Second grade teacher Marie Jarry called in sick one day to her job at the Southington, Ct. public schools, which perhaps was not strictly accurate, since the next day she and her husband won first prize in a “Hottest Wife, Ugliest Husband” contest on the Howard Stern show. Now she’s suing over being pressured to resign from her job; school authorities invoked a school “morality clause” and were really mean about the little sick day fib (The Smoking Gun, Jun. 27, with copy of complaint). Writes Daniel Schwartz: “In thinking about this case, I can’t help but think of the irony of this case compared with a case down south last month which held that a female employee was subjected to a ‘hostile work environment’ because of the ‘vulgar radio programming’ in her workplace. And what was that vulgar programming? The Howard Stern show of course … While the particulars of this case will play out in court, what is striking about the complaint is the unwillingness to acknowledge that the teacher bears any responsibility for what occurred.” (Connecticut Employment Law Blog, Jul. 2).
Posts Tagged ‘Connecticut’
“Build a Wiffle Ball Field and Lawyers Will Come”
This particular dispute, over noisy kids’ recreation in an otherwise quiet neighborhood of famously expensive Greenwich, Connecticut, might have led to legal ramifications in almost any day and age. Opponents of the wiffle ball, though, get a lot of mileage from everyone’s awareness of the case a few years ago in which the town was ordered to pay $6.3 million to a doctor who broke his leg while sledding on town land with his 4-year-old son. (Peter Applebome, New York Times, Jul. 10; Patrick Healy, “Town’s Downhill Pastime May Face an Uphill Fight”, New York Times, Apr. 26, 2004). More: Giacalone.
Welcome New York Sun readers
The paper’s editorial quotes this site on the legal-reform-friendly Senate record of Connecticut Democrat Joe Lieberman. (“The logic of Lieberman”, May 19).
May 6 roundup
- Raelyn Campbell briefly captured national spotlight (“Today” show, MSNBC) with $54 million suit against Best Buy for losing laptop, but it’s now been dismissed [Shop Floor; earlier]
- Charmed life of Florida litigators Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt continues as Miami judge awards them $218 million for class action lawsuit they lost [Daily Business Report, Krauss @ PoL; earlier here, here, and here]
- Lerach said kickbacks were “industry practice” and “everybody was paying plaintiffs”. True? Top House GOPer Boehner wants hearings to find out [NAM “Shop Floor”, WSJ law blog]
- It’s Dannimal House! An “office rife with booze, profanity, inappropriate sexual activity, misuse of state vehicles and on-the-job threats involving the Mafia” — must be Ohio AG Marc Dann, of NYT “next Eliot Spitzer” fame [AP/NOLA, Adler @ Volokh, Above the Law, Wood @ PoL; earlier]
- Sorry, Caplin & Drysdale, but you can’t charge full hourly rates for time spent traveling but not working on that asbestos bankruptcy [NLJ] More: Elefant.
- Fire employee after rudely asking if she’s had a face-lift? Not unless you’ve got $1.7 million to spare [Chicago Tribune]
- Daniel Schwartz has more analysis of that Stamford, Ct. disabled-firefighter case (May 1); if you want a fire captain to be able to read quickly at emergency scene, better spell that out explicitly in the job description [Ct Emp Law Blog]
- As expected, star Milberg expert John Torkelsen pleads guilty to perjury arising from lies he told to conceal his contingent compensation arrangements [NLJ; earlier]
- Case of deconstructionist prof who plans to sue her Dartmouth students makes the WSJ [Joseph Rago, op-ed page, Mindles H. Dreck @ TigerHawk; earlier]
- How’d I do, mom? No violation of fair trial for judge’s mother to be one of the jurors [ABA Journal]
- First sell the company’s stock short, then sue it and watch its share price drop. You mean there’s some ethical problem with that? [three years ago on Overlawyered]
Connecticut: timed fireman test violated ADA, cont’d
Updating our Jan. 18, 2007 post: “Connecticut’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities says that the city of Stamford violated anti-discrimination law because they wouldn’t give extra time on a promotion exam to David Lenotti. Lenotti is a fire lieutenant with attention deficit disorder.” [Excerpting coverage in the Apr. 15 Stamford Advocate*]:
The city defended the denial by claiming a fire captain, the position Lenotti sought, must be able to read and process information quickly at a fire scene. But state officials said the city never proved that was true, never consulted with disability rights experts and does not use a promotional test that actually measures how fast a candidate can read.
(Dave Statter, Apr. 20; Created Things, Apr. 16; decision in PDF format). More: Daniel Schwartz has more analysis (May 3): if you want a fire captain to be able to read quickly at emergency scene, gotta spell that out explicitly in the job description.
*An odd aspect of the Stamford Advocate article, preserved on GoogleCache: it quotes disability consultant Suzanne Kitchen making the very same comment, word for word, that we criticized her for making more than a year ago. Does Ms. Kitchen really repeat herself so precisely?
State AGs vs. JuicyCampus.com
As an online phenomenon, JuicyCampus.com sounds more than a little familiar to those who followed the AutoAdmit/XOXOXTH controversy: message boards open to bathroom-graffiti anonymous posts about named fellow students. The difference this time is that the attorneys general of New Jersey and Connecticut have jumped in with legal action apparently premised on the unusual, and expansible, legal theory that the site violates consumer fraud statutes by not enforcing its own announced ground rules on posting, or at least principles that it “suggests” it will follow. (ABA Journal and again; Volokh).
Client-chasing dot-orgs
We’ve previously noted that seemingly public-spirited websites purportedly set up to offer medical information and advice on mesothelioma and other asbestos-related illnesses are usually fronts for law firms. Roger Parloff at Fortune “Legal Pad” takes a look at a couple of such ventures operated by Beasley Allen of Alabama and Early Ludwick of Connecticut. (Mar. 27). NYU’s Stephen Gillers says the “disguised nature of [Beasley Allen’s] web site would not allow it to survive challenge under the New York rules” on attorney promotion but doesn’t have reason to think it violates the (presumably less stringent) Alabama rules. Early Ludwick’s “Mesothelioma & Asbestos Awareness Center”
uses a popular symbol of medicine as its emblem – the two serpents wrapped around a winged staff – and its “about us” blurb says: “Our organization is staffed entirely by volunteer writers and other contributors who recognize the importance of building awareness.”
but if you look hard enough you can find a hyperlink leading to an “Attorney Advertising” notice. And what’s with the law firms’ having managed to secure dot-org domains for these ventures, just as if they were nonprofit or something?
P.S. As several readers point out, those who distribute domains make no attempt to police the recommendation (originally requirement) that .org be reserved for non-profits; for one thing, it’s now routine for .com owners to obtain the .org equivalent of their name and arrange for it to redirect to their main site. I should have phrased my point more narrowly: when they select a dot org as the primary address for their site, law firm marketers make it more likely that unwary readers will mistake the site for that of a medical philanthropy.
March 1 roundup
- Oregon Supreme Court plays chicken with SCOTUS over $79.5 million punitive damages award in Williams v. Philip Morris case. [Sebok @ Findlaw; Krauss @ IBD; POL Feb. 1]
- Speaking of punitive damages, I did a podcast on Exxon Shipping v. Baker. I can’t bear to listen to it, so let me know how I did. [Frank @ Fed Soc]
- Arkansas case alleged legal sale of pseudoephedrine was “nuisance” because meth-makers would buy it; case dismissed. [Beck/Herrmann]. This is why I’ve stockpiled Sudafed.
- Lawyers advertise for refinery explosion victims before fire goes out. [Hou Chron/TLR]
- Connecticut Supreme Court: cat-attack victim can sue without showing past history of violence by animal. [On Point] Looking forward to comments from all the anti-reformers who claim to oppose reform because they’re against the abrogation of the common law.
- Op-ed on the Great White fire deep pockets phenomenon. [SE Texas Record; earlier: Feb. 2]
- “FISA lawsuits come from Twilight Zone.” [Hillyer @ Examiner]
- Legislative action on various medical malpractice tweaking in Colorado, Hawaii, and Wyoming. [TortsProf]
- Request for unemployment benefits: why fire me just because I asked staffers for a prostitute? [Des Moines Register]
- “So much for seduction and romance; bring in the MBAs and lawyers.” [Mac Donald @ City Journal; contra Belle Lettre; contra contra Dank]
- Where is the Canadian Brandeis standing up for free speech? [Kay @ National Post]
- In defense of lobbying. [Krauthammer @ WaPo]
Traffic-cams in the Northeast
The Northeast as a region has been relatively resistant to the revenue-generating law-enforcement mechanism, but Connecticut Gov. Rell is now proposing them for a stretch of I-95. (Mike the Actuary, Feb. 11). In fairness, it might be argued that cameras deployed to auto-ticket speeders may not generate as bad a set of unintended consequences as cameras set up at traffic signals.
February 1 roundup
- Following public outrage, Spanish businessman drops plans to sue parents of boy he killed in road crash [UK Independent; earlier]
- Scruggs to take Fifth in State Farm case against Hood [Clarion-Ledger] And how much “home cooking” was the Mississippi titan dished out in the Medicaid-tobacco case that made his fortune? [Folo]
- More critics assail ABC “Eli Stone” vaccine-autism fiction, with American Academy of Pediatrics calling for episode’s cancellation [AAP press release; Stier, NY Post; earlier]
- Special ethics counsel recommends disbarment of Edward Fagan, lawyer of Swiss-bank-suit fame whose ethical missteps have been chronicled on this site over the years [Star-Ledger]. As recently as fourteen months ago the L.A. Times was still according Fagan good publicity;
- In past bail-bond scandals, private bond agencies have been caught colluding “with lawyers, the police, jail officials and even judges to make sure that bail is high and that attractive clients are funneled to them.” [Liptak, NYT]
- Archbishop of Canterbury calls for new laws to punish “thoughtless or cruel” comments on religion [Times Online, Volokh]
- Another disturbing case from Massachusetts of a citizen getting charged with privacy violation for recording police activity [also Volokh]
- Abuse of open-records law? Convicted arsonist files numerous requests for pictures and personal information of public employees who sent him to prison; they charge intimidation [AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
- It resembles a news program on Connecticut public-access cable, but look more closely: it’s law firm marketing [Ambrogi]
- Judge says Alfred Rava’s suit can proceed charging sex bias over Oakland A’s stadium distribution of Mother’s Day hats [Metropolitan News-Enterprise; earlier on Angels in Anaheim]
- Crack down on docs with multiple med-mal payouts? Well, there go lots of your neurosurgeons [three years ago on Overlawyered]