AP reports that the Illinois Supreme Court has released $2.15 billion of the gigantic, and almost bankrupting, appeal bond (Oct. 11, 2004; Apr. 2003) Philip Morris posted for the right to successfully appeal an absurd $10.1 billion Madison County judgment. (Dec. 15, 2005 and links therein.) Another $6 billion note awaits the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the certiorari appeal.
Update: Mirfasihi II
We covered the Seventh Circuit’s refusal to countenance in Mirfasihi v. Fleet Mortgage a collusive class-action settlement that benefited the attorneys but not the class members in January 2004; after remand, the parties went through the motions of jumping through hoops and returned with an economically identical settlement. The Seventh Circuit was not amused.
Interesting, and all too typical, statistic: out of the $2 million settlement pot, there were only $276,000 in claims filed by 190,000 class members, who apparently didn’t feel especially injured by Fleet Mortgage’s alleged wrongful practices of selling them products through telemarketing. (I wouldn’t oppose the death penalty for telemarketing, but that’s just me.)
“Big law firm picks up Little Guy in sweep for defendants”
In March 2004, the Kansas City law firm of Walters Bender Strohbehn & Vaughan filed a class action against 63 defendants for supposedly overcharging for mortgage fees. The firm, however, confused Wall Street banking behemoth Salomon Brothers with developer Berton Solomon’s “Solomon Brothers” St. Louis commercial real-estate company and sued the latter. (This was a double mistake since Salomon Brothers hasn’t existed since 1997, and is now part of Citibank after at least two name changes and two mergers.) Unfortunately, the plaintiffs refused to immediately drop Solomon from the suit, and he ran up (a remarkably cheap) $4000+ in legal expenses in the seventeen months of legal proceedings before he was finally dropped, $4000 that Walters Bender is refusing to pay. They’re not very happy about being sued in small claims court, and are fighting that suit, even though it will cost them more to do so than to pay Solomon’s bills. (Bill McClellan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jun. 18).
Without a settlement, Solomon is unlikely to recoup his costs in the absence of showing malice, a required element in Missouri law; lawyers are immune from the consequences of mere negligence, because, they’ll be happy to explain, such liability might deter productive activity like scattershot lawsuits. If only the same protections applied to, say, practicing medicine or providing jobs or producing goods.
“Federal Judge Tosses $240,000 Verdict in Age Bias Lawsuit”
Sears says it fired 50-year-old Gunnar Steward because of poor performance. Steward claims it was age discrimination, and sued. Sears noted that Steward’s job tasks were split amongst a 60-year-old, 45-year-old, 35-year-old, and 33-year-old. Notwithstanding a jury verdict of $241,000, Judge Rueter threw out the case because the 43.25 year age average was less than seven years younger than Steward, insufficiently younger to constitute discrimination based on age. (Rueter also noted the lack of evidence that Sears’s reason for firing Steward was pretextual.) Plaintiff’s attorney Carmen R. Matos suggests there will be an appeal; the Third Circuit has previously held nine-year and eight-year age differences to constitute possible discrimination. (Shannon P. Duffy, Legal Intelligencer, Jun. 20). Such hair-splitting demonstrates a general problem with the age discrimination laws.
Deep pocket files: landlord’s fault apartment resident let in a stranger
Shortly after 7 am on July 11, 1992, Y.M.’s doorbell rang in her Lefrak City project apartment. Y.M. opened the door without asking who was there or checking her peephole. Unfortunately for her, at the door was one Lawrence Toole, who (allegedly?) raped and beat her at knifepoint. This was, according to Y.M.’s suit, the fault of her landlord and its security service for allowing Toole into the building. The Court of Appeals of New York (the high court of that state) held that Y.M. stated a cause of action. “More discovery is warranted to discern how foreseeable a risk [Toole] was and what measures defendants had in place to deal with him.” Mason v. U.E.S.S. Leasing Corp. was decided in 2001: anyone know how this case was resolved on remand?
“Meddlesome busybodies” of the CSPI
Steve Chapman finds that the “science” of the misnamed Center for Science in the Public Interest in its KFC suit isn’t actually the sort that should be relied on too heavily, and observes:
…the health dangers of an occasional Extra Crispy drumstick are anywhere from negligible to nonexistent. But letting CSPI decide what’s best for all of us? Now, that’s risky.
(“Extra crispy chicken and deep-fried panic”, syndicated/Tracy (Calif.) Press, Jun. 19).
Meanwhile, carried along on a tide of credulous press coverage, CSPI says it’s thinking of suing Starbucks over its overly calorie-laden wares (“Starbucks May Be Next Target of Fatty-Fighting Group”, Reuters/FoxNews.com, Jun. 19). Amy Alkon is not impressed (Jun. 19), while Radley Balko (Jun. 17) picks up on perhaps the ripest absurdity in the report:
The union contends that Starbucks staff gain weight when they work at the chain. They are offered unlimited beverages and leftover pastries for free during their shifts.
“This is why organized labor is so important,” he adds. “Otherwise, who’s going expose Starbucks’ exploitive practice of giving its employees free stuff?”
Watch what you tell your hairdresser, cont’d
The official recruitment of cosmetologists as informants (and as intermediaries steering customers to approved “domestic-violence” programs) continues, with programs reported in Florida, Idaho, Oklahoma, Virginia, Ohio and Maine, as well as Nevada and Connecticut (see Mar. 16 and Mar. 29, 2000). It’s not just black eyes or lacerations that the salon employees are supposed to be on the lookout for, either. A customer’s protestation that “he would not like that”, as a reason to turn down a new hairstyle, might be a sign of “controlling behavior” that needs watching. (“Salons join effort to stop violence”, Bangor Daily News, Jun. 15) (via van Bakel).
Gambling advice columns
It could be dangerous to publish them in the state of Washington, which has passed a new statute barring the use of the Internet to transmit “gambling information”. “”My suggestion to you is to remove from your paper any advice about online gambling and any links to illegal sites,” state gambling commission director Rick Day told a Seattle Times columnist. (Danny Westneat, “This column may be illegal”, Seattle Times, Jun. 15)(via Balko). Related: Apr. 21 and Aug. 9, 2004; Nov. 18, 2005.
RICO for illegal-alien-hiring? Not so fast
The Supreme Court’s decisions earlier this month on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act are generally good news for business defendants that have been seeking to narrow the statute’s application, reports Marcia Coyle at the NLJ. The Court stuck to its previous position that plaintiffs must prove that a defendant’s RICO violation was the proximate cause of their injury, and it sent the Mohawk case (see here, here and here), alleging that a manufacturer’s use of illegal immigrant workers amounted to racketeering, back to the 11th Circuit with instructions to apply that test, vacating the existing judgment against the company (cross-posted from Point of Law).
Squeezing John Torkelsen
Justin Scheck at The Recorder reports that prosecutors are putting a renewed squeeze on John Torkelsen, former star witness for Milberg Weiss, in another sign that the probe of the firm may have considerably farther to run. (“Federal Prosecutors Put Pressure on Milberg Weiss’ Star Expert”, Jun. 9). For our previous coverage of the colorful Torkelsen, who is preparing to serve a five-year federal prison sentence on unrelated charges, see Oct. 10, Nov. 5, and Nov. 18, 2005.