Jack Chin at CrimProfBlog has a roundup.
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£204.53 dispute, £350,000 cost of defense
In Bexleyheath, Kent, England, Michelle Alabaster is celebrating her victory in a nine-year legal battle over a government mistake which led her private employer to undercalculate the amount of maternity leave owed her in 1995. The case ramified and went up to the appeals level before its recent resolution, under which Ms. Alabaster was found indeed entitled to the disputed £204.53; Her Majesty’s government estimates that it spent £350,000 defending its side of the dispute. The disproportion is not actually as irrational as it might seem, however, since the issues contested are likely to affect entitlement to maternity leave in many other cases (Becky Barrow, “Mother wins maternity case after nine years”, Daily Telegraph, May 4).
First sell short, then sue
“There is some evidence that plaintiffs and their attorneys are profitably short-selling the stock of the companies they intend to sue,” writes Moin Yahya of the University of Alberta law faculty in a new paper called “The Legal Status of ‘Dump & Sue'” (SSRN, Mar. 9). Strategic litigants or their attorneys thus stand to capture two distinct strands of revenue: one from the eventual settlement of the suit, the other from the profits they capture after their adversary’s stock declines on the announcement of the suit. (Alternatively, some lawsuits might be rendered profitable by the gains from short-selling even though they never win settlements at all.) Does insider-trading law as it currently stands prohibit such goings-on? Not necessarily, since litigants and their lawyers don’t ordinarily count as “insiders” in conventional terms. But given securities regulators’ goal of upholding what they call market integrity, it’s hard to see why they would not want to prohibit the sleazy practice. For a dissenting view, see Larry Ribstein (Apr. 11).
Emotional-assistance service dog
Another Seattle case in which a merchant got in trouble for not admitting a dog which was accompanying its owner for purposes of psychological assistance (as distinct from the service provided by seeing-eye and hearing dogs for the physically disabled). This time the Wicker Basket grocery store in Ballard was fined $21,000 after owner Hojoon Park wouldn’t let the dog into the shop. (“Merchant fined $21,000 for barring service dog”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 3). For earlier cases, see Feb. 28 of this year; Oct. 25 and Dec. 2, 2004; and Jul. 9, 1999, from Seattle.
“A catastrophe for MS patients”
That would be the withdrawal of Tysabri, a drug that showed markedly better action against progression of multiple sclerosis than any of its predecessors and also combats “flare-ups” of the condition, but was pulled after reports of a possible link to fatalities from a rare side effect. “Some disappointed patients who benefited from the drug have said they’re willing to take the risk,” but that option’s not open to them. (David Rumbach, “Suffering withdrawal”, South Bend Tribune, May 4; Michael Fumento, “‘Murder on Patients'”, TechCentralStation, May 4).
Poker club night
In Palmer Lake, Colo., cops entered the card-playing venue “with guns drawn, lasers trained on people’s heads” according to one present. Palmer Lake police chief Dale Smith described the tactics as “standard habit and practice for these kinds of situations.” (Jane Reuter, “Small-town poker bust criticized as overblown”, Colorado Springs Gazette, Apr. 29)(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars).
“Diver’s widow sues his buddy”
The Dive Blog (Mar. 30) discusses a suit filed in Orange County, California in which Brenda Palmer-Shatz of Laguna Niguel blames the actions of Steve Feldman “whether negligent or intentional” for the drowning of her husband Daryll Shatz on Nov. 30, 2003. Feldman had been acting as Shatz’s “diving buddy” in the common practice by which scuba divers help watch out for each other’s safety. Mrs. Palmer-Shatz’s allegations of intentional misconduct, which are of the most incendiary and scandalous nature, are enough to make the suit highly unusual; but her separate allegations of negligence raise some issues of broad importance to the future of scuba diving as a sport, as DiveBlog notes:
I would hate for the perceived potential for liability to cause someone to abandon the buddy system altogether. To my knowledge, there have been very few (if any) instances where a negligence suit has succeeded against a dive buddy.
Reporter Peggy Lowe’s coverage of the story in the Orange County Register is reprinted at Underwater Times and Cyber Diver News Network.
Government-funded lobbying
You might think it’s easy to get people outraged at the idea of the government’s pushing for its own favored policies by quietly funneling tax money to one side in public debate. At least when the topic isn’t tobacco; in that case, taxpayer-funded Astroturf efforts seem to be perfectly fine. (Tony Messenger, “When judging anti-smoking efforts, follow the money”, Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune, Apr. 17)(via Jacob Sullum, Hit and Run, in a post titled “Bowing to Their Own Pressure”). For a particularly egregious example from California, see Jan. 5, 2000.
EEOC v. Burger King operator
The agency insisted there was a “pattern and practice” of sexual harassment at a company that owned 350 Burger King restaurants in 13 states, but the judge was not impressed with the agency’s statistics, and neither is George of the eponymous Employment Blawg (Apr. 27)(via Blawg Review #4).