A hedge fund accumulates foreign debt and then maneuvers in Albany to make it more collectible. [Felix Salmon]
Posts Tagged ‘debtor-creditor law’
June 28 roundup
- Couldn’t sue the bees for stinging, but could get a $1.6 million judgment against the emergency room doc [NJLRA]
- Eurodoom: “EU to ban selling eggs by dozen” [Telegraph]
- “Oklahoma’s Unnecessary Law to Ban Citation of Sharia and International Law” [Ku/Opinio Juris, earlier]
- Shortage of generic anesthetics, and what’s behind it [Throckmorton, Great Zs, earlier]
- Hardball litigation tactics contribute to bad odor of consumer debt buyers [Felix Salmon]
- Interview with blogger Carlos Miller (Photography is Not a Crime) [Simon Owens, Bloggasm]
- Conyers “oil spill” bill would slyly expand litigation chances elsewhere [Drug and Device Law]
- Prosecutors deploy hate crimes law against… mortgage fraud? [NYT via PoL] 241 inmates serving life sentences claimed the federal homebuyer tax credit [CNBC]
“Pay me now”
Low-budget ads might seem fitting for a consumer bankruptcy law practice, one supposes:
According to the YouTube-watcher who called this to the attention of reader R.T., “it seems to be a franchise”:
A foreclosure lawyer’s business plan
David Streitfeld’s article yesterday in the New York Times on strategic foreclosure by homeowners includes this vignette of lawyers’ role (via Salmon):
In Florida, the average property spends 518 days in foreclosure, second only to New York’s 561 days. Defense attorneys stress they can keep this number high. …
[Local lawyer Mark P. Stopa] sends out letters — 1,700 in a recent week — to Floridians who have had a foreclosure suit filed against them by a lender.
Even if you have “no defenses,” the form letter says, “you may be able to keep living in your home for weeks, months or even years without paying your mortgage.”
About 10 new clients a week sign up, according to Mr. Stopa, who says he now has 350 clients in foreclosure, each of whom pays $1,500 a year for a maximum of six hours of attorney time. “I just do as much as needs to be done to force the bank to prove its case,” Mr. Stopa said.
May 10 roundup
- Failure to warn? “Non-Child Sues For Slide-Related Injury” [Lowering the Bar]
- “AG Cuomo Sues Lawyer for Fraud, Says He Sold His Name to Debt Collector for $141K” [ABA Journal]
- Ted Frank on his move to the Manhattan Institute and Point of Law [CCAF]
- “Viacom is becoming a lawsuit company instead of a TV company” [Doctorow, BoingBoing]
- UK: “NHS pays £10,000 to family of psychiatric patient who committed suicide” [Times Online]
- American Cancer Society: federal advisory panel’s chemicals-cause-cancer alarms are overblown [NYTimes] More: Taranto, WSJ.
- “Who Knew Bankruptcy Paid So Well?” [NYTimes]
- Famed sleuth Bloomberg Holmes on the case: was the Pathfinder headed for a vile sodium den? [IowaHawk]
Jerman v. Carlisle
Reader John B. alerts us: “If you haven’t already seen it, there’s excellent Overlawyered-type rhetoric from Justice Kennedy in Monday’s Supreme Court opinion on debt collectors’ liability under federal statutory law. Unfortunately it’s in the dissent (PDF).”
Wrote Kennedy:
[The Court’s decision today] aligns the judicial system with those who would use litigation to enrich themselves at the expense of attorneys who strictly follow and adhere to professional and ethical standards.
When the law is used to punish good-faith mistakes; when adopting reasonable safeguards is not enough to avoid liability; when the costs of discovery and litigation are used to force settlement even absent fault or injury; when class-action suits transform technical legal violations into windfalls for plaintiffs or their attorneys, the Court, by failing to adopt a reasonable interpretation to counter these excesses, risks compromising its own institutional responsibility to ensure a workable and just litigation system.
Lawyer conceals client’s death from opponent
Only after the settlement was in hand did a Minnesota lawyer let slip the rather material fact that his client had some time back departed this earthly frame. [Minneapolis Star-Tribune “The Whistleblower” via ABA Journal] Ironically, the lawyer was suing over a credit report that had mistakenly reported his client as dead (back when he was alive). The lawyer, who had been disciplined seven other times, has now been barred from working for a year.
More: Discussion in comments at Legal Ethics Forum, including Prof. Monroe Freedman: “I disagree with [this kind of] result.”
March 24 roundup
- Jury orders Dutchess County, N.Y. school district to pay $1.25 million for not adequately addressing classmate harassment of “very dark skinned” half-Latino student; district protests that it had extensively pursued diversity/sensitivity programs [Poughkeepsie Journal]
- More unwisdom: “Oklahoma House of Representatives Proposes Ban on Use of Foreign Law in Oklahoma Courts” [Volokh, earlier on Arizona bill]
- Update: California environment czars won’t ban black cars, but watch out for what reflective-layer window mandates might do to cellphones and tollgate transponders [ShopFloor, earlier]
- “Firm Sanctioned for ‘Perfect Storm’ of Improper Practices in Debt Collection” [NYLJ]
- Critic of lie detector technology says U.K. libel law has silenced him [Times Online] Science journalist Simon Singh says fighting chiropractors’ libel suit is so draining that he’s quitting his column for the Guardian [Guardian, Citizen Media Law]
- Florida: father who lost wife, son in murder/suicide at gun range drops lawsuit against the store [Orlando Sentinel]
- Appeals court declines to overturn Mary Roberts sextortion conviction [MySanAntonio.com, opinion, related, earlier]
- Corporation for Public Newspapering? Stimulus bucks go to “public-interest investigative journalism” [SFWeekly]
Profitable ways of owing money
A Texas man has developed a lucrative sideline in suing debt collectors who come after him. [Kimberly Thorpe, Dallas Observer]
“Sewer service” alleged against New York debt collectors
The New York Times reports on allegations (earlier here, h/t Patrick) that some process servers falsely claimed to have served papers on defendants who subsequently lost default judgments. Per one law encyclopedia:
The tricks of serving process papers can, however, reach a point that the courts will not tolerate because they subvert the purpose of service or threaten to disrupt the administration of justice. The most intolerable abuse is called sewer service. It is not really service at all but is so named on the theory that the server tossed the papers into the sewer and did not attempt to deliver them to the proper party. Sewer service is a fraud on the court, and an attorney who knowingly participates in such a scheme can be disbarred.