Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Gene Cauley gets seven years

The Arkansas plaintiff’s lawyer says he was too embarrassed to make layoffs as his finances turned sour, which is why he stole the $9.3 million in class-action settlement funds [WSJ Law Blog, ABA Journal] Earlier here, here, and here.

More from Kevin LaCroix:

An earlier WSJ.com Law Blog post reported (here) that Cauley was in fact a protégé of Bill Lerach. Today’s article on Bloomberg (here) about Cauley’s criminal sentencing notes that Cauley joins a growing list of plaintiffs’ securities class action attorneys who have “been jailed for felonies,” including Bill Lerach himself and his former law partners, Mel Weiss, Steven Schulman and David Bershad, and including even Marc Dreier.

These gentlemen of course made their living for many years accusing corporate officials of fraud. Ahem. Yes, well…isn’t ironic, don’t you think?

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Update on Ogborn v. McDonald’s

Those of you who have attended my “Law of McDonald’s” talks in California and Florida may recall the case of the strip search hoax. A Florida man who was unusually persuasive would call dozens of fast food restaurants until he could find someone who would believe he was with the police and who would disrobe employees (or themselves) at his instructions; though there have been other lawsuits seeking to blame the fast food restaurants for this, courts have generally thrown them out. One exception was the case of Ogborn v. McDonald’s, where two targets of the hoax successfully sued for millions. On Friday, the Kentucky Court of Appeals largely affirmed the lower court judgment, though it reduced the punitive damages received by Donna Summers (who gave an Alford guilty plea for her role in the strip search) from $1 million to $400,000. McDonald’s hasn’t yet decided whether to appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court. (Andrew Wolfson, “Appeals court upholds $6.1 million strip-search verdict against McDonald’s”, Kentucky Courier-Journal, Nov. 20, via ABA Journal).

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November 23 roundup

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“Insurer Must Defend ‘Douche’ Defamation Suit, Judge Says”

“Calling someone a ‘douche’ may be bad manners but it does not give an insurance company grounds to disavow a policy protecting against defamation claims, a state judge has ruled.” The owner of a public relations firm was sued by a rival after he purchased a domain containing the rival’s name and posted as content on the resulting page a picture of the sanitary product “Summer’s Eve”. [Daniel Wise, NYLJ]

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Gamer appeals Sony dismissal, sues Nintendo and Microsoft

Updating our earlier item: a San Jose man has appealed a federal court’s dismissal of his suit against Sony for kicking him off the PlayStation network. He’s also suing Nintendo over its Wii update locking out certain unauthorized third-party software, and Microsoft over a “red ring of death” failure on his XBox. [Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot; & welcome Above the Law readers]

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“Judge dismisses lawsuit claiming Miley Cyrus’ pic discriminated against Asians”

“The novel legal claim was filed by Lucie J. Kim in a class action suit against the singer earlier this year that sought $4,000 in damages for each Asian and Pacific Islander living in Los Angeles County.” Kim complained that Cyrus was photographed with an Asian friend and other friends pulling back their eyelids; Cyrus apologized when the photo became public in February. Cyrus sought tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees for what she felt was a frivolous claim; the request was denied. “Henry M. Lee, Kim’s attorney, said his client is considering appealing the case.”

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