Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘Houston’

Web-accessibility suits, revived

In San Francisco, federal judge Marilyn Hall Patel has allowed a lawsuit by the National Federation of the Blind to go forward against the Target Corp., charging that the retailer’s website, Target.com, is insufficiently “accessible” to blind users. Websites are considered accessible to blind users when they (e.g.) include summaries or transcripts for audio/video elements and alt-text for images, while avoiding designs that require users to rely on graphic elements for navigation. Disabled-rights groups had suffered a serious setback a few years ago in their legal campaign to enforce web accessibility, when a court ruled that Southwest Airlines was not liable for the inaccessibility of its online ticket reservation system to some handicapped users. However, Judge Patel (regarded as relatively liberal by the standards of the federal bench) distinguished that case on the grounds that the Target website had more of a “nexus” to physical Target stores than did the airline’s ticketing site. (“Target can be sued if Web site inaccessible to blind, judge says”, AP/Houston Chronicle, Sept. 7; Bob Egelko, “Ruling on Web site access for blind”, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 8; Sheri Qualters, “Discrimination Case Opens Door to Internet ADA Claims”, National Law Journal/Law.com, Sept. 28; Slashdot thread). The ruling, in PDF format, is here (courtesy Howard Bashman, who also rounds up other links).

Longtime readers will recall that I’ve been much involved in the web-accessibility controversy over the years. Some links: my May 2000 column for Reason on the subject; various posts on this site, 1999-2002; my House testimony of Feb. 2000; Jan. 8, 2004. And this site’s earlier coverage of the Target case provoked one of the biggest comments discussions ever (Feb. 28, 2006).

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But where are the customers’ Lamborghinis?

Houston plaintiff’s lawyer John O’Quinn, famed for his huge fee hauls in asbestos, tobacco and silicone breast implant cases, was the winning bidder at $500,000 at a Labor Day auction of a Lamborghini race car signed by celebrities. O’Quinn “also spent $335,000 on a Batmobile used in the film ‘Batman Forever.’ His other purchases at the auction included $250,000 for a 1938 Cadillac Town Car used by Pope Pius XII and $290,000 for a 1941 Packard limousine used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.” (AP/Houston Chronicle, Sept. 5; Houstonist, Sept. 5)(title allusion).

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Update: Diet-book author drops suit against Coke

The Coca-Cola Co. can rest easy: diet-book author Julia Havey has withdrawn her lawsuit (see Jul. 17) charging that one of the company’s product loyalty campaigns encourages kids to consume so many soft drinks that they could die. Havey declared herself satisfied that a Coke spokesman told the press that purchasers seeking to accumulate product credits could share the soft drinks with friends instead of being obliged to consume them all personally. Coke has said Havey’s lawsuit is a publicity ploy intended to call attention to her release of a new diet book. And this:

Havey said she wouldn’t be surprised if Coca-Cola sued her.

“The world of litigation is a crazy place,” she said.

(“Lawsuit Over ‘Lethal Doses’ Of Coca-Cola Dropped”, KPRC Houston, Aug. 2).

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Suit silences sub-stopping sonar

Now that litigators from the National Resources Defense Council have won a temporary restraining order from a federal judge under the terms of the National Environmental Policy Act, the U.S. Navy says it will employ less effective passive sonar, rather than active sonar, in exercises off Hawaii intended to simulate anti-submarine warfare. The NRDC complained that when the Department of Defense granted the Navy a temporary exemption from the Marine Mammals Protection Act for purposes of the exercises, it was trying to evade being sued. (” Whale lawsuit forces Navy to change sonar plan”, AP/CNN, Jul. 5). “The Navy, in a statement after the ruling, said sonar was ‘the only effective means we have to detect and quickly target hostile submarines and keep sea lanes open,’ and that sonar operators needed training at sea ‘to protect our nation’s ships, shores and allies.’…. The sonar use is meant to test whether quiet, diesel-powered submarines like those used by Iran, North Korea and China can be detected.” (Tony Perry, “Judge Temporarily Bars Navy From Using Sonar Said to Harm Whales”, Los Angeles Times, Jul. 4) “The Navy says it must practice hunting submarines near the Hawaiian islands because that’s the type of environment where it most likely will face an emerging threat of submarine warfare.” (AP/Houston Chronicle, Jul. 4)(& welcome readers from Michelle Malkin, who provides more background on the controversy).

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Party like you’re a tobacco lawyer

To celebrate Beaumont tobacco/asbestos lawyer Walter Umphrey’s seventieth birthday, fellow Texas Tobacco Five member John Eddie Williams took over a private aircraft hangar — Umphrey’s own, in fact — “moved out the two private jets and the helicopter, added on a two-story party tent and threw a no-holds-barred tribute to Umphrey.” Music was provided by Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Rotel and the Hot Tomatoes, performing on two different stages, and there was some pretty decent food too. Among the 400 attendees: gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn. (Shelby Hodge, “Wild soiree in hangar was Western to the hilt”, Houston Chronicle, May 14). Of course it was a mere kaffeeklatsch compared with a Willie Gary or Mark Lanier party.

Now back to your previously scheduled news story about excessive CEO compensation.

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More on Joe Jamail

A belated viewing of the now infamous deposition video (see Apr. 8) stirs memories for Prof. Bainbridge of a few highlights from the suave and distinguished career of zillionaire Houston litigator Joe “You could gag a maggot off a meat wagon” Jamail (Apr. 20). In comments, “Thief” of “Thief’s Den” points out that famously civility-challenged lawprof Brian Leiter holds the “Joseph D. Jamail Centennial Chair in Law” at the University of Texas, Austin.

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Vioxx coverage (and more) at Point of Law

For comprehensive coverage of this week’s verdicts in lawsuits against Merck, see Point of Law. In particular, Ted corrects reporters who keep passing on ill-informed assertions that the Cona/McDarby results are going to preclude Merck from raising its earlier defenses in the thousands of Vioxx cases yet to come, and that that New Jersey cases are being heard in “Merck’s home court“.

Other things you’ve been missing if you don’t check our sister site regularly:

* New regular contributors include Larry Ribstein (Ideoblog), Tom Kirkendall (Houston’s Clear Thinkers), and Sam Munson (Manhattan Institute);

* Theodore Dalrymple on a new history of vaccine litigation;

* Jim Copland on Rep. Cynthia McKinney and a class action on behalf of Capitol police;

* Ted on the Supreme Court’s recent Dabit decision on state-court securities suits (here and here); and on a new med-mal study;

* Michael Krauss on a tort suit in the U.S. against ExxonMobil over abuses by the Indonesian military;

* Jonathan B. Wilson on offer-of-judgment reform in Georgia (and more); and joint-and-several-liability reform in Pennsylvania, just vetoed by that state’s Gov. Ed Rendell;

* Posts by me nominating an Arizona lawprof for “the worst and most tendentious analogy in the history of the liability debate”; on doctors’ Good Samaritan liability; a ruling in the New York school finance case, an AG who dissents from his brethren on the tobacco deal; the Rhode Island lead paint verdict (here, here, etc.); Seventh Circuit judge Diane Sykes criticizes the Wisconsin Supreme Court; and lost-overtime suits on behalf of $400,000-a-year stockbrokers. And, of course, much much more — bookmark the site today.

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Overprosecuted

This is a bit off topic from civil litigation, but Tom Kirkendall, a Houston attorney following the Enron trial, makes the case that the Enron prosecution team or “task force” has been pushing the envelope of prosecution tactics, with disturbing results.

In an unprecedented move, the Task Force has named over 100 co-conspirators in the case. So, the potential definitely exists for substantial testimony about out-of-court statements going to the jury without the defense ever having an opportunity to cross-examine the persons who made the alleged statements. Moreover, fingering unindicted co-conspirators is an equally effective technique for the Task Force to prevent testimony that is favorable to the defense because persons named as unindicted co-conspirators are likely to the assert their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and thus, not be defense witnesses during the trial. Thus, the Task Force’s liberal use of the co-conspirator tag has a double-whammy effect — not only does it allow the Task Force to use out-of-court statements against defendants without having the declarant of the statements subjected to cross-examination, it has also effectively prevented previous Enron-related defendants from obtaining crucial exculpatory testimony from alleged co-conspirators who have elected to take the Fifth and declined to testify.

Kirkendall argues that despite these tactics, the task force botched the broadband prosecution, and already seem to be making mistakes in the Lay/Skilling trial. He has a lot of fun, in particular, with the task force’s indictment against Lay and Skilling, which was apparently so poorly written that the prosecution itself has petitioned the court not to let the indictment be referred to in cross examination. (Tom Kirkendall, Houston’s Clear Thinkers, Jan 27)

Almost makes you nostalgic for Marcia Clark. But probably not Janet Reno. Over at CoyoteBlog, I wonder whether NJ prosecutors are more interested in upholding the law or getting front page pub in the NHL betting case.

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Jury selection, while you wait

The Lay-Skilling Enron criminal trial will be one of the highest-profile Houston trials in many years, but in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Sim Lake the process of jury selection was over within a day. That should be a lesson to judges elsewhere — especially in state-court proceedings — who allow lawyers to turn voir dire into a manipulative process that can last weeks or even months. Tom Kirkendall and Norm Pattis comment.

P.S. The Wall Street Journal’s news side covers the issue today: Paul Davies and John Emshwiller, “Split Verdict on Selecting Juries Quickly”, Feb. 1 (sub only). Washington U. (St. Louis) law dean Kent Syverud says, “I think Enron ought to be a wake-up call to show everyone that it can be done”. Among those complaining of a too-short process is Christopher Seeger, the attorney for the plaintiff in the New Jersey Vioxx case recently won by Merck, who “said the case was lost in the jury selection. ‘If I had an opportunity to flesh out some of the biases I believe I would’ve been able to talk some of those people off the jury'”. P.P.S. The New Yorker has more about the jury questionnaires and consultants (Mimi Swartz, “Talk of the Town: Enron Multiple Choice”, Jan. 30).

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