In March Moody’s lowered its rating of New York City’s tobacco settlement bonds (which securitize the future flow of booty to the city from the great 1998 robbery) in light of the Second Circuit’s highly significant decision in Freedom Holdings v. Spitzer (see Jan. 12) exposing the settlement to antitrust challenge (Reuters/Forbes, Mar. 23). The Second Circuit itself denied a petition for rehearing (opinion Mar. 25 in PDF format). The General Accounting Office published a report confirming that states are spending most of the proceeds on their general budgets rather than on anything related to the weed or its effects (March report in PDF format, via the University of Tennessee’s AgPolicy.org page on tobacco litigation, which has a number of useful resources), which in turn touched off a number of caustic commentaries (“States Spend Mega-Billion Tobacco Settlement On Budget Shortfalls”, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Mar. 23; Christine Hall, “States Spend Tobacco Settlement on Budget Shortfalls”, Heartland Institute, May 1; see Nancy Zuckerbrod, “States rely on tobacco settlement to fix budgets”, AP/Louisville Courier-Journal, Mar. 23). Also check out the debate between CEI’s Sam Kazman and ever-blustering Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on CNNfN (Mar. 18). Vice Squad (Mar. 27) has further updates on the efforts of state governments to curtail small and independent cigarette producers by way of protecting the anticompetitive arrangements established in the 1998 settlement (see Feb. 28). And the Clinton-initiated federal racketeering lawsuit against the tobacco industry, the continued prosecution of which must surely count as among the low points of the Bush Administration’s domestic record, is apparently headed toward trial in September or thereabouts (“Federal suit against tobacco moves toward trial”, AP/Helena Independent Record, Mar. 22).
Posts Tagged ‘attorneys general’
Tobacco-ban roundup
“California could be on its way to becoming the first U.S. state to outlaw smoking in cars or trucks that have children inside.” The bill, which would make lawbreakers of parents transporting their own children, has been introduced by Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh and is being supported by the bossyboots American Lung Association, a good reason to scratch that organization off one’s charitable donation list (“Calif. Bill Would Ban Smoking in Car with Kids”, Yahoo/Reuters, Apr. 28)(see Sept. 24). (Update May 29: bill narrowly defeated in California Assembly.) Irish Minister for Health and Children Miche?l Martin, who pushed through a recent ban on smoking in pubs and most other public places in the Emerald Isle, has announced that he is “very tentatively” mulling a fat tax, according to a profile by Andrew Stuttaford, who calls Martin a number of rude names including “nosey, hectoring clown” (“Goodbye to All That”, National Review Online, Apr. 27)(via Radley Balko). A bill being discussed in Rhode Island’s legislature and backed by state Attorney General Patrick Lynch, primarily aimed at increasing the penalties for school truancy, would also authorize courts to revoke or suspend the driver’s license of high schoolers determined to be “wayward”, a category that includes students found in possession of cigarettes. (Wendy Fontaine, “Truancy plan gets mixed review”, Newport Daily News, Apr. 30). And Jacob Sullum catches the federal government’s National Institute of Aging dispensing flagrant untruths about the relative hazards of smokeless tobacco (“Lies and the Health Nannies Who Tell Them”, Reason “Hit and Run”, Mar. 24).
Puttin’ on the s. 17200 ritz
A California court of appeal has rejected a lawsuit under the state’s s. 17200 (“unfair competition”) law (see Mar. 12, Dec. 8 and links from there) demanding class-action damages against the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain over its practice of adding an automatic gratuity to room service. Although the claimant conceded that the hotel’s room service menu did warn guests of the charge, he argued that the warning was not in big enough print. And Sacramento sole practitioner Brian Kindsvater, accused of abusing the law, has reached an agreement with the state attorney general’s office to return about $35,000 in settlements from various businesses he sued under s. 17200, including travel agency websites and video stores. “According to the AG’s complaint, Kindsvater helped form a shell corporation called Consumer Action League, which served as plaintiff in the suits. … [The agreement also] also forbids him from making false statements that settling 17200 cases protects defendants from similar actions.” (Jeff Chorney, “Attorney Agrees to Return Unfairly Won Settlements”, The Recorder/New York Lawyer, Mar. 25) (via Tim Sandefur, Apr. 21 and Mar. 25 respectively). Fresh from his resounding political victory in achieving workers’ compensation reform, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is likely to turn his attention to other economic agenda items, among them whether to throw his weight behind an expected business-backed initiative on the November ballot to rein in s. 17200 lawsuits (Marc Lifsher, “Schwarzenegger Has Long To-Do List to Boost Business”. L.A. Times, Apr. 20). One case for s. 17200 reform: Lance T. Izumi (Pacific Research Institute), “Laws, courts unfair to businesses in state”, L.A. Daily News, Apr. 15.
It’s a mad, mad, mad Madison County
As we noted Apr. 15, Griffin Bell, who served as U.S. Attorney General in the Carter Administration, called last week for a federal law enforcement probe into the handling of asbestos litigation by the courts of Madison County, Ill. What happened next: state court judge Nicholas Byron (more: Mar. 24, Apr. 4-6, Apr. 30, 2003), who presides over Madison County’s asbestos docket, declared that lawyers from King & Spalding, the big Atlanta-based law firm with which Bell is associated, would be unwelcome in his courtroom. Reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “A lawyer who was before Byron Friday morning said that Byron twice told a capacity crowd of lawyers in his courtroom for an asbestos lawsuit hearing that he was barring King & Spalding. The lawyer, who asked not to be identified, said Byron asked, ‘Is anyone here from the Atlanta firm of King & Spalding? I’m banning them from practicing in the county.’ ‘He clearly wasn’t joking,’ the lawyer said.” Bell, who served for many years as a federal judge before becoming Attorney General, appears to have taken the news in stride: “He can debar all the defense lawyers, but then again, he’d run into the constitutional problem that you are allowed to have a lawyer of your choice.” “Bell, 85, said that his firm does not handle asbestos litigation and to his knowledge had no cases in Madison County. ‘I don’t know that we would have lost anything by being barred anyway,’ Bell said. ‘If Judge Byron feels that way, I doubt he would give us a fair hearing.'” (Paul Hampel and Trisha Howard, “Criticism of court leads to ban on Atlanta law firm”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 17).
Kerry: no to reparations, yes to “environmental justice”
Giving him due credit: “John Kerry yesterday told students at Howard University that he doesn’t support financial reparations for blacks, saying it would only divide the nation and ‘not heal the wounds.’ … His answer received marked applause from the audience in the reading room of the historically black university’s Armour J. Blackburn Center in Northwest.”
On the other hand: the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee “also committed to the creation of a post for an assistant attorney general for environmental justice” and opined “that nearly 25 percent of children in Harlem have asthma partly because ‘all of the trucks’ traveling through New York City are routed through the neighborhood,” a sentiment open to doubt not only because of the high share of trucks that use other routes into and out of the city, but also because truck emissions, like air pollution generally, have sharply declined over the same decades in which urban childhood asthma rates have increased. (Brian DeBose, “Kerry opposes slavery reparations”, Washington Times, Apr. 16).
Madison County now an asbestos magnet
About one quarter of mesothelioma cases nationwide are filed in Madison County now, and the overwhelming majority of those are set for trial–even though the majority of those cases do not involve plaintiffs who have any connection with Madison County. Former attorney general and federal judge Griffin Bell, who served under Jimmy Carter from 1977-1979, has called for a DOJ investigation into the “stain on our system” behind the curiously plaintiff-friendly courts. Bell identifies some of the egregious practices in Madison County, such as blanket subpoenas of high-ranking corporate executives who know nothing about the individual details of a case, and the setting of multiple cases for trial the same day, with only plaintiffs knowing which case will actually be tried. (Trisha Howard, “Lawyer in big-money suits is scornful of ex-attorney general”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 14; Susan Skiles Luke, “Former attorney general calls for asbestos court reform”, AP, Apr. 14; “Asbestos cases quadruple in Madison County, Ill.”, St. Louis Business Journal, Apr. 14; Sanford J. Schmidt, “Lawyers spar over asbestos filings”, Alton Telegraph, Apr. 15; Brian Brueggemann, “Forum participants: Investigate Madison County court system”, Belleville News-Democrat, Apr. 15).
Cosmetics settlement challenged
“A proposal to settle a nationwide class-action lawsuit by giving $175 million worth of high-end department-store cosmetics away for free may be in jeopardy following a move by the attorneys general of 11 states to challenge the deal. Critics warn the settlement would enrich class-action lawyers with up to $24 million in fees but could leave individual department-store customers with either nothing or little more than a tube of lipstick — maybe even in an unpopular color.” (Josh Gerstein, “11 States Seeking To Scupper Deal In Cosmetics Case”, New York Sun, Apr. 5). For our earlier coverage, see Jul. 21, 2003 (“A Lipstick-Up”). More: Monica Yant Kinney, “Cost of primping is a tad less dear”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 3 (reg). Update: see May 19, Dec. 3; Mar. 14, 2005: judge approves settlement).
Prosecuting the innocent, without consequences
Yesterday’s (Sunday’s) New York Post ran my review of Dorothy Rabinowitz’s just-out-in-softcover No Greater Tyrannies, about abuse-hysteria prosecutions. An excerpt: “In 1696, four years after the Salem executions, the Massachusetts colony held a day of contrition and collective soul-searching. Today, the persecutors seldom apologize; instead they tend to rise upward. Scott Harshbarger, D.A. in the Amirault case, went on to become attorney general of his state and now heads Common Cause, in which capacity he lectures the rest of us on ethics and good government.” (Walter Olson, “Salem Is Still With Us”, New York Post, Mar. 21). The New York Times reports that wrongful convictions, even when serious prosecutorial error or misconduct is involved and even when the accused was evidently innocent, seldom result in any career consequences for local prosecutors (Andrea Elliott and Benjamin Weiser, “When Prosecutors Err, Others Pay the Price”, New York Times, Mar. 21). And the Wall Street Journal has reprinted Ms. Rabinowitz’s column about the amazing ordeal gastroenterologist Patrick Griffin went through on charges of sexually abusing a patient, which culminated in his eventual acquittal on retrial — though by that point his medical license had been yanked and his practice was in ruins (“The Doctor’s Story”, Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2000). (via GruntDoc) (see also Jan. 8, Sept. 1)
Cheeseburger seconds
“Given that a 2003 Gallup Poll found that 89 percent of Americans don’t believe in blaming the fast-food industry for obesity, you’d think the bill is unnecessary. I take this vote as Washington’s way of recognizing that in America, a bad idea, given enough time, will gain support, take root and become law.” (Debra Saunders, “If you are what you eat, then sue”, San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 12). “Victor Schwartz, a leading expert on tort law who has been advising the National Restaurant Association, says these lawsuits still face formidable obstacles. He thinks a greater danger to the industry is that at some point state attorneys general will start filing lawsuits demanding compensation for Medicaid expenses, as they did with tobacco.” (Jacob Sullum, “Fast Food Damnation”, syndicated/Reason, Mar. 5). Blogger Kevin Drum (Calpundit) is torn and, he says, open to argument: “On the one hand, I don’t think much of using civil damage suits aimed at a specific industry as a way of changing social policy. Down that road lies madness. But at the same time, I also don’t think much of Congress exempting specific industries from the civil justice system. That can lead to some madness of its own.” (Mar. 11). Vice Squad (Mar. 11) has links on various topics including McDonald’s elimination of its Supersize offerings and developments in the U.K. on food regulation. The roll call on Wednesday’s vote is here. (See Mar. 11 and links from there.) More: in a commentary for Knight-Ridder, Fort Worth editorialist Linda P. Campbell defends the suits (“A helping of tort with your fast food”, Nov. 12, 2003). Restaurants are feeling the heat (Kim Severson, “Make it a super size, then call your lawyer”, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 12, 2003).
Probe of Connecticut tobacco deal
Picking up where our Feb. 24 posting left off: “The House committee that will decide whether to recommend the impeachment of Gov. John G. Rowland is examining a Waterbury law firm, one of four firms that brought Connecticut’s 1996 class-action suit against the tobacco industry and shared $65 million in fees.” The state’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, said: “I can tell you unequivocally that politics had nothing to do with this decision [to hire the Carmody firm]”. Such a card, that AG Blumenthal! (Stacey Stowe, “Impeachment Panel Examining Law Firm”, New York Times, Mar. 3)