“The qualities that liberals have observed in him of late — the monomania, the vindictiveness, the rage against pragmatic liberalism — have been present all along. Indeed, an un-blinkered look at Nader’s public life shows that his presidential campaigns represent not a betrayal of his earlier career but its apotheosis.” (Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, Mar. 8). And Peter Brimelow, who with Leslie Spencer wrote a noteworthy piece of investigative journalism on Nader for Forbes more than a decade ago (“Ralph Nader Inc.”, Forbes, Sept. 17, 1990) has now reprinted that article at his VDare.com site. For more on Nader, see Feb. 22; Jun. 13, 2000; etc.
Fla. docs petition to curb malpractice fees
Citizens for a Fair Share, a group backed by the Florida Medical Association, is seeking to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot in the Sunshine State to limit attorneys’ fees in medical malpractice cases; it’ll need to collect 450,000 verified signatures (Donna Wright, “Doctors petition for tighter cap on fees”, Bradenton Herald, Nov. 4; Gary Fineout, “A Crisis Or Battle Of Special Interests”, Lakeland Ledger, Nov. 24; Patrick Danner, “Lawyers’ fees come under fire”, Miami Herald, Jan. 4; “Sunshine, Ballots and Lawyers”, Center for Individual Freedom, Feb. 12). But Associated Industries of Florida, the state’s leading business group, is opposing the measure (Diane Hirth, “Lobby groups disagree on drive”, Tallahassee Democrat, Jan. 31)(FMA statement).
As for the state’s trial lawyers, they have already prepared revenge initiatives against the doctors. A group calling itself Floridians for Patient Protection, a political action committee of the Academy of Florida Trial Attorneys, is collecting signatures for three constitutional amendment proposals of its own. One of its proposals “would require physicians to charge the same fee for the same service to all patients.” (Liz Freeman, “Supporters of cap on attorney fees collect enough signatures for review”, Naples Daily News, Feb. 11). The executive director of the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers describes the initiatives as “countermeasures to ensure that the FMA must play defense first and offense second” (Scott Carruthers, “Pressing Forward”, Jan. 1, likely to rotate off URL). (Update Jul. 20: both doctors’ and lawyers’ measures qualify for ballot.) The revenge-initiative technique has served the litigation lobby well in California ballot battles. After insurance companies were so rash as to support efforts to obtain liability reform through the initiative process, trial lawyers struck back in 1988 with the rate-slashing Proposition 103, which inflicted huge losses on the industry. And when high-tech execs stepped to the plate with a batch of initiatives aimed at curbing litigation, the trial lawyers’ riposte was a counter-initiative that would have put the executives’ personal homes and assets at risk in a much broader range of securities cases. Both groups got the message, and abandoned the California initiative game.
“Liability Concerns for Condos”
Here’s hoping you don’t own a condominium in New York. A Manhattan Supreme Court ruling has decreased the real estate value of every condo in the state by holding that individual condominium unit owners can be held personally liable for all or part of the damages awarded to people injured as a result of defects in common areas of a building. Lawyers for Michael Taratura, injured by a fence that fell from a roof of a condo, sued each owner in the 11-unit building individually in the hopes of getting damages above and beyond the $2 million insurance coverage; the court allowed the case to proceed. Justice Heitler’s ruling is being appealed. (Jay Romano, NY Times, Feb. 29).
States stomp on substitute smokes, cont’d
As we noted Jan. 13 and Jan. 23, the structure of the great 1998 tobacco robbery puts state governments under financial pressure to restrict or suppress the activities of maverick cigarette makers that do not participate in the settlement fund. Vice Squad, which has been following this issue, has recent posts detailing how this is happening in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Florida (Feb. 23) and Pennsylvania again (Feb. 26)(Florida is one of four states with their own settlements with the tobacco majors paralleling the 46-state main settlement).
Lurid murder trial
According to Susan Wright’s attorney in her Houston murder trial, her husband Jeffrey pulled a knife on her, she wrestled it away from him, and killed him in self-defense. Unfortunately for this theory, the medical examiner testified that the autopsy shows that Mr. Wright was stabbed more than 200 times while his arms and legs were tied down to the bed; melted candle wax was also found on the body. (The defense admits that Ms. Wright tied her husband’s arms to the bed with neckties, but says this happened in the midst of the stabbing.) Ms. Wright’s attorney explains that the former topless dancer’s painting and bleaching the bedroom, dismantling of the bed, and burying the body underneath the backyard patio (before it was unearthed by the family dog), was a reflection of “post-traumatic stress syndrome”; it’s not clear if he also claims this for Ms. Wright’s application for money from the state crime victim’s compensation fund two days after the killing. (Andrew Tilghman, “Doctor: Man tied down in Wright attack”, Houston Chronicle, Feb. 27; KHOU, Feb. 27; Andrew Tilghman, “Wright jury hears 2 sides of `terror'”, Houston Chronicle, Feb. 26; Andrew Tilghman, “Jury selected for woman’s murder trial”, Feb. 25; KHOU, Feb. 24; video of courtroom reenactment) (via Daily Legal Newswire).
March 5 Update: Guilty. (Andrew Tilghman, “Wright gets 25 years in prison for murder,” Houston Chronicle, Mar. 4).
Karma ran into her dogma
“Wisconsin’s state Attorney General [Peg Lautenschlager], who pushed hard for a .08 BAC limit in the state, was arrested for drunken driving Monday night. We don’t know what her BAC was, because she refused to take a breath test (by the nature of the accident, I’d guess it was far higher than .10). Wisconsin is one of 37 states to adopt a measure championed by MADD that’s truly one of the most hysterical drunk driving laws on the books — the state actually imposes a harsher sentence for refusing to take a roadside breath test than it does for taking one and failing it.” (Radley Balko, Feb. 25) See Phil Brinkman, “Lautenschlager gives emotional apology, takes no questions”, Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 27; Steven Elbow, “AG cited in drunk driving”, Capitol Times (Madison), Feb. 24 (in 1981, state’s then-AG was picked up driving with BAC above legal limit; was easily re-elected the next year); Elbow, “AG’s alcohol level was 0.12”, Feb. 25.
IBM cleared in clean room trial
Two plaintiffs, Alida Hernandez and James Moore, had claimed that the chemicals used in the “clean rooms” by IBM had led to “systemic chemical poisoning” of themselves and other IBM workers, and that company executives knew about the hazard and concealed it. (The latter allegation was necessary to get around California worker compensation law, which doesn’t permit recovery merely for a hazardous workplace.) IBM protested that rubbing alcohol and acetone, the main chemicals the workers handled, weren’t dangerous unless ingested; that there was no such thing as “systemic chemical poisoning” that led to disparate diseases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and breast cancer; further, the plaintiffs “had a host of health problems, including diabetes, smoking and obesity, that defense experts said may have contributed to the development of cancers.” (Moore smoked two packs a day.) The Santa Clara jury agreed, unanimously finding that the plaintiffs did not suffer from “systemic chemical poisoning.” Plaintiffs’ lawyers now go to New York, where they hope to blame birth defects of a woman who was six months’ pregnant when she started at IBM on the company (see Sep. 25). “Because of the heart-wrenching anecdotes from cancer victims and relatives, many companies settle such cases out of court – sometimes for hundreds of millions of dollars. Several IBM chemical suppliers initially named in Moore and Hernandez’s case reached settlements last year.” (Shannon Lafferty, “IBM Cleared in Toxic-Exposure Trial”, The Recorder, Feb. 27; Elise Ackerman and Therese Poletti, “Jurors rule for IBM in toxics suit”, San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 27; Chris Gaither and Terril Yue Jones, “IBM Found Not Liable for Ex-Workers’ Cancers”, LA Times, Feb. 27; Matt Richtel, “I.B.M. Wins Ex-Workers’ Cancer Suit”, NY Times, Feb. 27; Benjamin Pimentel, “IBM case goes to jury”, San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 25; Rachel Konrad, “Jurors debate whether IBM lied about cancer-causing chemicals”, Canadian Press, Feb. 24; Peter Aronson, “Wave of IBM Suits Reaches Trial”, National Law Journal, Feb. 13; Therese Poletti, “Final witness testifies for IBM”, San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 12; Michael Santarini, “Allergist refutes chemical poisoning claims against IBM”, EE Times, Feb. 10; Rick Merritt, “Chemical exposure did not cause IBM-ers’ cancer, says expert”, EE Times, Jan. 30; full EE Times IBM trial coverage).
U.K.: Fathers stage law firm protest
Fifteen members of a group called Fathers 4 Justice stormed the offices of solicitors Parker Bird in Huddersfield, England, citing the firm’s “major contribution in the pouring petrol on the flames in divorce and childcare cases”. Locking the door behind them, chanting and waving flags until police arrived, the men said they had bestowed a “Golden Petrol Can” award on the law firm and a spokesman said “We feel that many solicitors manipulate family law against fathers.” (“Angry fathers in law firm protest”, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Feb. 26)(via Law.com). David Giacalone comments (Feb. 26): “I’m surprised this sort of protest hasn’t happened more often in the USA.”
Stuart Taylor, Jr. on Sen. Edwards
He reviews Edwards’s autobiography, Four Trials, which “provides a window into the faux-populist pretenses and other flaws of the system that made this millworker’s son into a multimillionaire.” Aside from Edwards’s cerebral palsy wins, much discussed in this space, there was the punitive damages award he obtained after a truck crash, against the trucking company for having paid its drivers by the mile: the justice of this $4 million award is open to much question as a matter of blame-fixing, aside from which it “ultimately came out of the pockets of the same ordinary, hardworking Americans whose champion he purports to be — and a big chunk of it went into the pockets of John Edwards. … Edwards’s business-bashing, anti-free-trade, us-against-them campaign rhetoric, unlike John Kerry’s, seems sincere. Edwards sounds as if he believes in his bones that behind every misfortune there must be a wealthy villain.” (Stuart Taylor, Jr., “John Edwards: The Lawsuit Industry Puts Its Best Face Forward”, National Journal/The Atlantic, Feb. 25).
Steve Bainbridge, noting Edwards’s jobs-jobs-jobs economic rhetoric, wonders whether the Senator pauses to worry about certain jobs destroyed by some of his main backers (Feb. 25). Edwards’s latest fund-raiser in Houston was hosted by John O’Quinn, who as the impresario of the breast implant litigation that bankrupted Dow Corning knows a thing or two about destroying jobs (Rachel Graves, “Fund-raisers bring Edwards to town”, Houston Chronicle, Feb. 24; Ken Herman, “The 2004 Election”, Cox/Palm Beach Post, Feb. 25). And on the Edwards-and-cerebral-palsy controversy that we and several other webloggers were pursuing earlier this month, Franco Castalone (The LitiGator) has added a pair of posts clarifying and extending his earlier comments, the first of which (Feb. 15) relays a wealth of information about no-fault birth injury compensation programs and the litigation they would replace, and the second of which (Feb. 16) makes some valuable points about civility in disagreement, and also says generous things about this site.