Sues to compete in high school race by wheelchair

And wins.

Tatyana McFadden, 16, a sophomore at Atholton High School in Columbia, will be allowed on the track at the same time as the other competitors but will be scored separately under a preliminary injunction granted yesterday in Baltimore by U.S. District Court Judge Andre M. Davis.

McFadden complained that the school’s policy of separate wheelchair races made her “feel left out,” because she would often compete alone after track officials refused to let her share the track with runners because of risk of injury. I look forward to the lawsuit if a competitor is injured: the Post notes that an injury hasn’t happened yet, but that sort of Bayesian analysis never stops 20/20 hindsight. (Jon Gallo and Mary Otto, “Wheelchair Athlete Wins Right to Race Alongside Runners”, Washington Post, Apr. 18) (via Lott). Volokh comments, and there are some good notes in the comment section.

Delaware court hails non-aromatic fee request

Delaware Chancery Court Judge Vice Chancellor Leo Strine, a prominent figure in corporate law, recently was asked to rule on a petition for fees for lawyers who represented a minority shareholder in litigation involving fallen mogul Conrad Black’s Hollinger International. Per the WSJ:

“I feel queasy a lot of the times when I examine applications for attorneys’ fees,” the judge told lawyers in court. “But I have to get right in there, take my Maalox, ignore the vile smell.”

All of which was by way of paying a left-handed compliment to the fee petition before him, which by contrast in Strine’s view had the earmarks of legitimacy. (It was filed by minority shareholder Tweedy Browne Co. and its lawyers, Kirby McInerney & Squire and Bouchard, Margules & Friedlander).

The current case, he added, is different. It “isn’t even close to having an aroma that makes me queasy.”

(Elena Cherney, “When Investors Help Find Fraud, What’s It Worth?”, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 17)(sub).

“Goodbye, war on smoking. Hello, war on fat”

But somehow, “the food industry” doesn’t sound quite as evil as “the tobacco industry.” Something about food — the fact that it keeps us alive, perhaps — makes its purveyors hard to hate. For that matter, the rationale for recent bans on smoking is the injustice of secondhand smoke, and there’s no such thing as secondhand obesity. …

These obstacles don’t make the assault on junk food futile. But they do clarify how it will unfold. It will rely on three arguments: First, we should protect kids. Second, fat people are burdening the rest of us. Third, junk food isn’t really food….

A fact sheet from [Iowa Sen. Tom] Harkin implies that schools should treat milk, French fries, and pizza like soda, jelly beans, and gum.

(William Saletan, “Junk-Food Jihad”, Slate, Apr. 15).

Update: “Million Little Pieces” class actions

Following the revelation that author James Frey presented fantasies as if they were autobiographical fact, enough outraged readers have stepped forward to demand cash damages — or at least enough class action lawyers have simulated the stepping forward of such outraged readers — that defendants Random House and Doubleday are now seeking the consolidation of no fewer than twelve lawsuits filed around the country. The federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will soon consider (PDF, scroll to p. 11) the publishers’ motion to aggregate into one proceeding suits filed in the Southern District of New York, Northern District of Illinois, Western District of Washington, Eastern District of Michigan, Central District of California, and Southern District of Ohio (via Childs). For Ted’s extensive coverage of the Frey scandal and suits, see Jan. 31 and links from there.

Letter from Apple lawyers makes little girl cry

In California, nine-year old Shea O’Gorman wrote a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting changes that she thought might improve the iPod. The letter she got back from an Apple senior counsel, advising her of the company’s policy against considering unsolicited ideas, was brusque enough to reduce her to tears. Following bad publicity, Apple apologized to Miss O’Gorman and says it is revising its policies on communicating with children. The policy against considering unsolicited ideas, of course, “is designed to protect Apple from future patent lawsuits should submitted ideas ever be used.” (“Apple legal makes little girl sob”, MacWorld UK, Apr. 17).

Lott v. Levitt II

I appear to have been too generous to Lott’s complaint when I first criticized it. William Ford, a Bigelow teacher at University of Chicago Law, has posted a devastating two-part analysis (via Wright) of the main count of Lott’s complaint. In the first part, he shows that “replication” does not have the “clear and unambiguous” meaning ascribed to it; in the second, he finds examples of Lott himself using “replicate” in meanings other than the definition in his complaint. Lott critic-in-chief Tim Lambert finds some more examples of the use of “replicate” that appear to exonerate Levitt’s phrasing—though Lambert fudges the National Academy of Science report, which says something rather different about replicating Lott’s results than what Levitt said in Freakonomics.

The case won’t necessarily get thrown out of court; Lott still has the second count, an errant e-mail sent by Levitt to a Texas economist accusing Lott of buying articles. But unless he can demonstrate that Levitt repeated that accusation in more than a stray e-mail, or was making other libelous allegations, potential damages look nominal for that count: the big-money claim is in the first count.

Burden of Proof

In a nationally-publicized case, an argument over a Detroit pool game resulted in one of the players pulling a gun and shooting the other in the head; Keith Bender Jr. died of his injuries a week later. Unfortunately for the shooter, Bender was a cousin of the bar’s bouncer, Mario Etheridge, who pulled his own gun, and shot the shooter three times, allegedly in an attempt to protect his cousin’s life. The shooter, rap star “Proof,” known best for being the friend of a more famous rap star, litigation-victim Eminem, was dead on arrival at the hospital. Prosecutors have not decided whether to charge Etheridge with murder, since Michigan law allows deadly force in the defense of another. But they have charged Etheridge with a felony count of “discharging a firearm inside a building.” (Josh Grossberg, “Alleged Proof Victim Dies”, E!Online, Apr. 18).