The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” has a look at that class action against Bed Bath & Beyond over misleading bedding thread counts which resulted in “a series of refunds and discount certificates” to consumers — coupons from Bed Bath & Beyond, imagine that! — $2,500 for the named client, and up to $290,000 for the plaintiff’s counsel, led by Edith M. Kallas (formerly of Milberg Weiss), the whole contretemps summed up as a “dry goods Enron”. (Lauren Collins, “Splitting Threads”, Jan. 28). See also Michael Krauss at PoL; and Peter Lattman got to it first.
Lerach: keep my sentencing briefs under seal
Ah, the hypocritical irony: Bill Lerach moves to keep his sentencing documents for the Milberg Weiss kickback scandal under seal, perhaps to protect the identities of the 150 people who wrote on his behalf. [NY Sun] Any politicians we should know about? Portfolio has the briefing; the DC Examiner comments. Prosecutors have asked for 24 months (out of a possible 33-month maximum under the Guidelines); sentencing is February 11. (Crossposted from Point of Law.)
Prisoner litigation Hall of Fame
Inmate Jorey Lee Brewis, also known as Rebekah Katherine, is suing officials of the Oregon Department of Corrections who allegedly ignored Brewis’s gender identity disorder, leaving Brewis to resort to — details not for the squeamish — do-it-yourself sex change surgery by way of fingernails, hair ties, rubber bands and other implements available in the cell. A spokeswoman for the corrections department “says she can’t discuss Brewis’ case because of medical privacy concerns”. (James Pitkin, “Juicy Suits: Cutting Off Her Own Testicles in Prison”, Willamette Week, Dec. 13).
Deep Pockets File: Great White fire
Innocent bystanders have paid the bulk of settlements to date in the catastrophic fire caused by Great White’s pyrotechnic display that killed 100 people at The Station nightclub in Providence, Rhode Island. The latest victims are a television station, WPRI, and a cameraman who will contribute $30 million to a settlement fund: WPRI’s Brian Butler is accused of impeding the crowd’s exit through the front door, though Butler’s contemporaneous account suggests that he probably saved some lives at the time. “Dozens of defendants remain, including … Anheuser-Busch Inc., which sold beer at the concert; and Clear Channel Communications, which owns a Providence radio station which ran advertisements promoting the show.” (Andrea Estes, “Tentative deal set in R.I. fire case”, Boston Globe, Feb. 2; “Tentative $30 Million Settlement in Club Fire”, AP/NY Times, Feb. 2). Earlier: Feb. 2006 and Nov. 2 (Home Depot pays $5M for failure to warn, though their foam is different than the foam that caught on fire).
“Twelve Angry Men”
Our roundup link to a discussion of the classic jury-deliberation movie stirred up a considerable discussion among David Bernstein, Ilya Somin, Orin Kerr and commenters at the Volokh Conspiracy.
Licensing eBay resellers, cont’d
Mary Jo Pletz, who lives north of Allentown, Pa., made a very successful time of it accepting people’s consigned items and selling them on eBay. Now the state of Pennsylvania is proceeding against her for not taking out an auctioneer’s license, though it denies that it is seeking the $10 million in fines that her lawyer alleges. (Bob Fernandez, “Pennsylvania takes on online auctions”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 30). Earlier similarly: Feb. 26, 2006 (California); Oct. 13, 2005 (North Dakota); Mar. 21, 2005 (Ohio).
Banning restaurants from serving the obese
House Bill 282, filed in the Mississippi legislature, is an “act to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the state department of health”. It sounds as if it almost has to be a parody, but when Sandy Szwarc calls its sponsor he says he’s perfectly serious (Jan. 31).
Our annual Super Bowl party post
One of the many things I like about my girlfriend is that she’s the one who wants us to get a bigger television. Of course, if we got too big a television, we might not be able to hold our annual Super Bowl party: the NFL is sending around its annual set of scare letters to anyone offering a public exhibition of the Super Bowl on a television larger than 55 inches. (Jacqueline L. Salmon, WaPo, “NFL Pulls Plug On Big-Screen Church Parties For Super Bowl”, Feb. 1). Yes, you’ve seen this story before: Feb. 3 and Jan. 31 last year.
Update: and at the WSJ ($).
Site maintenance alert
We’re responding to ongoing comment-spam attacks (which knocked us offline for a while this morning) with some site maintenance. Comments will probably be down for a bit while we attempt to upgrade. Update 11:15 a.m. EST: Back up and running again; if you notice anything wrong, please drop us an email.
February 1 roundup
- Following public outrage, Spanish businessman drops plans to sue parents of boy he killed in road crash [UK Independent; earlier]
- Scruggs to take Fifth in State Farm case against Hood [Clarion-Ledger] And how much “home cooking” was the Mississippi titan dished out in the Medicaid-tobacco case that made his fortune? [Folo]
- More critics assail ABC “Eli Stone” vaccine-autism fiction, with American Academy of Pediatrics calling for episode’s cancellation [AAP press release; Stier, NY Post; earlier]
- Special ethics counsel recommends disbarment of Edward Fagan, lawyer of Swiss-bank-suit fame whose ethical missteps have been chronicled on this site over the years [Star-Ledger]. As recently as fourteen months ago the L.A. Times was still according Fagan good publicity;
- In past bail-bond scandals, private bond agencies have been caught colluding “with lawyers, the police, jail officials and even judges to make sure that bail is high and that attractive clients are funneled to them.” [Liptak, NYT]
- Archbishop of Canterbury calls for new laws to punish “thoughtless or cruel” comments on religion [Times Online, Volokh]
- Another disturbing case from Massachusetts of a citizen getting charged with privacy violation for recording police activity [also Volokh]
- Abuse of open-records law? Convicted arsonist files numerous requests for pictures and personal information of public employees who sent him to prison; they charge intimidation [AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
- It resembles a news program on Connecticut public-access cable, but look more closely: it’s law firm marketing [Ambrogi]
- Judge says Alfred Rava’s suit can proceed charging sex bias over Oakland A’s stadium distribution of Mother’s Day hats [Metropolitan News-Enterprise; earlier on Angels in Anaheim]
- Crack down on docs with multiple med-mal payouts? Well, there go lots of your neurosurgeons [three years ago on Overlawyered]