Trouble on the consumer beat: a Florida travel company is suing travel gadfly Christopher Elliott over alleged inaccuracies in his reporting on regulatory actions taken by the state of Florida against the company (via Legal Satyricon).
“If Jedi walk around our stores with their hoods on, they’ll miss lots of special offers.”
Lowering the Bar has an update on the case of the British man who said that as a member of the International Church of Jediism, he suffered religious discrimination when asked at a Tesco supermarket to remove his Obi-Wan-like head garment.
Australian government to U.S.-based website: remove that hate speech or face prosecution
Not just anti-free-speech, but extraterritorial as well [Popehat]:
…Joseph Evers, one of the “owners” of Encyclopedia Dramatica, reveals that he got a threatening letter from the Australian Human Rights Commission, which based upon its logo may or may not be controlled by AT&T. The Human Rights Commission announces that it has gotten multiple complaints about Encyclopedia Dramatica’s Aborigine page, and that the page “constitutes racial hatred” and appears to Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 in that it constitutes an act “likely to offend, insult, intimidate or humiliate” another person based on their race. The Human Rights Commission also announces — rather triumphantly, I think — that it does not matter that Encyclopedia Dramatica is hosted and written in the United States, because Australian law, as reflected in Dow Jones v. Gutnik, treats web pages written and hosted elsewhere as if they were published in Australia, subjecting their authors and/or hosts to jurisdiction there.
Australian authorities have compiled a blacklist of sites that internet providers must filter from Australian users’ access, and many sites apparently make the list on the grounds of forbidden opinion content. More on “hate speech” here; also note our recent post on Canada and Ann Coulter, where an anonymous visitor is defending Canada’s speech-penalizing laws.
“If you purchased Dannon yogurt…”
Legal notice advertisements announce the $35 million giveaway over alleged mismarketing of the Activia and DanActive brands. [New Jersey Lawsuit Reform Alliance] NJLRA’s Ann Marie McDonald:
I eat Dannon yogurt products fairly regularly. I haven’t been dissatisfied yet. It’s difficult to assess whether my body’s defenses have been strengthened by the product itself or the placebo effect. I doubt a $35,000,000 asterisk will make that any clearer. Nevertheless, I’d still be able to participate in this lawsuit, even though I don’t feel deceived and suffered no adverse [effects] from using it.
Return of the Design Piracy Prohibition Act
A very dubious idea — federal legislation aimed at copycat producers who “knock off” fashion and apparel designs — rears its head again. (guest posters Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman at N.Y. Times “Freakonomics”, earlier).
“Client Had ‘Disposable Income and a Zealous Interest in Litigating'”
And a train wreck results, after a Massachusetts lawyer “allowed the client to dictate a misguided strategy involving excessive and improper discovery requests that did not materially advance the client’s cases but did generate large hourly-based fees for the respondent.” [Legal Profession Blog]
March 26 roundup
- Woman “discreetly” leaning over to use cellphone during movie says armrest smacked her on head, sues theater [Chicago Breaking News, Sun-Times] Plus: more links at ChicagoNow;
- For a really cogent analysis of the effects of lawsuits over independent contractor classification, ask someone whose livelihood is at stake, like this Massachusetts stripper [Daily Caller]
- Menaced by lawsuit, WordPress.com yanks a blog attacking a cancer therapist, then restores it [MWW]
- Baby slings, cont’d: a CPSC recall, and already Sokolove and Lieff Cabraser are advertising [Stoll, more, earlier]
- Law student’s suit demanding pass/fail grading in legal writing class results in “fail” [ABA Journal]
- More details on new federal mandate for restaurant and vending machine calorie counts [update to earlier post]
- “As suits pile up, plaintiff labeled ‘vexatious litigant'” [Virginian-Pilot]
- Tweet a summary of your favorite Supreme Court case (& cc in comments below if you like) [Daniel Schwartz, hashtag #cbftech, what others have done]
“Interest in Toyotas Starts to Revive”
According to Kelley’s Blue Book, consumers are trending back toward the Japanese maker in their buying plans. [New York Times “Bucks” blog] That’s despite the menace of rays from outer space, as denounced by one anonymous informant to NHTSA. [Detroit Free Press, which has a PDF of the submission from “A Concerned Scientist”]
More: On a more serious note, Holman Jenkins has a good column today [WSJ, sub-only] tracing the key role of bandwagon effects in sudden acceleration consciousness (which is one reason waves of complaints tend to occur in clumps, by carmaker and otherwise). Excerpt:
…In 2001, at least four papers were presented at the annual meeting of the Trial Lawyers Association urging a revival of sudden unintended acceleration litigation, insisting that such cases could prevail in absence of evidence of a defect, and even amid evidence of driver error, simply by harping in front of a jury on a record of “Other Similar Incidents” (OSI).
That’s the roadmap being followed now, as lawyer Randy Roberts told CNBC this week: “Toyota is very good at taking one consumer complaint about sudden unintended acceleration and dissecting it and convincing you that it may have been a floor mat or driver error or a sticky pedal. But when you put all those complaints out on the table, then you can see the big picture. That’s how you connect the dots.”
Huh? The logic here is ridiculous. To wit: 15 examples of X causing Y are proof that something other than X must cause Y.
More on “Circle of Greed”
More reviews of the new Lerach book (earlier). Kevin LaCroix:
…The authors explain in their Prologue that initially, Dillon had intended to co-author a book with Lerach, but that project got waylaid when it became clear that Lerach’s legal difficulties were serious. …
Lerach’s skill and his excesses emerged in his first successful case in San Diego, in which he represented a group of retirees against the Methodist Church. Lerach’s legal performance was by all accounts brilliant, and produced a great result for his clients. But, the authors note, “along with the good came the other things: the hubris, the taunting, the acrimony with the opposing side, the hyperpartisanship borne of the Manichean world view.” …
The authors also methodically show how so much of Lerach’s crusading activities depending on his firm’s corrupt system for procuring plaintiffs on whose behalf to bring the suit, as well as on the testimony of a corrupt expert witness.
…Bill Lerach did not invent the criminal conspiracy; he joined it in progress. His “full cooperation” fails to name names and take numbers. … Lerach knows, but he isn’t telling, because the statute of limitations has not yet run for all of his crimes. …
Nevertheless, “Circle of Greed” is a must-read for lawyers and judges because even a “limited hang-out” by Bill Lerach reveals far more than he intended.
An excerpt from the book is at Politics Daily. LaCroix also interviews the authors (who note that while Lerach encouraged stories about a supposed conspiracy to get him, the Milberg prosecution “was managed by a dedicated civil servant in the Los Angeles U.S. attorney’s office named Richard Robinson who is not only a career prosecutor, but a Democrat.”) And San Diego public broadcasting outlet KPBS runs its Dillon-and-Lerach interview under the gag-worthy headline, “The Story Of Bill Lerach’s Fighting For Consumers.”
More: Seth Hettena, Voice of San Diego, profile and interview.
$10K to be had “just by rattling the saber of age discrimination”
The prospective plaintiff could really use the money, but is ethically troubled by the lawyer’s approach. [Knight Kiplinger, Kiplinger.com via California Civil Justice]