Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘Long Island’

In the New York Times

I’ve got an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times (in the zoned Long Island weekly edition) on the Shinnecock Indians’ recent lawsuit asserting land claims over much of Southampton, N.Y. Readers of this space will not be surprised to learn that I take a dim view of the claim. (Walter Olson, “This Land Is My Land”, Jun. 26). For more, see my City Journal treatment of the issue, and, on this blog, most recently Jun. 13 and Jun. 19 (& welcome Michelle Malkin readers).

More: it’s reported there’s dissension among tribe members about the action (William L. Hamilton, “Casino Interest in Land Bid Divides Tribe in Hamptons”, New York Times, Jun. 26). And according to the Washington Post, while the lawsuit looms as a serious hassle for some in Southampton, the wealthiest of the wealthy are paying little heed: “The high-net-worth crowd doesn’t really worry about this sort of thing. That’s for the locals,” says Hampton Sheet publisher Joan Jedell. Insecurity of property as a hazard? That’s only for the little people. (Michael Powell, “Old Money and Old Grievances Clash in Haven of the Very Rich”, Jun. 25).

(Bumped 6/27, a.m.)

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Update: staking the Shinnecocks

On the day the Shinnecock Indian tribe filed the first of an expected series of lawsuits laying claim to wide swaths of the Hamptons (see Jun. 13), the tribe disclosed that its courtroom offensive was being underwritten by wealthy Detroit casino investors Marian Ilitch, who with her husband Michael founded Little Caesars Pizza and since then has gone on to purchase baseball’s Detroit Tigers as well as the city’s Red Wings hockey team, and real estate developer Michael Malik. “Gateway Funding Associates, a company backed by [Ilitch and Malik], signed an agreement with the tribe more than a year ago to pay for the lawsuit and other ‘economic development’ initiatives in exchange for a part of any future proceeds, said Tom Shields, a spokesman for Gateway.” Champerty has been defined as the practice of aiding in a lawsuit in return for a share in the benefits being sued over; it was illegal at common law but “the prohibitions have been greatly relaxed in modern times” and in some cases abolished. (Katie Thomas, “Shinnecocks launch legal claim to Hamptons land”, Newsday, Jun. 16; “Lawsuit backers invest in casinos” (sidebar), Jun. 16; James Langton, “Native American tribe lays claim to the Hamptons”, Sunday Telegraph (U.K.), Jun. 19).

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Update: charges dropped in lawyer-joke case

“A couple of jokers from Long Island got the last laugh yesterday after a grand jury dismissed charges they had caused a disturbance when they told lawyer jokes in front of an attorney.” (see Jan. 13, Jan. 14, Jan. 30). “It’s still legal in America to tell jokes — even about lawyers,” said their attorney, Ron Kuby. (Devin Smith, “Good ‘Gag’ Rule”, New York Post, Feb. 9).

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Update: “Jokester to face grand jury”

“Prosecutors have dropped a disorderly conduct charge against legal reform advocate Carl Lanzisera, one of two men arrested for telling lawyer jokes outside District Court in Hempstead, N.Y. But his comedic and legal reform partner, Harvey Kash, must appear before a grand jury — and Lanzisera has been subpoenaed to testify in the case against him.” (Zachary R. Dowdy, Newsday/South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 27)(see Jan. 13, Jan. 14). Monica Bay (“Common Scold”) comments (Jan. 27).

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Lawyer-joke tellers hire…a lawyer

Those two Long Island men who say they were arrested for telling lawyer jokes at a Nassau County courthouse (see yesterday’s post) were soon deluged with offers by lawyers to represent them for free. Reports Newsday:

“Barbara Bernstein, executive director of the Nassau chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said she found the arrests “bewildering” and she called the men yesterday to determine whether the organization could help. “It’s just bewildering and preposterous that they should be arrested for telling lawyer jokes,” Bernstein said. “What’s the violation of law here?”

(Zachary R. Dowdy, “Lawyers offer help after pair’s anti-lawyer joke arrest”, Newsday, Jan. 13). The two men, Harvey Kash and Carl Lanzisera, have now accepted an offer of representation by radical attorney and New York radio personality Ron Kuby. (“Kuby takes jokers’ case”, Jan. 14). Further update: Jan. 30.

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Arrested — for telling lawyer jokes?

It happened at the First District courthouse in Long Island: Nassau County court spokesman Dan Bagnuola says Harvey Kash, 69, and Carl Lanzisera, 65, of the gadfly group Americans for Legal Reform, were charged with disorderly conduct because they were “being abusive and they were causing a disturbance,” while Kash and Lanzisera said all they were doing was telling a lawyer joke (the “his lips are moving” one) while standing in line to get into the courthouse. “The pair said that for years they have stood outside courthouses on Long Island and mocked lawyers.” An attorney reported them to the guards. (“Pair arrested for telling lawyer jokes at Long Island courthouse”, AP/Newsday, Jan. 12; L.A. Times; South Florida Sun-Sentinel). Eugene Volokh has some analysis of the First Amendment issues. More watch-what- you-say- about-lawyers stories: Dec. 23 and links from there. Updates: Jan. 14, Jan. 30.

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Police officers, above the law

According to Newsday, reporting from Long Island, N.Y., the spring issue of the local union newsletter of the Police Benevolent Association ran an item by treasurer Bill Mauck advising members that in case the car stopped for a traffic violation happens to be that of a police officer, “you don’t summons another cop”. Questioned by the newspaper, union president Jeff Frayler confirmed that “it has been union policy to discourage Suffolk police officers from issuing tickets to fellow officers, regardless of where they work. ‘Police officers have discretion whenever they stop anyone, but they should particularly extend that courtesy in the case of other police officers and their families,’ Frayler said …. ‘It is a professional courtesy.'” Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said he was appalled at the policy: “We can’t be sending the message that some are above the law.” (Joe Kelley’s The Sake of Argument, Apr. 5; via Charles Oliver, “Brickbats”, Reason, Apr.).

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“$112 Million Medical Malpractice Verdict Dismissed”

“A Brooklyn, N.Y., judge [last month] dismissed a $112 million medical malpractice verdict — the third-largest in the state’s history — saying a local hospital could not be blamed for an aneurysm that left a man a quadriplegic. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Melvin S. Barasch said that although the case was ‘one of the saddest’ he had heard, the jury had no rational basis for its verdict.” David Fellin’s lawyer had played the jury a “day-in-the-life” video of his disabled client “in a nursing home, where he needs constant care. He also told the jury about Fellin’s mother, whose life, according to Barasch, now revolves around visiting and caring for her son. The judge said the film ‘brought tears to everyone’s eyes.'” However, the judge said, that’s no substitute for showing that defendant Long Island College Hospital had negligently caused Fellin’s injuries, which he said the plaintiff’s side hadn’t shown. (Tom Perrotta, New York Law Journal, Jul. 15).

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Radio Shack receipt suit

A customer from the Long Island suburb Wyandanch had her address entered into a Radio Shack computer by a prankster under her town’s nickname “Crimedanch.” Tanisha Torres, who acknowledges that she’s heard other people use the nickname, was so “embarrassed, flustered and shamed” that, after having that address printed out on a Radio Shack receipt on several occasions, she ran to a lawyer, Andrew Siben, who has sued the retail chain. (Robin Topping, “No Writing Off This Receipt”, Newsday, Feb. 4) (via Obscure Store). We think Mr. Siben is suffering from a failure of imagination: if Radio Shack has such potency that it can force a customer to shop there again and again even as it was repeatedly causing her such emotional distress, then it must have a degree of market power that potentially violates the antitrust laws.

Siben was previously quoted by Newsday lamenting that a spate of good weather had reduced his office’s workload of slip-and-fall cases. (A.J. Carter, “A Weather-Related Slowdown”, Jul. 29, 2002). Siben made his first mark in this space for an $80,000 settlement in a $4 million suit against the Upper Room Tabernacle Church, explaining to the New York Post that the plaintiff “was caused to fall by the Holy Spirit but unfortunately there was no-one there to catch her when she fell.” (Feb. 11-12, 2002; “Worshipper’s Holy Spirit Fall Nets Her $80,000 From Church”, New York Post, Feb. 2, 2002). Siben also represented Edwin Devito in his $5 million suit against American Airlines; Devito claims he was “knocked to the floor” (but not hospitalized) and suffered nightmares when a jet engine from Flight 587 crashed near where he was working. (AP, Sep. 9, 2002).

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