A state court of appeal has tossed a $661 million judgment by oyster farmers against Louisiana taxpayers. “Despite evidence showing that some of the allegedly dead leases have produced thousands of oysters since the diversion began operating in 1991, [District Court Judge Manuel] Fernandez sided with the plaintiffs and awarded them $370 million — more money than the leases had ever generated.” A related $1.3 billion judgment is still on appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court (May 25; Oct. 18). (Jeffrey Meitrodt, “Oyster farmers’ $661 million in awards tossed on appeal”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Sep. 10; latest Naked Ownership blog entries) (via Bashman). Update Oct. 24: La. Supreme Court throws out cases.
Posts Tagged ‘Louisiana’
4,000 federal crimes
A new study for the Federalist Society finds that the U.S. Code now defines well over 4,000 crimes, and that the count has risen by more than a third since the early 1980s. A substantial share of the newer offenses, around a third, are environmental in nature, and the rate of enactment of federal criminal statutes spikes in election years, finds the author, Prof. John S. Baker, Jr. of Louisiana State University Law Center. Moreover, the trend is toward a chipping away of the traditional requirement for a mens rea — that is, a guilty or otherwise knowing state of mind — in favor of the criminalization of what may be inadvertent regulatory infractions. (“Measuring the Explosive Growth of Federal Crime Legislation”, study in PDF format/supplementary reading). More: William L. Anderson and Candice E. Jackson, “Washington’s Biggest Crime Problem”, Reason, Apr.
Triple whammy for tobacco
Bad legal news comes in threes for cigarette makers: federal judge Gladys Kessler has ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice will be allowed to ask for disgorgement of $280 billion in past tobacco industry profits in the federal racketeering case against the industry (Nancy Zuckerbrod, “Judge: Government Can Seek Tobacco Profits”, AP/Washington Post, May 24)(more on suit). Health-program recoupment suits similar to those successfully pressed by state governments in the U.S. have been almost uniformly rejected in foreign courts, but an exception may be shaping up in Canada, where an appeals court in the province of British Columbia has just given its go-ahead to such a suit (Rod Mickleburgh, “Court upholds B.C.’s right to launch ‘big tobacco’ suit”, The Globe and Mail, May 21). And: “In the first verdict of its kind in the nation, a New Orleans jury decided Friday that four big tobacco companies should pay $591 million for a comprehensive, 10-year smoking-cessation program for a half-million or so of their Louisiana customers.” (Susan Finch, “Jury tells tobacco firms to pay up”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 22). More: On a somewhat brighter note, the California Assembly has narrowly defeated the scary bill sponsored by Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh and backed by the American Lung Association that would have prohibited parents from smoking in cars in which their children were riding (see Apr. 30) (Steve Lawrence, “Assembly rejects bill to bar smoking in cars carrying young kids”, AP/SignOnSanDiego, May 28); for more news on secondhand smoke controversies, see updates appended to post of Oct. 16, 2003 (scroll to end).
Oyster update
A $1.3 billion award to oyster farmers — exceeding the value of the last century of oyster harvests — was argued before a skeptical Louisiana Supreme Court Monday. We covered the case in detail Oct. 18. (Jeffrey Meitrodt, “$1.3 billion oyster case hits La. high court”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 25; AP, May 25). Update Oct. 24: La. Supreme Court throws out cases.
In other oyster-related litigation news, a Korean legal immigrant is fighting a denial of his citizenship application; the federal government said that the $153 fine Kichul Lee admittedly paid for collecting a bucket of oysters at a beach proved lack of good moral character. The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife officer who issued the ticket is appalled at the heavy consequences. (Chris McGann, “One mistake robs man of citizenship”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 10; Susan Paynter, “Moral flaw? Uncle Sam, look in the mirror”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 19).
Cheeseburger bill passes House
By a vote of 276 to 139 with most Democrats opposed, the House gave its approval to a bill that would bar lawsuits against the food industry over obesity. (Christopher Lee, “House bill bans suits blaming eateries for obesity”, Washington Post/San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 11). The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate; similar legislation is pending in many state legislatures and has passed in Louisiana. Jacob Sullum at Reason “Hit & Run” has two good commentaries on the bill. It’s “disconcerting to see Congress instructing state courts to dismiss patently absurd lawsuits. I worry that it’s not really necessary. I worry more that it is,” Sullum writes. (Mar. 9). Sullum also catches GW law prof John Banzhaf talking out of both sides of his mouth about whether obesity lawsuits have been successful (Mar. 10).
One activist quoted in the new coverage is Ben Kelley, who in cooperation with Prof. Richard Daynard has taken a prominent role in organizing conferences advising lawyers on how to sue the food industry (see Elizabeth Lee, Andrew Mollison, “Food fans weigh in”, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mar. 10). It turns out that this is none other than the same Ben Kelley we covered ten years ago when we examined how litigation consultants working with trial lawyers have successfully promoted bogus media coverage of alleged auto hazards, including NBC’s famous use of hidden incendiary devices to portray GM trucks as prone to explode (Walter Olson, “It Didn’t Start With Dateline NBC”, National Review, Jun. 21, 1993.) The pro-foodmaker Center for Consumer Freedom has more on Kelley’s recent activities: see Dan Mindus, “McLawsuit Lies”, National Review, Oct. 29; “Trial Lawyers Up Demands On Food Companies”, Oct. 30; “Update: Obesity War Loses Discredited General”, Nov. 4.
MedPundit Sydney Smith thinks (Mar. 10) that the much-headlined new study purporting to find that obesity claims more lives than smoking “is, all things considered, a very weak study. Certainly too weak to be the foundation of sweeping public policy.” For more of our coverage of obesity litigation, see Aug. 11, Jun. 20, Sept. 4, Aug. 6, Jul. 21, Jul. 3, Jul. 3 again, Jul. 1, Jun. 24, and a great deal more here. More: Radley Balko dissents from the bill on federalist grounds (Mar. 11)(& letter to the editor, Mar. 18).
Lunch at NYU Saturday
I’ll be the luncheon speaker this Saturday at 12 noon at the Federalist Society’s conference at New York University on “Enforcing Corporate Responsibility Through Criminal Law“. (Yes, this is rather short notice to NYC-area readers; I was tapped to fill in for a luncheon speaker who couldn’t make it.) Earlier, between 10:00 a.m. and noon, a distinguished panel will discuss corporate misconduct and the role of prosecutors, including: Prof. John Baker, Louisiana State Univ. Law Center; the Hon. Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pa.; the Hon. Eileen O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice; and the Hon. George Terwilliger III, White and Case, LLP.
Update: La. judge removed from bench
“A unanimous Louisiana Supreme Court removed Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge C. Hunter King from the bench Tuesday, finding that his misconduct — forcing employees to work on his re-election campaign and then lying about it under oath — demanded a severe penalty. While the justices stopped short of saying King should face criminal prosecution, they said his admitted conduct likely constituted perjury and public salary extortion, both felonies.” (New Orleans Times-Picayune coverage: Gwen Filosa, “Judge is removed from bench” Oct. 22; “An appropriate ouster” (editorial), Oct. 23; James Gill, “Politicking doesn’t do justice to the bench”, Oct. 24). King, named one of “America’s worst judges” in the November Reader’s Digest, presided over a trial this summer in which attorney Johnnie Cochran extracted a $51 million award on behalf of an 11-year-old girl who fell out of the window of a city streetcar, after which jurors posed in celebratory fashion with both Cochran and Judge King. (“A streetcar named excessive”, Aug. 29, Sept. 15).
$1.3 billion oyster damage
A Louisiana state appellate court, by a 3-2 vote, has upheld an award of $1.3 billion–more than $21 thousand an acre–to 130 oyster farmers who leased land from the state. The award, supposed damages for a state environmental project meant to save Louisiana’s disappearing coast, is worth more than the entire haul of oysters from Louisiana over the last century and is twice the cost of the Caernarvon Freshwater Diversion Project in question. As if to demonstrate that this case is nothing more than a wealth transfer to enrich lawyers over taxpayers, one of the plaintiffs did not purchase his lease until the day the lawsuit was filed, and thus could not possibly have suffered damages, since nobody made him purchase the lease. The appeals court actually increased his award.
The state plans to take further appeals; the Secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources says the ruling left him “shocked.” “‘There’s no way in the world that any one acre of oysters can be worth $21,000,’ Jack Caldwell said. ‘Particularly when there’s no evidence that these leases had any oysters on them or even any oyster reefs.'” Oyster leases in Louisiana typically go for about $200/acre; the leases from the state are for $2/acre/year. Moreover, many of the leases in question had a clause indemnifying the state that the trial and appeals courts refused to rule upon. And in a final irony, when the project was first proposed in the 1980s, oyster farmers supported it as a means of restoring changing salinity levels that were destroying the industry. The state passed a constitutional amendment to limit the awards, but the constitutionality of its retroactivity provisions is obviously questionable. (Jeffrey Meitrodt, “Oyster Damages Upheld”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Oct. 16; AP, “Appeals court: $1.3 billion is reasonable claim for oyster farmers”, Oct. 16; Jeffrey Meitrodt, “Election didn’t put to rest all coastal liability”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Oct. 13; “Oystermen offer suit settlement”, AP, Aug. 10; Jeffrey Meitrodt, “Oyster farmers originally backed project”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 4; “The Avenal Lawsuits”, Louisiana Coastal Law, Oct. 2000 at pp. 4-5; “Naked Ownership” blog entry with many other links, May 4; related story on this site, Mar. 25-26, 2002). A lawsuit against the United States on identical grounds was thrown out of federal courts in 1995 and upheld on appeal in Avenal v. United States, 100 F.3d 933 (Fed. Cir. 1996). Update Oct. 24, 2004: La. Supreme Court throws out cases.
Update: Madison County
Notorious Madison County (e.g., Mar. 24, Sep. 26, and too many other entries on this blog to list), across the river from St. Louis, continues to make news. The Illinois Supreme Court is reconsidering the state’s venue rules in the Madison County case of Gridley v. State Farm Insurance in the wake of the county’s reputation as a home for plaintiffs’ venue-shopping. In Gridley, the plaintiff is from Louisiana, all of the percipient witnesses in the case are in Louisiana, the defendant’s headquarters are in Bloomington in central Illinois, but the “plaintiffs say in documents that Madison County is the proper venue because two Madison County residents who have worked for State Farm will be called to testify about how the company handles salvage titles.” (Kevin McDermott, “Big companies aim to dent county’s popularity as venue for lawsuits”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sep. 13). The Belleville News-Democrat explores the role of plaintiffs’ lawyers’ money in Madison County. (Mike Fitzgerald, “Where money talks”, Oct. 5; see also David Bailey, “Illinois county court a corporate ‘hellhole'”, Reuters, Oct. 5). The consequences are real for the laypeople of Madison County: doctors are closing shop as medical malpractice insurance rates triple. (Shawn Clubb, “Another doctor leaving Alton”, The Telegraph, Oct. 4). But the class actions continue: Mattel finds itself a defendant to plaintiffs complaining that the “limited edition” Barbie dolls weren’t sufficiently limited, though they acknowledge that Mattel disclosed that it would make up to 35,000 of them. Plaintiffs are trying to keep the case before Judge Kardis, who issued the original decision permitting venue in Gridley. (Beth Hundsdorffer, “Litigation Barbie”, Belleville News-Democrat, Oct. 5).
Children and the Law
This is a trifle off-topic, but a pair of posts by Amanda Butler highlight some intriguing issues about the way the law treats children, an issue I touched on briefly in a previous post on voting ages. Here is one post on Patrick Kennedy, sentenced to death for raping a child, and here is another, about a decision by the Missouri Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional to execute murderers under the age of 18.