Disappearing Australians

Lifeguards: “One of Victoria’s most popular surf beaches may be unpatrolled this summer as its lifesaving club struggles to pay the huge public liability insurance costs. The Torquay club will not put lifesavers on the beach this season if the State Government does not pass legislation protecting members and the club from litigation.” (Stephen Moynihan, “Popular beach may have no lifesavers this season”, Melbourne Age, Nov. 2). Pediatric surgeons: “Eighteen orthopedic surgeons and obstetricians have quit public hospitals in Sydney in the past week because of the Government’s medical indemnity charge.” (Ruth Pollard, “Children’s surgeons quit, more will follow”, Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 2). Rural obstetricians (Lucy Beaumont, “Insurance fear on rural births”, Melbourne Age, May 6). See David Little, “Left untreated, the indemnity system will cause more suffering”, Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 9; Richard Ackland, “In a row between doctor and lawyer, you know who the politician will call”, Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 31)

Whoops

That story about Fox threatening to sue itself, picked up by much of the media and featured in our Oct. 31 item, turns out to have been, um, embellished at a minimum by “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, and the show’s producers have issued an apology (Washington Post, Oct. 31)

Morales gets four years

“Former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales was sentenced Friday to four years in prison for filing a false income tax return and mail fraud in a case stemming from the state’s $17 billion tobacco settlement.” Although Morales had entered a guilty plea as part of a plea agreement, “he insisted most of the accusations about public misdeeds were untrue.” (AP/Tyler Morning Telegraph , Oct. 31; Janet Elliott, “Morales ordered to prison”, Houston Chronicle, Nov. 1). Background: Oct. 2, Jul. 17, Jun. 26 and links from there.

U.K.: “Poppy pins banned in case people sue”

“The Royal British Legion has stopped supplying pins with its [veterans’-remembrance] poppies because it fears compensation claims from ‘injured’ members of the public.” “People can easily stab themselves with a pin and there is always the worry of litigation,” says the chairman of an RBL branch in Somerset. However, Peter Westwell, county secretary of the Shropshire branch, “called the no-pin rule ‘poppycock’. He said: ‘It is compensation culture gone mad.'” (Elizabeth Day, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 2)

Chuck badgers a witness

Will Baude at Crescat Sententia catches Sen. Schumer (D-N.Y.) being inimitably Schumish in his questioning of appeals court nominee Janice Brown, who is being accused of embracing the touch-it-and-politically-die Lochner decision (Oct. 31). For more on Brown’s nomination, see Oct. 29, last item.

Fox v. Fox

Quoth Ernie the Attorney (Oct. 31): “Fox News will sue anyone at the drop of a hat, but it does have some standards. For example, Fox won’t sue itself. But that doesn’t mean it won’t threaten to sue itself.” (See “Fox nearly sued itself over ‘Simpsons’ parody: Matt Groening”, AFP/Yahoo, Oct. 30). Whoops! Original story turns out to have been, um, embellished at a minimum by “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, and the show’s producers have issued an apology (Washington Post, Oct. 31)

Calif. inferno: gotta follow those regs

“The first helicopter pilot to see the patch of flames that would become the catastrophic Cedar Fire radioed for aerial water drops, but state firefighters rejected his request because it came minutes after such flights had been grounded for the night. Within hours, the flames cascaded out of control and killed 13 residents between the mountains east of San Diego and the city. It eventually became the largest wildfire in California history. …

“The problem was that under state safety guidelines, no flights can go up into waning daylight. On Saturday, the cutoff was 5:36 p.m., said California Department of Forestry Capt. Ron Serabia, who coordinates the 12 tankers and 10 helicopters now battling the 272,000-acre blaze. The sun set that day at 6:05 p.m.” (Justin Pritchard, “State firefighters rejected air drop request for Cedar Fire because of night regulations”, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 30). (Via Arthur Silber). More: Matt Welch at Reason “Hit and Run” (Oct. 31) has a roundup of other instances in which bad policy decisions may have worsened damage from the wildfires: “near the top of my list is the 1968 state law that specifically orders insurance companies to pool together and offer homeowner policies to people who live in high-risk brush fire zones, a non-market last resort enjoyed by 20,000 people, most of whom live in the foothills of Southern California.” Yet more: Gregg Easterbrook (Oct. 31) on forest management and wildlands.

Not the date they expected

Latest tabloid/reality TV case apparently headed for court, this time from the U.K.: “Six men who competed for the affection of an attractive brunette called Miriam for a reality television program have threatened legal action after discovering that the object of their attention was a transsexual.” The male contestants, who are said to have signed release forms before the show’s filming, “were invited to pick the most attractive woman from a line-up. They were then filmed on dates with her. All of them chose Miriam, who, unknown to them, was born a man.” To make matters worse, some of the men “are believed to have been intimate with Miriam before discovering at the end of the show that she was a pre-operative transsexual. … Lawyers for the six men have written to Sky and Brighter Pictures accusing them of conspiracy to commit a sexual assault, defamation, breach of contract and personal injury.” (Catriona Davies, “TV suitors shocked as dream girl turns out to be a man”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 31). Update Nov. 5: more links via Curmudgeonly Clerk and May 26: cases settled.

Class conflicts: a dose of theory

One of the perennial problems with class actions as a procedural device is whether and how to recognize the conflicts and divergences of interest among members of the class (for instance, in a consumer class action, class members who plan to buy the product again in the future may have very different interests from those who do not on the question of what counts as a useful remedy). Lawrence Solum on his Legal Theory Weblog has a very long and theoretical post on the topic (Oct. 30) one of whose lessons (if we are reading it correctly) is that many of the conflicts are too real and fundamental to be conjured away even by clever theoretical efforts to reinterpret class members’ interests at a higher level of abstraction.

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