The government of Australia’s biggest state, New South Wales, “has moved to rein in litigation-funding companies and will ask other states this week to regulate a practice which they say offers few consumer protections. The Attorney-General, Bob Debus, says the firms — which fund court cases in return for a share of any payout — are not policed in the same way as lawyers and could undermine national laws governing the profession.” Among other concerns advanced by Mr. Debus, litigation funders could be in a position to “initiate, manage and influence the running of court cases” without submitting themselves to the consumer recourse available against lawyers themselves, and “could circumvent the prohibition on lawyers charging contingency fees.” (Michael Pelly, “State seeks greater control of firms funding litigation”, Sydney Morning Herald, Jul. 26). For more on litigation finance, see Aug. 4, 2003.
Posts Tagged ‘Australia’
Update: DVT claim fails in Australia
The High Court of Australia has dismissed a claim against British Airways and Qantas by a businessman who suffered a stroke arising from deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), sometimes known as “economy-class syndrome”, after a long-distance flight (see Sept. 12, 2004). “If his case had succeeded, it could have opened the floodgates to dozens of DVT cases which had been prepared to go before Australian courts.” (Chris Herde, “Court throws out DVT-related case”, The Australian, Jun. 23). More: Oct. 3, 2004 and links from there.
“Is this a $2M scar?”
Or does actor Russell Crowe just have deeper pockets and greater vulnerability to legal process than your everyday telephone-throwing ragehead? (Daily Telegraph (Austr.), Jun. 10).
Medical matters: new at Point of Law
Loads of coverage of health matters in recent weeks over at our sister website, including: liability fears and emergency room admissions; New Jersey bans “retaliating” against expert witnesses over testimony they give, no matter how untrue it may be; Ted on one lawprof’s grossly misleading use of med-mal statistics, and a second round of the same; pain medication in nursing homes (and more on nursing homes); two doctors pick up stakes; Australian med-mal rates fall after reform; same thing in Texas; HHS introduces a distinctive “early offers” program for medical malpractice claims involving its clients; please don’t let him grow up to be an M.D.; Pennsylvania hospitals’ bill; MICRA and Prop 103; the March of Dimes wants Bendectin back; federal judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan throws out a major Dickie Scruggs case against the non-profit health sector; and a must-read article on defensive medicine. To explore all this and much more, follow the links provided or visit the site’s topical page on medicine and law.
“Lawyers pose health risk: study”
A team of researchers led by Richard Gun, visiting research fellow at Adelaide University, “has found patients who engage a lawyer after receiving their injury are five times less likely ever to return to work. He says they also appear to suffer more pain and for longer periods than accident victims who do not have lawyers.” Even allowing for an expected correlation between the two variables — persons with more serious injuries are presumably more likely to retain lawyers — legal representation appears to have an independent effect in prolonging the process of recovery, Sun says. (Nick Grimm, ABC News Online (Australian), Feb. 23 (summary); “Accident victims who hire a lawyer take longer to recover: study”, The World Today, ABC News Online (Australian), Feb. 23)(interview transcript); Gun et al., “Risk Factors for Prolonged Disability After Whiplash Injury: A Prospective Study”, Spine, Feb. 15 (abstract and $ link to study). For similar findings from a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine based on Saskatchewan data, see Apr. 24, 2000.
Oz: “Wrongful life case headed to High Court”
“A disabled woman who unsuccessfully sued her mother’s doctor for wrongful life has won the right to take her case to the High Court.” Alexia Harriton, 24, born with multiple handicaps, says a doctor was negligent for not diagnosing her mother’s rubella infection during pregnancy; had the infection been diagnosed, mom would have had an abortion. (AAP/News.com.au, Apr. 29). More on wrongful life/wrongful birth cases: Sept. 16, 2004 and links from there. Update May 27, 2006: court rules against wrongful life concept.
Accolades
It’s time to round up and thank some of those who’ve said or done kind things on our behalf recently. That would include Denise Howell, one of the earliest and best-known lawyer-bloggers (Bag and Baggage), who’s recently helped launch a new group blog at Corante on technology, culture and the law called Between Lawyers, featuring Ernest Svenson and others; in the comments section she calls Overlawyered “an excellent blog I recommend highly” (Mar. 28, comment section). Kevin O’Brien at Aero-News.net calls us “always-interesting” (Apr. 21) and while glad to return that nice compliment we note that it lacks intensity compared with what Donna Baver Rovito, dynamo of Pennsylvania physician activism, wrote recently (Mar. 17):
…just for the record, I would walk on broken glass for Walter Olson and Ted Frank in gratitude for the unbelievable research offered up on their websites Overlawyered.com and PointofLaw.com.
Wow. Evan Schaeffer probably wouldn’t go along completely with that sentiment but has lately extended congratulations to one of us and coffee mugs to both. We’ve also been recommended recently by Frazzle.com (Apr. 23), by Australia’s WogBlog (Apr. 27, calling us “terrific”), and, in Portuguese, Lado Negro da Web (Apr. 24). And the new legal blog aggregator Juris Novus, which fills the same general niche left by the late and lamented DailyWhirl, gives prominent placement to this site among its offerings. More: Precision Blogging (Apr. 29) calls us the “perfect antidote for a beautiful Spring day,” but seems to mean that in a complimentary way.
Australia: City 75% liable because “No Diving” sign wasn’t explicit enough
Philip James Dederer acknowledges seeing a “No Diving” sign on the Foster/Tuncurry Bridge in New South Wales, but dove anyway, and the 14-year-old became paralyzed as a result. He sued: “[The sign] just told me I shouldn’t dive – it did not put any danger into it.” The court bought the argument, and Australian taxpayers are now on the hook for A$1,050,000. (Dederer v. Roads and Traffic Authority, 2005 NSWSC 185; “Bridge diving victim awarded $1m”, Sydney Morning Herald, Mar. 18). An Australian blawger, David Starkoff, defends the judgment.
Oz: party hosts not liable for barbecue misuse
At approximately 2 a.m., long after the 18-year-old host’s parents had gone to bed, some guests at a backyard party decided they would relight the barbecue. Ignoring warnings, one of them poured in an entire bottle of lighting fluid and the resulting fireball injured a second guest, who sued the family for improper party supervision and won a A$210,000 damages award. In November, however, the high court of the state of New South Wales overturned that award, holding that the parents could not reasonably have foreseen the guests’ irresponsible behavior. According to attorney Julie Cameron of Corrs Chambers Westgarth (“Thank God It’s Friday: Appeal Judges extinguish BBQ claim”, Dec. 3), the plaintiffs also “argued that consideration should be given to North American case law, where a doctrine known as Social Host Liability has been adopted, attaching liability to hosts at parties where alcohol is served.” But the court did not find the North American law persuasive, finding that in Australia:
Barbecue parties with liquor attended by young adults occur in their hundreds all over Australia every evening; the perception that the activity, supervised or unsupervised by older adults, is one involving a foreseeable risk of personal injury is, in my opinion, an entirely wrong perception.
The appellants were not in any relationship with the guests which has been or should be established by judicial authority to impose any special duty or responsibility for the safety of the guests.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Tobias said Australian community opinion would reject any open-ended extension of liability to homeowners for the general misconduct of inebriated guests, “the burden of which would inevitably result in social functions where alcohol is served becoming a thing of the past”. (Parissis and Ors. v. Bourke). See The Third Branch (blog), Nov. 30. For more items from Down Under — including numerous hopeful developments in recent years as the country has pulled back from a previous swing toward litigiousness — see our Australia page.
And now for something completely different…
I don’t know if I buy this Globe and Mail paragraph, which John Palmer saw first.
An indignant Israeli is suing a pet shop that he says sold him a dying parrot, reports the Ma’ariv newspaper. Itzik Simowitz of the southern city of Beersheba contends the shop cheated him because the Galerita-type cockatoo not only failed to utter a word when he got it home, but was also extremely ill. Mr. Simowitz adds that the shop owner assured him the parrot was not ill but merely needed time to adjust to its new environment.
The Australian provides enough additional detail that one believes that Ma’ariv printed it. On the other hand, Ma’ariv seems prone to parrot tales that sound like urban legends.
(Alex thought of the post title first.) Previous Python-related litigation: Dec. 27.