“Hello! Don’t hang up, because you may have won a valuable…” [-click-]

According to the U.S. Chamber-affiliated Madison County Record, if lawyers are successful in pursuing an Illinois class action against mortgage broker Amerifirst over the meal-interrupting telephonic intrusions, “the lawyers would have to notify each and every aggrieved member of the class with an unsolicited phone call of their own.” (“Our View: All in the Family”, Oct. 28; Ann Knef, “Class plaintiff’s attorney-husband is TCPA specialist”, Oct. 24; “Lakin files class action against mortgage lender over pre-recorded messages”, Oct. 22).

Employment Non-Discrimination Act

The proposed law imposing liability on private employers who discriminate on the basis of employees’ sexual orientation has cleared the House for the first time. My own views haven’t changed since I wrote on the proposal in Reason a decade ago in the course of a review of Andrew Sullivan (who has switched sides since then and now favors the bill). Both sides of the debate get fully aired in the comments to this Dale Carpenter post and by various contributors to the Independent Gay Forum.

More: Possibly related, the case of Aaron Charney versus Sullivan & Cromwell has settled: David Lat, “A Big Pay Day for Big Law Gay?”, New York Observer, Nov. 6.

Federici v. U-Haul update: jury awards $15 million

Following up on the story Jason Barney wrote about Oct. 25: a Seattle jury has awarded $15 million to the woman gravely injured when an improperly secured entertainment center fell off a rented U-Haul trailer and through her windshield. “U-Haul was ordered to pay 67 percent of the total amount and the balance is to be paid by James Hefley, the man who rented the U-Haul trailer. Jurors did not find the company that rented the trailer to Hefley or Federici liable. … Federici’s attorneys argued that U-Haul knowingly rented a poorly designed trailer that in which loads could not be secured. They said that the trailer could have been made safer with a cargo net or higher tailgates and that U-Haul knew there had a been a number of similar incidents.” (Christine Clarridge, “Woman hit by unsecured load awarded $15 million”, Seattle Times, Nov. 9).

ADA bans lottery-ticket sales in smoking venues?

Make way for another creative application of the Americans with Disabilities Act: the office of Texas attorney general Greg Abbott says it could violate the ADA for the Texas Lottery Commission to permit sale of its lottery tickets in stores that allow smoking. “Lewisville resident Billy Williams complained to the commission in 2006 that he had an asthma attack after buying a ticket at a smoky store.” Abbott’s office found that the ADA requires that disabled residents be provided with “‘meaningful access’ to state services”, in this case consisting of lottery tickets, and that smoking-allowed policies at participating retailers could impair such access. (“Smoking questioned for stores that sell lottery tickets”, AP/Houston Chronicle, Nov. 9).

Inside one TV-ad law firm

William K. Mattar, 43, of Buffalo “has built a substantial auto-injury practice through the estimated $2 million he spends each year on ads produced by CJ Advertising in Nashville, Tenn.” Now three lawyers who worked for Mattar have quit in acrimonious circumstances, providing a look inside the firm’s workings. Joseph Bergen said Mattar had admitted never having tried a case and had never taken a client deposition in the nine years Bergen had worked with the firm. As business poured in from TV viewers, the lawyers say, Mattar stopped using his staff lawyers to screen the cases for likely merit, instead devolving that task on a call center in Tennessee. Meanwhile, the staff lawyers’ caseloads swelled to more than 200 cases apiece, along with which came “increased pressure from Mattar to settle a minimum of two to three cases a week each,” whether or not the lawyers felt the cases were in an appropriate posture to settle. The three are setting up their own personal-injury firm, and Mattar depicts them as disgruntled employees who are misleading clients in hopes of taking away business from him. (Michael Beebe, “Mattar’s 3 trial lawyers quit”, Buffalo News, Oct. 25; “Mattar says lawyers conspired to steal clients”, Nov. 1; Martha Neil, “Former PI Colleagues Now Battling in Buffalo”, ABA Journal, Nov. 1). For some reason the Buffalo-Rochester area has generated a steady stream of colorful stories about law firms with saturation TV-ad budgets, sometimes coupled with factory-line methods; see our earlier coverage of Cellino & Barnes/The Barnes Firm and the now-retired Jim (“The Hammer”) Shapiro, of “hand you their severed heads” fame, who conceded in a deposition that he had never tried a case.

“No liability for doctor who revived newborn”

The Washington Supreme Court has ruled that doctors in Vancouver, Wash. can’t be held liable for resuscitating a baby after he was born without a heartbeat. The parents said the medics had wrongly failed to ask their permission before saving the child’s life. The infant survived but with severe disabilities. (AP/Seattle Times, Nov. 8; “State high court: No liability for doctor who revived newborn”, AP/KOMO, Nov. 8; opinion with first and second concurrences, all PDF).