- Trial lawyers look for Democrats to punish. [Point of Law; Investors’ Business Daily]
- Point of Law Vioxx trial updates: California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
- Men seeking laws freeing them from child support when DNA proves they’re not the father. Earlier: May 10 and Feb. 3, 2004. [Time]
- Latest creative defense to a murder charge: Asperger’s syndrome. [Boston Globe]
- A complicated medmal case is trumped by the sympathy factor [Cortlandt Forum via Kevin MD]
- Cost of EMTALA (Sep. 2, 2005) in LA County alone: $1.6 billion. LA Times doesn’t
mention the law by name orconsider the obvious conclusion. [LA Times] - Why the painfully obvious explanations on painfully obvious objects? [comments at Obscure Store; New York Sun; new Mike Judge movie Idiocracy]
- Lessig: stop me before I regulate again! [Hit & Run]
- Right-wingers take on Dinesh D’Souza [roundup of links at Postrel]
- The meaningless and counterproductive Democratic House bill on student loans. [Novak @ WaPo]
- Do big law firms really care about attrition? One theory. [Ivey Files]
- My girlfriend thinks I spend too much time arguing with idiots. Relatedly, Eugene Volokh responds to Anisa Abd el Fattah about the First Amendment and Jews. [Volokh]
Posts Tagged ‘Massachusetts’
Damned if you do files: $400k for “profiling”
John Cerqueira was sitting next to two Israelis boisterously talking in English and Hebrew on a 2003 Boston-Fort Lauderdale American Airlines flight, when the flight crew decided that all three raised a concern. “Police determined that none of the men was a threat after questioning them, evacuating the plane, and rescreening all baggage.” Cerqueira complained that AA wouldn’t give him another flight, and sued for discrimination. A jury awarded $130k in compensatory damages and another $270k in punitives.
This is the first case of its kind to come before a jury since 9/11 (other plaintiffs with similar cases have settled out of court). The verdict has some flight crews fearful it will set a precedent and discourage concerned crews from taking action in the future.
Spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association (APA) Captain Denny Breslin told the Boston Herald, “[Ehlers] did what any one of us would have done, especially back in ’03. We’re human beings, not mind-readers. What would [the plaintiff] have us do? Ignore our concerns?”
Air Line Pilots Association spokesman Pete Janhunen said the verdict could impinge on a pilot’s authority granted by the FAA. “The pilot in command is responsible for everything that happens involving that flight. We need to ensure that the authority of the captain is protected so that they’re never intimidated or afraid to make the right call.”
(Shelley Murphy, “Jury awards airline passenger $400,000”, Boston Globe, Jan. 16; “Ejected Passenger Awarded $400K By Federal Jury”, Aero-News Net, Jan. 16; Laurel J. Sweet, “Pilots blast court’s ‘outrageous’ verdict: Defend ejection of suspicious passenger”, Boston Herald, Jan. 16). (NB: this John Cerqueira was not the much younger WTC hero who carried a wheelchair-bound woman 68 stories down and out of the North Tower.)
Update: It’s unclear from press coverage whether the lawsuit was over the initial questioning (which inconvenienced everyone) or the refusal to allow Cerqueira to board a second flight, which does seem less defensible. His lawyer’s comment implies both, however.
Second update: Matt Heller of Courthouse News has links to the American Airlines motion for judgment and joint pretrial statement. AA’s version of the story:
[Cerqueira] acted hostilely toward a flight attendant before boarding the flight, … boarded the flight out of turn, that plaintiff spent an inordinate amount of time in the lavatory facilities on board the flight before it departed, … appeared to be feigning sleep during the hectic boarding process, and … reacted inappropriately to flight crew instructions during an exit row safety briefing. AA further expects the evidence to show that the two passengers seated next to the plaintiff in the exit row approached the captain of the flight before boarding and made strange comments to him, that those passengers made odd comments to passengers aboard the flight, and that those passengers acted inappropriately during an exit row safety briefing.
…State Police and TSA believed it necessary to rescreen all of the passengers and to have bomb-sniffing dogs come aboard the aircraft after another passenger reported that one of the removed passengers had a box-cutter taken away from him at the security check point.
Update, January 2008: reversed by First Circuit. Further update Mar. 2, 2008: Cerqueira responds.
November 27 roundup
- In the Supreme Court November 29: Watters v. Wachovia. Also an AEI panel November 28, broadcast on C-SPAN1, 2pm to 4pm Eastern. [Point of Law; AEI; Zywicki @ Volokh]
- Also in the Supreme Court November 29: Massachusetts v. EPA global warming regulation case. Previously an AEI panel November 21. [Adler @ Volokh; AEI; C-SPAN (Real Media)]
- Legal cliche: If the facts are against you, pound the law; if the law is against you, pound the facts; if both are against you, pound the table. Table-pounding class of Gerry Spence protegee offers lessons in emotionally creating jury sympathy worth millions. [LATimes]
- What judicial activism?, Part 7356: Indiana state court judge holds “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” unconstitutional, complains gun industry supported the law. [Indianapolis Star via Bashman; Indiana Law Blog]
- Entertaining doctor victory in medmal case. [Musings of a Dinosaur via Kevin MD]
- Dahlia Lithwick gets something right; if only it was on an issue more important than a suit advertisement. [Slate]
- Leftover from Thanksgiving: lawyers acting like turkeys. [Ambrogi]
- Ninth Circuit grants potential standing to monkeys over Kozinski dissent. Earlier: Oct. 21, 2004. [Bashman roundup of links]
- Gloria Allred joins the Borat pile-on. [LATimes]
- Speaking of, here’s the future case of Allred v. Kramer. More Allred: Oct. 16. [Evanier]
- Speaking of Allred nostalgia, and of primates, whatever happened to chimpanzee victim St. James Davis? (Mar. 17, 2005; Mar. 8, 2005) [Inside Edition; “The Original Musings”; CNN Pipeline ($)]
- More Allred nostalgia: is Veronica Mars‘ Francis Capra the next Hunter Tylo? Discuss. [Prettier than Napoleon]
November 21 roundup
- Today at AEI: Panel (and webcast) on Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court argument on carbon dioxide regulation. [AEI]
- Paulson to Economic Club of New York: “Legal reform is crucial to the long-term competitiveness of our economy.” [Paulson; WSJ; WaPo; NYT; American]
- One who reposts on Internet allegedly libelous news article immune from liability in California. One hopes this deters a certain attorney complaining about a six-year-old Overlawyered post recounting a 2000 LA Times article. [Point of Law; Volokh]
- It’s an obvious point, but many judges simply refuse to acknowledge it in failure-to-warn litigation: overwarning can be counterproductive. [WaPo]
- Congress holds that Psalms 37:21 trumps Leviticus 27:30; Senator Obama objects. [WaPo]
- Russia: woman successfully sues Coca-Cola for causing gastrointestinal distress. [Kevin M.D.]
- More on breast implants. [Bernstein @ Volokh]
- More on the New Zealand no-fault med-mal system. [Point of Law]
- Posner on Friedman. [Posner]
- John Edwards seeks to cut in front of line to purchase Playstation 3 at Wal-Mart. Which of the Two Americas is that again? [Taylor @ Reason via Kirkendall]
Tag, you’re out
The game, that is: “Officials at the Willett Elementary School in Attleboro [southwest of Boston] have banned playground tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chasing games over concerns about the risk of injury and liability for the school.” (“Attleboro elementary school bans tag”, AP/Boston Globe, Oct. 18)(more on lawsuit-fearing fun-busters).
Talk show subpoenaed in Boston mosque suit
The Islamic Society of Boston, which is engaged in numerous lawsuits against media organizations and critics of its activities (see Jan. 5, May 19), has now subpoenaed local radio talk station WTTK-FM “after one of its prominent hosts, Michael Graham, discussed the [ISB’s mosque-building] project on the air…. after reviewing the subpoena, attorney Harvey Silverglate, a Cambridge civil liberties specialist, described it as ‘extraordinary.'”, noting that it requests, among other things, “materials used by Graham to support his remarks about the ISB… and communications between Graham and other defendants or attorneys involved in the ISB defamation suit.” (Laura Crimaldi, “Islamic Society subpoenas WTTK in defamation suit”, Boston Herald, Aug. 27).
Suit: Your niece is ugly
A Massachusetts family is suing a Maryland family over what they call an arranged marriage for their 37-year-old son, Pranjul K. Pandey. The Pandeys called off the marriage after travelling to New Delhi when they decided the bride was too homely. (The former lawyer for the bride’s family denies that there was an arranged marriage, and that the meeting was informal.) The suit seeks $200,000 for fraud, violation of civil rights, and emotional distress. Among the defendants is Emergent BioSolutions Inc., a Gaithersburg company that employs the uncle of the woman in question. One can’t blame the lawyers for this one: the plaintiff, Vijai B. Pandey, previously convicted of bank fraud, is a frequent litigant, and has filed this case pro se. (Marla A. Goldberg, “Family sues over ‘ugly’ bride”, MassLive.com/The Republican, Jul. 5 (via Romenesko)).
A Limit to Special Treatment
A divided Massachusetts Supreme Court has held that disabled employees can be fired for misconduct regardless of whether it results from their disability. Mammone v. Harvard College involved a bi-polar receptionist for a Harvard museum, who was disciplined for misconduct that occurred while in a manic state. He handed out flyers attacking his employer’s wages and spent time on his personal computer rather than working, ignoring pleas from his supervisor to perform his assigned duties.
The court held that state handicap discrimination statutes only protect qualified handicapped people, and that a “disabled individual cannot be a qualified handicapped person ‘if he commits misconduct which would disqualify an individual who did not fall under the protection of the statute.’”
In dissent, Justice Greaney argued that employers should have to put up with “occasional displays of inappropriate, and sometimes bizarre, workplace behavior” resulting from an employee’s disability and give such employees a “measure of special treatment.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to address this issue. The Americans with Disabilities Act distinguishes between alcoholics, whom it expressly recognizes can be disciplined for disability-related misconduct, and other disabilities, about which it is silent on the question of disability-related misconduct.
The Massachusetts courts are usually more pro-plaintiff than the federal courts. For example, they have rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s conclusion that a correctable condition is not a protected disability.
Nanny-state lawsuits in the New York Times
Tom Zeller, writing on the MySpace lawsuit, quotes observers who unanimously condemn the species of nanny-state lawsuit, and quotes blogger Ken Chan:
“I recognize that there’s a certain part of the population who don’t know a steady fried chicken diet is bad for them. I feel bad for these people,” Mr. Chan wrote. “However, these are probably the same people who don’t put on their seatbelts and who suck down endless coffee during the day and Coors at night. So let’s be honest with ourselves here. You’re not going to save these people. You’re just screwing up the chicken for the rest of us.”
Zeller probably didn’t get the memo from the Times editors about the “benefits” of such lawsuits, but we’ll no doubt see some plaintiffs’ attorney defending the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit in the letters section. (Tom Zeller Jr., “A Lesson for Parents on ‘MySpace Madness'”, New York Times, Jun. 26). Mildly related, and encouraging for what it says about people starting to be annoyed by the food police: Fluffernutter controversy in Massachusetts.
A Lawsuit Everyone Can Bring
Can you sue over something that you claim will affect everyone in the planet in the distant future, even if that means that everyone on Earth can file a similar lawsuit now? The Supreme Court may address a similar question soon. The Supreme Court agreed today to consider whether the Bush administration must regulate carbon dioxide to combat potential global warming, in Massachusetts v. EPA.
Twelve states had sued the EPA to force it to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. Although carbon dioxide is an integral component of the atmosphere, and does not contaminate or cause cancer, the states argued it constitutes air pollution covered by the Clean Air Act, because it may cause global warming over the long run.
A splintered three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-to-1 to reject the lawsuit, but the judges in the majority didn’t agree on why. Judge Sentelle would have rejected the suit for not complying with the Constitution’s requirement of standing, under which a plaintiff must allege particularized injuries, not a “generalized grievance” shared by much of the public at large (much less the entire planet). Judge Randolph, by contrast, was unsure of whether the plaintiffs had standing, but concluded that even if they did, and the EPA had jurisdiction to regulate carbon dioxide, the lawsuit should still be dismissed. He pointed out that regulating carbon dioxide on a state-by-state basis, as the Clean Air Act would do, made no sense, since global warming is a planet-wide concern. Thus, the EPA’s decision not to regulate carbon dioxide was sensible. By contrast, Judge Tatel’s dissent argued that the plaintiffs did have standing, since although everyone might be affected by global warming, they might be affected by it in different ways, with a coastal state being flooded while an arid state might become more arid.
In another lawsuit, attorney generals from seven states have sued out-of-state utilities under state nuisance laws, alleging that power plants, by generating carbon dioxide, are causing global warming. New York federal judge Loretta Preska dismissed their lawsuit in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co. She, too, held that the plaintiffs lacked standing, since they complained of a generalized injury that would be better handled by the political process than by the courts.
If state attorney generals can sue power plants in distant states, that may lead to an explosion of interregional litigation, regional conflict, and judicial micromanagement of out-of-state utilities.