Kevin Heller of TechLawAdvisor doesn’t want us coming after him (Feb. 14). Our correspondence with Santa Barbara skin artist Pat Fish regarding tattoo disclaimers amused New York attorney and tattoo-muse Marisa Kakoulas, writing at BM Ezine (“Waivers and Releases for Tattoo and Piercing Studios”, Feb. 27). And Best’s Review, the insurance industry publication, quoted me a while back commenting on the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear an appeal in a punitive damages case involving State Farm (R.J. Lehmann, “Briefing: Supreme Court puts State Farm case to rest”, Nov. 1, subscriber-only).
Damages for weather-forecast inaccuracy
Ill-conceived liability proposal #91,204, this time from Russia: “Weather forecasters in our city and the surrounding area will be held responsible for financial losses that the city incurs through their incorrect prognoses,” said Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. (“Weathermen face fines”, Ananova, Feb. 23; Peter Finn, “Forecasters Feeling Some Official Heat”, Washington Post, Mar. 1)(via Alex Tabarrok).
Arrested Development
In the November 16, 2003, episode of the best sitcom on television, “Arrested Development,” Jason Bateman, playing the protagonist, Michael Bluth, is seen using a defective cooking product manufactured by the family business–and then, as his character is burned by the device, launches into a lengthy tirade of curse-words against the machine, all of which are bleeped. The humor comes from the length of the bleeping (a running gag in the episode) and the reactions of the other characters (as well as the fact that Michael is in the middle of lecturing his son “It’s a poor carpenter that blames his tools for the–” when he burns himself). The Parents Television Council, in an effort to make America safe from humor, decided to guess what that tirade was, produced its own transcript with its imaginary version of the speech, and then promptly complained to the FCC about the “indecent” broadcast. Thankfully, the FCC unanimously denied the complaint, but the government had to pay lawyers to write memos that would help the FCC reach its 20-footnote decision–your tax dollars at work, since there’s no penalty for wasting the government’s time with such complaints. (And a welcome to Defamer and ALOTT5MA readers.)
Michael Jackson trial
The Michael Jackson defense is relying heavily on discrediting his accuser with his previous foray into civil litigation, a lawsuit against J.C. Penney that we covered in 2003. According to The Smoking Gun:
In a broadside on the accuser’s mother, Mesereau described the woman as a shakedown artist who used her sick son as bait, a woman who coached her kids to lie in connection with an assault lawsuit the family once brought against J.C. Penney. Mesereau referred to a newly surfaced witness–who worked as a paralegal for the lawyer representing the family in the Penney case–who claims that the mother fabricated her allegations in that civil case. The paralegal contends that she hesitated to come forward because the mother once told her she had relatives in the Mexican Mafia.
The unnamed paralegal was deposed over the weekend; ABC News is reporting that the mother will deny the allegations. (Damien McElroy, “Mystery Jackson witness emerges”, Telegraph, Feb. 27; Tim Molloy, AP, Feb. 25). Meanwhile, Jesse Jackson is protesting the absence of black jurors on the panel.
“Great red flags of fraud”
Ted has the latest on the unfolding silicosis-diagnosis scandal over at Point of Law. (The quoted phrase is from federal judge Janis Graham Jack, reacting to revelations about doctors’ mass misdiagnosis of workers.) Also, umpteen more posts about medical malpractice — lots of reaction is still coming in to our critique of the New York Times on the subject.
Forum-shopping your defamation case?
Consider scenic New Mexico, which runs an extra-long statute of limitations and thus will welcome claims extinct elsewhere. The tactic didn’t work, however, for ex-Congressional wife Carolyn Condit, who went there to sue USA Today to escape other states’ limits on stale claims. Unfortunately for her case, she could offer no evidence that the allegedly libelous article had circulated in N.M., “since only the first edition of USA Today was distributed in the state and the story appeared only in the second edition,” as AP noted; a federal judge accordingly threw out her suit last August for lack of jurisdiction (“Judge dismisses libel suit by wife of Gary Condit”, AP/North County Times, Aug. 5, via CalBlog, Jan. 14 and Jan. 26). For New Mexico forum-shopping by the plaintiffs in the “Dazed and Confused” case, see Ted’s Oct. 12 post (also Dec. 8). For more details on the lack of connection of that case to New Mexico, see the memorandum of defendants in support of motion to dismiss (courtesy Courthouse News (PDF)).
New York’s wasted waterfront
It’s a tale of malzoning and government misuse (Julia Vitullo-Martin (Manhattan Institute), “Blight by law”, New York Post, Feb. 28).
Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!….
A federal jury in Detroit has awarded $300,000 in punitive damages and $14,209 in actual damages to Joyce Grad, saying the Royalwood cooperative apartment association in suburban Royal Oak violated her rights under the federal Fair Housing Act when it declined to waive its no-pets policy to permit her to bring in an emotional-assistance dog. Grad suffers from mental and emotional ailments that include severe depression. One of the services on which Ms. Grad has come to rely on the dog is in making sure she gets up in the morning: “I’ve trained her that if I don’t get up by 7, she is to go to [the] door and bark until help arrives.” Perfect for the neighbors! (David Ashenfelter, “Disabled woman’s dog has its day”, Detroit Free Press, Feb. 23). For more on the steady expansion of demands that legally protected status be accorded to “emotional-assistance” animals, see Oct. 25 and Dec. 2, 2004. For more cases in which disabled-rights-in-housing have led to noisy results, see Aug. 21-22, 2000 and Apr. 5-7, 2002.
“N.C. Judge Throws Out All Malpractice Charges in Attorney Free-for-All”
“A federal judge in North Carolina has thrown out all attorney malpractice charges exchanged in a free-for-all battle in which a woman hired a new lawyer to sue her previous two sets of attorneys and those law firms accused the new attorney — and each other — of negligence.” (Frank Reynolds, Professional Liability Litigation Reporter, Feb. 24).
Updates: Heikkinen v. Archdiocese of Milwaukee; Drypen
Roundup of fallout from the Heikkinen $17 million verdict. Sam Heldman writes me to defend the decision and express concern that I did not adequately convey that the jury found that Morse was acting on behalf of the church; I think that’s inherent in the jury’s verdict and my use of the term respondeat superior, but now readers have that explicit statement. A follow-up newspaper article quotes: “‘The purpose of the [Legion of Mary], and no one really disputed this, was that it was to assist the clergy in the work of the clergy,’ said Don Prachthauser, Heikkinen’s attorney.” (But isn’t that common goal true for any religiously-oriented volunteer organization?) Philip Howard and the jury forewoman are also interviewed about the size of the damages award for an elderly man. And a Baptist notes that the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church makes it especially susceptible to deep-pocket searches. (Derrick Nunnally, “$17 million verdict has many concerned”, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Feb. 23). Jon Coppelman explores the ramifications for workers’ compensation; Professor Martin Grace comments. There are still post-trial motions and an appeal to be had, and settlement negotiations are likely.
Also, I’ve updated our Feb. 22 post on Drypen v. Oakland County and its $4 million settlement with a couple of more recent press accounts that have previously unreported details about the defense’s side of the story.