ABC News is reporting that all charges have been dropped in the Duke Lacrosse case. So how long before the civil suits are filed by the exonerated players? (I’m betting the complaints have already been drafted.) And how much will taxpayers be on the hook for?
What do John Edward and John Edwards have in common?
John Edward is the quack who made a television career claiming to channel the dead. John Edwards is the trial lawyer presidential candidate who didn’t go quite that far when delivering a closing argument, restricting himself merely to a channeling a mute victim of cerebral palsy that he successfully blamed on a doctor. As the New York Times reported:
“She speaks to you through me,” the lawyer went on in his closing argument. “And I have to tell you right now — I didn’t plan to talk about this — right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She’s inside me, and she’s talking to you.”
In other jurisdictions, such unfairly prejudicial theatrics asking the jury to decide on passion are grounds for mistrial. (Well, they’re supposed to be, anyway.)
We’ve had lots of coverage of Edwards’s trial career: Jan. 12; Oct. 20, 2005; Aug. 17, 2004; Jul. 28, 2004; Feb. 2, 2004. And we’ve noted others’ comments, too: Jan. 5; Jul. 16, 2004; Feb. 26, 2004; Jan. 31, 2004; Sep. 16, 2003.
What a patroon
Last month, Micheal Ray Richardson, the coach of the Continental Basketball Association’s Albany Patroons, lost his job after reports in the local paper, the Albany Times Union, that he had allegedly made anti-Semitic and anti-gay comments. Now Richardson, according to reports, is planning to file a lawsuit against the newspaper this week for $5 million for defamation for these news reports. Obviously, if the newspaper report was false, Richardson would have a strong case. But I think he may want to work on his arguments just a little bit:
Richardson, a former Knicks first-round draft pick, did not deny that he uttered the gay slur at a group of fans that were harassing him, but said that it was not meant as a homophobic slur.
Moreover, although he claims that his comments were mischaracterized, with one exception, he doesn’t seem to deny his remarks about Jews, either:
“Micheal recalls saying ‘Jewish lawyer,’ not ‘Jew,’ ” his lawyer, John Aretakis, told The Post.
Oh. I might have been inclined to take this lawsuit more seriously, except that the lawyer’s name struck my eye. It’s our old friend, John Aretakis. (I guess meritless lawsuits against the Catholic Church don’t pay all the bills.) But at least he doesn’t pretend it isn’t about the money:
“This is stupid political correctness gone mad,” said Aretakis, who told The Post that representatives from the Times Union asked him, “Would an apology make this lawsuit go away?”
“The answer is no,” Aretakis said.
Unfortunately for Richardson, if media reports are right, Aretakis — besides misspelling his own client’s name — seems to have misunderstood the legal standard for defamation, inventing a theory of “malice” (based on the notion that the reporter was getting revenge on the team because his car was towed by the team two years ago) that ignores the requirement that the story be untrue.
Guess what it isn’t about?
Last month, Mohammed A. Hussain went to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore for a medical procedure. Before it began, he wanted to pray; he alleges he was mistreated by a hospital security guard, who “proceeded to manhandle him, yell racial epithets at him, push him down the corridor and order him to exit the hospital.”
So, on Friday Hussain filed a $30 million lawsuit, alleging assault, battery and the ubiquitous emotional distress. But (you guessed) it:
Hussain’s attorney, David Ellin, said his client sued the hospital because he did not think executives were taking his case seriously enough.
“He felt the only way to get their attention and make any changes was to really put their feet to the fire and file a lawsuit,” Ellin said.
Ellin said Hussain’s aim with the suit is not to win compensation but to raise awareness about Islam and religious prejudices.
“This is really done to try to educate people on the religion of Islam and make people more tolerant and just educate them on different religious backgrounds,” Ellin said.
And if he happens to also get $30 million for it, hey, so much the better.
April 11 roundup
- Chief exec of 1-800-ATTORNEY ended up needing one himself, pleading guilty to securities fraud charge [NYLJ, Lattman]
- Cost of providing liability insurance for Pennsylvania prison doctor greatly exceeds his pay [Shamokin, Pa. News-Item, Dr. Robert Hynick, Northumberland County Prison]
- “Scottish sociopaths sipping their single malt Glenlivet” — yep, Jack Thompson is suing Grand Theft Auto developers again [GameSpot]
- Anna Nicole Smith fee-ing frenzy: $4,265 for Bahamas cellphone roaming part of “fair and reasonable” lawyer’s bill [TMZ]
- Working in a prosecutors’ office? More about nailing ’em than making sure justice was done [Dean Barnett via MedPundit]
- Don’t forget imprisoned Egyptian blogger Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman [Palmer @ NRO, Doherty @ Reason]
- “Pretexting” to fish out adversaries’ secrets: yes, lawyers do it too, now that you mention it [Elefant]
- Which is more dangerous to kids, a house with a swimming pool or a house with a gun? Think carefully before answering [Stossel]
- For shame: Supreme Court of Canada gives go-ahead for British Columbia’s retroactive tobacco recoupment suit [Ottawa Citizen, CBC, Bader; earlier]
- Anti-biotech activists score, farmers squirm as judge halts sale of Roundup Ready alfalfa [Farmer-Stockman, Feedstuffs, Truth about Trade & Technology](more: Coyote)
- Soap opera actor sues after ABC writes his character out of the script [five years ago on Overlawyered]
His reputation to protect
Defamation-suit Hall of Fame: a New Zealand prisoner serving a life sentence for the notoriously brutal murder of a 17-year-old girl has won cash compensation from newspapers which described him as a rapist. “Andrew Ronald MacMillan was granted legal aid – a government- funded scheme which allows people who cannot afford legal representation to get a lawyer – to sue Fairfax Media, publishers of New Zealand newspapers The Press and Dominion Post, for defamation and punitive damages.” The victim, whose body was discovered nearly naked, had suffered violence in intimate places, but authorities never charged MacMillan with rape in the case. (“Murderer gets compensation from paper over rape allegation”, DPA/MonstersAndCritics.com, Apr. 10). Two and a half years ago MacMillan won $1200 for hurt feelings and humiliation because the Corrections Department had not shown him the text of a letter accusing him of misbehavior while on prison furlough. (Bridget Carter, “‘Hurt feelings’ win killer $1200 compensation”, New Zealand Herald, Aug. 23, 2004).
Kindergarten cop
What were you doing in early 1984? I was finishing up middle school, and I’m sure there were some people there with whom I did not get along. What I didn’t realize was that it wasn’t too late for me to get even with them… by finding someone with much deeper pockets than them, and filing a lawsuit.
In 1984, Fatima Bowles was in kindergarten in Brooklyn, when a boy named “Frank A” threw a block at her from across the room. It hit her in the eye, and from the sound of things, she was legitimately injured: she had to have surgery for a lacerated cornea. Of course, it’s unlikely that kindergartner Frank A had any money, which is probably why Bowles sued… the city of New York.
The complaint? That Bowles’ kindergarten teacher was negligent. She had left the room for a moment to check up on two students who had gone to the bathroom, and a few seconds after she did so, the evil Frank A launched the block. Ms. Zimmerman should have known that because Frank had previously pushed Bowles on the playground and pulled her hair, there was a danger he would injure her.
“The city was on notice about his belligerent behavior and allowed the teacher to go out, leaving the kids alone,” Weinbaum said.
So why are we talking about this now? Apparently Bowles (well, Bowles’ mother; Bowles was only 7) actually filed the lawsuit back in 1985, but her lawyers died somewhere along the way, and nobody noticed.
Although the delay is highly unusual, Bowles said she and her family trusted their lawyers and never asked why the case was moving so slowly.
Ordinarily, failure to prosecute a lawsuit is grounds for dismissal. Unfortunately for taxpayers, the lawyers for the city were negligent in failing to get the case dismissed, and eventually another attorney in Bowles’ old lawyers’ law firm noticed that the file was still active (loosely speaking), and he revived it in 2003. And last week, a judge in New York rejected the city’s motion to dismiss the case, holding that a jury could find that the school was on notice about Frank’s behavior, and hence that the school was negligent in allowing this to happen. Because we all know that schools can prevent kindergartners from roughhousing.
You know, I complain about the slow pace of justice, but I think 23 years may actually be a record. (In all seriousness, note that however much work was done on the case back in the 1980s — probably not much, since Bowles wasn’t deposed until 2006 — it has taken at least four years since Weinbaum started working on it again, and all we’ve established is that the case won’t be dismissed before trial. (Given that the city doesn’t seem to be able to produce Ms. Zimmerman, I suspect they’ll be settling the case shortly — but there are no guarantees, and this could drag on even longer.))
“Obama Makes Inroads Into Edwards’ Trial Lawyer Base”
For better or worse, John Edwards isn’t as special this time around:
For years Edwards has relied on the support of his fellow trial lawyers’ deep pockets to help get him elected — first to the Senate and then three years ago, when he made a run at the White House and then became running mate to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who won the Democratic nomination. But as Edwards mounts his second presidential bid, he has struggled to attract plaintiffs lawyers beyond his stable of longtime donors, just as other Democratic candidates, such as Sens. Hillary Clinton from New York, Barack Obama from Illinois, and Joseph Biden Jr. from Delaware, have been actively wooing the plaintiffs bar. …
Many of the trial lawyers who supported the Kerry-Edwards ticket in 2004 have chosen to throw their lot in with Obama or are keeping their options open by donating to multiple candidates. The fracturing of the trial-lawyer constituency could have dramatic effects on the total dollars Edwards will be able to raise. …
Also cited as hurting Edwards with some past givers: the steps he took to moderate his image on litigation reform during the 2004 campaign, including his endorsement of pre-screening of merit in medical malpractice cases. Even Sen. Biden is making inroads:
Biden has long been seen as a supporter of the trial lawyer community on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he has opposed legal-liability proposals and bills that would limit claims against health-care providers. No candidate is more visibly tied to the trial bar than Edwards. But Clinton and Biden, who also headlined a national trial lawyer convention in Miami Beach in February, have both said they’re opposed to caps on punitive damage awards.
Despite Obama’s silence on the issues trial lawyers care about, those who support him say they are confident he will back trial lawyers when the time comes.
(Anna Palmer, Legal Times, Apr. 9).
Trial lawyer (this time R) for President?
John Edwards may not be the only plaintiff’s attorney in the White House race:
Mr. Thompson [Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., much buzzed about as a late-entering Republican possibility] has also been criticized for failing to back some comprehensive tort-reform bills because of his background as a trial lawyer. Here he insists his stance was based on grounds of federalism. “I’m consistent. I address Federalist Society meetings,” he says, noting that more issues should be left to the states. For example, he cast the lonely “nay” in 99-1 votes against a national 0.8% blood alcohol level for drivers, a federal law banning guns in schools, and a measure limiting the tort liability of Good Samaritans. “Washington overreaches, and by doing so ends up not doing well the basics people really care about.” Think Katrina and Walter Reed.
(John Fund, “Lights, Camera . . . Candidacy?”, OpinionJournal.com/WSJ, Mar. 17).
On Sen. Thompson’s behalf, it can be said that he did co-sponsor the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which was enacted into law after he left the Senate. Thus he presumably recognizes that in some situations, federal action can be necessary and proper to prevent a few state courts from imposing their views on the unwilling citizens of distant states. One hopes Thompson also goes so far as to realize that federal curbs on state-court litigation in those circumstances do not necessarily infringe on proper precepts of federalism and decentralization, but in fact can work in defense of them, by protecting the right to self-government of sister states and their citizens. The question is whether he has gone on to consider that quite a few other federal interventions into state-court litigation, in such areas as class actions, product liability and punitive damages, can be defended on very similar grounds (namely, that they are needed to restrain state courts from exporting their legal doctrines to other states) and thus are entirely consistent with “good federalist” precepts.
Roundup – April 9
- Dontdatehimgirl.com lawsuit suffers another setback. A court ruled today that the Pittsburgh-based lawyer-plaintiff can’t sue the Florida-based website in Pennsylvania. (Howard Bashman). The suit against the website is frivolous in any case; it is well-established that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunizes the website. (The suit against the posters, on the other hand, is a legitimate defamation claim.) Previously covered on Overlawyered: Jul. 2006, Jan. 2007.
- In Easton, Pennsylvania, a police officer accidentally shoots and kills another police officer after cleaning his gun; now the widow is filing a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit against the city, the mayor, city administrator, the police chief, the shooter, the head of the SWAT team of which the players were both members, a fellow officer who was standing nearby, and the retired former head of the SWAT team. I’m sure one of them has the money.
- Philadelphia city councilwoman — and some tourism officials — wants to require licensing of city tour guides, including history tests, so that they don’t provide inaccurate history to tourists.
- In 1999, a 19-year old college student named Richard Beers was killed while working construction over the summer. He had stopped the backhoe he was using on a hill, left the motor running, and walked behind it. It rolled down and ran him over. So his family blamed… Caterpillar, which had manufactured the backhoe, and sued for $25 million plus punitive damages. Last week, an Ohio jury found Caterpillar not liable — and it only took eight years (six years after the suit was filed) to resolve the matter.