Over a dissent from two of its justices, the Illinois Supreme Court has struck down a law purporting to establish collectivized liability for drug overdoses: “Illinois state law allows family members of people who overdose to sue anyone within a given geographic area who sold or distributed the same kind of drug. Illinois Supreme Court: It violates due process for a plaintiff to recover a lot of money from a person who had no connection at all to the drug user. Dissent: Although the law ‘pushes the boundary of civil liability by dispensing with traditional notions of causation,’ we’re meant to be more deferential to the legislature under the rational basis test.'” [John K. Ross, IJ “Short Circuit” on Wingert v. Hradisky (citing parallel “market share liability” doctrines; “At least 18 states and one territory of the United States have adopted the Model Act or some version of [the Model Drug Dealer Liability Act]”)]
Posts Tagged ‘deep pocket’
April 10 roundup
- Waco biker prosecutions — a dragnet affair in which many bystanders were hit with charges, kept in jail on unaffordable bail, and lost their jobs — end after four years with all charges dropped; many deaths resulted from police fire [Brian Doherty, Reason; earlier and more]
- “Lawsuit: You did business with someone who did business with someone who committed a crime against me, so you’re also liable.” [Ted Frank describing suit against SalesForce alleging that its business management software assisted sexually oriented online business BackPage; Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- “Our waterways policy is crony capitalism disguised as patriotism” [George Will, syndicated/Atlanta Journal Constitution] “The Jones Act Fleet: High Costs and Limited Capabilities” [Colin Grabow, Cato at Liberty] More on the maritime protectionism law, all from Grabow at Cato: Sen. Mike Lee introduces repeal bill; extending the law further? counting the costs for Puerto Rico; production of new ship no cause for celebration. And on East Coast freight traffic congestion [Dan Ikenson and Colin Grabow, New York Post]
- If you were born yesterday, you may be the target reader for a Gannett/USA Today and Arizona Republic piece attacking model state laws, the Goldwater Institute, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) [critical threads by Julian Sanchez and Tim Sandefur]
- On attorneys’ fees, “The English Rule and the American Rule” [Federalist Society Policy Brief video with R. Hugh Lumpkin]
- Big Lawyers On Campus: “How Class-Action Lawyers Help Their Alma Maters” [James Copland, Bloomberg Opinion on cy pres practice; earlier here, here, etc.]
Fifth Circuit: Apple not liable for crash of driver reading texts
“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has a rejected a products liability claim against Apple alleging that a woman’s neurobiological response to looking at a text message on her iPhone 5 while behind the wheel was the cause of a car crash that killed two people and paralyzed a child.” [John Council/Texas Lawyer, Tim Cushing/TechDirt; Meador v. Apple]
Liability roundup
- $101 million in Texas could be biggest trucking damages award in history; crash victim had “told the responding police officer he was not injured and continued on with his journey” [John Kingston, FreightWaves]
- “Lawyers For Texas Counties In Opioid Cases May Not Have Valid Contracts” [Daniel Fisher, earlier on Texas scramble here, here, here, and especially here]
- Arbitration defended [Ross A. Marchand, Economics21]
- “Madden NFL 19 Jacksonville shooting victim sues Electronic Arts, claiming negligence” [Cyrus Farivar. ArsTechnica]
- “Prosecutors Are Said to Issue Subpoenas Over Pelvic-Mesh Surgery Financing” [Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, New York Times, earlier and more]
- Federal courts split on whether SCOTUS’s Bristol-Myers Squibb limits on personal jurisdiction apply to class actions [Bradley, Akin Gump, Carlton Fields]
Deep pockets to blame after shopping cart dropped onto bystander
In 2011, at the East River Plaza mall in East Harlem, two youngsters tossed a shopping cart “from a 79-foot-high landing outside a Target store,” nearly killing Marion Hedges below. Hedges and her family “sued Target, the mall and its security company for negligence in 2011, saying the businesses ignored past incidents involving kids fooling around with carts.” A jury has now awarded the family $45.2 million. “The Hedgeses previously settled with Target for a confidential sum. The six-person jury found the teens 10 percent responsible for Hedges’ injuries while assigning 65 percent of the fault to the mall and 25 percent to Planned Security Services.” [Julia Marsh and Kalah Siegel, New York Post] In 2015 the New York Post reported on the further extralegal adventures of one of the only-a-little-bit-responsible teen attackers, who had been sentenced to 6 to 16 months in a group home as punishment.
Pickup crosses interstate median, strikes oncoming vehicle. Guess who pays $89.6 million?
Driver of pickup truck loses control on Texas interstate, crosses median and strikes oncoming semi-trailer truck. Among passengers in pickup truck are two kids, one killed and one horribly injured. Driver of oncoming semi was in own lane, did not lose control, and was driving under speed limit. Plaintiff’s creative theory: there might have been ice on the road, the Werner Enterprises manual tells drivers not to drive during icy conditions; so the driver should not have been on the road at all, and if he hadn’t it would have averted that particular collision. Werner, in its defense: not only was evidence contradictory as to whether conditions were icy or just damp, but driver guidelines do not somehow create legally binding obligations to third parties or prove negligence that could not be shown otherwise. Jury to Werner Enterprises: pay $89.6 million. [Michael O’Connor, Omaha World-Herald]
New floor for nuisance settlements?
Presidential attorney and former NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani, on the Stormy Daniels payment [ABC News reporting on-air comments]:
“I never thought $130,000 — I know this sounds funny to people there at home — I never thought $130,000 was a real payment; it’s a nuisance payment,” Giuliani said. “People don’t go away for $130,000.”
“Man sues 10-year-old girl after jogging into her bike”
British Columbia, Canada: “A man who sued a young girl and her grandparents after he was injured when he jogged into the back wheel of her bike has lost his case in B.C. Supreme Court.” The jogger “also included the girl’s grandparents, Wendy and Patrick Marlow, in the lawsuit on the basis that they didn’t properly teach her to ride a bike safely. The judgment also clears them of liability.” [Maryse Zeidler, CBC]
Liability roundup
- Will states return us to the days of wide-open forum-shopping through the legal fiction of “consent by registration to do business”? A 50-state survey [James Beck, Drug and Device Law] “Big Fights Ahead Over Where Class Actions Can Be Filed” [Martina Barash, Bloomberg Big Law Business]
- Herr’s potato chips sued by prolific New York City lawyer over how full its bags of chips are. [John O’Brien, Legal NewsLine/Forbes] “Ridiculous class-action lawsuits are costing you tons of money” [Kathianne Boniello, New York Post]
- Ireland: “Burglar who injured genitals during shop break in sues shopkeeper” [Alexandra Richards, Evening Standard (U.K.)]
- To propel TCPA suits, professional plaintiffs find tactical ways to revoke text permission [Michael Daly, Meredith Slawe, and John Yi (Drinker Biddle), National Law Review] “Phoney Lawsuits: Polish Immigrant Concludes Six-Figure Run By Settling 31st Lawsuit” [Karin Kidd, Forbes/LNL, earlier]
- Missouri getting to be hotspot for high-stakes litigation [Jim Copland, Manhattan Institute “Trial Lawyers Inc.”]
- Courts and plaintiffs engaged in deep pockets jurisprudence seldom acknowledge that’s what they’re doing [Victor Schwartz, Washington Legal Foundation]
Concert booker not liable for patron’s injury
“The Alabama Supreme Court says a man can’t go forward with his lawsuit against a company involved in booking a death metal concert where he was injured.” The plaintiff said he was thrown to the ground during the Mobile event and suffered serious spinal injuries. “The decision says ICM Partners received a $250 commission for booking the band but had no other involvement.” [Insurance Journal; compare successful claims against advertisers, broadcasters, and others following the 2003 Rhode Island Station Nightclub fire]