An outfit called Oasis Legal Finance wants your business.
“Unlike love…”
Thought for the day: “Unlike love, more law does not make the world a better place.” (Gary Slapper, Times Online (UK), Dec. 11).
Update: paper money design unfair to blind
The Treasury Department is appealing U.S. District Judge James Robertson’s ruling (Nov. 29) that it’s unlawful for the nation’s paper currency not to be redesigned in ways that would make it more easily used by the visually handicapped. (“Feds Say No To Blind-Friendly Paper Money”, AP/CBSNews.com, Dec. 12). The Gimp Parade (Dec. 16) rounds up lots of links on the controversy.
“Judge orders Illinois to pay up”
Loser-pays is alas the exception in our system, but it does have its moments: after a judge declared unconstitutional a law in the state of Illinois attempting to ban the sale of violent videogames to minors, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly ordered the state to pay $510,250 in legal fees to the game sellers, and it seems Kennelly meant business, since he has announced “the time for waffling has passed” as to the state’s coming up with payment. (John O’Connor, “Judge wants legal-fee payment plan from Blagojevich”, AP/Chicago Tribune, Dec. 11; Mark Whiting, 1up.com, Dec. 12; Slashdot, Dec. 13 and comment thread at Slashdot which mentions us and includes some discussion of loser-pays generally.
Web “addiction”, cont’d
Business Week is urging us all to take seriously a lawsuit by IBM employee James Pacenza of East Fishkill, N.Y., sacked for improper internet use at work. Pacenza’s attorney has filed a $5 million wrongful-termination suit and is advancing web-addiction theories/excuses for his client. Business Week quotes various sources who are eager to predict some sort of emergent legal status for internet addiction — maybe as a covered condition under the Americans with Disabilities Act — but it all still seems pretty unlikely to me. (Catherine Holahan, “Virtually Addicted”, Dec. 14). On “BlackBerry addiction”, see Oct. 2, etc.
December 15 roundup
- Pro se suit against baking soda manufacturer for failing to warn that baking crack is illegal. [Lat]
- Plaintiffs’ expert: when you asked for the documents I reviewed, I thought you meant the documents I viewed twice. Judge doesn’t buy it. [Lattman; Des Moines Register]
- Judges stymie popular will in California death penalty cases. [The Recorder; Will @ WaPo]
- And coincidental update of breaking news: California federal judge strikes down all lethal injections in state. [Bashman roundup]
- Via Hans Bader, but not on-line or covered in the mainstream press: DC City Council considering amendment to Human Rights Act barring employment discrimination against ex-convicts. Ex-convict Marion Barry is the sponsor; business community strangely silent. [Legal Times ($)]
- Virginia plaintiff’s attempt at milk regulation through litigation blocked. Lawyers shamelessly promise to forum-shop. [WaPo]
- UK insult to injury: adulterer has right to prevent cuckolded husband from writing about affair. [Bashman roundup]
- Florida Supreme Court stumbles onto a correct answer: no litigation tourism for “snowbirds.” [AP; State Farm v. Roach]
- Has the Federal Circuit emasculated the “obviousness” rule? An argument that it has. [The American]
- Wonder how those “bad toy” lists get generated? [Point of Law]
- More on the “Coercive Abortion Bills” in Michigan, which passed the House, and threaten to criminalize men who end relationships with pregnant women. [Fox News]
- Lawsuit: please bar publication of yearbook unless it includes photo of my son wearing chain-mail and a sword. [Krauss @ POL]
- Should we be afraid of hedge funds? [Marginal Revolution]
- Peter Huber on the emphasis of glue over learning in school. [Forbes]
- Judge Posner to “furry”: “Your tail is great.” [NWN blog; Eminent Domain blog via Bashman]
- A commenter here suggested that certain little-read websites are attacking us just to generate traffic. I’m beginning to believe it what with three different writers posting in the last 36 hours attacking me and sometimes Walter, with insults and arguments in varying combinations of baseless, sloppy, and thoughtless. So, while I’m happy to engage thoughtful analysis, no link or response here, since doing so just seems to create perverse incentives, not to mention takes away time from meaningful writing.
- As contrast: Peter Nordberg critiques posts by me and Walter on the rollover suit and cigarette polonium, as well as interesting posts by Bill Childs and Derek Lowe on the torcetrapib withdrawal. [Blog 702]
What does Warren Buffett’s MedPro say about caps?
Trial lawyers have pointed to Warren Buffett’s purchase of medical-malpractice insurer GE Medical Protective as evidence that medical malpractice insurance is profitable (e.g., this comment thread). Of course, there are two factors to Berkshire Hathaway’s high profitability, both ability to improve the business through sound management and ability to obtain assets cheaply—and it’s possible Buffett bought the now-named MedPro from General Electric because the latter was selling the business on the cheap to get out of insurance.
Of course, if there are inefficiencies in medical malpractice insurance, Buffett is as likely to find them as anyone: the profit motive gives him every incentive to. So what does his MedPro say about the “we need caps” vs. “it’s insurers’ fault” debate over malpractice insurance prices? Here’s what they said in response to the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s appalling decision to strike down caps:
The Kafkie Awards
Bob Spagat, an employment lawyer in the Winston & Strawn San Francisco office, perhaps following the footsteps of Gerald Skoning’s list, “pay tribute to court opinions that ‘score high on the list of cases you hate to have to explain to your client.’” The Ninth Circuit, unsurprisingly, owns the category. Overlawyered readers have already seen several of the nominees:
- Dark v. Curry County, Dec. 6, where a man prone to epileptic seizures had a cause of action for being fired from heavy equipment operation;
- Syverson v. IBM, where the Ninth Circuit invalidated the freedom to contract to standard release agreements, which now have to meet a Golidlocks standard of not too complicated, but not too simple either.
- Jespersen v. Harrah’s Operating Co., where some judges were willing to hold a casino liable for a makeup requirement.
The winner? Josephs v. Pac Bell, where Pac Bell won summary judgment on a claim that it illegally fired a worker who lied about his criminal history—but was held to have broken the law for refusing to hire him back. This raises American employment law to the level of self-parody (though Canada is chasing us). Matthew Hirsch quotes Spagat on Josephs:“This case stands for the proposition that it doesn’t matter what the facts are, you should always think to settle a case before it gets to the Ninth Circuit.”
Nanny-state watch: warning labels on larger-size clothes?
The British Medical Journal, already well established as a source of policy recommendations noxious to individual liberty, is at it again:
Clothes made in larger sizes should carry a tag with an obesity helpline number, health specialists have suggested. Sweets and snacks should not be permitted near checkouts, new roads should not be built unless they include cycle lanes and food likely to make people fat should be taxed, they say in a checklist of what we might “reasonably do” to deal with obesity.
(Nigel Hawkes, “Larger-size clothes should come with warning to lose weight, say experts”, Times Online (UK), Dec. 15).
Annals of Pennsylvania libel law
As we have had occasion to note in the past, the home of Ben Franklin has somehow wound up as a place where newspapers are unusually vulnerable to intimidation by the threat of lawsuit (see Mar. 16, 2004, Nov. 21, 2006, etc.). Paul Carpenter, the excellent columnist with the Allentown Morning Call, sheds a bit of light on a case with which he was personally involved, Bufalino v. Associated Press (692 F.2d 266 (2d Cir.1982)). (“Small newspaper leads the way against bullies”, Nov. 26).