- Surprising origins of federal corruption probe that tripped up Luzerne County, Pa. judges who were getting kickbacks on juvenile detention referrals: insurers had noted local pattern of high car-crash arbitration sums and sniffed collusion between judges and plaintiff’s counsel [Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Legal Intelligencer] Court administrator pleads to theft [Times Leader] Judge Ciavarella had secret probation parole program [PAHomepage]
- We get accolades: “Overlawyered.com has a new look. Great new format, same good stuff,” writes ex-securities lawyer Christopher Fountain, whose real estate blog I’m always recommending to people even if they live nowhere near his turf of Greenwich, Ct. [For What It’s Worth]
- “Fla. Jury Awards $8M to Family of Dead Smoker in Philip Morris Case” [ABA Journal; for more on the complicated background of the Engle case, which renders Florida a unique environment for tobacco litigation, start here]
- Scott Greenfield vs. Ann Bartow vs. Marc Randazza on the AutoAdmit online-bathroom-scrawl litigation, all in turn playing off a David Margolick piece in Portfolio;
- Eric Turkewitz continues his investigations of online solicitation by lawyers following the Buffalo crash of Continental Flight #3407 [NY Personal Injury Law Blog, Mon. and Tues. posts; earlier]
- One vital element of trial management: keep track of how many jurors there are [Anne Reed, Deliberations]
- Public Citizen vs. public health: Sidney Wolfe may succeed in getting the FDA to ban Darvon, and the bone marrow transplant nurse isn’t happy about that [Dr. Wes, KevinMD, more on Wolfe here]
- “Baseball Star’s [uninfected] Ex Seeks $15M for Fear of AIDS” [OnPoint News, WaPo, New York Mets star Roberto Alomar]
Posts Tagged ‘Connecticut’
January 6 roundup
Griffin Bell, Carter AG dead at 90, was (among much else) respected Democratic voice for litigation reform [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
“700,000 squiggles”: historic NY high court crackdown on trial lawyers’ pothole map [NYT; D’Onofrio v. City of New York slip op h/t reader Andrew Barovick; way back, City Journal]
Judge gets off pretty easy after her drunken crash into cop car [Hartford Courant via ChicTrib] Connecticut’s wild-n-crazy judiciary [Courant]
Follow the rules and seat Burris: National Journal quotes me in its bloggers’ poll [Illinois Senate appointment]
Legal history moment: Statute of Anne, 1710, turned copyright law into force for liberty [Cathy Gellis]
Blind editorial squirrel finds acorn: NY Times editorial on Calif good-Samaritan liability not half bad [yes, NYT]
“Win yourself a $50,000 bounty by busting a patent” [Forbes]
Dental student dismissed from University of Michigan wins $1.7 million from four profs, argued that claimed academic deficiencies were just ruse [ABA Journal]
Microblog 2008-01-04
Must stores let in “social support” goats? Hot ADA issue we’ve often covered makes it into NYTimes mag [Rebecca Skloot] And Time mag tackles scandal of ADA-suit mass filing for $$, long familiar to our readers [Alison Stateman]
Can you guess mechanism by which snow globes turned out to cause fire hazard? (Then check link.) [K.C. Business Journal]
“Do Not Track” legislation could torpedo online-advertising models [ReadWriteWeb h/t @lilyhill]
What if plea-bargaining defendants could give D.A.s eBay-style feedback? [Greenfield]
UK cabinet minister wants govt to regulate Net with aim of child safety, Brit blogger says – hell, no! [Perry de Havilland, Samizdata]
As lawyer-driven mummeries go, which is worse, coffee machine overwarning or medical “informed consent”? [Happy Hospitalist]
Bogus memoirs nowadays spawn real lawsuits, as we remember from James Frey case [Elefant]
Is health care prohibition in our future? [KevinMD]
Massachusetts child support guidelines said to be highly onerous for dads already and getting worse [Bader, CEI]
Kid gloves from some local media for Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd & his magic mortgages [Christopher Fountain and again]
Had Robertson v. Princeton donor-intent suit gone to trial, lawyers might have billed $120 million hourly fees. How’d the number get that high? [Kennerly, Litigation & Trial and again]
A reminder: these microblog posts are based on a selection of my contributions to Twitter, which you can “follow” here.
Expelled from Miss Porter’s — but it was the Oprichniki’s fault
The family of Tatum Bass of South Carolina has filed a federal lawsuit over her dismissal from Miss Porter’s, the all-girls private school in Farmington, Connecticut. The suit “acknowledges that Bass was suspended from school this fall for cheating on a test. But the lawsuit contends that Bass only cheated because she was frazzled by” belittlement and bullying from a clique of other girls who are said to have called themselves the “Oprichniki,” after the secret police in czarist Russia. (Vanessa de la Torre, “Miss Porter’s School Sued Over Expulsion”, Hartford Courant, Dec. 10).
Annals of public employee tenure, cont’d
Assume a false identity and file a bogus misconduct complaint that gets your boss fired. Claim whistleblower protection and transfer to a nice job in another department. When the imposture is discovered, the state won’t be able to do more than slap your wrist. That’s been the happy experience of a lawyer with Connecticut’s state ethics bureau (!) in a case provoking considerable, though apparently futile, outrage in the Nutmeg State. (Point of Law, Nov. 25; Dan Schwartz, Nov. 17).
Breathalyzer readings are racist
Well, at least that’s one theory cited by a DUI defense lawyer on behalf of his Connecticut client. (Defending PeopleA Public Defender, Nov. 20, via Above the Law)(blog misattribution corrected).
Julie Amero case ends
A judge had overturned the conviction of the former Norwich, Ct. substitute teacher (Jul. 15, Mar. 14 and Jun. 10, 2007, etc.) over the episode in which her computer (almost certainly infected with unwanted malware) displayed a stream of dirty popup windows while her students were watching. To the amazement of many, prosecutors refused to drop the charges and moved to hold a second trial. Now Amero has agreed to resolve the episode by pleading down to a single misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, as opposed to the 40 years she could have gotten on the original charges. (Rick Green, “Misdemeanor Plea Ends Norwich P0rnography Case”, Hartford Courant, Nov. 22).
More: “What I’d like to see come of it is a computer forensics innocence project.” (Joe Windish, The Moderate Voice; see also Balko/Reason “Hit and Run”, Bill Jempty @ WizBang, Rick Green @ Courant followup).
Microblog 2008-11-21
- “Forensic Experts Aren’t Team Players. Nor Should They Be.” [Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”]
- Australia high court reverses 2 crim convictions, judge snored loudly a lot (not just your innocent-error naplet) [Lowering the Bar]
- Hear that V-3 hum: preview of 2012 post-bailout car from Congressional Motors [Iowahawk satire]
- California Supreme Court gets a Prop 8 amicus brief from “Divine Queen of the Almighty Eternal Creator” [Box Turtle Bulletin]
- Bristol, CT mulls ban on smoking on public streets [Connecticut Employment Law Blog]
- “Singers Sue Label For Failing To Sue Others For Infringement” [TechDirt; Hall & Oates, Warner/Chappell; h/t @tamerabennett]
- Lawyer must spend half her time deflecting jokes about her name [Sullivan & Cromwell]
“How Long Should a Disciplinary Finding Haunt a Lawyer?”
Phrased thus (at Legal Ethics Forum) it seems like a rather loaded question, doesn’t it? Who’s supposed to come down in favor of haunting? (The controversy arises from the suit filed by Greenwich attorney Barbara Shea to force a Connecticut grievance committee to remove online records of disciplinary run-ins she had between 1997 and 2002). A contrasting way of posing the same question might be: how far should we go in letting lawyers curtail the public availability of embarrassing information about events that 1) really did happen; 2) were a matter of public record at the time; and 3) are of natural and legitimate interest to at least some clients?
I’m not sure I have an entirely satisfactory answer to that question, but I’m pretty confident that it’s an unsatisfactory approach for grievance committees to have to fear getting beaten up in court actions if they don’t strike the balance as leniently as lawyers might like. (Douglas S. Malin, “Trying To Make The Past Disappear”, Connecticut Law Tribune, Sept. 29; Elefant/Legal Blog Watch, Oct. 3).
P.S. Many interesting reader comments of which my favorite was this one from z0l0ft:
The year is 2020 —
Hey Honey, I was checking the internet and I found all this great information about a true pioneer of the fight against the corruption of our youth by the videogame industry. His name was Jack Thompson. I could find nothing negative about him, so he must have been great.
October 15 roundup
- Litigants’ “not about the money” assertions: Mark Obbie has further thoughts on reporters’ uncritical deployment of this cliche, and kind words for our archive of posts on the subject [LawBeat]
- Lawyer on the other side of that much-circulated “I’m sorry” deposition-dispute letter has his say [Markland and Hanley via Turkewitz and Above the Law]
- Local authority in England tells gardener to remove barbed wire from wall surrounding his allotment, thieves might get hurt on it and sue [Never Yet Melted, Steyn/NRO Corner]
- Same-sex marriage in Connecticut through judicial fiat? Jonathan Rauch says no thanks [IGF]
- Lawyers are back suing despite reform of FACTA, the credit-card-receipt “gotcha” law, but insurance might just dry up [Randy Maniloff at Point of Law]
- “Racing to the trough” — auto lenders latest to ask bailout though original TARP rationale of liquidity fix seems remote [Naked Capitalism]
- “To be a green-certified property (pretty important in crunchy Portland) there must be an absolute prohibition on smoking, including outdoor spaces.” [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason “Hit and Run”]
- (Failed) claim in trademark case: “the term ‘electric’ is not commonly used by the general public to describe a source of power for watches” [TTAB via Ron Coleman]