- Mark Lilla: pick either faux populism or intellectual conservatism, you can’t have both [WSJ] #
- P.J. O’Rourke on where conservatives went wrong [Weekly Standard] #
- And how exactly did those mountain goats get up there without wings? [Flickr “Roger 80” h/t @coolpics] #
- Scotland authorities trawl social networking sites, then slap teen with £200 fine for posing with sword on Bebo [Massie] #
- “Victims’ rights” sound like lovely idea but can undermine fairness and practicality of criminal justice system [Greenfield] #
- Bizarre Czech case: driver hits, then tries to murder pedestrian, victim survives only to be sued by car’s owner [Feral Child] #
- Auto bailout would leave Big 3 in interest-group coils, bankruptcy could cut the knots [Bainbridge h/t @erwiest] #
- ACORN as the gang that couldn’t intimidate straight [PoL] #
- “Talked about in CivPro” I hope favorably [@sqfreak] #
- More public stirrings against traffic cameras [Jeff Nolan] #
Posts Tagged ‘autos’
Asphyxiating Detroit, the UAW way
Under a regulation known as the “two-fleet rule”, automakers must meet CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards separately for their domestically produced and for their imported vehicles, rather than just hitting the same overall number through an average of both. The economics of production and transport tend to favor the domestic production of large cars and the importation of small economy cars. “For 30 years, to make and sell the large vehicles that earn their profits, the Detroit Three have been effectively required to build small cars in high-wage, UAW factories, though it means losing money on every car,” writes the WSJ’s Holman Jenkins, Jr. It’s “nonsensical” and “a naked handout to the UAW at the expense of the companies and their customers.” (“Yes, Detroit Can Be Fixed”, Nov. 5).
P.S. Of course the actual legislative responses we’re in for will probably be very different. Mickey Kaus: “So the UAW wants a $25 billion bailout and an end to the secret ballot … Because Wagner Act unionism clearly worked out so well for Detroit.”
Microblog 2008-10-27
- “Energy independence is no more desirable than coffee independence, banana independence, or car independence.” [David Henderson, EconLog] #
- L.I.R.R.: a disability certification outfit disguised as a railroad [Bogdanich, N.Y. Times] #
- Even post-scandal, private attorneys for towns can still collar lucrative NY state pensions [Peddie, Newsday] #
- Lining up for bailout bucks: automakers and even mass transit [Carney] #
- Poll of worst law firm names (“Low, Ball & Lynch”) [Greatest American Lawyer; h/t @SCartierLiebel] #
- List of legal newsfeeds on Twitter, now updated [JD Scoop] #
Intermittent wipers, on the silver screen
It’s not often that patent litigation furnishes the subject of a new Hollywood film; inventor-side attorneys must be hoping the David-and-Goliath theme of the Universal Pictures release Flash of Genius redounds to their benefit. (Brian Baxter, AmLaw Daily, Oct. 3). The original New Yorker article on which the film is based is by no means devoid of balance, and includes a discussion of the late Jerome Lemelson, a longtime Overlawyered favorite (John Seabrook, The New Yorker, Jan. 11, 1993). Unrelatedly, a patent attorney turns up as the lead character of a fiction thriller in Paul Goldstein’s “A Patent Lie” (Stephen Albainy-Jenei, Patent Baristas, Sept. 29).
Speed governors, cont’d
We’ve occasionally warned about the up-and-coming idea of mandating that automobiles be fitted out with mechanical controls that would keep them from being driven faster than the authorities think is good for us, and sure enough, here’s an endorsement of the notion from Matthew Yglesias at Think Progress (via Hemingway, NRO “Corner”; see also Ezra Klein, American Prospect).
Touch-a-car-for-the-longest contest
In Longview, east Texas, the Patterson Nissan dealership held a contest awarding prizes to the participants who could hold their hands on a car the longest. One contestant dropped out, ran to a nearby store where he broke a gun out of its case, and shot himself. The dealership has now settled the lawsuit by Richard Thomas Vega II’s widow claiming that the stress and sleep deprivation of the event amounted to “brainwashing” and that the sponsors failed to make allowances for temporary loss of sanity. (AP/FoxNews.com, Aug. 17).
Compaq settles floppy glitch class action
Readers may recall the landmark case in which laptop maker Toshiba agreed to a notional $2 billion settlement (and a very crisp and real $147 million in plaintiff’s legal fees) to resolve charges that its laptops could under certain extreme conditions result in loss of user data, although no real-world customer appeared to have experienced the problem. Copycat lawsuits followed against other laptop makers, the supposed glitch being by no means unique to Toshiba, and at last report (May 11, 2001 and Aug. 14, 2004) Compaq had enjoyed much success in beating suits of this sort filed by Texas lawyers.
Apparently its luck didn’t hold up forever, though, because in May Judge Tom Lucas of the Cleveland County, Oklahoma District Court approved a nominal $640 million settlement of laptop glitch claims against Compaq and its parent, Hewlett-Packard, with $40 million in attorneys’ fees to various attorneys, including Reaud, Morgan & Quinn, the Beaumont, Texas firm of Wayne Reaud. (Tom Blakey, “Local court OKs $640M class settlement in computer lawsuit”, Norman Transcript, May 16)(settlement website).
According to a paper by Anthony Caso for the Washington Legal Foundation (PDF), the change in fortunes owed much to some successful forum-shopping. It seems plaintiffs in the first rounds had attempted to form a nationwide class action on the premise that the consumer law of Texas, Compaq’s home state, could properly be applied to the claims of customers in all 50 states. The Texas courts, however, wound up rejecting that premise.
…instead of taking no for an answer from the Texas Supreme Court – the final arbiter of Texas law, the class action attorneys convinced an Oklahoma court to rule that the case should be a nationwide class action, and that class action status could be premised on the idea that Texas consumer law applied to all of the claims. Ignoring the ruling of the Texas Supreme Court, the Oklahoma courts agreed with this argument and certified the case as a nationwide class action.
Unfortunately for all of us, the United States Supreme Court declined to review the case.
And the $40 million in fees? Reaud & co. would have nothing but the best talent in to bless the fees, per the Norman Transcript account:
Testimony at the April 29 hearing in Cleveland County District Court included that of Arthur R. Miller, a renowned legal scholar and commentator on civil litigation, copyright and privacy laws. Miller, a professor to the faculty of the New York University School of Law and the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies, estimated the coupon redemption rate would be as high as 30 percent — more than double the average redemption rate in settlement cases.
And if actual coupon redemptions come in far below a 30 percent rate — not that we’re necessarily ever going to find out — Prof. Miller’s reputation will suffer, right?
More: Beck & Herrmann call attention to an automotive class action case (Masquat v. DaimlerChrysler, alleging defect in rack and pinion steering systems) that also took advantage of Oklahoma’s willingness to apply manufacturer’s-home-state law to fuel nationwide class actions. They write that because of that distinctive handling of choice of law, “class action plaintiffs’ counsel now gravitate to Oklahoma as moths to light.”
Flax v. Chrysler, one more thought
As Michael Krauss notes, an AP story today rehashes the details of last week’s Flax v. Chrysler case, though it falsely treats Paul Sheridan as a credible witness and doesn’t acknowledge most of Chrysler’s arguments.
It’s worth noting the Jim Butler firm’s description of the case:
The evidence showed the impact was minor. Though Stockell was speeding at the time, the minivan was also moving forward and the change in velocity (Delta V) was only 17 to 20 mph.
To repeat: the plaintiffs’ attorney said that a Delta-V of 17-20 mph is “minor.” I suppose in the astronomical sense that a Delta-V of 17-20 mph wouldn’t escape earth orbit, but it seems fairly major for someone in a heavy minivan. For those of you at home who want to experience what a “minor” Delta-V collision of “only” 17-20 mph feels like, drive into a reinforced brick wall at 17-20 mph with your airbag turned off, but be sure to wear your seat-belt to reduce the chance that you go through your windshield. Another way you can have a Delta-V of 20 mph is if you are dropped about 12-15 feet onto a concrete surface. I sure hope that the trial judge didn’t let Butler lie about physics to the jury like that, but I fear I know the answer.
Volkswagen key class action
Two readers have written to alert us to this settlement (PDF), including frequent commenter Todd Rogers:
I received notice in the mail [this month] that I’m party to a class action suit against VW USA. I drive a Passat with a “Smart Key.” According to the suit, VW has been naughty because they did not make the key duplication apparatus available enough to locksmiths, third party key duplicators, and the like, in the event that I (we) want to make another key. What would my settlement be? I’m the benefactor of “greater communication” from VW USA.
What do you know…owners of Mercedes Benz suffered the same injury and it was the same firm, Lurie & Weiss, who helped make them whole, as well. Who’s next?
Objections and requests for exclusion must by filed by the end of August, and a fairness hearing is scheduled for Sept. 22 in the courtroom of the Hon. Audrey B. Collins in federal court in Los Angeles.
Breaking: Tennessee Supreme Court reinstates punitive damages in Flax v. DaimlerChrysler
Perhaps we spoke too soon when we commended the Tennessee appellate court for getting it partially right. As we stated in November 2004:
In 2001, Louis Stockell, driving his pickup at 70 mph, twice the speed limit, rear-ended a Chrysler minivan. Physics being what they are, the front passenger seat in the van collapsed backwards and the passenger’s head struck and fatally injured 8-month old Joshua Flax. The rest of the family walked away from the horrific accident. Plaintiffs’ attorney Jim Butler argued that Chrysler, which already designed its seats above federal standards, should be punished for not making the seats stronger — never mind that a stronger and stiffer seat would result in more injuries from other kinds of crashes because it wouldn’t absorb any energy from the crash. (Rear-end collisions are responsible for only 3% of auto fatalities.) Apparently car companies are expected to anticipate which type of crash a particular vehicle will encounter, and design accordingly. The $105M verdict includes $98M in punitives.
We had more details of trial shenanigans in December 2004 and noted the reduction of the punitives by the trial court to a still unreasonable $20 million in June 2005. In December 2006, the intermediate appellate court threw out the punitive damages and the negligent infliction of emotional distress claim, leaving a $5 million compensatory damages verdict to be split between Chrysler and the driver responsible for the accident. An injustice, but at least a smaller injustice.
However, today, a 3-2 vote of the Tennessee Supreme Court made it a larger injustice again, reinstating $13,367,345 of punitive damages over a good-faith dispute over appropriate seatback design, giving no credit to evidence that the design in the Caravan was safer than the plaintiffs’ proposed design, and effectively disregarding Tennessee statutory law that compliance with federal standards creates a presumption against punitive damages. The Court did not mention Exxon Shipping‘s suggestion that punitive damages greater than a 1:1 ratio were possibly constitutionally inappropriate where compensatory damages were substantial and the defendant’s actions were not intentional or done for profit. The Court unanimously affirmed the elimination of the NIED claim; one justice would have thrown out the compensatory damages, as well, because of the volume of inadmissible and improperly prejudicial evidence admitted. (Flax v. Daimler Chrysler (Tenn. Jul. 24, 2008); id. (Wade, J., concurring); id. (Clark, J., partially dissenting); id. (Koch, J., partially dissenting); E. Thomas Wood, “High court upholds $18.4M damage award in DaimlerChrysler case”, Nashville Post, Jul. 24; Kristin M. Hall, AP/Chicago Tribune, Jul. 24). The majority decision relied heavily on the expert testimony of Paul Sheridan, an MBA non-engineer and professional anti-Chrysler witness whom a federal court called “wholly unqualified” to testify on seat back design.