Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘Detroit’

TV anchor claims right to host evangelical show on side

Frank Turner, a 5 p.m. anchor for WXYZ-TV in Detroit, has filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against his employer “for refusing him permission to host an evangelical radio program in his spare time,” thus violating his right to religious accommodation. The station disagrees:

Station officials, while not wanting to comment on Turner’s case directly, say they have exclusive contracts with their on-air talent and never allow anchors or others to work on competing broadcast outlets.

“We spend millions of dollars a year promoting our on-air talent and we want to have them working exclusively for Channel 7,” said Grace Gilchrist, the station’s vice president and general manager.

(Paul Egan, “TV anchor’s choice: God or Ch. 7 job”, Detroit News, Mar. 31)(via Romenesko).

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Update: Chrysler asks for Fabila lawyer to be disbarred

(Earlier coverage: Jul. 10, 2003 and links therein.) Two of the three lawyers behind a fraud where plaintiffs’ lawyers falsified evidence and tried to bribe police officers to hide the fact that their client fell asleep at the wheel are still practicing law. The attorneys still haven’t paid the sanction against them. In a radio interview for DaimlerChrysler, Steve Hantler calls for more Texas legislature oversight over the bar. (David Shepardson, “Chrysler takes fight to lawyers”, Detroit News, Mar. 21).

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“Save auto industry jobs by reforming legal system”

That’s the call of today’s Detroit News editorial. “If the goal is to protect consumers, as tort lawyers claim, wouldn’t it be better to seek tougher federal standards rather than sue the people who research, invent and bring to market the products that consumers want? The obvious answer is yes, but that would eliminate a source of continuing revenue for plaintiff’s lawyers.”

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Lawyers preparing soft-drink suit

“Richard Daynard, a Massachusetts law professor who made his name working as a consultant on class actions against tobacco companies, is part of a broad effort by both private attorneys and nonprofit groups to sue Atlanta-based Coca-Cola and other soft drink companies for selling high-calorie drinks in schools.” (Caroline Wilbert, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nov. 29; Caroline E. Mayer, “Lawyer coalition targets soft drink manufacturers”, Washington Post/Detroit News, Dec. 4; Todd Zywicki and vast comment section; Colossus of Rhodey). In the Boston Globe magazine, contributor Michael Blanding writes supportively of “a national legal movement to make soft drinks the next tobacco” (Oct. 30).

For more on the search for ways to blame business for our collective struggle with the waistline, see many entries in our Eat, Drink and Be Merry section. More on caffeine “addiction” theories: Aug. 18-20, 2000, Jun. 1, 2004. More on vending machine suits: Jul. 3, 2003. And as regular readers know, we’ve been covering Prof. Daynard’s activities for a long time; see Apr. 21-23, 2000 and many others.

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Update: Feds raid Fieger’s office in campaign laundering probe

Getting wilder by the week: “Federal agents raided the law office of Geoffrey Fieger late Wednesday looking for evidence that he laundered $35,000 in campaign contributions to the John Edwards 2004 presidential campaign through his employees.” (David Ashenfelter and Joe Swickard, “Federal agents raid Fieger’s office”, Detroit Free Press, Dec. 1). “A former associate in trial attorney Geoffrey Fieger’s firm said Friday that he and his wife each gave $2,000 to Democrat John Edwards’ 2004 presidential campaign on the promise that they would be reimbursed by the firm.” Joseph Bird, an attorney later fired by Fieger’s firm, “said he had ‘no clue’ at the time that it was illegal for employers to instruct people to give to a campaign and then reimburse them.” (Sarah Karush, “Lawyer says firm demanded political contributions to Edwards”, AP/Winston-Salem Journal, Dec. 2; same story with more details at Detroit News site, Dec. 4). For earlier evidence suggesting the likelihood of laundering in trial lawyers’ donations to Edwards, see Apr. 28-29 and May 8, 2003. For more on Fieger, see Nov. 17, Nov. 10 and links from there.

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“Cox: Fieger tried to blackmail me about affair”

Further fireworks from the frequently fascinating Fieger files:

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox accused a potential 2006 political opponent, high profile Oakland County lawyer Geoffrey Fieger, of blackmail Wednesday, claiming that Fieger threatened to reveal his extramarital affair if Cox did not drop an investigation into the lawyer’s alleged campaign finance violations.

(Dawson Bell and L.L. Brasier, Detroit Free Press, Nov. 9). For more on Fieger, whose activities have long been a mainstay of this site, see Mar. 13, Oct. 24, and many others.

More on the story: David Shepardson and Mike Martindale, “Sex scandal”, Detroit News, Nov. 10 (check sidebar for over-the-top statement by Fieger); L.L. Brasier and Patricia Montemurri, “Figure in Fieger-Cox sex scandal has criminal past”, Detroit Free Press, Nov. 10); Dawson Bell and L.L. Brasier, “Cox: Fieger made threat over affair”, Detroit Free Press, Nov. 10 (“one of the most bizarre events in recent Michigan political history”):

Fieger has a long history of stirring up trouble, both for himself and others, and sometimes on a personal level.

In 1998, when he was the Democratic nominee for governor, he suggested that his opponent — then-Gov. John Engler — was not the father of triplet daughters born to his wife, Michelle, in 1994.

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Court: workers’ comp covers hockey-fight injury

Confirming every suspicion about ice hockey:

A former minor-league hockey player who injured his shoulder in a fight he claimed his coach told him to start is entitled to workers’ compensation, a Virginia appeals court ruled.

The Virginia Court of Appeals upheld a Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission finding that “fighting is an integral part of the game of hockey” and that Ty A. Jones’ injury arose in the course of his employment as an “enforcer.”

(Sonja Barisic, “Court: Workers’ comp covers hockey player”, AP/Detroit News, Nov. 4).

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Geoffrey Fieger update

You will recall that Geoffrey Fieger’s modus operandi is to engage in outrageous behavior to get judges thrown off of cases and otherwise accuse judges who rule against him or his clients of misconduct (Nov. 20; Mar. 24). Now, in the aftermath of Hollins v. Jordan (Nov. 20 and links therein), Fieger is attacking an Ohio probate court judge who is daring to try to protect the settlement of the brain-damaged and legally incompetent plaintiff from Fieger’s machinations.

“This is all about intimidation,” [Judge] Corrigan said. He accused the plaintiffs’ out-of-town lawyers of “forum-shopping” to take the case away from him and give it to a Michigan judge more acquiescent to their wishes.

(James F. McCarty, “$30 million verdict spawns new legal battle”, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Oct. 9). This dispute is over a $1.5 million pretrial settlement with another defendant; the $30 million verdict is also on appeal.

Back in Michigan, Fieger is offering to spend millions of dollars of his own money to run for Michigan Attorney General on the Democratic ticket. (Steven Harmon, “Fieger ready to pour own cash into attorney general fight”, Grand Rapids Press, Oct. 21). Fortunately for the Democratic Party, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of support for the idea. (Kathleen Gray, “Fieger considers running for state attorney general”, Detroit Free Press, Oct. 12). John Engler easily beat Fieger, 62 percent to 38 percent, when Fieger ran for governor in 1998.

The targeting of the incumbent attorney general, Mike Cox, may be related to “an ongoing criminal investigation of a complaint from Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land about alleged filing irregularities on $400,000 of Fieger-financed spending opposing the successful 2004 re-election of Republican Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman.” (George Weeks, “Fieger isn’t faking bid for attorney general”, Detroit News, Oct. 13). Fieger has demonstrated his misunderstanding of principles of federal jurisdiction with a federal lawsuit against Cox and Land in an attempt to squelch the campaign finance investigation. (AP, Oct. 13).

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