Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘Richard Epstein’

Product liability as model for consumer finance regulation?

Let’s hope it doesn’t unfold that way, says Richard Epstein [Truth on the Market]

P.S. It looks as if from Congress will accord lawyers and some other professionals an exemption from Federal Trade Commission regulations on identity theft that would have lumped them in with more traditional lenders because they often do not bill clients at the time work is performed. Fair enough, one supposes, but also another indication of the truism that one’s success in dodging nonsensical regulation is often a function of one’s status as a potent lobby in Washington.

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November 26 roundup

  • Reason TV interviews Richard Epstein;
  • On the SEC’s big new “insider trading” sweep [Ribstein, Bainbridge, Lambert, Salmon, more Ribstein]
  • Losing = winning? Ambitious claim for fees in environmental case [California Civil Justice, scroll]
  • “Unintended consequences department: canceled flights” [Ted at PoL] And check out Ted’s new TSA Abuse Blog, on one of the hottest issues of the moment. More on that from Popehat and Simple Justice;
  • H.R. 1408, the Inclusive Home Design Act, would compel handicap accessibility in private home design, yet another dreadful idea from Rep. Jan Schakowsky of CPSIA fame [AmendTheCPSIA]
  • “This place would be a shoplifter’s paradise (and a liability insurance abuser’s motherlode) in the United States, but we were in Japan, where they don’t seem to worry as much about that kind of thing.” [Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing, on the Showa Kan museum of everyday midcentury life in Takayama]
  • UK: “I moved out for decorators and squatters took over my house” [Evening Standard]
  • From the ruins of Pompeii, a reflection on government and disaster relief [Dum Spiro Spero]

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June 21 roundup

  • After Mohawk Industries settlement, many employers could be sitting ducks for suits claiming that hiring illegal workers is RICO violation [Helman, Forbes, earlier]
  • Teen tries to help child lost in store, winds up facing felony rap of false imprisonment [Greenfield]
  • Federal magistrate in debt collection case: letter on law firm letterhead implies threat to sue [Legal Intelligencer]
  • On “professional” class action objectors [Ted at PoL]
  • Coal company claims ventilation system ordered by government regulators might have been a cause of deadly April mine explosion [WSJ]
  • Senate committee approves judicial nomination of John (“Jack”) McConnell, impresario of Rhode Island lead-paint litigation; William Jacobson explains critics’ charges regarding couching of legal fee as purported hospital donation [Legal Insurrection]
  • Hey, stop siphoning that oil slick, we haven’t checked your life jackets and extinguishers [GatewayPundit] Gulf oil rig registered for purposes of regulation in remote Pacific island chain [Legal Blog Watch] Richard Epstein on oil spill liability [WSJ] BP will never pay full price of accident [Popehat] Check back in 2031 to see how the litigation went [Alex Beam, Boston Globe]
  • American Constitution Society holds panel discussion on Iqbal and Twombly [BLT] “Is It Too Much to Ask That a Lawsuit Be ‘Plausible’?” [Richard Samp, WLF Legal Pulse]

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Blurbing of books possibly safe again (or not)

An update on the overreaching litigation of Dallas developer H. Walker Royall: “Prof. Richard Epstein Dismissed from Book-Blurb Libel Case, on Jurisdictional Grounds”. [Volokh, earlier here and here].

P.S. Commenter VMS points out that despite my choice of original headline, blurbing of books has by no means been made safe, since the judge dismissed Royall’s claim only on jurisdictional grounds that Epstein was not within the reach of the Texas courts. I’ve added to the post title accordingly.

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Royall pain to his critics

Jacob Sullum at Reason “Hit and Run” (Dec. 10):

I want to write a blog post about H. Walker Royall, the Dallas developer who sues people when they criticize his abuse of eminent domain, but I’m afraid he’ll sue me. After all, he sued Wright Gore III over a website that detailed the city of Freeport’s attempt to condemn land occupied by the Western Seafood Company, a business owned by Gore’s family, so Royall could use it for a luxury marina project. And he sued Carla Main, a journalist who wrote a book about the legal struggle over the Gores’ land, along with her publisher, Encounter Books [also a publisher of mine — W.O.]. He sued University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein, one of the country’s leading authorities on eminent domain, for writing a blurb that appeared on the cover of Main’s book. He even sued two newspapers that published reviews of the book.

So after thinking carefully about my potential legal exposure, I have decided not to say that Royall…

I can’t go on. I just can’t. I’m so scared of Royall that I can’t even repeat the colorful epithets that Sullum might apply to Royall if he dared (which he doesn’t) for fear that Royall will then find some excuse to sue me too. But you can go read them if you dare. More: Tim Sandefur, PLF on Eminent Domain.

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Microblog 2008-11-18

  • “Mark Cuban Buys SEC, Dismisses All Charges Against Himself” [Dateline Hollywood h/t @SecuritiesD] #
  • Ultra-close-up high-rez photos of spiders [Dark Roasted Blend] #
  • Overlawyered was down much of Tuesday, looks like problem was with a WP tag plugin exhausting memory #
  • New Bush regs: health providers must let religious employees pick and choose which care to assist with [Ronald Bailey, Reason “Hit and Run”] #
  • On behalf of his NYC fan base, huzzah for lawprof Richard Epstein who’s moving from U. Chicago to NYU [NLJ] #
  • Luggage that’s almost assured to draw scrutiny from TSA screeners in airport lines [Boing Boing via Happy Hospitalist] #
  • Entire 50-year run of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip now online [Comics.com via Feral Child] #
  • “Don’t close your blog’s comments” but read on, I cite some good reasons to close ’em [Amy Derby] #

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Richard Epstein on Wyeth v. Levine

The Chicago lawprof discusses the pending Supreme Court case on implied pre-emption:

…it is folly to act as if the private lawsuits attacking FDA warnings just backstop a porous and lax FDA. Often those lawsuits add an unwanted deterrent against the sale of desperately needed drugs. That risk is multiplied by hyperventilated state tort law that, in many instances, is lopsidedly pro-plaintiff.

(“Wyeth v. Levine Could Endanger Your Health”, Forbes, Nov. 11). Much more on the debate at Point of Law here, here, here, etc.

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New at Point of Law

If you’re not visiting my other site — or subscribing to it in your RSS reader, or following its Twitter feed — here’s some of what you may have missed lately:

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May 21 at AEI: Off-Label Uses of Approved Drugs: Medicine, Law, and Policy

An important all-day conference at AEI next week:

In the last several years, nearly every major pharmaceutical company has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle allegations of illegal “off-label” marketing of drugs. There has been a growing trend of actions by federal prosecutors, state attorneys general, and cooperating trial lawyers to litigate against pharmaceutical manufacturers for allegedly doing too much to promote off-label use of prescription products. Citing recent legal changes mandating exclusion from federal programs after a conviction, many manufacturers say they are forced to settle rather than risk defending themselves–even as prosecutions against individual executives have foundered in front of juries.

At this AEI Legal Center event, experts on both law and health care will present papers on the law, economics, medicine, and public policy of off-label marketing, discussing everything from the abuse of class action mechanisms to implications for the First Amendment and medical malpractice. Speakers include former Food and Drug Administration chief counsel Daniel Troy; former Cephalon general counsel John Osborn; former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger; principal deputy assistant attorney general and acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division Jeffrey Bucholtz; attorneys Brian Anderson, James Beck, Mark Herrmann, Richard Samp, and Kyle Sampson; law professor Margaret Johns; and AEI scholars John E. Calfee, Theodore H. Frank, and Scott Gottlieb.

Panel I: Off-Label Marketing, R&D, and Medical Practice

Panel II: The Legal Environment from Federal Regulation and Enforcement

Panel III: Distortions from State and Private Enforcement

Panel IV: Legal Implications for Commercial Speech and Medical Practice

Register here. Earlier discussion on POL: Feb. 1; Feb. 19; Mar. 24; Dec. 17; Aug. 31; Aug. 22 (Richard Epstein); Aug. 1, 2006 (state AGs); Mar. 19 (InterMune indictment).

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