Oxycontin: a Rush for clients

A law firm in notorious Madison County, Ill. (more) may succeed in capitalizing on the publicity accorded to news of talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s prescription pill addiction. The Simmons Law Firm of East Alton “is waging a national media campaign in search of potential plaintiffs who allegedly have become addicted to the painkiller, OxyContin, the same drug [Limbaugh] is accused of obtaining illegally.” (Sanford Schmidt, “Law firm seeks users of OxyContin”, Alton (Ill.) Telegraph, Oct. 13). For our coverage of trial lawyers’ campaign against drugmaker Purdue Pharma, see Apr. 10, 2002 and links from there. On the Limbaugh affair’s implications for federal narcotics policy, see Robyn Blumner, “Limbaugh scandal puts Oxycontin on trial”, St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 19 (formatting problems); Jacob Sullum, “Drug rush”, Reason, Oct. 17.

Ferry-fear funding foreseen

New York City taxpayers are probably going to be liable not only for the physical injuries inflicted in Wednesday’s Staten Island Ferry crash — which include ten deaths and about 60 injuries resulting in hospitalization, some of them horrific — but also for damages potentially payable to all of the unhurt passengers, widely estimated to number 1,500. A “federal maritime doctrine allows all those who were in the face of danger and who suffered emotional distress to file for compensation, even if they were not physically injured”. Among likely claims, according to Columbia law dean David Leebron, are those from “passengers who claim to now have a fear of ferries that affects their ability to commute and earn a living”. (“City Could Face a Deluge of Suits Over Ferry Crash”, New York Times, Oct. 18; “Staten Island ferry pilot to be investigated”, AP/Globe and Mail, Oct. 16). For awards of $300,000-$6.5 million in the related area of suits by air-crash survivors with minor or no injuries, see Oct. 8, 1999, Oct. 19, 2000, and Aug. 24-26, 2001. (& welcome Samizdata.net readers)

$1.3 billion oyster damage

A Louisiana state appellate court, by a 3-2 vote, has upheld an award of $1.3 billion–more than $21 thousand an acre–to 130 oyster farmers who leased land from the state. The award, supposed damages for a state environmental project meant to save Louisiana’s disappearing coast, is worth more than the entire haul of oysters from Louisiana over the last century and is twice the cost of the Caernarvon Freshwater Diversion Project in question. As if to demonstrate that this case is nothing more than a wealth transfer to enrich lawyers over taxpayers, one of the plaintiffs did not purchase his lease until the day the lawsuit was filed, and thus could not possibly have suffered damages, since nobody made him purchase the lease. The appeals court actually increased his award.

The state plans to take further appeals; the Secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources says the ruling left him “shocked.” “‘There’s no way in the world that any one acre of oysters can be worth $21,000,’ Jack Caldwell said. ‘Particularly when there’s no evidence that these leases had any oysters on them or even any oyster reefs.'” Oyster leases in Louisiana typically go for about $200/acre; the leases from the state are for $2/acre/year. Moreover, many of the leases in question had a clause indemnifying the state that the trial and appeals courts refused to rule upon. And in a final irony, when the project was first proposed in the 1980s, oyster farmers supported it as a means of restoring changing salinity levels that were destroying the industry. The state passed a constitutional amendment to limit the awards, but the constitutionality of its retroactivity provisions is obviously questionable. (Jeffrey Meitrodt, “Oyster Damages Upheld”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Oct. 16; AP, “Appeals court: $1.3 billion is reasonable claim for oyster farmers”, Oct. 16; Jeffrey Meitrodt, “Election didn’t put to rest all coastal liability”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Oct. 13; “Oystermen offer suit settlement”, AP, Aug. 10; Jeffrey Meitrodt, “Oyster farmers originally backed project”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 4; “The Avenal Lawsuits”, Louisiana Coastal Law, Oct. 2000 at pp. 4-5; “Naked Ownership” blog entry with many other links, May 4; related story on this site, Mar. 25-26, 2002). A lawsuit against the United States on identical grounds was thrown out of federal courts in 1995 and upheld on appeal in Avenal v. United States, 100 F.3d 933 (Fed. Cir. 1996). Update Oct. 24, 2004: La. Supreme Court throws out cases.

Racketeering suit names nearly 70 Miami lawyers

“Three years after more than 60 lawyers, county employees and medical professionals were arrested on charges of bilking Florida’s Miami-Dade County out of millions of dollars through fraudulent personal injury claims, the county has filed a civil racketeering lawsuit against the accused perpetrators and others.” In the 715-page complaint, Miami-Dade County charges that 85 defendants, including nearly 70 South Florida lawyers, were implicated in schemes in which “attorneys who filed personal injury lawsuits against the county paid kickbacks to county risk management employees in return for expedited and inflated settlements. Miami-Dade Police Director Carlos Alvarez has said that county claims adjusters typically received 10 percent of the settlements. The claims against the county generally involve slip and fall accidents on county property, injuries on county buses, accidents with county cars and false arrests.” Defendants dispute some of the indictments as vague and untimely and point out that not all those sued had faced criminal charges earlier. (Matthew Haggman, “Miami-Dade Files Massive RICO Civil Suit”, Miami Daily Business Review, Oct. 8).

First-rate bilge on secondhand smoke

Jacob Sullum eviscerates an embarrassingly bad op-ed that the New York Times chose to run yesterday (Rosemary Ellis, “The Secondhand Smoking Gun”, Oct. 15) on the issue of smoking in public places, based on the supposed “Helena miracle” — heart attacks in the Montana capital (population 26,000) are said to have dropped suddenly by 58 percent when smoking in public buildings was banned. The claim, he says, is based on a single unpublished study “involving tiny, highly volatile numbers”. Had the Times been interested in whether the asserted result would hold up as a matter of epidemiology, it could easily have checked out the experience of other jurisdictions which could offer much, much larger sample sizes than wee Helena: “why have we not heard about a dramatic drop in heart attacks [in New York City itself] since the city’s smoking ban took effect in April”? A few phone calls to Columbia-Presbyterian, St. Lukes-Roosevelt and the city’s other big hospitals should suffice to establish whether there had been any massive effect of this sort on New Yorkers’ proneness to cardiac arrest. (Reason Hit & Run, Oct. 16; Jacob Sullum, “Heartstopping Discovery”, Reason, Apr. 4). More: Cato’s Steven Milloy weighs in (“Secondhand smoke scam”, FoxNews.com, Oct. 17).

Read On…

Insurers roll back Texas med-mal rates

Confirming the hopes of supporters of Texas’s Proposition 12 (see Sept. 4, Sept. 6, Sept. 14), various companies that write medical malpractice insurance have moved quickly to cut the rates they charge doctors. “Texas Medical Liability Trust, which insures more than 3,000 Houston-area doctors, will cut rates by 12 percent, effective Jan. 1. … Dr. Charles W. Bailey Jr., president of the Texas Medical Association, says he expected insurers to reduce rates after the proposition passed, but didn’t think it would happen so quickly. Outside insurers could be returning to write policies in Texas again in the near future, Bailey predicts.” (Allison Wollam, “Medical insurance rates roll back”, Houston Business Journal, Oct. 6). During the Prop 12 campaign, the editorialists of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, who opposed the measure, deemed “debatable” the proposition that the damage limitations at issue “will bring down, or at least stabilize, insurance rates” (“Keeping courts open”, Aug. 24).

Being beastly to bulldozers

Caterpillar Inc., the maker of earthmoving machinery, has sued Disney and Buena Vista Pictures in federal court “hoping to block the Oct. 21 release of the direct-to-DVD movie ‘George of the Jungle 2.'” The movie’s plot, evidently a marvel of originality, pits a hero and his animal sidekicks against evil “industrialists seeking to ravage and destroy the jungle”. As the Peoria paper reports, it seems “the final battle pits George and the animals against an army of Caterpillar Wheel Loaders. It didn’t help, the suit goes on to state, that the movie’s narrator calls the machines ‘maniacal’, ‘deleterious dozers’ and “bulldozing bullies.” How better to dispel an image of bullyhood than by heading to court to demand that speech critical of one’s enterprise be silenced? (Andy Kravetz, “Cat doesn’t dig ‘bulldozing bullies'”, Peoria Journal-Star, Oct. 15; “George of the Jungle, Watch Out for That Lawsuit!”, Reuters/Washington Post, Oct. 15) More: Eugene Volokh comments (Oct. 17).

Dark highlights, courtesy Oz legal aid

Australia: “An application by Victorian triple murderer Paul Denyer to wear women’s make-up in prison was helped by taxpayer-funded Legal Aid, the state government said today. The 120kg killer, branded one of the most dangerous criminals in Victoria … lodged an appeal with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) after his complaint of gender identity discrimination was rejected by the Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) in August.” (“Legal Aid helped make-up bid”, AAP/Melbourne Age, Oct. 15). See update Jan. 10.

“Man Ordered to Speak English to Daughter”

Nebraska: “A Hispanic man who spoke to his 5-year-old daughter in Spanish has been ordered to use primarily English around the girl as a condition of his visitation rights.” Ruling on a request by the mother, a Sarpy County judge decreed that Eloy Amador should “primarily” use English when conversing with his daughter, although it was all right to switch to Spanish for purposes of instructing her in the use of that language. (Jean Ortiz, AP/Las Vegas Sun, Oct. 14). More: Jim Boulet at NR Corner comments on the ruling and provides this link to a very curious 1995 court decision from Amarillo, Tex. in which a “judge overseeing a child-custody case told a Mexican native that speaking only Spanish at home constituted abuse of her 5-year old daughter. ”