SSFC had the story last month about Oklahoma AG Drew Edmondson’s prosecution of Jacob for hiring out-of-state petition circulators. Brian Doherty at Reason has the update.
Posts Tagged ‘Oklahoma’
Oklahoma AG Receives Lesson on the First Amendment
The problem is that he refuses to learn from it. Drew Edmondson (D), Oklahoma’s Attorney General who seeks to become Governor in the 2010 election, disagrees with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that circulating petitions for a ballot initiative limiting government spending is “core political speech,” protected for “outside agitators” (or whatever Edmondson calls them) as well as Oklahoma residents. Edmondson has announced that his quest to imprison Citizens In Charge head Paul Jacob and two others for hiring non-resident signature gatherers will end in the Supreme Court. That one’s rights to free speech and to petition government for redress of grievances don’t end at a state line is elementary constitutional law, the sort of thing 2Ls should know. But then there are many things that Oklahoma’s aspiring Governor seems not to know.
“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.”
Claim: Abercrombie wouldn’t hire hijab wearer
The apparel chain, famed for the immodesty of its catalogues and advertising, has an “Abercrombie Kids” division; the allegation is that one of its Oklahoma store managers didn’t think an Islamic religious headscarf would fit the desired employee image. The local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says it has filed an EEOC complaint on her behalf. (PRNewswire/Breitbart, Jul. 31).
P.S. For another suit involving traditional Middle Eastern garb, see Jun. 17 (claim of right to wear loose-fitting garments around food machinery).
May 2 roundup
- Contriving to give Sheldon Silver the moral high ground: NY judges steamed at lack of raises are retaliating against Albany lawmakers’ law firms [NY Post and editorial. More: Turkewitz.]
- When strong laws prove weak: Britain’s many layers of land use control seem futile against determined builders of gypsy encampments [Telegraph]
- “U.S. patent chief: applications up, quality down” [EETimes]
- Plenty of willing takers for those 4,703 new cars that survived the listing-ship near-disaster, but Mazda destroyed them instead [WSJ]
- “Prof. Dohrn [for] Attorney General and Rev. Wright [for] Secretary of State”? So hard to tell when left-leaning lawprof Brian Leiter is kidding and when he’s not [Leiter Reports]
- Yet another hard-disk-capacity class action settlement, $900K to Strange & Carpenter [Creative HDD MP3 Player; earlier. More: Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”.]
- Filipino ship whistleblowers’ case: judge slashes Texas attorney’s fee, “calling the lawyer’s attempt to bill his clients nearly $300,000 ‘unethically excessive.'” [Boston Globe, earlier]
- RFK Jr. Watch: America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® endorses Oklahoma poultry litigation [Legal NewsLine]
- Just what the budget-strapped state needs: NY lawmakers earmark funds for three (3) new law schools [NY Post editorial; PoL first, second posts, Greenfield]
- In Indiana, IUPUI administrators back off: it wasn’t racial harassment after all for student-employee to read a historical book on fight against Klan [FIRE; earlier]
- Fiesta Cornyation in San Antonio just isn’t the same without the flying tortillas [two years ago on Overlawyered]
Cross median into bus’s path, it’s bus owner’s fault
A jury has ordered the owners of an Oklahoma charter bus to pay $2.8 million to country singer Toby Keith and other members of his family after a 2001 accident in which Keith’s father, H.K. Covel, was killed after his truck crossed the median on Interstate 35 into the path of the bus. The family’s lawyer had produced an expert witness to testify that the bus’s brakes should have been in better repair and that the driver should have been better trained. Covel’s truck had been bumped by another vehicle and the family said it filed the suit to establish that the accident wasn’t his fault. (“Jury rules Toby Keith’s father not at fault in crash that killed him”, AP/KTEN, Dec. 24).
Heads I win, tails don’t count files
Here’s precisely why the Class Action Fairness Act was passed: in 2000, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Texas law did not apply to out-of-state members of a putative nationwide class in a lawsuit filed against Texas business Compaq. So what do plaintiffs do? They just filed the same lawsuit in Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court disregarded the Texas Supreme Court opinion (as well as the constitutional requirements of the Full Faith and Credit Clause) to certify the exact same class that the Texas court rejected, holding that Texas law did apply to the nationwide class. Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court refused to intercede, and Hewlett-Packard will now face a class of 1.7 million customers: most risk-averse corporate defendants settle rather than attempt to vindicate their rights in such a circumstance. (AP/Law.com, Oct. 10). Such multiple bites at the apple would not be allowed if the suit were brought today.
Fans sue relocating sports teams
“Two Sonics and Storm season-ticket holders plan to file a lawsuit today, accusing the new team owners of defrauding ticket buyers who believed assurances that they intended to keep the teams in Seattle.” The franchises have announced plans to move to Oklahoma City, but some fans say it won’t be as much fun to watch them in the mean time knowing they’re destined to leave. Seattle personal injury lawyer Michael Myers is representing Carolyn Bechtel and Patrick Sheehy in the suit, which was arranged by Save Our Sonics and Storm, a local group trying to block the move. (Jim Brunner, Seattle Times, Oct. 1). Separately, Seattle city officials have sued on different grounds: “The city wants a court order forcing the team to play out its lease at KeyArena through September 2010 instead of paying a cash settlement to leave early.” Owners say the team lost $17 million playing in Seattle last year. (“Blame flies as city sues Sonics”, Sept. 25).
Suing drug companies over meth abuse
For a while now, lawyers in Minnesota, Oklahoma and elsewhere have been suing companies that make over-the-counter cold remedies containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine on the grounds that they were aware some buyers were using the drugs as raw material for illegal methamphetamine labs. Now such litigation appears to be gaining momentum in Arkansas, where many county governments have signed up to sue Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and other companies. “If successful, it could open up litigation against manufacturers of other produce used in making meth, such as drain cleaners and acetone.” (E. Alan Long, “Williams updates JPs on methamphetamine litigation”, Carroll County News, May 29; and see this, on anhydrous ammonia). As of last month, twenty-two counties had enlisted in the litigation, which seeks to recoup, among other things, money spent on the processing of criminal methamphetamine cases. “What more could we have done with a million dollars a year for our county? Would that have meant a half dozen more police officers? Would that have meant a better solid waste program? Who knows, what could your county have done with an extra million dollars,” asked Judge Bill Hicks of Independence County, a backer of the suits. (“Special Report: Meth Related Lawsuit Filed Against Pharmaceutical Companies”, KAIT, Aug. 1; Pharmalot via Childs)(& welcome Megan McArdle readers).