In Washington state, voters defeated I-330, a doctor-backed plan to limit medical malpractice awards and lawyers’ fees, by about a 54-46 margin, while also drubbing I-336. a lawyer-backed alternative (Seattle P-I, Seattle Times). California voters trounced, by a 61-39 margin, Proposition 79, which would have regulated drug prices via freelance lawsuits among other means; they defeated Proposition 78, a drug-industry-backed alternative, by nearly as wide a margin. (L.A. Times, Sacramento Bee). In Virginia, former Richmond mayor and Democrat Tim Kaine, who had been criticized by the American Justice Partnership (Nov. 2), won the governorship anyway (Wash. Post). Texas voters easily passed an anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment that Houston attorney Warren Cole, chairman of the State Bar of Texas’ family law section, called “horribly drafted” and which would prohibit the recognition of any “legal status” that is “similar to marriage” (more from Cathy Young)(see yesterday’s post) (Dallas Morning News) (cross-posted at Point of Law).
Posts Tagged ‘California’
Update: Sony pays $1.5 million to settle ghost-blurber suit
Another triumph of our class-action system: Sony Pictures has agreed to pay out $1.5 million to settle a class action on behalf of filmgoers allegedly persuaded to attend the films “Vertical Limit,” “A Knight’s Tale,” “The Animal,” “Hollow Man” and “The Patriot” by Sony’s use of a nonexistent reviewer, “David Manning”, to say nice things about the films in blurbs. “Manning” was listed in the blurbs as working for the Ridgefield Press, a genuine newspaper in Connecticut which however has never employed any such reviewer (Jun. 12, 2001, Mar. 13, 2004).
Class lawyer Norman Blumenthal said moviegoers would be able to collect $5 rebates by affirming that they attended the original runs of the movies; remaining moneys will go to charity. The AP’s coverage does not discuss how if at all the attendance claims are to be verified, nor the question of how much the lawyers are going to get in fees. When the California courts agreed to let the suit go forward as a class action, a dissenting judge called it a “farce” and “the most frivolous case with which I have ever had to deal”, saying: “We should be occupying ourselves with resolving legitimate disputes instead of laughable cases designed not to gain anything for the plaintiffs, but rather to generate fees for the only true beneficiaries of this disgrace, the attorneys.” (Alex Veiga, “Sony to Pay $1.5M Over Fake Movie Critic”, AP/Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News, Aug. 3).
It’s a common carrier, after all
Amusement park managements in California are unhappy about a new 4-3 decision by the state’s supreme court holding that operators of park rides constitute “common carriers” akin to bus and trolley lines for safety purposes, thus exposing them to a higher standard of care in injury lawsuits. Of particular concern: given that passengers on ordinary conveyances are supposed to be protected from dangers that would occasion acute personal fear and emotional distress, what are the implications for roller coasters and other thrill rides in which conveying sensations of that sort is the whole idea? Maybe the brass at Disney (which was the defendant in the suit at hand) weren’t being entirely overcautious when they slowed down the Mad Hatter’s spinning teacups (see Mar. 4 and Mar. 9, 2004). (Maura Dolan and Kimi Yoshino, “High Court Raises Bar for Safety of Thrill Rides”, Los Angeles Times, Jun. 17)(via Ken Masugi, Claremont).
Calif.: radio host’s ageism not a civil rights violation
Tom Leykis’s highly successful Westwood One radio show is geared to reach men 25-34, an advertiser-coveted demographic. When Marty Ingels, a 67-year-old talent agent and former sitcom actor (1962’s I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster) called in to the show, he was eventually put on the air, but Leykis launched into a series of japes poking fun at his age. Ingels proceeded to sue under California’s super-broad Unruh civil rights act and its equally super-broad s. 17200 unfair competition law, but an appeals court has now agreed with the broadcaster’s request to throw out the suit as violative of the state’s SLAPP statute, which is aimed at restricting some lawsuits that threaten free speech. (Kenneth Ofgang, “C.A. Rejects Age Bias Suit Over Exclusion From Radio Talk Show”, Metropolitan News-Enterprise, May 31; Ingels v. Westwood One, opinion in PDF format courtesy FindLaw; Silicon Valley Media Law Blog, May 26).
Update: “Happy Cows” ads
California’s s. 17200, while handy in kneecapping private businesses which try to defend themselves in public controversies, can’t be used to silence speech by government: “An animal rights group’s challenge to a ‘Happy Cows’ advertising campaign by a state advisory board was rejected by a California appeals court in San Francisco today. The Court of Appeal said that a government entity can’t be sued for false advertising under the state’s Unfair Business Practices Act.” (“Animal rights group loses lawsuit against ‘Happy Cows’ commercial”, San Mateo County Times, Jan. 12; Mike McKee, “PETA Loses Suit Over California Cow Ads”, The Recorder, Jan. 13)(see Nov. 30). Update Apr. 23: California Supreme Court denies review.
CAIR using litigation to silence critics?
The Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) (Sep. 17) has continued their campaign of suing or threatening to sue for libel in an effort to silence critics who have alleged it to be soft on terrorism because of what Senator Schumer calls the organization’s “intimate links to Hamas.” David Frum comments on the notice he received. (“The Question of CAIR”, National Post, Nov. 23).
California, believe it or not, is in the forefront of tort reform by permitting defendants to recover attorneys’ fees when defamation suits are intended to chill protected free speech. Another twenty-two states have adopted similar laws, with bills pending in eight legislatures. See The California Anti-SLAPP Project, Nov. 11, and Mar. 12.
In today’s WSJ
I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal (Walter Olson, “Stop the Shakedown”, Oct. 29) discussing ballot measures that voters will decide in six states next Tuesday on litigation reform. For more on California’s s. 17200 “unfair competition” law, discussed in the second half of the piece, follow this link; for more on malpractice law, see our medical liability pages (latest/ earlier).
A right to assistance pets
Under established disabled-rights law, store owners and other business people very seldom have a right to exclude the “service animals” that accompany blind and deaf visitors. Relatively few inconveniences ensue, in part because such animals tend to be few and extremely well trained. However, the idea has begun to catch on that persons disabled in other ways also have a right to the company of assistance animals; California regulators issued such a ruling as to dogs two years ago. Now a rapidly rising number of San Francisco residents are applying for tags for assistance dogs; the city has issued 658 tags for them. “‘The bottom line is that we’re seeing a lot of people come down here with notes from their doctors saying they need a companion dog to improve their quality of life,” said Carl Friedman, director of the city animal control agency. ‘Now we’re seeing a lot of people applying for the tags who have psychological issues.”’ Landlords and restaurants are not allowed to enforce no-dog policies against a registered animal. As for the pets’ required “training”, that “can be done by the owner and can be as simple as teaching the dog to wag a tail and lick a face if that’s what it takes to make someone with a diagnosed depression feel better.” (Rachel Gordon, “‘Assistance dog’ designation opens doors for pooches”, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 19). We were on to this trend very early: see Jul. 9, 1999.
Forum shopping
Two Germans had a contract dispute with their former employer, German media giant Bertelsmann AG, regarding a European joint venture. The contract, written in German, required the application of German law, and (according to the defense) the major dispute was over the meaning of a German term in the contract. So where to sue? California, of course! The jury came through with a verdict of over a quarter-billion dollars, and their verdict form was apparently sufficiently muddled that the plaintiffs are going to argue that they were meant to receive over a billion dollars. The defense argues that part of the problem is a mistranslation of “participation” into “equity.” (Greg Risling, “Calif. Jury Rules Against Bertelsmann”, AP, Dec. 12; Gina Keating, “Jury Faults Bertelsmann in AOL Europe Suit”, Reuters, Dec. 11).
Update, Jan. 6, 2004: The plaintiffs’ attorney confirms that the main dispute was over interpretation of a clause in the German-language contract, but argues that it would have been “prohibitively costly” for the plaintiffs to bring the case in Germany–which, based on my experience in a number of cases where critical documents are not in English, and require expensive translation, strikes me as extraordinarily unlikely that the case would have been more expensive in Germany, much less prohibitively so if plaintiffs had a sincere belief that their case was worth in the billions. But the reporter does not challenge the assertion. (Nora Lockwood Tooher, “Two German Entrepreneurs Win $255 Million”, Lawyers Weekly USA, 2004).
More on California antispam law
Reason Online (Dec. 8) has now published a longer version of my piece on California’s very bad new anti-spam law, which will spell courtroom trouble for legitimate marketers nationwide unless the federal CAN-SPAM bill, which would override it, is enacted instead. The new version goes into detail about some of the precedents that make the California law scary, including the litigation that has arisen under Utah’s one-year-old law giving individual recipients a right to sue over spam, and the record of junk-fax class actions filed pursuant to a federal 1991 law; these discussions had to be left out of last week’s Wall Street Journal version of the piece (see Dec. 3) for space reasons.