Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Over at Point of Law

The mystery guestblogger over at Point of Law has now been revealed: it’s Prof. Martin Grace of the highly recommended site RiskProf. He’s an insurance and liability expert and will be contributing comments this week and next. We originally announced that there would be a second guestblogger at Point of Law this week as well, but that personage is being held at an undisclosed location and is expected to stop by next month instead.

Also at Point of Law, check out Ted’s posts on Kelo v. New London, the eminent domain case decided today by the Supreme Court, and on anesthesiologists and malpractice; Jonathan B. Wilson’s posts on recent California Supreme Court rulings on punitive damage limits, a $300 million fee for Bill Lerach, and scary scam suits by prison inmates; and my contributions on such topics as how some securities lawyers get clients and the politics of loser-pays.

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Questions not to ask

Advice for employers, at job interviews (“Interview questions you shouldn’t ask”, HRHero.com, Jun. 17, adapted from Louisiana Employment Law Letter)(via Michael at George Lenard’s).

More: reader Mark Moss comments:

The first item on the list of questions you can’t ask prospective employees is, “What is your age?” But sitting on my desk right now is a memo from HR about “I-9 Compliance Update”. The DHS requires me to show my employer documents showing citizenship or right to work in this country — either 1 from list A (e.g., a passport), or one each from list B and C (e.g., driver’s license and Social Security card).

Apparently, HR is on their honor to skip over the date of birth listed on these documents.

And: George Lenard writes in to say:

Regarding the above observation, as I noted in our comments section, there is a distinction between illegal and unwise questions.

ASKING about age when it’s irrelevant is a red flag, smoking gun or whatever, not to mention divisive. (Response: “What’s it to you, youngster? How old are YOU, son?”).

KNOWING about age incidentally, whether from passport, birth certificate, drivers license, or gray hair, wrinkles, and baldspot, is inevitable at some point. I’d look to keeping such information out of the early screening process at least, so the early rejects can’t claim age discrim (OK, you and I both know they can CLAIM and SUE for anything whatsoever; I’m talking about doing so without confronting a strong defense — employer’s ignorance.)

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Update: Joshua Flax v. Chrysler seat back case

We covered this case in detail Nov. 24 and Dec. 21. The court reduced punitive damages from $98 million to $20 million, which means that the total injustice is $23.75 million instead of $101.75 million. The AP version of the story doesn’t even acknowledge the auto company’s defense. (Randy McClain, “Judge slashes damages against carmaker”, The Tennessean, Jun. 21; AP, Jun. 21).

Lawyers Weekly USA has more details about the trial, including the fact that the jury wasn’t allowed to hear that, with 7.1 million vehicles on the road, there were only three deaths from collapsing seatbacks. Moreover, the judge permitted plaintiffs to argue liability based on a post-sale duty to warn of (allegedly) improved technology, unprecedented in Tennessee and most other states: thus, according to plaintiffs, when Chrysler merged with Mercedes, Chrysler had a legal duty to inform every single one of its car owners of any safety features on Mercedes vehicles that weren’t on Chrysler vehicles (and, one would imagine, vice versa). How this would have prevented a pick-up truck from slamming into the rear of a minivan at twice the speed limit, one wonders, but too many judges have stopped requiring causation to be an element of a tort. (Reni Gertner, “Parents Of Baby Killed In Seatback Collapse Win $105.5M”, Lawyers Weekly USA, Jan. 2005).

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Opinionistas blog

“I like employment law because it revolves entirely around crazy people,” explains the anonymous “Opinionistas,” who claims to be a junior associate at a prominent New York firm, at least until senior partners discover her cynical blog:

“Honey, how was your day?” “Um, well, actually I got pissed off and peed all over the floor of the ER, in front of 2 potential cardiac arrests and a trauma victim, so I’m kinda fired. But it was discrimination! They actually fired me because I’m one-fifteenth Native American on my mother’s side!” So the guy gets a scummy lawyer to take his case, he sues the hospital, and the hospital calls us for help. Then we demand to see the Urinator’s (I come up with little nicknames for all of them) personal email account. Then the real fun begins. Hours spent reading about his extramarital flirtation with Marta, the 3rd floor nurse anesthetist, his anger with his boss for not permitting 3 20-minute coffee breaks each morning, his wife’s current interest (or lack thereof) in sex.

She also has summer associate gossip (via Legal Reader).

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In Alabama, the tusks are looser

Auburn, Washington dentist Robert Woo mysteriously thought it would be funny to photograph a staff assistant who was under anesthesia with a pair of fake boar tusks in her mouth. When confronted with the photos, she quit and sued for “post-traumatic stress disorder” allegedly triggered by the battery, eventually settling for a quarter-million dollars. Any argument Woo has to victimhood for the ridiculous damages claimed is obliterated, however, because he himself turned around and sued his insurance company for emotional distress for failing “in bad faith” to cover the incident as “dental services.” A judge let the matter get to trial, and a jury hit Fireman’s Fund Insurance for three times the amount of the original law suit, $750,000, plus another $600,000 in attorneys’ fees, before the Washington Court of Appeals threw the case out last week. (Maureen O’Hagan, “Appeals court rules against dentist”, Seattle Times, Jun. 16; Woo v. Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co. (Wash. App. Jun. 13, 2005); Romensko blog, Jun. 20). Other stories of bad-faith-insurance litigation: Sep. 7 and May 5, 2004.

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How not to treat your secretary

A senior associate at megafirm Baker & McKenzie’s London office fails to understand that he’s outranked by his secretary, tries to bill her four pounds for stain dry-cleaning costs, and finds himself the laughingstock of Britain. (Jon Ashworth and Martin Waller, “How a few ketchup splashes, a £4 bill and an e-mail have become the talk of the City”, London Times, Jun. 17; Jonathan Brown, “Lawyer in argument over £4 ketchup stain quits firm”, The Independent, Jun. 22) (via Leiter).

It’s a common carrier, after all

Amusement park managements in California are unhappy about a new 4-3 decision by the state’s supreme court holding that operators of park rides constitute “common carriers” akin to bus and trolley lines for safety purposes, thus exposing them to a higher standard of care in injury lawsuits. Of particular concern: given that passengers on ordinary conveyances are supposed to be protected from dangers that would occasion acute personal fear and emotional distress, what are the implications for roller coasters and other thrill rides in which conveying sensations of that sort is the whole idea? Maybe the brass at Disney (which was the defendant in the suit at hand) weren’t being entirely overcautious when they slowed down the Mad Hatter’s spinning teacups (see Mar. 4 and Mar. 9, 2004). (Maura Dolan and Kimi Yoshino, “High Court Raises Bar for Safety of Thrill Rides”, Los Angeles Times, Jun. 17)(via Ken Masugi, Claremont).

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N.Y.: no cameras in courtroom

The interests of a fair trial come first, rules New York’s highest court. The New York State Defenders Association, for one, had weighed in with an amicus brief in favor of the no-camera policy. The ruling “was a total loss for Court TV”, which “had attempted to achieve through litigation what its lobbyists at Ostroff, Hiffa & Associates of Albany could not achieve legislatively. Records maintained by the state Lobbying Commission indicate Court TV has spent next to nothing on lobbying the last few years as its attorney, David Boies of Boies, Schiller & Flexner in Armonk, N.Y., pursued the legal case.” (John Caher, In Loss for Court TV, N.Y. Judges Continue Ban on Cameras in Courts, New York Law Journal, Jun. 17).

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Patent reform legislation

Jim DeLong surveys the terrain and finds that many significant proposals being considered command a fairly broad consensus; the two most important categories of reform are those aimed at “(1) Reducing the transaction costs of the system, especially litigation; (2) The ‘patent quality’ issue”. (“Patent Reform Hits the Hill”, TechCentralStation, Jun. 21).

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