The pre-eminent class action firm (see Jul. 1 and earlier coverage) has been splitting into two separate firms, and in case you doubted it, the New York and San Diego offices have taken positions adversarial to each other in securities class actions filed against the NYSE’s specialist trading firms. Lyle Roberts at 10b-5 Daily comments (Dec. 22; Jason Hoppin, “Firm at War With Itself”, The Recorder, Dec. 22). See also Sue Reinsinger, “Milberg’s Breakup Isn’t a Quickie”, National Law Journal, Dec. 16; Anthony Lin, “Milberg Weiss Taken to Task For Conduct in WorldCom Case”, New York Law Journal, Nov. 19)
Posts Tagged ‘San Diego’
Calif. inferno: gotta follow those regs
“The first helicopter pilot to see the patch of flames that would become the catastrophic Cedar Fire radioed for aerial water drops, but state firefighters rejected his request because it came minutes after such flights had been grounded for the night. Within hours, the flames cascaded out of control and killed 13 residents between the mountains east of San Diego and the city. It eventually became the largest wildfire in California history. …
“The problem was that under state safety guidelines, no flights can go up into waning daylight. On Saturday, the cutoff was 5:36 p.m., said California Department of Forestry Capt. Ron Serabia, who coordinates the 12 tankers and 10 helicopters now battling the 272,000-acre blaze. The sun set that day at 6:05 p.m.” (Justin Pritchard, “State firefighters rejected air drop request for Cedar Fire because of night regulations”, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 30). (Via Arthur Silber). More: Matt Welch at Reason “Hit and Run” (Oct. 31) has a roundup of other instances in which bad policy decisions may have worsened damage from the wildfires: “near the top of my list is the 1968 state law that specifically orders insurance companies to pool together and offer homeowner policies to people who live in high-risk brush fire zones, a non-market last resort enjoyed by 20,000 people, most of whom live in the foothills of Southern California.” Yet more: Gregg Easterbrook (Oct. 31) on forest management and wildlands.
Overreading mammograms
American women who get routine mammograms are more likely to be called back for additional tests than women in other countries, even though such caution does not result in more cases of breast cancer being found, a new study has found. ‘Higher callback rates would be fine if we had evidence we’re getting more bang for the buck,’ said Dr. Joann Elmore, lead author of research published Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. ‘But we’re not.'” The study found that “American mammographers do not detect any more cases of breast cancer, nor do they detect cancer at earlier stages, than their counterparts in such countries as Australia, the Netherlands, Italy or Britain.” They do, however, have a much higher false-positive rate: “According to one of Elmore’s earlier studies, one in every two U.S. women will have at least one false positive after 10 years of annual screening. … the authors say they have adjusted for most of the other factors that could lead to higher false-positive rates and hint strongly that America’s litigious culture is implicated.” (“Callbacks don’t increase detection”, Chicago Tribune/San Diego Network of Care, Sept. 17). See also Nov. 2, 2000; May 12, 2003; “Study suggests false-positive mammogram results linked to radiologists? experience”, UW School of Medicine Online News, Sept. 27, 2002 (earlier Elmore research).
Update: Calif. local govts. settle with gun dealers
Another portion of the municipal gun-suit campaign is ending with a whimper, not a bang: San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office has announced a tentative settlement of litigation by California local governments against several gun dealers and distributors. If the deal is approved by the 12 governments and a San Diego judge, the dealers and distributors would change certain business practices and pay the plaintiff governments $70,000 — far less than the $2 million the governments are estimated to have racked up thus far in legal expenses, even though the suits have been touted in the past as a moneymaking proposition. “Earlier this year, San Diego Superior Court Judge Vincent DiFiglia granted summary judgment in favor of about 20 manufacturers and trade associations, including big-name companies such as Beretta and Smith & Wesson, Clements said. The plaintiff jurisdictions have appealed that decision. But the five dealers and distributors were to face a trial.”
“Kiss ladies’ night goodbye”
Although the California Supreme Court ruled as long ago as 1985 that the state’s civil rights law prohibits “Ladies’ Night” discounts at bars, various San Diego taverns apparently hadn’t gotten the word. That created a perfect opening for Steven Surrey and Alfred Rava to make the rounds of nightspots in the county, demanding similar discounts for themselves and taking note when they were refused. The Unruh Civil Rights Act provides $4,000 fines for each violation plus “one-way” attorneys’ fee awards (pay if you are a losing defendant, collect nothing if you win). The next step was for lawyers to swoop down and obtain $20,000 settlements from six errant bar owners and $5,000 from a seventh that was going out of business. “One of the [complainants] is a California Western School of Law classmate of the two lawyers who filed the suits on their behalf. The other is a paralegal. When asked about the social merits of these lawsuits, Erik Jenkins, one of the attorneys who filed the suits, made comparisons between ladies night discounts and the discrimination faced by African-Americans in the South.” (Alex Roth, San Diego Union-Tribune, Aug. 3).
In other news of California bounty-hunting, the Long Beach Press-Telegram (Aug. 2) has editorially cited our editor’s recent WSJ op-ed in upbraiding local Assemblywoman Martha Escutia for advancing a measure that masquerades as reform of the state’s notorious section 17200 law but in fact would give lawyers even more scope to use it for shakedowns (see Jul. 28).
Addendum: Lest anyone doubt that highly entrepreneurial applications of section 17200 remain alive and well despite the downfall of the Trevor Law Group, John Sullivan at the Civil Justice Association of California reprints a recent letter (PDF) from a Bay Area law firm demanding $6500 in legal fees in exchange for not filing a 17200 lawsuit over an allegedly erroneous advertisement; the law firm does not claim to represent any clients injured by the ad, but does state that “A substantial percentage of this firm?s practice is devoted to prosecuting UCL violations.” (“17200 Abuses don’t stop with Trevor: Shakedowns Head North”, CJAC press release, Jul. 23)