- Picture of farmer with goose appears on greeting card, he wants $7.5 million [Roanoke Times; earlier]
- More class actions filed over Apple iPhone [Ars Technica on roaming and battery claims, O’Grady’s PowerPage, iPhoneWorld; earlier]
- L.A. Times quotes attorney Stephen Yagman on prison overcrowding, but forgets to mention that he was lately convicted of thirteen felonies [Patterico]
- Bad idea watch: compulsory national service [Somin @ Volokh]
- Doing well representing the little guy: Gerry Spence lists his Wyoming residence for sale at $35 million [WSJ/Chicago Daily Herald]
- “Appropriate”, not “perfect”, justice needed: “We simply have to stop killing litigants with kindness,” says chief judge of Australia’s largest state [The Australian]
- Toddler killed after wandering into heavy traffic, trucker should have been more on guard against such a thing happening [Salt Lake Tribune]
- Pennsylvania pro se litigant sues Google, says it spells his social security number upside down [Ambrogi] More: Coyote says “Up next, the owner of Social Security number 71077345 sues Shell Oil for the same reason.”
- Once billed as “King of Torts”, Miami asbestos lawyer faces fifteen years behind bars for stealing $13 million from clients [Sun-Sentinel]
- Groom sues bride, saying she took the ring and presents and never got the wedding paperwork straightened out leaving them legally unmarried [ClickOnDetroit]
- Surgical resident on the hook for $23 million in Wisconsin case; she was the only one of the docs involved not covered by damage limits [Journal Sentinel via KevinMD]
Posts Tagged ‘Detroit’
“Granholm’s picks cheer trial lawyers”
“A trio of judicial appointments announced this week underline [Mich. Gov. Jennifer] Granholm’s determination to temper [former Gov. John] Engler’s judicial revolution — and reward Michigan’s plaintiff’s bar, which has been among her most important sources of financial support.” Of three trial lawyers Granholm is naming to judgeships, two have served as board members of the Michigan Trial Lawyers Association. (Brian Dickerson, Detroit Free Press, Aug. 22).
Geoffrey Fieger indicted
Longtime Overlawyered favorite Geoffrey Fieger, a fixture in Michigan politics and personal injury law for many years, and his law partner Vernon (Ven) Johnson were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of unlawfully “conspiring to make more than $125,000 in illegal contributions to presidential candidate John Edwards’ 2004 campaign”. Fieger, who’s being represented by Gerry Spence, says it’s all a plot by Republicans in the U.S. Department of Justice. (Oakland Press; Detroit News, more; Detroit Free Press, more)(& Pattis).
Who Wins From Lawsuit Abuse? Hint: It’s Not You or Me.
Some in the news media and elsewhere would have us believe that recent legal reforms have made it a tough time to be a plaintiff’s attorney.
Sounds good, but nobody told that to the trial bar.
The fact is, tort costs in the U.S. jumped 46% in just the pasts five years. As noted in this space yesterday, a new study by the Pacific Research Institute reports that the total direct and indirect costs of lawsuits are a staggering $865 billion (for context, the U.S. spends only about $108 billion a year fighting the war in Iraq).
And one need look no further than a few headlines of late to see our lawsuit happy culture is alive and well. Everyone knows about the $54 million “pantsuit” — that is but one of countless, lesser known meritless suits happening on any given day. Consider:
· “Injured Kid’s Mom Sues ‘Slide Fool’ Coach” A 12-year-old Little League player was injured sliding into second base and his mother filed a lawsuit claiming poor coaching.
· “Perfume Lawsuit.” A Detroit city employee is suing because she claims her co-worker’s perform makes her sick.
· “Cheerleader’s family to sue school district” A Texas couple plans to sue their local school board because their daughter did not make the cheerleading squad.
You and I pay for these abusive lawsuits through higher consumer costs, higher taxes, lost jobs and stifled innovation. And the trial lawyers? With apologies to Mark Twain, rumors of their deaths have been greatly exaggerated. They are alive and well…just ask the Little League coach, the perfume wearer or the Cheerleading captain. I wonder who will be next?
Another Detroit co-worker’s-perfume suit
Susan McBride, who works in the planning department for the city of Detroit, is suing the city “alleging her co-worker’s strong perfume has made it impossible for her to do her job. …McBride alleges the city should accommodate her disability by prohibiting people from wearing perfume in the workplace.” As the Detroit News reports, and as we noted at the time, this isn’t the first time Detroit has been the scene of perfume-in-the-workplace litigation:
In 2005, Detroit country music deejay Erin Weber won a $10.6 million jury verdict against her employer, WYCD (99.5 FM) after she alleged she was sickened by a fellow radio host’s perfume.
But U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh reduced the award to $814,000, saying it was not clear from the evidence that Weber had a perfume allergy.
(Paul Egan, “Worker sues over co-worker’s perfume”, Detroit News, Jul. 4; “Employee Sues City Over Co-Worker’s Perfume, Seeks Ban on Scents”, AP/FoxNews.com, Jul. 5).
In Detroit, protected road menaces
The city of Detroit’s Department of Transportation, which runs 500 buses, budgeted a whopping $16.1 million this year to cover lawsuits and injury claims arising from its operations (yes, that amounts to $32,000 per bus per year). The city is finding it unusually difficult to reduce those numbers:
Matt Allen, spokesman for Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, explained that Detroit is self-insured, which means money is set aside annually in an account earmarked for settlements, damages and other mishaps involving city-owned vehicles and drivers.
Meanwhile, the city, particularly the Detroit Department of Transportation, is struggling with union rules and arbitration cases that make it difficult to terminate even the most accident-prone drivers.
In one case, a bus driver was involved in 30 mishaps, hit a bicyclist resulting in a $1.4 million lawsuit settlement and, in a separate incident, had her driver’s license suspended. The city tried to fire her, according to records, but an arbitrator ruled she had to be rehired.
(David Josar, “Workers’ crashes cost Detroit”, Detroit News, Jun. 11).
Woman Deems Starburst “Dangerously Chewy”
Next time you feel like living on the edge, there’s no need to go sky diving or ski jumping. Simply bite into a Starburst fruit chew, cross your fingers, and hang on for dear life…
Michigan Woman Claims Starburst Candies Are Dangerously Chewy in Lawsuit
Starburst Fruit Chews are exactly as their name would indicate: chewy. But one Michigan woman says the candies are so chewy, they should come with a warning label.
Victoria McArthur, of Romero, Mich., is suing Starbursts’ parent company, Mars Inc., for more than $25,000 for “permanent personal injuries” she claims she sustained after biting into one of their yellow candy in 2005.
…
I think we need to take whatever steps necessary to keep this woman away from jawbreakers.
Mraz v. Chrysler: an exchange with the plaintiffs’ attorneys
You might recall the $55 million verdict in Los Angeles, where Chrysler was held 75% liable for an accident where a defective automatic transmission in a 1992 Dodge Dakota, a failure of the truck owner to respond to multiple product recalls, and a truck driver’s failure to (1) turn off the ignition before exiting a vehicle; (2) engage a parking brake; and (3) not attempt to jump into a moving vehicle resulted in the tragic death of a young longshoreman with a wife and children. Plaintiffs’ attorneys Stephen Cassidy and Scott Nealey took issue with our post. The lengthy exchange begins in the comments section and update to our post and continues over email. Let’s just say I wasn’t persuaded, but judge for yourself.
The Richard Mraz case: $55M in Los Angeles Dodge Dakota trial
In April 2004, 38 year-old Richard Mraz got out of his employer’s 1992 Dodge Dakota while it was still running. He didn’t set the parking brake, and the vehicle started moving when it shifted itself from park into reverse. Mraz tried to jump into the moving vehicle, and suffered fatal head injuries for his trouble.
Chrysler admitted the vehicle had a defect that caused the automatic transmission to shift from park to reverse in rare circumstances. Thing is, they admitted it when they sent twelve separate recall notices to the Dakota owner, Mraz’s employer, who ignored them all. But, Mraz’s lawyers said, Chrysler spent time in internal discussions deciding whether to recall the vehicle before actually doing so, so they should be punished, pointing to an internal memo debating the question as a “smoking gun.”
A Los Angeles County jury agreed, finding $5.2 million in compensatory damages for the longshoreman’s death, and attributed 75% to DaimlerChrysler (10% for Mraz’s multiple safety errors, and 15% for his employers’ ignoring the recall notices), and issuing $50 million in punitive damages, all to Chrysler. Most press accounts failed to mention the recall notices or Mraz’s negligence, just regurgitating the plaintiff’s lawyer’s account. (David Shepardson, “DCX loses suit in Dodge owner’s death”, Detroit News, Mar. 8). More on California auto product liability cases.
Interestingly, at least one law firm has already purchased the Google search term “Richard Mraz.”
Update: $875K award to ejected slots player
We reported Jul. 25 and Aug. 4, 2003 on the case of Stella (or Estella; accounts vary) Romanski, who was banished from the Motor City Casino in Detroit after taking and playing a nickel from an unattended slot machine. The casino said it was enforcing a policy against “slot walking”, the practice of roaming unused machines in search of overlooked coins, but a jury awarded Romanski $875,000 in punitive damages. Reader F.L. now calls our attention to the record (PDF) of U.S. Supreme Court actions taken Oct. 2, 2006, which shows that the high court denied the writ of certiorari sought by the casino.