• N.J.: Overdoses on Xanax, collects $4.1 million.
• Dressing psychiatrists like wizards on the witness stand.
• Some reviews of my book on legal education, Schools for Misrule.
• Scammers falsely claim to have been aboard the cruise ship Costa Concordia.
• State inspector to preschool: that treehouse has to go.
• Drunk drivers who sue over their accidents: we must consider their point of view.

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Welcome back from the July 4 weekend. Here are some popular stories you might have missed from a busy last month:

• Milberg settles; Weiss sentenced; Bill Lerach gloats. Scruggs also sentenced, but Fieger beats the rap.
• Yeah, my client’s son jumped two fences labeled with a “danger” warning, but Six Flags over Georgia should have done more to keep him from being decapitated by a Batman roller coaster.
• Another lawyer blames the lawn mower manufacturer for the fact that his client was backed over with it by his father.
• My client’s 18-year-old daughter got drunk and fell off a stranger’s hotel balcony; this is the chaperone’s fault.
• I briefed and argued an objection to a bogus class action settlement–and got New York Times press coverage in the process. I also filed an amicus brief on behalf of economists in Wyeth v. Levine.
• Most-read post: Judge Kozinski’s web site and Cyrus Sanai. A gift that kept on giving.
• Jack Thompson finally faces legal discipline. But Stan Chesley gets immunity to testify.
• Two more parts of Jim Copland’s excellent series on asbestos.
• Sued for dangerous workplace if you allow loose-fitting clothing, sued for religious discrimination if you don’t.
• The case against Civil Gideon.
• Judge claims never to have heard of an attorney working a 15-hour day.
• Jackpot justice in Tennessee: $105 million verdict reduced to “only” $5 million on appeal as Chrysler blamed for death caused by car being hit at 70 mph. And, in Texas, forum-shopping plus failure to wear seat-belt leads to $29 million verdict against Ford over tires where car owner ignored recall of ten-year-old tire.
  
• New York court: just because you have proof of insurance fraud doesn’t mean you’re entitled to summary judgment.
• Trial Lawyers Inc.: Michigan.
• Former West Virginia Justice Richard Neely makes implausible claims about his earlier forthright statements about judicial bias in favor of wealth-redistribution.
• Spineless sycophants of the world, unite!

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• Judge Sykes criticized a lawsuit over a Halloween display.

• Does the ADA prohibit wi-fi? The plaintiff is an anti-microwave activist.
  
• DC Circuit: paper money violates the law.
  
• NY attorney: my vacation plans are worth $1 million.
• Overlawyered favorite Montgomery Blair Sibley suspended in Florida and DC.

• Ted objected to the proposed Grand Theft Auto class action settlement.
• FACTA declared unconstitutional by Alabama federal judge.
  
• Merck vindicated in Texas appeal; Mark Lanier throws tantrum.
• Barack Obama and tort reform.
• Waddah Mustafa‘s fly in a water bottle not worth hundreds of thousands.
• Jim Copland guest-blogged on asbestos: 1, 2, 3, 4.

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• John Edwards’s support for wacky warnings.
• Author’s suit: Penguin labeled my book “black interest.”
• Kentucky fen-phen litigation heats up—or, at least, the critical fee documentation did when the attorneys burned it.
• Not a huge surprise: environmental lawsuits hurt environment.
• I wasn’t impressed by a trial lawyer’s claim of “forgiveness” at the punitive damages stage.
• Best or worst? Miscellaneous time-wasting spats with Bizarro-Overlawyered: medical malpractice; constitutional history; affluence, accidents and ad hominems; rollover economics.

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Completing our series of the Best of 2006 in a busy month:

• Frequent filer v. Kraft: pay my attorney millions because I didn’t read the label on your guacamole dip.
• ADA Week: drive-by suits and filing mills, $2.5 billion sidewalks, the separatist fringe, paper money redesign for the blind appeal, and an epileptic’s right to operate heavy equipment.
• Jesse Branham v. Ford: $31M verdict against Ford when driver drove off the road while turned around, and followup and more followup. See also multimillion dollar seatback verdicts, again blaming Ford for driver error. Ford did win an Arkansas “sudden acceleration” case, and the losing lawyer wrote in.
• Imams: we want to “hit [US Airways] where it hurts, the pocketbook.”
• Killer’s mom sues high school for not stopping him.
• Warren Buffett’s new insurance company on medmal caps.
• Class action for uninjured Nintendo Wii purchasers.
• GAO on litigation risk and drug development.
• Lawsuit: I should be allowed to anoint cubicles with olive oil
• What do wacky pro se cases teach about legal reform?
• UK patient: doc hurt my feelings by telling me to quit smoking
• California Prop 65: protecting us from cooked chicken.
• 19 year old dies moshing, sues home owner
• Bad facts make bad law—and that’s true even when the defendant wins because of that bad law.

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• Safety vs. “discrimination”:9th Circuit: UPS must hire deaf drivers; EEOC challenges Exxon’s pilot age limit; “To avoid charges of ‘racism,’ we disciplined black and white students differently.”
• Jackpot justice: $217M for misdiagnosed stroke in Florida (and followup)
• Trespass atop rail car, win $24 million
• Jackpot justice: $20M for $25,000 insurance claim
• Judicial elections and the New York Times
• On picking a jury
• Public Citizen and DMI caught using misleading statistics
• Encore on the falling-out-of-a-loft-bed case
• Why there aren’t DVDs of some of your favorite old TV series
• Tag banned because of liability fears
• Punitive damages and the Supreme Court
• Two more hot-coffee-lawsuit datapoints. It might be easier to list the chains that haven’t been sued for serving coffee.

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