- Oregon Supreme Court plays chicken with SCOTUS over $79.5 million punitive damages award in Williams v. Philip Morris case. [Sebok @ Findlaw; Krauss @ IBD; POL Feb. 1]
- Speaking of punitive damages, I did a podcast on Exxon Shipping v. Baker. I can’t bear to listen to it, so let me know how I did. [Frank @ Fed Soc]
- Arkansas case alleged legal sale of pseudoephedrine was “nuisance” because meth-makers would buy it; case dismissed. [Beck/Herrmann]. This is why I’ve stockpiled Sudafed.
- Lawyers advertise for refinery explosion victims before fire goes out. [Hou Chron/TLR]
- Connecticut Supreme Court: cat-attack victim can sue without showing past history of violence by animal. [On Point] Looking forward to comments from all the anti-reformers who claim to oppose reform because they’re against the abrogation of the common law.
- Op-ed on the Great White fire deep pockets phenomenon. [SE Texas Record; earlier: Feb. 2]
- “FISA lawsuits come from Twilight Zone.” [Hillyer @ Examiner]
- Legislative action on various medical malpractice tweaking in Colorado, Hawaii, and Wyoming. [TortsProf]
- Request for unemployment benefits: why fire me just because I asked staffers for a prostitute? [Des Moines Register]
- “So much for seduction and romance; bring in the MBAs and lawyers.” [Mac Donald @ City Journal; contra Belle Lettre; contra contra Dank]
- Where is the Canadian Brandeis standing up for free speech? [Kay @ National Post]
- In defense of lobbying. [Krauthammer @ WaPo]
Posts Tagged ‘roundups’
February 19 roundup
- Raising ticket revenue seems more important to NYC authorities than actually recovering stolen cars [Arnold Diaz/MyFoxNY video via Coyote]
- Subpoena your Facebook page? They just might [Beck/Herrmann]
- Rhode Island nightclub fire deep pockets, cont’d: concert sponsor Clear Channel agrees to pay Station victims $22 million, adding to other big settlements [ProJo; earlier]
- Manhattan federal judge says “madness” of hard-fought commercial suit “presents a cautionary tale about the potential for advocates to obscure the issues and impose needless burdens on busy courts” [NYLJ]
- Wooing Edwards and his voters? Hillary and Obama both tacking left on economics [Reuters/WaPo, WSJ, Chapman/Reason, WaPo editorial]
- Sad: if you tell your employer that you’re away for 144 days on jury duty, you actually need to be, like, away on jury duty [ABA Journal]
- New at Point of Law: Florida “three-strikes” keeps the doctor away; court dismisses alien-hiring RICO suit against Tyson (and more); Novak on telecom FISA immunity; fortunes in asbestos law; Ted on Avandia and Vioxx litigation; new Levy/Mellor book nominates Supreme Court’s twelve worst decisions; and much more;
- U.K.: “Lawyers forced to repay millions taken from sick miners’ compensation” [Times Online]
- Outside law firm defends Seattle against police-misconduct claims: is critics’ beef that they bill a lot, or that they’re pretty good at beating suits? [Post-Intelligencer]
- Cincinnati NAACP is campaigning against red-light cameras [Enquirer]
- Omit a peripheral defendant, get sued for legal malpractice [six years ago on Overlawyered]
February 14 roundup
- Examiner newspaper begins series on how Milberg Weiss used nonprofit foundation to project its clout among judges, academics, influentials [Institute for Law & Economic Policy, three-parter]
- Judge Canute, or just reporter’s awkward wording? Australian jurist with great eyeglasses bans screening of TV drama in state of Victoria; “Under the order, all internet material relating to the series is also banned.” [Herald Sun] (More explanation on the court order: The Australian).
- Times Square’s Naked Cowboy sues over M & M candy ad playing off his image [NY Post]
- Bite mark testimony makes another chapter in catalogue of dubious prosecutorial forensics [Folo’s NMC on two Mississippi Innocence Project cases]
- Update: Pennsylvania court upholds disputed fees in Kia-brake class action [Legal Intelligencer; earlier]
- Best not take McCain too literally when he says he’d demand that judicial nominees have a proven record on Constitutional interpretation [Beldar]
- Expert witness coaching …. by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? [Nordberg; earlier]
- For some reason many Boston residents feel menaced by city’s plan for police to go door to door asking “voluntary,” “friendly” permission to search premises for guns [Globe]
- Lots and lots of publications print Mohammed cartoon in solidarity with
Danish cartoonist and assassination-plot target Kurt Westergaard [CNN; Malkin] - Calgary Muslim leader withdraws official complaint against Ezra Levant over his publication of Mohammed cartoons [National Post; earlier]
- Steyn, relatedly: critics dragging my book before Canadian tribunals wish not to “start a debate”, but to cut one off [National Post]
February 11 roundup
- Remember those class actions against tech manufacturers for allegedly misstating the capacity of hard drives? Another one just settled, with buyers in for coupons and discounts, lawyers for $1.78 million [The Register, Cho v. Seagate Technologies settlement website]
- Watch what you say about lawyers, cont’d: Erie, Pa. paper thus far has fended off libel suit by Pittsburgh attorney over coverage of his run-ins with authorities over client treatment [Post-Gazette via Ambrogi]
- New at Point of Law: suicide risk of anticonvulsants?; Ohio AG Dann rebuked on foreclosure activism; simultaneous asbestosis and silicosis happens all the time at some law firms; Bush nominates an ATLA/AAJ member to a federal judgeship; and much more.
- Has a prominent investor with close ties to President Bush set up shop as an East Texas patent troll? [Troll Tracker, The Recorder]
- Embattled Tom Lakin and Lakin Law Firm, once high on the Madison County heap, fight to overturn $3.7 million legal-malpractice judgment [MC Record]
- Brent Coon suing former colleagues at Beaumont’s Provost Umphrey over division of billions in tobacco-fee booty [Texas Lawyer]
- UK judge criticizes “barking mad” human rights rules after prisoner refuses to leave his “comfy” jail cell to attend hearing [Times Online, Telegraph]
- “Six years after Enron, executives face greater risks—but investors are no safer.” [Gelinas/City Journal]
- United Farm Workers union threatens to sue over unflattering coverage [two years ago on Overlawyered]
February 6 roundup
- Calling it “oppressive”, committee chair in Mississippi legislature vows to defeat proposal to ban restaurants from serving obese patrons [AP/Picayune-Item; earlier]
- Latest in whales vs. sub sonar: judge deep-sixes Bush’s attempt to exempt Navy from rules against bothering marine mammals [CNN; earlier]
- Much-criticized opener of ABC’s new series Eli Stone aired last Thursday, and Orac takes a scalpel to the vaccine-scare script [Respectful Insolence, which also covers new autism studies]
- Scary proposal approved by California assembly would strong-arm larger private foundations — and businesses that deal with them — into “diversity” numbers game [Lehrer/Hicks @ L.A. Times]
- New Dutch study finds thin people and nonsmokers cost health system more in long run than obese and smokers — theories behind Medicaid-recoupment litigation are looking more fraudulent every day, aren’t they? [AP]
- Late, but worth noting: blogger nails John Edwards’s demagoguery on Nataline Sarkisyan case [Matthew Holt @ Spot-On, via KevinMD; more here, here, and from Ted here]
- Puff piece on food-poisoning lawyer William Marler [AP/KOMO]
- Ready, set, all take offense: Sen. McCain likes to tell lawyer jokes [WSJ law blog]
- In suit charging UFCW with “racketeering”, Smithfield cites as an underlying offense union’s having lobbied city councils to pass resolutions condemning the meatpacker; company has hired Prof. G. Robert Blakey, who denies the RICO law he drafted is a menace to liberty [Liptak, NYT; some earlier parallels in federal tobacco suit]
- Golden age of comic books was 1930s-1950s, but golden age of comic book litigation is now [NLJ]
- New at Point of Law: Hillary’s “disastrous” mortgage scheme; Qualcomm sanctions ruling could curb discovery abuse; if Mel Weiss has been kind to you, why drop him down memory hole?; new academic theory on uniformity of contingency fees; the trouble with patenting tax avoidance strategies; and much more [visit][bumped Wed. a.m.]
February 1 roundup
- Following public outrage, Spanish businessman drops plans to sue parents of boy he killed in road crash [UK Independent; earlier]
- Scruggs to take Fifth in State Farm case against Hood [Clarion-Ledger] And how much “home cooking” was the Mississippi titan dished out in the Medicaid-tobacco case that made his fortune? [Folo]
- More critics assail ABC “Eli Stone” vaccine-autism fiction, with American Academy of Pediatrics calling for episode’s cancellation [AAP press release; Stier, NY Post; earlier]
- Special ethics counsel recommends disbarment of Edward Fagan, lawyer of Swiss-bank-suit fame whose ethical missteps have been chronicled on this site over the years [Star-Ledger]. As recently as fourteen months ago the L.A. Times was still according Fagan good publicity;
- In past bail-bond scandals, private bond agencies have been caught colluding “with lawyers, the police, jail officials and even judges to make sure that bail is high and that attractive clients are funneled to them.” [Liptak, NYT]
- Archbishop of Canterbury calls for new laws to punish “thoughtless or cruel” comments on religion [Times Online, Volokh]
- Another disturbing case from Massachusetts of a citizen getting charged with privacy violation for recording police activity [also Volokh]
- Abuse of open-records law? Convicted arsonist files numerous requests for pictures and personal information of public employees who sent him to prison; they charge intimidation [AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
- It resembles a news program on Connecticut public-access cable, but look more closely: it’s law firm marketing [Ambrogi]
- Judge says Alfred Rava’s suit can proceed charging sex bias over Oakland A’s stadium distribution of Mother’s Day hats [Metropolitan News-Enterprise; earlier on Angels in Anaheim]
- Crack down on docs with multiple med-mal payouts? Well, there go lots of your neurosurgeons [three years ago on Overlawyered]
January 30 roundup
- Vioxx settlement is good for Merck and the trial lawyers suing it, the price being paid in legal ethics [Gryphon/City Journal]
- Australia: will-contest lawyers “will have their fees capped after a string of cases where the bill has exceeded the final inheritance.” [Sydney Morning Herald]
- ADA obliges golf courses, at least Marriott’s, to furnish accessible carts to disabled golfers, federal judge rules [Egelko, SF Chronicle]
- Henry Fonda/Sidney Lumet jury-deliberation classic Twelve Angry Men normally spoken of in tones of reverence. But what’s this? [Leo McKinstry, U.K. Spectator; Gracchi, Westminster Wisdom]
- Columnist and talk show host Michael Smerconish, himself former trial lawyer, is among latest to be sued by inmate/fantasist J*nath*n L** R*ch*s [Philadelphia Inquirer; earlier]
- Biggest-ever EEOC settlement for individual racial discrimination will bring Lockheed Martin electrician $2.5 million [Reuters/NYT]
- U.K.: Coast guard wins award for saving teen from cliff, then loses job because he didn’t follow prescribed health and safety precautions [Times Online, Sun]
- Lawsuit by baseball pros who missed out on big careers because they never abused steroids? [RedBirdsFan]
- Until Sarkozy, French heads of state liked to cancel outstanding parking tickets on taking office; contrast with American practice of pardons as departing Presidential gesture [Rittelmeyer/Cigarette Smoking Blog]
- New at Point of Law: Ted on med-mal statistics; Prof. Richard Nagareda on recognizing that mass torts are lawyer-driven; voter intimidation and union card check; state AGs and letters of marque and reprisal; Prof. Michael Krauss on thread-count class action; IRBs vs. hospital safety; Ted’s continuing coverage of the Vioxx settlement; and much more.
- OSHA backs down from its plan to regulate hazards like trippable power cords and rickety chairs in telecommuters’ home offices [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
January 22 roundup
- “Woman who ‘lost count after drinking 14 vodkas’ awarded £7,000 over New Year fall from bridge” [The Scotsman]
- Bar committee recommends disbarment for Beverly Hills lawyer who “played the courts like a bully in a child’s game of dodgeball” [Blogonaut (with response by attorney) via ABA Journal]
- Shot and paralyzed in parking lot of South Florida strip club, cared for back home in Tunisia, Sami Barrak is now $26 million richer by way of his negligent-security suit [Sun-Sentinel] Earlier Florida negligent-security here, here, and here.
- Canadian government orders airlines to stop charging the severely obese the price of a second seat [Winnipeg Free Press; earlier]
- Study of head-injury victims in Spain finds “nearly half of the people who go to court feign psycho-cognitive disorders with the objective of profiting from this in some way.” [Science Daily]
- Federal judge vacates $1.75 million verdict, questions reliability of expert testimony in Nebraska recovered-memory sex abuse case [Lincoln Journal-Star, AP/Sioux City Journal]
- Confess your thoughts, citizen: Ezra Levant on his interrogation by official panel in Canada for publishing Mohammed cartoons [Globe & Mail; earlier]
- Class-action lawyers continue to hop on glitches with Xbox Live, Halo 3 and related Microsoft gaming systems [Ars Technica, News.com; earlier here and here]
- Bay Area proposal to ban much burning of wood in fireplaces and stoves (Nov. 30, etc.) draws strong reactions both ways [SF Chronicle]
- Harder to get into Ringling Bros.’s Clown College than law school, says man who attended both [six years ago on Overlawyered]
January 18 roundup
- Protection of ugly garage views? Garrison Keillor vs. neighbors in St. Paul, Minn. [NYTimes]
- If you’re a lawyer who practices before the south Florida bench, it’s not a recommended career move to use a blog to call one of its judges an “evil, unfair witch” [WSJ Law Blog]
- Nonprofit sleep-off center that takes in drunks sued after rescuing man who then succeeds in laying his hands on more liquor and drinking himself to death [Anchorage Daily News]
- New Starbucks offering of “skinny” drinks “could easily be considered a form of size discrimination” and lead to litigation, complains ticked-off barista [StarbucksGossip]
- Appearance of impartiality? West Virginia high court judge cavorted on Riviera with coal exec whose big case was pending before his court [Liptak/NYT] Update: Now recused, per WV Record.
- Retired drug enforcement officers sue Universal Studios, saying they were defamed as a group by “American Gangster” [MSNBC]
- Not much likelihood of confusion: shirtmaker Lacoste can’t keep two dentists in Cheltenham, England from using toothy crocodile as logo for their practice [Reuters]
- People seized randomly off street for compulsory jury duty in St. Johnsbury, Vt. and Greeley, Colo. [AP/Findlaw via KipEsquire, Greeley Tribune]
- Federal judge orders attorney Robert Arledge of Vicksburg, Miss. to pay $5.8 million in restitution after conviction for organizing bogus fen-phen claims [Clarion-Ledger; earlier]
- Canada: abuser of crystal meth successfully sues her drug dealer [BBC]
- Animal rights group tries to shut down “happy cows” ad campaign [three years ago on Overlawyered]
January 15 roundup
- Client’s suit against Houston tort lawyer George Fleming alleges that cost of echocardiograms done on other prospective clients was deducted as expenses from her fen-phen settlement [Texas Lawyer]
- Preparing to administer bar exam, New York Board of Law Examiners isn’t taking any chances, will require hopefuls to sign liability waivers [ABA Journal]
- Thanks to Steven Erickson for guestblogging last week, check out his blogging elsewhere [Crime & Consequences, e.g.]
- “Freedom of speech” regarded as Yankee concept at Canadian tribunal? [Steyn @ NRO Corner; reactions]
- Court rules Dan Rather suit against CBS can go to discovery [NYMag; earlier here, here]
- Served seventeen years in prison on conviction for murdering his parents, till doubts on his guilt grew too loud to ignore [Martin Tankleff case]
- Orin Kerr and commenters discuss Gomez v. Pueblo County, the recent case where inmate sued jail for (among other things) making it too easy for him to escape [Volokh]
- New at Point of Law: Cleveland’s suit against subprime lending is even worse than Baltimore’s; Massachusetts takes our advice and adopts payee notification; law firm websites often promote medical misinformation; lawyer for skier suing 8-year-old boy wants court to stop family from talking to the press; Ted rounds up developments in Vioxx litigation once and then again; guess where you’ll find a handsome statue of Adam Smith; and much more;
- Good news for “resourceful cuckolds” as courts let stand $750,000 alienation of affection award to wronged Mississippi husband [The Line Is Here; ABCNews.com]
- Kimball County, Nebraska cops don’t know whether that $69,040 in cash they seized from a car is going to be traceable to drug traffickers, but plan to keep it in any case [Omaha World-Herald via The Line Is Here]
- Hunter falls out of tree, and Geoffrey Fieger finds someone for him to sue [seven years ago on Overlawyered]