Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘roundups’

November 26 roundup

All-automotive edition:

  • Court won’t unseal settlement arising from $105 million Aramark/Giants Stadium dramshop case for fear girl’s father will try to get his hands on money [NJLJ, NorthJersey.com, Childs; earlier]
  • Great moments in insurance defense law: you mean it wasn’t a good idea to infiltrate that church meeting to investigate the crash claim? [Turkewitz first, second posts]
  • Columnist Paul Mulshine rejoices: Ninth Circuit decision “if it stands, will lead to the end of the SUV as we know it” [Newark Star-Ledger]
  • Is it unfair — and should it be unlawful? — for insurers to settle crash victims’ claims too early? [Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog]
  • If Ron Krist prevails in shoot-out of Texas plaintiff titans, he vows to have sheriff seize John O’Quinn’s Batmobile [American Lawyer; see also Ted’s take earlier]
  • In much-watched case, Australian high court by 3-2 split upholds highway authority against claim defective bridge design was blameworthy after youth’s dive into shallow water [RTA NSW v. Dederer, Aug. 30]
  • Redesigning Toyota’s occupant restraint system? Clearly another job for the Marshall, Texas courts [SE Texas Record; Point of Law; more]
  • Bench trial results in $55 million verdict against U.S. government after Army employee on business runs red light and paralyzes small child [OC Register]
  • Vision in a purple Gremlin: her Yale Law days shaped Hillary in many ways [Stearns/McClatchy]
  • Zero tolerance for motorists’ blood-alcohol — are we sure we want to go there? [Harsanyi, Reason]
  • Driver falls asleep, so of course Ford must pay [two years ago on Overlawyered; much more on our automotive page]

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November 20 roundup

  • Dickie Scruggs will host Dec. 15 Hillary fundraiser headlined by Bill [Clarion-Ledger via WSJ law blog]

  • Megabucks campaigns for state judicial office: Symptom? Illness? Both? [Justice O’Connor @ OpinionJournal.com, Adler @ Volokh; Pero]

  • U.K. kids’ author says publisher’s safety worries vetoed depiction of fire-breathing dragon in book [Daily Mail]

  • Roger Parloff describes the Judith Regan complaint as bizarre, and angry commenters are soon denouncing him as a Fox’s-paw [Fortune Legal Pad; Althouse; ritual disclaimer]

  • Wonder why booking a dance venue can get pricey? Here’s one reason [WV Record]

  • “Why should I take a dollar out of [my neighbor’s] pocket?”: a Virginia Tech family wrestles with the temptation to sue [Mundy, WashPostMag]

  • Essential silliness of the “media diversity” scare [Welch, LAT]

  • Boston’s James Sokolove, known for his heavy rotation of personal-injury TV ads, is now chasing for … patent plaintiffs? [WSJ law blog; earlier]

  • Great big gobs of mutilated monkey meat could bring five years in slammer for NYC immigrant [IHT]

  • Recounting the tale of Miami’s one-time high-living “King of Torts” Louis Robles, who stole from around 4,500 clients [AJP “CEO Alert” series, PDF]

  • Campaign regulation laws spell incumbent protection in New Zealand too [Bainbridge]

  • Influence of newspaper lobby retards natural migration to the web of fine-print legal notices [Liptak, NYT]

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November 16 roundup

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November 13 roundup

  • Ethical questions for Vioxx lawyers [WSJ law blog] And who’s going to make what? [same; more from Ted at PoL]
  • American lawyers shouldn’t get all self-congratulatory about the courage shown by their Pakistani counterparts [Giacalone; more]
  • Just another of those harmless questionnaires from school, this time about kindergartners’ at-home computer use. Or maybe there’s more to it [Nicole Black]
  • Probe of personal injury “runners” bribing Gotham hospital staff to chase business nets another conviction, this one of a lawyer who stole $148,000 from clients [NYLJ; earlier]
  • Facebook sometimes sends text messages to obsolete cellphone numbers relinquished by its users, so let’s sue it [IndyStar]
  • Series on defensive medicine at docblog White Coat Rants [first, second, third]
  • Arm broken by bully, student wins $4 million verdict against Tampa private school; bully himself not sued [St. Petersburg Times]
  • Washington, D.C. reportedly doing away with right to contest a traffic parking ticket in person [The Newspaper, on “the politics of driving”]
  • “Walking headline factory” Scruggs to be arraigned November 20 [Rossmiller]
  • More on whether government’s refusal to alter paper currency discriminates against the blind [Waldeck, ConcurOp via Bader; earlier]
  • Eric Turkewitz hosts a truly marathon Blawg Review #134 [NY Pers Inj Law Blog]

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November 8 roundup

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November 2 roundup

  • Curlin gets 400 new owners, as the Kentucky fen-phen plaintiffs ripped off by their attorneys get the right to seize Shirley Cunningham Jr. and William Gallion’s 20% share of the Preakness Stakes winner. [AP/NYT; earlier]
  • As Lerach pleads guilty, LA Times editorial defends class action abuses, incorrectly says that the PSLRA fixed everything and that Lerach didn’t act illegally after it was passed. [LA Times]
  • That $10.9 million verdict against the Westboro Baptist Church was “not about the money.” [Reuters] Really, now, this case imposing bankrupting damages for a protest on a public sidewalk is appalling. Granted: Phelps is bigoted scum, and rude bigoted scum at that. But Albert Snyder’s claimed physical injury is that the protest exacerbated his diabetes: what sort of junk science is that? NB that Snyder was not even aware of the protest at the funeral until he watched it on television. Why not liability for the news program? Even those happy to see the anti-gay bigotry of the WBC punished should take pause: Snyder testified at length that the protest upset him particularly because his son was not gay.
  • Overlawyered favorite Willie Gary (Apr. 29, Oct. 2004), on the hook for $28,000/month in child support for love child. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
  • Deep-pocket search in Great White fire case. [Childs]
  • Lawsuit over which school 9-year-old can play football for. [Tulsa World (via TMQ G. Easterbrook)] Worse, the judge rewarded the plaintiff by second-guessing the league decision. [Tulsa World]
  • It only takes ten months of legal proceedings for Cal-Berkeley to evict trespassers squatting on university property. [SF Gate]
  • Don’t hold your breath: who’s watching the trial lawyers? [Examiner]

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October 30 roundup

  • Law firm of King & King in D.C. lost its chance at a contingency fee when its client elected not to pursue the case, so naturally it sued the client [Robert Loblaw @ eNotes; D.C. Circuit ruling for client, PDF]

  • How hot is the sausage gravy at Bob Evans? $5,000 worth of hot, says wrist-burned West Virginian [W.V. Record]

  • Kid on bicycle suffers catastrophic head injury, lawsuit blames road’s steepness and “dangerous wooden posts” alongside [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

  • Genarlow sprung [Volokh and everyone else; earlier]

  • Better hope you make it to Chapel Hill: Fayetteville, N.C. loses 24-hour neurosurgery cover [F’ville Observer via KevinMD; trial lawyers’ response]

  • Fans sue Aerosmith over canceled Maui concert [AP/IHT]

  • Class action over poor-quality Kia brakes yields $5.6 million jury verdict, but do lawyers really deserve $4.1 million? [Legal Intelligencer] More: whoops, covered already just below;

  • We don’t care what your wishes might be, we’re putting you on the ventilator to protect ourselves [RangelMD]

  • Tawdry sex angles aside, this really sounds like a cautionary tale of the dangers of liberal amendment of pleadings [Lat]

  • Observation on traffic-cams: “I’m sick of living in a world in which legal trouble can be generated by robots.” [Scheie via Reynolds]

  • Read all about it: we side with Paul Krugman and Atrios [four years ago on Overlawyered]

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Today’s Tidbits

$600 per class member for defective brakes; $4.1M attorney fee claim

See this story via Law.com. No problem with consumers getting a few hundred dollars to offset the cost of a brake job. A healthy $5.6M verdict provides such remedy for over 9,000 class members. The rub? A $4.1M attorney fee claim, which according to my arithmetic is ten lawyer-years in work, at a respectable $200/hr. Oh, and check out the defendant attorney’s brilliant lawyering in his appeals brief, referring to the trial judge as the “Red Queen” from Alice in Wonderland. It wouldn’t be so bad had the appeals court not remanded the attorney fee issue back to that very trial judge.

Mean-spirited protest of funeral for fallen United States Marine prompts suit

The story is here. That anyone would express their protest in this manner is truly shameful. Update: $10.9M verdict!

Law says wife is husband’s property

Slighted spouse sues his wife’s lover for “alienation of affection.” Law says wife is a man’s “property.” Story via ABC.com.

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More Tidbits

Jackpot justice of another kind

A man on the nickel slot machines wins over $1M despite the maximum payout of $2,500. The casino blames computer error. The story shows a picture of the stoic gambler in front of the cordoned-off slot machine.

Etiquette expert pranked in ‘Borat’ sues

Yes, another ‘Borat’ suit, here. As the story points out, why wait so long? Come on, folks, jump on the bandwagon!

Wrong doctor sued, pays out of pocket due to Med-Mal policy deductible

Sue the wrong doctor and drag out the litigation process, all to the detriment of the defendant. The story notes that courts rarely find suits are frivolous because “there’s almost always some grounds for a suit to be filed.” (Update: Jan. 6).

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October 21 roundup

  • Some suits are too silly even for Florida: teen steals OxyContin, dies from OD, family sues Eckerd. [On Point]

  • Jack Goldsmith’s four questions for AG nominee Mukasey. [NY Times/AEI; see also Ornstein]

  • You may already be Pacman Jones’s co-defendant. [TortsProf]

  • A contrarian opinion on Judge Sam Kent. [Beldar]

  • Chris Dodd goes to bat for trial lawyers suing telephone companies that dared to comply with a government request to assist in terrorism investigations. [Slate]

  • Suit: TJ Maxx catches pervert taking surreptitious upskirt photos; female victim sues store for waiting to gather conclusive evidence. Convicted pervert, serving 2-4 years, not sued. [AP/Fox News]

  • Op-ed: Kellogg’s “wimped out” by not calling bluff of frivolous obesity lawsuit. [The Bulletin]

  • DC puts the “dysfunctional” into “district”: fire department; Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services [Washington Post]

  • Not that the TSA boondoggle is any better. [Cafe Hayek]

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