The scene in certain counties of Southern Illinois shortly before the signing of the Class Action Fairness Act: “Class-action business was busy last week in Madison and St. Clair counties in anticipation of the new law. Thirty-four class actions were filed in Madison County, and 51 in St. Clair County, with some lawyers making sure Friday morning to get their suits stamped before the Bush signing.” (Paul Hampel, “Where the suits are”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 20).
NYC tort bill last year: $570 million
New York City shelled out a record $570 million last year to resolve personal injury claims against its taxpayers, up $12 million from last year. Medical liability claims made up nearly a third of the total. A fast-growing variety of payouts were those over schoolyard beatings and other violence on school premises, for which the city paid $6.9 million, bringing the three-year total for that category to $17.7 million. (“City paid $570 million in personal injury lawsuits in 2004”, AP/Newsday, Feb. 20; David Andreatta, “School Suit $$ Soars”, New York Post, Feb. 25). More on NYC liability: Jan. 26, Jan. 6 and links from there, Jul. 31, 2003 and many others.
Mohr v. Daimler Chrysler – $53 million
A jury found Chrysler about 45% responsible for an accident where “an inexperienced 17-year-old driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into the Mohr’s vehicle at a devastatingly high speed.” Said Steve Hantler, assistant general counsel of DaimlerChrysler Corp, “To impose any punitive damages in these circumstances, let alone $48 million, is an especially egregious miscarriage of justice.” Plaintiffs claimed the Dodge Caravan was unsafe in offset collisions; Chrysler notes that the Jeep overrode onto the minivan, so IIHS offset testing was irrelevant, aside from the fact that the Caravan doesn’t perform worse than other minivans in that test. Plaintiffs also blamed a second death in the accident on a faulty seatbelt, which Chrysler denies. Press accounts are still too sketchy to tell you more; we’ll have a follow-up down the line. (Bloomberg, Feb. 24; Mohr v. Daimler Chrysler Corp., No. 03-2433 (Shelby County, TN)).
Family neglects 3-year-old, wants cash for her death
“Lawyers for the estate of Porchia Bennett blame the city for the 3-year-old child’s death at the hands of abusive caretakers in a squalid South Philadelphia row house. … [I]f the estate’s lawsuit is successful, some taxpayer money could go to the dead child’s allegedly abusive mother, an often-homeless drug abuser who left Porchia with the child’s alleged killers a year before Porchia was slain.” Tiffany Bennett, the mother, is awaiting trial on charges of child endangerment. Also standing to benefit financially will be Lester Trapp, the girl’s father, who hadn’t seen her since she was a year old, according to a lawyer. Both Trapp and Tiffany Bennett “are listed as ‘beneficiaries’ of the estate in documents filed with the Register of Wills office.” The suit was filed by attorney Alan Denenberg, whose partner Thomas Bruno was appointed administrator of the child’s estate last year. (Jim Smith, “Suit faults city, DHS for Porchia’s death”, Philadelphia Daily News, Feb. 25; Jill Porter, “Family’s lawsuit over tot’s death is an obscenity”, Philadelphia Daily News, Feb. 25)
Cosby won’t face criminal charges
And according to Beldar (Feb. 20) the complainant’s lawyers (who naturally are planning to sue the comedian) have been reduced to blowing smoke about a purported prosecutorial conflict of interest that’s nothing of the kind.
Demand for shaker abstinence
A prominent busybody group filed suit yesterday demanding that food preparers be made to obtain permission from federal regulators before adding salt to food. In its lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration, the nosy, hectoring Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says the savory crystals should be categorized as a regulated food additive; salt is currently, like many other long-used substances, grandfathered into the unregulated “Generally Recognized As Safe” (GRAS) category. (Maggie Fox, “Salt Should Be Regulated Food Additive, Group Says”, Reuters, Feb. 24). For more on CSPI, see Sept. 19, 2003.
Osbourne album remix prompts class action
After bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake filed lawsuits demanding royalties over their performances in two Ozzy Osbourne albums, “Blizzard of Ozz” and “Diary of a Madman”, recording executives remastered the albums to strip out their performances and replace them with performances by Robert Trujillo and Mike Bordin for the 2002 reissue. Now Illinois fan Anthony Wester has sued Sony Entertainment and Epic Records, saying he felt misled and cheated to learn of the substitution, and his lawyer wants class-action status for the suit. (Steve Patterson, “‘Remastered’ Osbourne albums a snow job, fan’s suit charges”, Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 21; “Bassist, drummer cut from Ozzy album remixes, fan sues”, AP/AZCentral.com, Feb. 23).
The Times’s errors on malpractice, cont’d
I’ve just posted at Point of Law the second and I assume final installment of my long critique of Tuesday’s New York Times article on medical malpractice insurance. The Times coverage contended — in assertions picked up and repeated by many a credulous blogger — that the premium levels charged to doctors bear no relationship to payouts or to legal limits on damage recoveries. Part I of the critique, again, is here.
While you’re at it, you really should be reading Point of Law every day if you have any interest in the more serious side of litigation and its reform, or just want to follow Ted’s or my writing (we both post regularly there). Among the topics you would have learned about recently: the difference, among civil litigators, between “chicken catchers and chicken pluckers“; Colorado lawmakers may restore to homeowners the right not to be sued over “open and obvious dangers” on their property; FDA panel recommends letting Vioxx back on market; a new study of class actions by Yale’s George Priest; medical malpractice law in the U.K.; Sen. Biden praises “bottom-feeders”; silicosis diagnosis scandal; a new legal ethics blog; tons more stuff on the Class Action Fairness Act, including this, this and this; problems with that much-ballyhooed report on medical costs supposedly causing half of consumer bankruptcies; and the Wall Street Journal on loser-pays.
“Veteran-status” harassment
Just as legal rules aimed at sparing female and minority workers the risk of a “hostile environment” can lead to the suppression of workplace jokes, banter and expressions of political or religious opinion deemed potentially hurtful to feelings, so the inclusion of “veteran’s status” as a protected category can encourage the elimination of workplace speech that might offend the group in question — which in this case could lead to restricting speech critical of war or the military. Eugene Volokh explains (Feb. 8) and Beldar comments as well (Feb. 8).
Tulsa World v. bloggers
The Tulsa, Okla. newspaper has sent a cease-and-desist letter to blogger Michael D. Bates of Batesline for “inappropriately link[ing his] website to Tulsa World content” and insisted that he at once remove “unauthorized links to our content” (his posts on the subject). (It also complains about Bates’s having reprinting editorial items or portions thereof; he believes the reprinting was defensible under “fair use”). Blogger-lawyer Ronald Coleman, who recently launched the Likelihood of Confusion blog covering trademark, copyright and trade secret law, is assisting Bates and comments on the story (Feb. 18 and other entries). TechLawAdvisor also adds an observation. More on “deep linking”: Jan. 25, 2004 and links from there.