Crime does pay, but not as richly: A judge has reduced from $51 million to $9.75 million a Bronx jury’s award to Darryl Barnes, who was paralyzed in a 1988 shootout with off-duty police officer Franz Jerome. Jerome gave chase on the night of Aug. 22 after spotting Barnes carrying an illegal Tec-9 semiautomatic and a shootout ensued: while Barnes (who pleaded guilty to assault on a police officer) denied that he fired his gun at Jerome, two Tec-9 shell casings were found at the scene and ballistics experts confirmed that they were from Barnes’s gun. The officer’s third shot entered Barnes’s back from close range. A jury in 1998 awarded Barnes $76.4 million, a record for a police-brutality case, but its award was later thrown out and a retrial ordered when an appeals court ruled that the city should have been allowed to introduce evidence that Barnes was a member of the Five Percenters gang, which preaches hatred of police and advises its members to shoot rather than submit to arrest. The second jury, this March, deliberated for less than three hours before ordering the $51 million award, payable by city taxpayers. (Stephanie Gaskell, “$51M Award Cut to $9.75 M”, New York Post, Jul. 10; Jeffrey Toobin, “Pay Day”, The New Yorker, Apr. 21 & 28 (not online); Stephanie Gaskell, “Retrial Jury Awards $51M to Bronx Gunman Shot by Cops”, NYPD News, Mar. 14; VerdictSearch/New York Jury Verdict Reporter, Mar. 13).
Posts Tagged ‘personal responsibility’
“Public balks at obesity lawsuits”
Per a Gallup Poll conducted July 7-9, “nearly 9 in 10 Americans (89%) oppose holding the fast-food industry legally responsible for the diet-related health problems of people who eat that kind of food on a regular basis. Just 9% are in favor. Those who describe themselves as overweight are no more likely than others to blame the fast-food industry for obesity-related health problems, or to favor lawsuits against the industry.” (Lydia Saad, Gallup News Service, Jul. 21). Some opinion pieces: Kathleen Parker, “A ludicrous premise for a lawsuit: Obesity is the food’s fault”, Chicago Tribune, Jul. 16(“It’s hell living in a rich country with too much to eat, isn’t it? … The idea that restaurants are trying to make food taste better by combining sugar or fat to their protein, also known as ‘cooking,’ hardly qualifies as criminal conduct.”; Robert Tracinski, “Reductio ad Totalitarianism”, Ayn Rand Institute, Jun. 26 (quotes our editor)(“The problem with the ‘reductio ad absurdum’ argument, one of my philosophy teachers once warned me, is that your opponent may simply embrace the logical end result of his ideas — no matter how absurd it is. And that’s exactly what is happening now.”); Patti Waldmeir, “In America it takes lawsuits to change lives”, Financial Times, Jul. 21 (“the point is publicity, not liability. … My children have never seen a McDonald’s advert: they know instinctively that fat is good”). Yet more: James Justin Wilson, “Battling the Fat Suits”, National Review Online, Jul. 21; John Stossel, “Give Me a Break!: Food Fight”, ABC News, Jul. 18.
Scotland: “Alcoholics sue booze companies”
“Alcoholics are attempting to make legal history by suing the drinks industry for failing to warn them of the dangers of addiction. Twelve addicts, aged between 18 and 60, claim their lives have been destroyed by the demon drink and that they were not warned of the risks.” Lawyers from the Glasgow firm of Ross Harper “believe they can use the arguments employed in successful prosecutions against huge American tobacco companies in 2000 to win their case” and are applying for officially funded legal aid to help finance a test case. (Glasgow Daily Record, Jul. 21). Liquor companies have been curiously absent from the list of targets of mass litigation campaigns in the U.S.A. in recent years; but see Mar. 22, 2000.
Update: Tony Martin case
U.K.: “Tony Martin, the farmer who killed a criminal who broke into his house, has been denied a preparatory home visit before his release on parole next week because he is considered to be a “danger to burglars”.” (Daniel Foggo, “Tony Martin refused leave ‘because of risk to burglars'”, Sunday Telegraph (UK), Jul. 20). Last month, in a decision that caused a public furor in Britain, a judge ruled that career criminal Brendan Fearon was entitled under the Human Rights Act “to sue Martin for a reported ?15,000 damages for wounds he received during a break-in at the farmer’s home in Emneth Hungate, Norfolk, in August 1999. … Unemployed Fearon, who is currently serving an 18-month sentence for heroin dealing, claimed his injuries [Martin shot him in the leg] had affected his ability to enjoy sex and martial arts and that he had suffered post traumatic stress.” (“Ex-Minister Calls for Review over Fearon Case”, Nottingham Evening Post, Jun. 25; Chris Bishop, “Date set for burglar’s bid to sue Martin”, Eastern Daily Press, Jul. 2)(more “maybe crime does pay” cases).
FoxNews.com “Blog of the Week”
FoxNews.com’s “Views” section names us its “Blog of the Week“. If you’re interested in strange lawsuits that engage in creative blame-shifting, a good place to start is with our personal responsibility archives (& welcome Howard Bashman readers).
“Wheelchair ramps in the high alpine zone”
At The New Criterion’s newly launched weblog Armavirumque, James Panero tells how the Americans with Disabilities Act led to the installation of a wheelchair ramp at Galehead Hut in northern New Hampshire, which is “perhaps the most inaccessible” of the Appalachian Mountain Club’s historic system of White Mountain huts and can be reached only by hiking over very rugged terrain (Jul. 7).
Also via Armavirumque (Jul. 8), Theodore Dalrymple on the premise behind fast-food lawsuits: “Left to his own devices, the denizen of hamburger restaurants would eat fresh carrots and brown rice, his natural choices. … This picture is of a world in which humanity as a whole is good, but is so innocent that it is diverted from the paths of righteousness by a few evilly disposed persons such as the directors of food companies. Were it not for them, we should all be thin as rakes and fit as fleas.” (“The Devil’s Food Cake Made Me Do It”, National Post (Canada), Jul. 5).
Fast food second update
You can never have too much information about fast food lawsuits department: The Center for Consumer Freedom is running humorous ads on news channels showing a lawyer cross-examining a Girl Scout for selling Girl Scout cookies. (Marguerite Higgins, “Food companies use humor as defense in ads,” Washington Times, June 26). Thing is, plaintiffs’ lawyers are immune to parody: John Banzhaf threatens to sue the Seattle school district if it agrees to renew a $400,000 contract with Coca-Cola for vending machines. (Deborah Bach, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 2).
Today’s fast food update
“I think food is the tobacco of the 21st century” says an aspiring plaintiffs’ lawyer attending a secret strategy conference at Northeastern University. (Karen Robinson-Jacobs, “Lawyers Put Their Weight Behind Obesity Cases,” LA Times, July 2 (via Appellateblog)). Other papers have reported on the conference (Marguerite Higgins, “Fast food next on the menu for lawyers,” Washington Times, June 23; Jay Fitzgerald, “Lawyers in fat city,” Boston Herald, June 21; Duane Freese, “Nutrition Irrelevant?”, TechCentralStation, June 24).
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a study yesterday arguing that fast food is not the culprit for the nation’s obesity (also via Bashman). News coverage on the study: Fox News; CNBC.
“Lawsuit faults hospital for overdose”
Amanda C. Hagan, 29, of Allentown, Pa., is suing Norristown State Hospital “for allowing a visitor to bring into the hospital the illegal drugs she used.” She also “is blaming the hospital and county for not noticing she was high and that her heroin or cocaine needle was broken and still stuck in her arm when she received an antidepressant. The overdose that followed should have been prevented, Hagan’s civil lawsuit states.” (Pamela Lehman, Allentown Morning Call, Jun. 25; “Ridiculous suit is a waste of time” (editorial), Jun. 27).
For personal responsibility, a Custard’s Last Stand
Roundup of opinion on fast-food-made-me-fat lawsuits quotes our editor; his lame joke about personal responsibility facing a “Custard’s Last Stand” with these suits didn’t quite come through in the final copy (Steve Brown, “Possible Immunity for Fast Food Industry a ‘Different Ballgame’ From Tobacco”, Cybercast News Service, Jun. 24). Reason’s correspondents cover the recent AEI conference on “obesity policy” (Ronald Bailey, “Time for Tubby Bye Bye?”, Reason.com, Jun. 11; Jacob Sullum, “Thinning the Herd”, syndicated/Reason, Jun. 13). And the restaurant-defense Center for Consumer Freedom has dug up a bunch of alarming quotes from the activists propelling the campaign (“Cabal Of Activists And Lawyers Plot To Sue Food Companies”, Jun. 19)