- Client’s suit against Houston tort lawyer George Fleming alleges that cost of echocardiograms done on other prospective clients was deducted as expenses from her fen-phen settlement [Texas Lawyer]
- Preparing to administer bar exam, New York Board of Law Examiners isn’t taking any chances, will require hopefuls to sign liability waivers [ABA Journal]
- Thanks to Steven Erickson for guestblogging last week, check out his blogging elsewhere [Crime & Consequences, e.g.]
- “Freedom of speech” regarded as Yankee concept at Canadian tribunal? [Steyn @ NRO Corner; reactions]
- Court rules Dan Rather suit against CBS can go to discovery [NYMag; earlier here, here]
- Served seventeen years in prison on conviction for murdering his parents, till doubts on his guilt grew too loud to ignore [Martin Tankleff case]
- Orin Kerr and commenters discuss Gomez v. Pueblo County, the recent case where inmate sued jail for (among other things) making it too easy for him to escape [Volokh]
- New at Point of Law: Cleveland’s suit against subprime lending is even worse than Baltimore’s; Massachusetts takes our advice and adopts payee notification; law firm websites often promote medical misinformation; lawyer for skier suing 8-year-old boy wants court to stop family from talking to the press; Ted rounds up developments in Vioxx litigation once and then again; guess where you’ll find a handsome statue of Adam Smith; and much more;
- Good news for “resourceful cuckolds” as courts let stand $750,000 alienation of affection award to wronged Mississippi husband [The Line Is Here; ABCNews.com]
- Kimball County, Nebraska cops don’t know whether that $69,040 in cash they seized from a car is going to be traceable to drug traffickers, but plan to keep it in any case [Omaha World-Herald via The Line Is Here]
- Hunter falls out of tree, and Geoffrey Fieger finds someone for him to sue [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
Posts Tagged ‘Canada’
January 13 roundup
Updates:
- The Canadian Transportation Agency (as part of its regulation of airline ticket prices) has ruled that obese passengers are entitled to have two airline seats for the price of one, which will no doubt encourage further suits against the American practice. (h/t Rohan) One looks forward to the Canadian lawsuits complaining that an obese passenger wasn’t adjudged obese enough to get a free second seat. [Australian; Toronto Star; Gunter @ National Post; earlier on Overlawyered]
- Also in Canada, Ezra Levant defends his free speech rights against a misnamed Alberta “Human Rights Commission” over his republication of the Danish Muhammed cartoons. [Frum; National Post; Steyn @ Corner; Wise Law Blog; Youtube; related on Overlawyered]
- Alleged car-keying attorney “Grodner is now under investigation by the state’s Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, sources said. Commission officials declined to comment Thursday.” [Chicago Tribune; Jan. 4]
- “Life is short—get a divorce” attorney Corri Fetman parlays her tasteless billboard (May 10; May 8) into tasteless Playboy topless-modeling and advice-column gig. In the words of Alfred E. Neuman, “Blech.” On multiple and independent grounds. Surprisingly, Above the Law avoids the snark of noting that the lead paragraph of Fetman’s law firm web site bio includes a prestigious 23-year-old quote from a college professor’s recommendation for law school. [Above the Law; Chicago Sun-Times; Elefant]
- Wesley Snipes (Jun. 11; Nov. 2006) appears to be going for a Cheek defense in his tax-evasion trial—which is hard to do when you’re a multimillionaire whose well-paid accountants explicitly tell you you’re violating the law. (Remember what I said about magical incantations and taxes?) [Tampa Tribune; Quatloos]
- Accountant Mark Maughan loses his search-engines-make-me-look-bad lawsuit (Mar. 2004) against Google, which even got Rule 11 sanctions. (That happened in 2006. Sorry for the delay.) More on Google and privacy: Jan. 16. [Searchenginewatch]
- Bribed Mississippi judges in Paul Minor case (Sep. 8 and much more coverage) report to prison. [AP]
December 5 roundup
- Fear of “retribution” and “legal action” among reasons docs don’t report hazardous colleagues and conditions [WaPo on new Annals of Internal Medicine study]
- Judge rips Milberg for high Chiron fee proposal, questions Skadden’s conflict [The Recorder]
- Felony murder rule is an American exception with results that can be hard to defend [Liptak, NYT]
- UK: “Man broke girlfriend’s leg in damages fraud” [Times Online]
- Often driven by defensive medicine, CAT scans may pose their own risks to patients who undergo them [Newsday on NEJM study]
- Commentator is glad post offices are lawyering up their Operation Santa gift programs [McDonough, CalLaw LegalPad; earlier; possibly related]
- Quebec judge nixes suit by Concordia University mass murderer against former colleagues [Canadian Press]
- Update on Kennewick man and Indian-remains legislation [WashTimes; earlier]
- Magic of compound interest? Uncollected 1977 award for victim of Evel Knievel attack said to have mounted by now to $100 million [AP/Yahoo]
- School discipline now a heavily lawyer-driven affair [Charleston Post & Courier courtesy Common Good]
- Complaint: Cleveland housing authority should have done more renovations to accommodate extremely obese tenant [four years ago on Overlawyered]
Mark Steyn book excerpt = human rights violation?
Reminding us once again that our neighbor to the north lacks a First Amendment-strength guarantee of free speech, and stands in very great need of one: Canada’s largest non-profit Islamic body, the Canadian Islamic Congress, has launched human rights complaints against the prominent magazine Maclean’s and its editor-in-chief over a book excerpt from Mark Steyn, the well-known conservative columnist. “Complaints were submitted to Human Rights Commissions in B.C. and Ontario on the grounds that ‘the article subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt,’ according to a CIC press release. In the release, the CIC labels Steyn’s article as ‘flagrantly Islamophobic.'” (Kate Lunau, “Canadian Islamic Congress launches human rights complaints against Maclean’s”, Maclean’s, Nov. 30)(& welcome visitors from Steyn’s own SteynOnline).
Canada: Staples sued over customers’ unauthorized copying
“Access Copyright has launched a $10 million lawsuit against Staples/The Business Depot for unauthorized copying by store customers. The copyright collective claims this is the largest lawsuit ever launched over copyright infringement of published works in Canada.” (Michael Geist, Nov. 15)(via Fagstein).
“The world’s weirdest cases”
Columnist Gary Slapper of the U.K. Times gives his nominations of odd ones from around the world. Among them is a Gilbert-and-Sullivanish 1874 proceeding in which a Winnipeg magistrate served as judge in his own case on a charge of public intoxication (Nov. 5).
Wise law blog, Toronto
Attorney Garry J. Wise has some extremely kind things to say about us at his blog (Nov. 2). Thanks!
You mean it’s not the videogames?
This can’t be true — too many policymakers and activists have invested careers in the contrary:
It is not the cartoons that make your kids smack playmates or violently grab their toys but, rather, a lack of social skills, according to new research.
“It’s a natural behavior and it’s surprising that the idea that children and adolescents learn aggression from the media is still relevant,” says Richard Tremblay, a professor of pediatrics, psychiatry and psychology at the University of Montreal, who has spent more than two decades tracking 35,000 Canadian children (from age five months through their 20s) in search of the roots of physical aggression. “Clearly youth were violent before television appeared.”
(Nikhil Swaminathan, “Taming Baby Rage: Why Are Some Kids So Angry?”, Scientific American, Oct. 16).
October 3 roundup
- Yet another Apple suit, this time on behalf of user who wishes iPod and iTunes were more compatible with other song vendors and devices [Miami Herald/ILR]
- Fairview Heights, Ill. alderman says town was “deceived” into serving as lead plaintiff in class action against Orbitz, Priceline, Expedia and other online travel firms [Madison County Record]; More: here and here.
- “Evasive”, “bad faith”: federal judge slams health insurance lawyers for stalling suit by docs [Phila. Inquirer; Plus: their side @ Law.com]
- Plastic water guns draw ire of politicos in Albany, N.Y. [Times-Union via Nobody’s Business]
- High lawyers’ fees said to be pricing middle class Canadians out of the justice system, but it must be said the numbers cited sound pretty low by U.S. standards [Maclean’s]
- Flickr makes it easy to grab and reuse strangers’ photos, and legal sorrows ensue [NY Times]
- Jack Thompson tries to get federal judge Jordan removed from hearing one of his lawsuits against the Florida Bar [GamePolitics.com; & yet more]
- New at Point of Law: trial lawyers deem “slanderous” ads featuring fictional law firm of Sooem, Settle & Kashin; Business Week cover story on wage/hour suits; John Edwards comes out again for “certificate of merit” med-mal reform; replace your old kitchen cabinets and get lead paint companies to pay; and much more;
- Some New York lawmakers think secondhand smoke is just as bad for you as actually being a smoker [Siegel via Sullum; more on recent smoking bans, complete with culturally-sensitive hookah exception]
- “Disability Math” video explores paradox of how employment fell among handicapped after enactment of the ADA [Dubner, Freakonomics; more (now with more direct Freakonomics link)]
- Class-action lawyers sue over kids’ Pokémon card trading craze, claiming it’s illegal gambling [Eight years ago on Overlawyered; Milberg Weiss angle here]
Canada: class action plaintiff’s lawyers on the hook?
Canada has moved toward more liberal allowance of class-action litigation in recent years; it has also, like most non-U.S. countries, chosen to retain its historic principle of “loser-pays”, or “costs follow the event”, fee shifting. What happens when prevailing defendants seek an award of costs against losing class plaintiffs, assuming that the individual class members cannot be reached for the purposes of assessing costs? In a bitterly fought lawsuit over unclaimed veterans’ pension accounts, the federal government in Ottawa went after three class lawyers for C$4 million in costs out of their own pockets. The Ontario Court of Appeal denied its petition, but the lawyers say they feel chilled from organizing more such suits. In all, the federal government spent an estimated C$6 million in legal fees and C$10 million in other costs successfully defending the pension suit. (Randy Richmond, “Ottawa claimed denying justice”, London Free Press, Sept. 20). Earlier London Free Press reports by Randy Richmond on underlying lawsuit: “One Last Battle: Dark Politics”, Oct. 30, 2006; “An ugly fight for veterans’ benefits”, Oct. 31.