Is that enough, without more, to subject you to the jurisdiction of a Florida federal court in a resulting defamation lawsuit? [Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion; Citizen Media Law]
Posts Tagged ‘forum shopping’
NYT travel columnist comments on air crash, gets sued in Brazil
Joe Sharkey, a well-known travel columnist for the New York Times, was aboard an Embraer business jet in Brazil that collided with another plane but managed to land safely although all 157 aboard the other plane died. Sharkey later discussed the episode on one of his blogs, and was quite critical of Brazilian air traffic control and some others involved in the affair. Now, according to an Oct. 16 press release, the widow of one of those who died on the other plane is suing Sharkey for having “launched personal attacks against Brazil’s President, air traffic controllers and other notorious individuals and, repeatedly and piercingly, started offending Brazilians indiscriminately”. “Only amends will restore the widow’s dignity,” states Rosane Gutjhar’s lawyer, Oscar Fleischfresser, who may have one of the best lawyer surnames ever (Fleischfresser = carnivore)(Aero-News.net, Oct. 21; JREF Forum; O Estado de Sao Paolo/ATC Brasil). In a presumably unrelated sidelight, a federal court this summer turned down an attempt by Brazilian survivors to file injury claims for the crash in the U.S., ruling that they should instead be heard in Brazil, where the awards are likely to be much lower.
Latest issue of Class Action Watch
The latest issue of the Federalist Society’s Class Action Watch has many articles of interest to Overlawyered readers:
- William E. Thomson & Kahn A. Scolnick on the Exxon Shipping case;
- Jimmy Cline on Arkansas’s disregard for class action certification standards;
- Jim Copland on the “Colossus” class action;
- Laurel Harbour on the New Jersey Supreme Court decision on medical monitoring class actions;
- Lyle Roberts on lead-counsel selection in securities class actions;
- Mark A. Behrens & Frank Cruz-Alvarez on the lead paint public nuisance decision by the Rhode Island Supreme Court; and
- Andrew Grossman, extensively citing to Overlawyered and my brief in discussing the Grand Theft Auto class action settlement rejection.
No N.Y. forum for Egypt terror plaintiffs
“Israeli and Russian victims of a 2004 terror attack on an Egyptian Hilton cannot sue the hotel in the United States, in part because a judge believed they were seeking a higher recovery from a New York jury sitting blocks from the World Trade Center site. Southern District Judge Peter Leisure found that the plaintiffs, none of whom were Americans, may have been engaging in forum shopping in Niv v. Hilton Hotels Corp., 06 Civ. 7839, and he dismissed the case under the doctrine of forum non conveniens.” (Mark Hamblett, “N.Y. Forum Denied for Suit Over Terror Attack in Egypt”, New York Law Journal, Nov. 19).
October 22 roundup
- Bulgarians employ “decoy lawyers” to get around corruption in official bureaus [Cowen, MargRev]
- Forum-shopping vol. MMMCCXII: Taiwan company claims Apple broke California unfair-practices law so of course it sues in Texarkana [AppleInsider]
- “U.S. produces far too many lawyers for society to absorb” and one reason is that law schools want warm seats on chairs [Greenfield]
- Second Circuit: lawyers can’t buy their way out of sanctions for filing meritless lawsuit [Krauss, PoL]
- Some reasons furor over free speech in Canada is relevant this side of the border [Bernstein @ Volokh]
- We’re quoted on the subject of those websites that offer “point-and-click access to trial lawyers” [Business First of Columbus]
- Tight lid kept on study of disposable diapers’ environmental impact since findings were … inconvenient [Times Online (U.K.) via Stuttaford]
- Judge backs Kentucky’s bid to seize domains of online gambling sites, implications for everyone else [Balko, “Hit and Run”; earlier here and here]
“The Inverted Federalism of Grider v. Compaq”
As good an argument for the Class Action Fairness Act as any: Trial lawyers sued Compaq in Texas over an allegedly defective disk controller, though none of the plaintiffs had ever suffered a malfunction or a loss of data, alleging a violation of Texas consumer fraud law on behalf of a nationwide class. No dice: the Texas Supreme Court threw out the case, noting that Texas law did not permit the sort of nationwide class action contemplated by the plaintiffs. End of story? Nope: the same trial lawyers filed the same complaint again, this time in Oklahoma state court, and asked the Oklahoma state court to apply Texas law to a nationwide class. “Sure thing!” the court rubber-stamped–applying an ersatz version of Texas law rejected by Texas courts. The forum-shopping was able to extract $40 million in attorneys’ fees from a questionable coupon settlement, as an Overlawyered post noted August 6. The Summer 2008 issue of State Court Docket Watch includes my essay discussing why this is a constitutionally problematic set of decisions by Oklahoma courts–written before, though published after, the Anthony Caso analysis for WLF.
Compaq settles floppy glitch class action
Readers may recall the landmark case in which laptop maker Toshiba agreed to a notional $2 billion settlement (and a very crisp and real $147 million in plaintiff’s legal fees) to resolve charges that its laptops could under certain extreme conditions result in loss of user data, although no real-world customer appeared to have experienced the problem. Copycat lawsuits followed against other laptop makers, the supposed glitch being by no means unique to Toshiba, and at last report (May 11, 2001 and Aug. 14, 2004) Compaq had enjoyed much success in beating suits of this sort filed by Texas lawyers.
Apparently its luck didn’t hold up forever, though, because in May Judge Tom Lucas of the Cleveland County, Oklahoma District Court approved a nominal $640 million settlement of laptop glitch claims against Compaq and its parent, Hewlett-Packard, with $40 million in attorneys’ fees to various attorneys, including Reaud, Morgan & Quinn, the Beaumont, Texas firm of Wayne Reaud. (Tom Blakey, “Local court OKs $640M class settlement in computer lawsuit”, Norman Transcript, May 16)(settlement website).
According to a paper by Anthony Caso for the Washington Legal Foundation (PDF), the change in fortunes owed much to some successful forum-shopping. It seems plaintiffs in the first rounds had attempted to form a nationwide class action on the premise that the consumer law of Texas, Compaq’s home state, could properly be applied to the claims of customers in all 50 states. The Texas courts, however, wound up rejecting that premise.
…instead of taking no for an answer from the Texas Supreme Court – the final arbiter of Texas law, the class action attorneys convinced an Oklahoma court to rule that the case should be a nationwide class action, and that class action status could be premised on the idea that Texas consumer law applied to all of the claims. Ignoring the ruling of the Texas Supreme Court, the Oklahoma courts agreed with this argument and certified the case as a nationwide class action.
Unfortunately for all of us, the United States Supreme Court declined to review the case.
And the $40 million in fees? Reaud & co. would have nothing but the best talent in to bless the fees, per the Norman Transcript account:
Testimony at the April 29 hearing in Cleveland County District Court included that of Arthur R. Miller, a renowned legal scholar and commentator on civil litigation, copyright and privacy laws. Miller, a professor to the faculty of the New York University School of Law and the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies, estimated the coupon redemption rate would be as high as 30 percent — more than double the average redemption rate in settlement cases.
And if actual coupon redemptions come in far below a 30 percent rate — not that we’re necessarily ever going to find out — Prof. Miller’s reputation will suffer, right?
More: Beck & Herrmann call attention to an automotive class action case (Masquat v. DaimlerChrysler, alleging defect in rack and pinion steering systems) that also took advantage of Oklahoma’s willingness to apply manufacturer’s-home-state law to fuel nationwide class actions. They write that because of that distinctive handling of choice of law, “class action plaintiffs’ counsel now gravitate to Oklahoma as moths to light.”
June 18 roundup
- Are plaintiffs’ attorneys judge-shopping by filing and dismissing and refiling identical class-action complaints in the highly-publicized restaurant menu case against Applebee’s? [Cal Biz Lit]
- You won’t be surprised that most of the nine worst business stories picked by BMI involve spoon-feeding by plaintiffs’ attorneys to a credulous press. [Business & Media Institute]
- “There’s no justification whatsoever for the agency to take any kind of action,” said Julie Vallese, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. “The claims being made about the dangers of shower curtains are phantasmagorical. It’s ridiculous.” Yeah, but the lawsuits are bound to happen anyway. [NY Daily News]
- Jack Thompson stays in the news when U.S. Marshals pay him a visit after a letter to a judge. [GamePolitics (h/t J.L.)]
- “A City lawyer who is demanding £19 million in compensation for work-place bullying faked a nervous breakdown to secure a larger payout, an employment tribunal was told.” [London Times via ATL]
- Did defensive medicine almost kill a patient when doctor worries more about potential lawsuit than whether nurse could save patient’s life? Heck if I know, but the underlying medicine is debated in the comments. [EM Physician blog]
- Hair-stylist fined £4,000 for “hurt feelings” after refusing to hire a Muslim stylist who wouldn’t show her hair at work. [Daily Mail (h/t Slim); earlier on Overlawyered]
- Disturbing turn in the Adam Reposa disciplinary hearing over his obscene gesture in court: state bar introduces satirical magazine as evidence because they “thought it was indicative of Reposa’s lack of respect for the law and the court system.” [Texas Lawyer/law.com] Mind you, this is the same Texas legal discipline system that refused to take action against Fred Baron and gave a slap on the wrist to the lawyers who tried to fake evidence in a product liability suit against Chrysler. As long as your priorities are straight.
Knology arbitration clause
Overlawyered favorite Justinian Lane thinks he’s discovered a smoking gun in the Knology arbitration clause:
All disputes arising out of or relating to this agreement (other than actions for the collections of debts you owe us) including, without limitation, any dispute based on any service or advertising of the services related thereto, shall be resolved by final and binding arbitration… (Emphasis added.)
Update: Rose Marie Munoz v. Ford
We were curious what happened to the case of Rose Marie Munoz v. Ford, the $29 million verdict against an auto manufacturer when a 10-year-old recalled Firestone tire failed and a passenger who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt was ejected. Our original post had provoked a response from the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Roger S. Braugh, Jr.