Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Maryland roundup

Legislature’s back in session and no citizen’s liberties are safe:

  • SB 65 (Benson) would require gas station dealers to maintain operational video cameras and retain footage for 45 days [Maryland Legislative Watch]
  • HB 20 (GOP Del. Cluster) would require all public schools to hire cops [Gazette, MLW]
  • SB 28 (Frosh) would lower burden of proof for final domestic protective orders from “clear and convincing” to “preponderance of the evidence” [MLW, ABA] One problem with that is that orders already tag family members as presumed abusers in the absence of real evidence, are routinely used as a “tactical leverage device” in divorces, and trip up unwary targets with serious criminal penalties for trying to do things like see their kids;
  • Driving while suspected of gun ownership: what unarmed Florida motorist went through at hands of Maryland law enforcement [Tampa Bay Online] 2014 session in Annapolis can hardly be worse for gun rights than 2013, so it stands to reason it’ll be better [Hendershot’s]
  • State begins very aggressive experiment in hospital cost controls: “I am glad there is an experiment, but I’m also glad I live in Virginia.” [Tyler Cowen]
  • Scenes from inside the failed Maryland Obamacare exchange [Baltimore Sun] Lt. Gov.: now’s not the time to audit or investigate the failed launch because that’d just distract us from it [WBAL]
  • Corridors run pink as Montgomery County school cafeterias battle scourge of strawberry milk [Brian Griffiths, Baltimore Sun]
  • Plus: A left-right alliance on surveillance and privacy in the legislature [my new Cato at Liberty post]
  • How did Maryland same-sex marriage advocates win last year against seemingly long odds? [Stephen Richer, Purple Elephant Republicans citing Carrie Evans, Cardozo JLG; thanks to @ToddEberly as well as Carrie and Stephen for kind words]

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Judge finds asbestos-suit deceit, throws out $1 billion in liability

What percent of the dollar value demanded in asbestos litigation these days is grounded in deceitful or duplicative claims practices? Would 90 percent be an unreasonable guess? “A bankruptcy judge slashed by 90 percent the amount gasket manufacturer Garlock Sealing Technologies owes asbestos plaintiffs. … The judge cited the practice of plaintiff lawyers [of hiding] evidence their clients were exposed to products made by other companies, both by coaching their clients to deny exposure and by failing to disclose claims they made in other cases.” [Daniel Fisher/Forbes and followup and related, Joe Nocera/New York Times, Paul Barrett, Bloomberg Business Week, Charlotte Observer, order at TortsProf] On the patterns of multiple dipping exposed by Judge Janis Graham Jack in 2005 litigation, see Jim Copland’s summary here. I wrote about the coaching of asbestos claimants to “remember” working with certain products and not others in my 2004 book The Rule of Lawyers and in this earlier Reason column. More: Richard Faulk, WLF.

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January 17 roundup

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“New Work: ‘Coyote v. Acme'”

We’ve mentioned Ian Frazier’s classic humor piece on the product liability suit filed by the hapless Wile E. Coyote against the Acme Corporation, purveyor of perennially disappointing bombs, anvils, rocket sleds, and other contraptions. Now “Pentagram’s Daniel Weil has reimagined designs for five of these gadgets, rendered as a series of highly detailed technical diagrams.” One reason the failure-to-warn element of the suit may be shaky: “The Coyote, like most males, never reads the instructions.” [Pentagram]

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“School faces human rights complaint over student’s egg, dairy allergy”

National Post via Free-Range Kids:

A Hamilton, Ont., mother has filed a human rights complaint against her daughter’s elementary school, claiming it discriminated against the six-year-old for failing to accommodate her life-threatening allergy to eggs and dairy. The case … seeks to ban milk products and eggs from her daughter’s school.” …

Ms. Glover wants the allergens removed from the school, and school and board staff get human rights training. She wants to “bring to light the fact that children have the right to a barrier free education.”

“Anything short of that is discrimination,” she says.

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“86 fraternity members sued over Yale-Harvard game death”

Sue ’em all: “Eighty-six current and former members of a Yale University fraternity are being sued over a deadly tailgating crash at the 2011 Yale-Harvard football game. … [Lawyers] say insurance for the national Sigma Phi Epsilon organization doesn’t cover the local chapter, so they have to sue the local fraternity and its members.” That’s “have to” in the sense of “can obtain more money if they.” [Associated Press]

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