Posts Tagged ‘sanctions’

Tom Goldstein response to roof-jumper’s demand letter

“Tom Goldstein’s letter for rich client who threw porn star off roof for video” [@RandyEBarnett] is an “instant classic” [@adamliptak]. Goldstein is a prominent member of the Supreme Court bar and co-founder of SCOTUSBlog. [Josh Blackman] Concluding passage of letter:

If she sues, the complaint will be sanctionably frivolous. Your client should just box up almost every last bit of her property (please exclude all videos and photographs, as well as the seemingly inevitable small yappy dog) and drop it off with you in safe-keeping for Mr. Bilzerian. After he receives the judgment in his favor, he will have it all delivered to him. Then he will probably blow it up with a mortar in the desert.

I enjoyed our brief correspondence.

Filed under: assumption of risk, nastygrams, sanctions

May 5 roundup

Shakedowns as speech? “Patent trolls are getting First Amendment protection for their demand letters” [ABA Journal]
Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp decries press attention to $5K settlement over son’s bike mishap [Hutchinson News, more]
NY Times covers story of copyright takedown on Marx-Engels works and mentions my Cato Institute post;
After Pfizer’s attempt to expatriate itself for tax reasons, which other big companies with high overseas earnings might be next? [Washington Post]
I’m quoted on rethinking of divorce law [Jennifer Hickey, Newsmax]
Language Log quotes our post last year re: “La trahison des woncs”
Shameless ad from UFCW, union that reps employees at Pennsylvania state stores, insists that grocery-store beer sales must be forbidden For the Children [PennLive, Tim Cavanaugh, Jacob Sullum; on factual controversy, MediaTrackers]

Filed under: beer and brewers, divorce, Kansas, Pennsylvania, sanctions

EEOC roundup

Federal judge in Buffalo “dismisses EEOC’s largest pending pattern or practice lawsuit for failure to investigate” [Gerald Maatman, Jr. and Jennifer Riley, Seyfarth Shaw] U.S. magistrate judge in North Carolina orders sanctions against agency in lawsuit against law firm Womble Carlyle [Mary Kissel, WSJ]
Commission’s campaign against employer use of criminal background checks meets resistance from nine state attorneys general [Penelope Phillips, Minnesota Employment Law Report] Federal judge in Maryland dismisses EEOC criminal-and-credit-background-check case against Freeman Companies using words like “laughable,” “unreliable,” “mind-boggling” [Nick Fishman, Employee Screen; Eric B. Meyer]
Is regular attendance an essential job function for ADA purposes? Commission takes a hard line against employers who insist that showing up regularly is essential to a job without building a case individualized to the particular dispute [Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer’s Law Blog]
Missed this one in October: Cato files amicus brief in lower-court case of EEOC v. Kaplan, on disparate impacts of credit checks in hiring [Ilya Shapiro]
More epic losses by agency last year (earlier posts on that here and here) include Evans Fruit case [AP/Seattle Times] Defendants disadvantaged by agency’s prejudicial delay [Molly DiBianca on PBM Graphics and Propak Logistics cases; Anastasia Killian, WLF] Federal judge in Iowa orders agency to pay $4.7 million in attorneys fees to defendant trucking company CRST [Gerald Maatman Jr. and Howard Wexler, Seyfarth Shaw, ABA Journal, Wall Street Journal]
“Does the EEOC Try To Intimidate Employers?” Merrily Archer v. Robert Young [Richard Cohen, Fox Rothschild; more from Merrily Archer on agency incentives; her major 2012 victory in the Picture People case, and a dissent]
In commission’s view, two “incidents which ended in ambulance trips to the hospital” not enough to classify employee as safety risk absent individualized ADA determination [Joe Lustig]

Filed under: criminal records and hiring, disabled rights, disparate impact, EEOC, sanctions

February 20 roundup

“Woman Arrested Nine Years After Failing to Return Rented Video” [S.C.: Lowering the Bar, more]
“Why India’s Ban Against Child Labor Increased Child Labor” [James Schneider, EconLib]
“I’ve never seen an attorney general sanctioned.” Court hits Nevada AG Catherine Cortez Masto with sanctions after collapse of robosigning suit against mortgage servicer that state hired D.C.’s Cohen Milstein to bring [Daniel Fisher, update (case settles)]
Another review of the new collection The American Illness: Essays on the Rule of Law (Frank Buckley, ed.) [Bainbridge, earlier]
They would be major: “The Gains from Getting Rid of ‘Run Amok’ Occupational Licensing” [David Henderson]
E-cigarettes could save lives [Sally Satel, Washington Post]
How incentives to avoid tax can lead to social tragedy, in this case via ABBA stage outfits [Guardian]

Filed under: apparel, attorneys general, India, music and musicians, Nevada, occupational licensure, sanctions, Sweden, taxes

Judge flays California fire agency for lawsuit conduct

“In a blistering ruling against Cal Fire, a judge in Plumas County has found the agency guilty of ‘egregious and reprehensible conduct’ in its response to the 2007 Moonlight fire and ordered it to pay more than $30 million in penalties, legal fees and costs to Sierra Pacific Industries and others accused in a Cal Fire lawsuit of causing the fire. … Sierra Pacific, the largest private landowner in California, was blamed by state and federal officials for the blaze, with a key report finding it was started by a spark from the blade of a bulldozer belonging to a company working under contract for Sierra Pacific.” The company has contended that the cause determination was reached in haste and pursued with an eye to extracting legal proceeds for an agency-run settlement fund later found to be illegal. [Sacramento Bee; Robert Hilson, Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists]

Filed under: California, discovery, sanctions, wildfires

Connecticut: you can’t sue opposing lawyer for fraud

On the other hand, it seems to be open season on opponents in the Nutmeg State: lawyers will continue to enjoy “absolute immunity” from being sued by their opponents on charges of fraud. “Donna Simms [client of the lawyers in question] said she wasn’t excited about the decision because she’s been involved in court proceedings with her ex-husband for three decades and there may be more legal fights.” [Insurance Journal]

Filed under: Connecticut, Jarndyce redux, sanctions

California court: malicious prosecution suit can go forward

It’s against a law firm for allegedly wrongly naming a car dealership as a defendant in an asbestos case. The (unpublished) decision, denying a SLAPP-law motion, is here (Tulare SAG, Inc. v. Keller, Fishback, and Jackson LLP). Note: Link is a document download, not a page, and may not work for all browsers or users.

Filed under: asbestos, sanctions

Undocumented = unmentionable?

“An Indiana lawyer has been suspended for 30 days for a comment about the immigration status of his divorce client’s spouse in a letter sent to opposing counsel and the judge in the case.” [ABA Journal]

Filed under: immigration law, Indiana, sanctions

Intellectual property roundup

Books of the faraway past more likely to be available for purchase than books of the 1950s [David Post]
“Is It Time for a Rule 11 for the Patent Bar?” [Ralph Clifford, SSRN via John Steele, Legal Ethics Forum]
“Courts In Patent Suits Tell Turncoat Trial Lawyers To Take A Hike — Twice” [Mark Chenoweth, WLF; congratulations to Chenoweth, an old friend of this site, for his appointment as WLF’s new general counsel]
Federal Circuit: “Model Order Would Cut Patent Fights Down to Manageable Size” [Sheri Qualters, NLJ]
“Copyright Terms in the TPP: Too Long, or Way Too Long?” [Simon Lester, Cato]
High tech cy pres and the copyright wars [Roger Parloff, Fortune]
“The smartphone wars are ending, and nobody won (but the lawyers)” [Alison Frankel, Reuters]

Filed under: cellphones, copyright, cy pres, patent litigation, publishers, sanctions

Ethics roundup

FBI looks at allegations Dallas DA filed fraud suit as favor to donor [Free Beacon]
“Suing ex-client for $500K in divorce fees led to disbarment ruling for former bar president” [Virginia; former “titan” of D.C. matrimonial bar, ABA Journal]
“Appeals court cuts ‘unconscionable’ estate legal bill from $44M to perhaps $3M” [ABA Journal on Graubard Miller / Alice Lawrence case, earlier]
Empirical puzzler: advent of lawyer advertising doesn’t seem to have had the expected fee-reducing effect [Nora Freeman Engstrom, SSRN via LEF] Law firm marketers were all over the Metro-North crash case [Eric Turkewitz]
“DOJ Inspector General’s report: US Attorney unlawfully leaked to discredit critic” [of “Fast and Furious” operation; John Steele]
“Lawyer accused of bilking real estate investors through false claims of criminal probes takes plea” [New Jersey; ABA Journal]
Claim: disciplinary decisions to reinstate errant lawyers should be more guided by experts [Bruce Green and Jane Moriarity, SSRN via LEF]
If you find it hard to believe opponents would gin up flimsy “speech-gave-offense” charges against Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones, recall the earlier ginned-up (and now mostly forgotten) charges against distinguished appellate judges Dennis Jacobs and Alex Kozinski.

Filed under: advertising, chasing clients, Dallas, ethics, sanctions