Two weeks ago the once-great Detroit News (oh, how we miss its pre-Gannett days) published a “Special Report” entitled “Flawed guns: America unprotected” (Dec. 14-16) which recycles the plaintiffs’ allegations in seemingly every extant “design defect” case against the firearms industry. Matthew Hunter (“Trigger Finger”) has now posted a ten-part rebuttal (first entry). One of Hunter’s themes: many of the design features portrayed as “defects” in the News series are in fact sought out knowingly by many sophisticated gun buyers, as with Glock’s deliberate omission of a manual safety on its extremely popular police gun.
“Elf chairs” in New Zealand
A Christmas event in Mosgiel, a small village in New Zealand, decided, for liability reasons, not to allow children to sit on Santa’s lap; instead, the children conveyed their Christmas wishes from decorated “elf chairs.” (AFP, Nov. 28).
Chinese court orders virtual goods returned to gamer
A court in Beijing has ordered an online gaming company to return a player’s virtual goods that had been hacked and stolen. Li Hongchen had been playing the online game “Hongyue” (Red Moon) for two years when he discovered that an unknown miscreant had invaded his account and taken virtual money and weapons. The court told the game’s operator, Beijing Artic Ice Technology Development, to return the virtual goods to Hongchen; it has not yet ruled on his request for real-world US $1,200 in compensation. Gamers cannot recall another case in which a court has ordered the transfer of game-defined imaginary goods, but the Xinhua news agency reports that disputes over virtual property are burgeoning in China’s booming online-gaming industry. (“Real verdict in China for virtual loss”, CNET Asia, Dec. 29; “Online gamer in China wins virtual theft suit”, Reuters/CNN, Dec. 20; Jay Lyman, “Gamer Wins Lawsuit in Chinese Court Over Stolen Virtual Winnings”, TechNewsWorld, Dec. 19). A conference last month on “Games and the Law” at New York Law School (papers) included a paper by Dan Hunter and F. Gregory Lastowka on “Virtual Property” (PDF).
New 9/11 lawsuits/conspiracy theories
A Florida lawyer has filed suit against the city of New York on behalf of some plaintiffs who feel that deaths of family members in the World Trade Center were the fault of the city, and hope to maintain the lawsuit and simultaneously collect from the Federal Victims Compensation Fund. A plaintiff blames sinister forces for her inability to find a lawyer closer to home.
One of the plaintiffs, Catherine “Sally” Regenhard, said she spent two years trying to find a New York City lawyer who would file the lawsuit.
“I couldn’t get one New York City law firm to touch this legal issue with a 10-foot pole,” Regenhard said. “You ever hear the saying ‘You’ll never eat lunch in this town again?’ I guess the lawyers have to keep eating lunch in New York City. It’s political.”
The real reason, one suspects, is that the New York lawyers might be aware that submitting a claim to the Fund waives all lawsuits against other entities (with the exception of the terrorists themselves and collateral claims on insurance policies), a fact that her lawyer, Barry Cohen, disputes in an interview with the Tampa Tribune. Apparently neither Mr. Cohen nor the newspaper could be bothered to check the Federal Fund’s web site for a definitive answer. (Joshua B. Good, “Tampa, Fla., Lawyer Sues New York on Behalf of Sept. 11 Families”, Tampa Tribune, Dec. 24; Graham Brink, “Tampa attorneys file 9/11 lawsuit”, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 24). Fortunately for Mr. Cohen’s malpractice carrier and his clients, the effect of any conflict would be to nullify his lawsuit rather than his clients’ rights to receive compensation from the government.
Lest you think that takes the cake, the SoCalLawBlog informs us of an even nuttier lawsuit that blames the September 11 attack on a RICO conspiracy involving, among others, the first President Bush, Condoleeza Rice, the Council for Foreign Relations, and Kenneth Feinberg. (complaint; press release, Nov. 26). The non-lunatic media’s refusal to cover this before now is, no doubt, part of the conspiracy.
Guestblogger Leah Lorber returns
Attorney/author Leah Lorber, a product liability and tort reform expert who practices with the law firm of Shook, Hardy and Bacon in Washington, joined us last summer as one of our guest bloggers (see various entries between Jul. 29 and Aug. 6). We’re happy to announce that she’ll be back for another week-long stint, starting tomorrow. I’ll be continuing to post too, but probably at a reduced pace.
Slip on grape = $41,000
The Iowa Court of Appeals last week upheld a jury’s award of $41,267 to shopper Judy Krenk, who said she slipped on a grape at the checkout aisle at the No Frills Supermarket. The store owners “claimed the managers hadn’t been notified about a hazardous condition and therefore were not negligent. … The ruling noted that it wasn’t clear how the grape got on the floor.” The jury awarded Krenk $82,535, but ruled that the accident was 50 percent her fault, so it was cut in half. (Frank Santiago, “Court upholds award to shopper who slipped on grape”, Des Moines Register, Dec. 25).
Vaccines, cont’d
Britain’s legal-aid commission invested ?15 million in assisting claimants who wanted to sue makers over the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, but finally decided to call a halt: “After taking expert advice, the LSC acknowledged that, given the failure of research to establish a link between MMR and autism, the litigation was ‘very likely to fail'”. Michael Fitzpatrick, writing for the UK’s Spiked Online, explores what he calls the “enormous waste of public funds” on the litigation. (“Medicine on trial”, Dec. 15). Efforts to pin the blame on the preservative thimerosal have come up short, according to an editorial in today’s WSJ: “Researchers recently examined the health records of all children born in Denmark from 1971 to 2000 for autism diagnoses. Though Denmark eliminated thimerosal from its vaccines in 1992, the researchers found that the incidence of autism continued to increase. A second research team reviewed the records of nearly 500,000 Danes vaccinated for pertussis. They also found that the risk of autism and related disorders didn’t differ between those vaccinated with thimerosal and those without.” (“The Politics of Autism” (editorial), Wall Street Journal, Dec. 29). More on vaccines and liability: Jim Copland (Manhattan Institute), “Liable to Infection”, Dallas Morning News, Dec. 14; Robert Goldberg (also Manhattan Institute), “Vaccinating against disaster”, Washington Times, Dec. 17; and see Dec. 24 and earlier posts. Update Feb. 25: Lancet regrets publication of anti-MMR study; Mar. 4, 2005: another study finds no link.
Haiti to France: pay us $21,685,135,571.48
Reparations madness, cont’d: almost 200 years after a slave revolt won Haiti’s independence, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide “has launched a controversial campaign to get France to repay its former colony billions of dollars in restitution. And he has already sent Paris a bill, down to the very last cent: $21,685,135,571.48.” A legal adviser to the Aristide administration is considering taking the case to international court (Jacqueline Charles, “Aristide pushes for restitution from France”, Miami Herald, Dec. 18; Henry Samuel, “You owe us $21,685,135,571.48”, Daily Telegraph (UK), Oct. 8; “The sad bicentennial of a once fabulous sugar colony”, The Economist, Dec. 18). No word yet on whether any reparations will be offered in the opposite direction for the 1804 massacres during which newly emergent strongman Jean-Jacques Dessalines ordered the slaughter of almost the entire French population resident in Haiti, an estimated 20,000 persons. (Update: another side of the story from Tunku Varadarajan, who argues that the government of France really was “first a brutal colonizer, and then a usurious bully”.)
In other news, the highly popular videogame “Vice City”, part of the Grand Theft Auto series, has drawn fire from New York and Florida officials “and from the government of Haiti, which has threatened to sue the game’s manufacturer, New York-based Rockstar Games, its parent company, Take 2 Interactive Software Inc., and the game’s distributors. A Miami lawyer representing the Haitian government said the game violates the hate crime laws of Florida and other states. ‘It’s the kind of thing that has no business being sold because it’s not just a game,’ attorney Ira Kurzban told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. ‘It’s a teaching device for young kids and high school students. What is it teaching them? Violence, hatred and racism.'” (“Haitian, Cuban Leaders Denounce ‘Grand Theft Auto'”, WTVJ South Florida, Dec. 16). More on videogame lawsuits: Sept. 26 and links from there.
Update: Oz court nixes DVT suit
Bad news for lawyers suing airlines over “economy-class syndrome” (see Dec. 13-14, 2000): an Australian court of appeal has disallowed a test case against Qantas and British Airways over the deep vein thrombosis suffered by a passenger after a long flight. Brian William Povey, a Sydney businessman, “had alleged that flight conditions — including a confined and restricted physical environment, impediments to getting out of his seat, a lack of warning about the risk of DVT, and the supply of alcohol — had caused his injury.” (Peter Gregory, “DVT damages claims in doubt”, Melbourne Age, Dec. 24). The judgment was consistent with a court decision in Britain; a U.S. federal judge in San Francisco, on the other hand, has allowed such claims to proceed (see Aug. 16). Update Sept. 12: high court agrees to review case.
Med-mal roundup
Lack of malpractice insurance is threatening to close the only obstetrics practice in Virginia’s rural and economically depressed Northern Neck region. The closure of Rappahannock General Hospital’s OB unit, which delivers about 250 babies a year, would be “absolutely devastating” to community health, says Albert C. Pollard Jr., who represents the region in the Virginia House of Delegates: “we’d lose a lot of babies if somebody has to drive to Richmond or Newport News.” (Frank Delano, “Crisis presses OB docs”, Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star, Dec. 21). “While the governor and Legislature dither over fixing the state’s medical malpractice system, the [Philadelphia] region’s doctors have been voting with their feet,” reports the Philadelphia Daily News. “And they are choosing states that cap damages in malpractice lawsuits — or have other strong reforms to keep malpractice insurance premiums low.” (Michael Hinkelman, “Pa. docs are moving to ‘cap’ states”, Philadelphia Daily News, Dec. 8). Hard numbers on malpractice payouts are often in short supply, but the Missouri state department of insurance has some: it says insurance companies operating in the state “reported paying $135 million to cover 524 claims closed last year”. Self-insured entities, mostly hospitals, “reported paying $6.6 million to close 42 claims, but the actual number of claims and the amount paid may be understated in the data, department spokesman Randy McConnell said. … The average malpractice claim takes more than four years to reach resolution, so the 2002 claims data capture injuries sustained over a period of years. Only 15 of the 566 claims went to a court verdict.” Most of the paid cases involved claims that medical misadventure led to permanent injury or death. (Judith Vandewater, “566 medical malpractice claims were settled in Missouri in 2002”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 4). The American Medical Association rates Missouri a “crisis” state. (M. Steele Brown, “Malpractice ‘crisis’ drives docs from Missouri”, Kansas City Business Journal, May 5).