James Guckert threatens suit

Media Matters may have to rethink its apparent bias against litigation reform. They’ll have to spend some unnecessary money on lawyers if Jeff Gannon/James Guckert follows up on his claim that he’ll be suing the group (along with liberal bloggers) for the non-existent cause of action of “political assassination” for revealing his strange double-life. (Newsweek, Feb. 28).

Welcome Baltimore Sun readers

On Thursday the Baltimore Sun quoted me saying unflattering things about Stephen L. Snyder, the successful local attorney who’s taken out very costly ads ostensibly aimed at attracting a $1 billion case (see Feb. 16). I said Snyder has probably has made it onto the Top Ten list of tasteless lawyer-advertisers, having particularly in mind the cheesy way his website flips off would-be clients whose cases, however meritorious, lack a big enough payoff (Jennifer McMenamin, “In search of a $1 billion case, fielding 100 calls”, Baltimore Sun, Feb. 16)(reg). A week earlier the same paper quoted me commenting on the likely impact on civil litigation of a federal grand jury’s indictment of the W.R. Grace Co. and seven of its current or former executives; the charges arise from the widely publicized exposure of townspeople and others to asbestos hazards from the company’s vermiculite mine at Libby, Montana. (William Patalon III, “Grace’s plight made worse”, Feb. 9).

And: Rob Asghar of the Ashland (Ore.) Daily Tidings devoted two recent columns to the problem of overlawyering and was kind enough to quote my opinions (“Law and disorder”, part 1 (Feb. 7) and part 2 (Feb. 14)). NYC councilman David Yassky, sponsor of the let’s-sue-over-guns ordinance that I criticized in the New York Times two weeks ago (see Feb. 6), responds today with a letter to the editor defending the legislation (Feb. 20). My Manhattan Institute colleague Jim Copland, writing in the Washington Times on the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act, quotes my Feb. 11 post on the subject (“Tort tax cut”, Feb. 15). Finally, the New York Sun covers a recent Institute luncheon at which I introduced ABC’s John Stossel (Robert E. Sullivan, “John Stossel Chides the ‘Liberal’ Press for Spinelessness”, Feb. 9)(sub-$).

“I Am Not A Jackass”

A.J. Jacobs considers–and rejects–the idea of suing Joe Queenan over a bad book review.

But then I remembered what I had learned in the encyclopedia: James McNeill Whistler tried this tactic, and it ended pretty badly. He filed a libel suit in 1878 after the critic John Ruskin called him a ”coxcomb” and denounced his painting ”Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket.” Whistler won a token judgment of a farthing — but the cost of the case bankrupted him. So no lawsuits from me. And at least I wasn’t called a coxcomb.

(NY Times, Feb. 13) (via Radosh).

Put the blame on games, cont’d

Devin Thompson, 16 at the time, is charged with murdering two Fayette, Ala. policemen and an emergency dispatcher in June 2003. Now members of the victims’ families are suing the maker of the Grand Theft Auto video game, retailers Wal-Mart and Gamestop, and Sony, which manufactures the PlayStation, as well as Thompson himself, on the grounds that the violent game “trained” the teen to commit the real-life killings. Representing the families, if you haven’t already guessed, is attorney Jack Thompson, whose anti-videogame crusade has for years provided material for these columns (Sept. 26 and Dec. 17, 2003, etc.)(Johnny Kampis, “Lawsuit claims video violence precipitated Fayette police shootings”, Tuscaloosa News, Feb. 15; Tony Smith, “Grand Theft Auto firm faces ‘murder training’ lawsuit”, The Register (UK), Feb. 17). More: “The supporters [of anti-videogame government action] think violent games produce violent teens, but the evidence is lacking.” (Steve Chapman, “Violent video games and Illinois’ loopy legislators”, syndicated/Chicago Tribune, Mar. 20)

Berkeley student government successfully extorted

Henry Kissinger once said “University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” As I would tell my 21-year-old self if I ever ran into him today, that inverse ratio holds true by several orders of magnitude when it comes to student government. Yvette Felarca was disqualified in a student government election in a squabble over rules; she claimed (with the aid of precedent) constitutional violations and sued, which caused election delays because the government didn’t want to have to count votes twice; the student government changed the rules to give her her seat; the federal court dismissed the lawsuit as moot with leave to refile; and Felarca did just that. Faced with a demand to pay her legal fees of $15,000 or spending more than that defending themselves, the student government capitulated, and Felarca got both her $15,000 to drop the suit and presumably also law-school-application essay material. (Traci Kawaguchi, “ASUC to Settle Suit for $15,000”, Daily Californian, Feb. 11; “Editorial: ASUC-ing Money Away”, Daily Californian, Feb. 15; CalStuff blog, Feb. 12; Tina Nguyen, “Federal Judge Tosses DAAP Lawsuit Against ASUC”, Daily Californian, Nov. 16; Yvette Falarca, “Senator Justifies Lawsuit”, Daily Californian, Aug. 31).

Corrected post: Washington police can’t search dumped trash

(Apologies to readers. On occasion, I run across a news story, save the link on Movable Type, and then finish writing a post later after I’ve proofed it. On February 17, I accidentally published a draft squib instead of a finished post. The published draft (1) failed to reference relevant federal precedent as I had intended; (2) incorrectly identified the Washington Supreme Court as the authors of the opinion in the news story; (3) incorrectly stated that a conviction was reversed; and (4) had a subject-verb disagreement. Fortunately, Overlawyered has a full-time proofreader, an anonymous law student at the Appellate Law & Practice blog, who prefers fact-checking Overlawyered to his/her own posts. He/she caught two out of the four errors, and defends the appellate court’s decision.)

A Washington court holds that police can’t arrange to search dumped garbage without a warrant, and invalidates a meth-dealer’s indictment. (Michael Ko, “Court: Meth maker’s privacy was invaded”, Seattle Times, Feb. 16).

This seemed to be straight out of a “Law and Order” episode I would scoff at, but the hair-splitting judges are forced to engage in to determine the stage at which trash becomes searchable is phenomenal. See, e.g., the seven separate opinions in the 8-5 en banc decision United States v. Redmon, 138 F.3d 1109 (7th Cir. 1998) (garbage can in shared driveway searchable without warrant); Clinton administration brief. The landmark Supreme Court opinion on garbage is the 6-2 decision in California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988) (trash bag at curb searchable without warrant).

No good deed goes unpunished

In the same vein as a potluck, AP covers Oscar party excess:

So what happens to all those untouched short ribs, lobsters, truffles and tortes?

Governors Ball leftovers are donated to homeless shelters and other charitable causes around town. But the lawyers got in the way of any such benevolence at the Elton John party, fearing the caterer would be liable for anyone who got sick on the scraps.

(Beth Harris, “Planners get ready for Oscar parties”, Feb. 17) (via Defamer).

And now for something completely different…

I don’t know if I buy this Globe and Mail paragraph, which John Palmer saw first.

An indignant Israeli is suing a pet shop that he says sold him a dying parrot, reports the Ma’ariv newspaper. Itzik Simowitz of the southern city of Beersheba contends the shop cheated him because the Galerita-type cockatoo not only failed to utter a word when he got it home, but was also extremely ill. Mr. Simowitz adds that the shop owner assured him the parrot was not ill but merely needed time to adjust to its new environment.

The Australian provides enough additional detail that one believes that Ma’ariv printed it. On the other hand, Ma’ariv seems prone to parrot tales that sound like urban legends.

(Alex thought of the post title first.) Previous Python-related litigation: Dec. 27.