanuts. My firm got the crumbs on the floor.
Forty years later, I am a happy lawyer, and the class action attorney is living at government expense in a low-security Federal prison. Somehow I can’t help but believe our disparate attitudes toward class actions account for the differences in our respective epilogues.
“They need to have equal rights”
A snapshot from Massachusetts of the campaign (national in scope) to create rights to sue for intangible damages against veterinarians, motorists, and others judged to have negligently killed a pet. Debra Campanile of Haverhill is on a mission to enact such a law, which, along with provisions for unbounded emotional distress damages, would require punitive damages to be awarded in a sum of at least $2,500. The story does not specify whether the $2,500 would be payable per incident or per actual creature whose life was ended, which could make quite a difference in the case of negligently knocking over Billy’s ant farm. (Laurel J. Sweet, “Push for liability in animal deaths would put….”, Boston Herald, Mar. 10).
“You can’t scan everybody. You can’t cath everybody.”
Which means, says Kevin Pho, that you’re not always going to succeed in catching the extremely rare aortic dissection: “No test is 100% accurate, and there will always be missed cases no matter how good the care was.” (Feb. 18; John Maxfield, “Besieged by scourge of medical ‘malpractice’”, Naples (Fla.) Daily News, Feb. 16 (Mahoning County, Ohio case)).
Used client funds to gamble, now suing casinos
By reader acclaim: Arelia Margarita Taveras, once hailed as an up-and-coming lawyer and media commentator who represented 9/11 and air crash victims, says her gambling addiction lost her nearly $1 million; she has admitted dipping into client funds and was disbarred last June. Now she’s suing six Atlantic City casinos and one in Las Vegas for $20 million, saying they had a duty to stop her as it became clear her gambling was out of control. Taveras’s law practice at one point brought her $500,000 annually, and she appeared on TV and radio shows to discuss legal issues. (“Compulsive Gambler Files $20M Suit Against Casinos”, AP/CBS13.com, Mar. 8; Christina Boyle, “Scamming lawyer for 9/11 victims sues casinos for her gambling addiction”, New York Daily News, Mar. 8). More: New York Post, Associated Content.
“The Weirdest Legal Pleading Ever”
You guessed it: it’s the Jack Thompson Florida folly discussed here a couple of weeks ago (Bonnie Goldstein, Slate, Mar. 7). Bonus: the court includes a reference to the precedents set by Montgomery Blair Sibley in his struggles with the Florida bar (earlier). P.S. More from Dennis McCauley at GamePolitics who exchanges emails with Thompson regarding his use of a photo of burned-out Hiroshima to presage what may “figuratively” happen to the Florida bar if he gets sanctioned.
Althouse on AutoAdmit
Advice to ponder (Mar. 6):
George Harrison once sang: “You serve me and I’ll serve you/Swing your partners, all get screwed/Bring your lawyer and I’ll bring mine/Get together, and we could have a bad time.”
If you sue me, I’m going to do my best to figure out how I can sue you. You want to think about that dynamic before you sue somebody. …
The decision to file a lawsuit is a momentous one. Think hard and think many steps ahead before you bring the courts into your life. Don’t sue angry.
More on the new suit filed by Anthony Ciolli, who had been named as a defendant in the earlier suit: Above the Law. Earlier on AutoAdmit/Xoxohth: Jun. 15 and Oct. 29, 2007.
Letter to the editor
Dana Milbank’s Feb. 28 column on Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker operates on the premise that the winner of any Supreme Court argument should be whoever can best appeal to the justices’ sympathies regardless of the merits of the case. Such an approach is more appropriate for coverage of television game shows than the law.
The Post would do better to treat its readers like grownups and have its Supreme Court reporting done by journalists who don’t “yawn” at questions about the appropriateness of jury instructions.
— Theodore H. Frank
Washington
The writer is director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Legal Center for the Public Interest.
Another giant L.A. crash-faking ring
Los Angeles police arrested 20 suspects, with warrants for another 20 still outstanding, in what the department said was another massive auto accident claim fraud ring, headed they say by Curtis H. Connor with involvement from many members of his family. After faking accidents, investigators say, the Connors would “use lawyers in on the scam to submit claims and demand payments for both injuries and damage to the car.” A chiropractic office and auto body repair shop were also part of the family enterprise. (Joel Rubin and Ken Bensinger, “Family members held in major insurance scam”, L.A. Times, Mar. 7). Earlier coverage here, here, here, etc.
Pellicano trial begins
“Anthony Pellicano, the so-called private eye to the stars, masterminded a ‘thriving criminal enterprise’ that used illegal wiretapping and bribery to squash the legal problems of Hollywood’s rich and famous, a prosecutor told a Los Angeles court yesterday. … Pellicano has worked for lawyers who represented Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor.” (Catherine Elsworth, “Pellicano’s Hollywood criminal enterprises”, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Mar. 7). Earlier here.