Laws named after sympathetic victims are sure-fire vote-getters, but they are usually bad laws. “A politician holds a press conference standing next to the victim’s family; this gets the bill on the news. Because of terse media coverage, voters think said law will actually do something for a victim or potential future victims, no matter what the real legal changes are.” [Ted Frank, L.A. Times]
Posts Tagged ‘Ted Frank’
Liability roundup
- Big win for Ted Frank’s objector project in Walgreens case: “Posner opinion blasts class actions that are ‘no better than a racket'” [ABA Journal, Kevin LaCroix/D and O Diary, Cook County Record]
- “It’s a bonus if they went [to the hospital] in an ambulance”: litigation funding moves into mainstream [Sara Randazzo, WSJ]
- Class actions and lawyer collusion: why the Supreme Court should review Schulman v. LexisNexis [Ilya Shapiro and Jayme Weber, Cato]
- “Should Judges Allow Juries To Hear A Windfall May Be Bad For A Plaintiff?” [Kyle White, Abnormal Use]
- California Supreme Court OKs basing class action fees on settlement size rather than hours worked [Alison Frankel, Reuters; earlier on Laffitte v. Robert Half International]
- “Contra Plaintiffs’ Bar, Registering to Do Business Does Not Create General Jurisdiction” [Mark Moller, Washington Legal Foundation]
Bloomberg profiles Ted Frank
Ted Frank, who directs the Center for Class Action Fairness and was long a co-blogger here at Overlawyered, is the subject of this Bloomberg/BNA profile from Steven Sellers of Class Action Litigation Report. A master key to Ted’s analysis of class action settlement incentives? “The Posner and Easterbrook decisions on class actions… pervade everything I do,” he says, referring to economically informed Seventh Circuit judges Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, both also associated with the University of Chicago law school, where Ted studied. Chicken offsets get a mention, too.
Duracell class action settlement at SCOTUS
The Duracell class action settlement, which we’ve covered a number of times, is cy pres-heavy and delivers a payoff mostly to lawyers, as objector (and former blogging colleague) Ted Frank has shown. Will the Supreme Court review it? [Mark Tapscott, Hans Bader]
“A Little Wal-Mart Gift Card for You, A Big Payout for Lawyers”
“A member of a class-action lawsuit received a Walmart gift card as part of a settlement, but because of a legal ambiguity, the real gift may be for the lawyers.” With bonus Ted Frank interview quotes [David Segal, “The Haggler,” New York Times] And more on the mentioned Duracell case as showing why the Supreme Court should police class action settlements, as Cato has urged in a brief [Ilya Shapiro]
“Objectors say Subway sandwich settlement comes up short”
Attorneys have requested $525,000 in fees in a settlement of a class action over Subway’s marketing of “foot long” sandwiches that fell short of 12 full inches. Class representatives will get a few thousand, ordinary class members will get no compensation, although the chain is changing its procedures. Ted Frank is objecting. [Bruce Vielmetti, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, earlier here and here]
“Should Plaintiffs Lawyers Get 94% of A Class Action Settlement?”
The Eleventh Circuit approved the settlement of a class action suit over Duracell batteries: “The four plaintiffs law firms that brought the case were together awarded $5.7 million, while the 7.26 million class members they represented divvied up just $345,000 between them.” Ted Frank, well known to our readers, is asking the Supreme Court to review the case, which presents, among other issues, a chance to offer guidance about the cy pres diversion of settlement money to charities and good causes. [Roger Parloff, Fortune, earlier]
October 28 roundup
- India monk: I’ll need eight months to respond to court summons because my religion requires me to get there on foot [BBC]
- NYC’s inhospitable treatment of cat cafes leaves you wondering if dogs get a better shake [Nicole Gelinas, New York Post]
- As VW litigation heats up, keep your eye on lawyers’ angling re: multi-district litigation, advises Ted Frank [Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine; Rob Green, Abnormal Use; yet more on multi-district litigation, John Beisner, Chamber ILR]
- A public health study “builds upon Critical Race Theory” to criticize results of Stand Your Ground doctrine in Florida, but most of the cases it uses weren’t decided on basis of that doctrine [Andrew Branco, Legal Insurrection]
- “Subway ‘Footlong’ Settlement: Lawyers Feed, Consumers Fast” [Judicial Hellholes, earlier, note also this on Subway’s affection for the term]
- Not only did the free market not cause that $750 generic pill, it might be on the way to generating a $1 alternative [Bonnie Kristian/Rare, my earlier take] Still, it’s a little more complicated than that, as Alex Tabarrok explains;
- Kathleen Kane saga: “Pennsylvania Attorney General Suspended from the Bar, Still Refuses to Quit” [Hans Bader, CEI]
October 7 roundup
- News on legal policy front: Center for Class Action Fairness, founded and run by longtime Overlawyered co-blogger Ted Frank, merging into Competitive Enterprise Institute, Ted and all [CEI]
- Arnold Kling isn’t cheering Brookings Institution’s defenestration of well-known economist Robert Litan at Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s behest. More: Sean Higgins, John Fund;
- Proposed anti-soft-drink laws favored by Michael Bloomberg & Co. have been mostly shot down, but New York Times eager to credit politicians anyway for the drop [more: Jacob Sullum];
- We interrupt the campaign season propaganda-fest with news of an actual issue sighting, on regulatory reform [Ira Stoll, Veronique de Rugy on Jeb Bush plan] After Obama initiative to eliminate red tape, agencies added $14.7 billion in regulatory costs [Sam Batkins, American Action Forum]
- Qualified immunity: “Shooting a 68-Year-Old Who Poses No Threat Violates Clearly Established Law” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- If you’ve read Steve Teles’s article on upward redistribution (as you should), read Michael Greve’s reaction and Ilya Somin‘s too;
- East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases in one fell swoop [Joe Mullin/ArsTechnica, related on popularity of East Texas among trolls]
Posner: “selfish deal” by class counsel resulted in “outlandish” fees
“Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has unleashed another zinger at class-action attorneys, trashing a settlement over joint-pain pills that would have paid attorneys $2 million in fees, more than double what their clients got.” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes, whose own writing gets cited; opinion in Pearson v. NBTY] From the ABA Journal:
The opinion was a victory for Ted Frank of the Center for Class Action Fairness, who objected to the settlement as a class member. He told the Am Law Litigation Daily he will be citing the case in new objections to class-action settlements. So far, he says, his group has persuaded courts to wipe out $271 million in attorney fees in the 39 cases in which the center achieved some success.
“This is the best opinion out there” on class settlement issues, Frank told the Litigation Daily. “I think it will have a dramatic effect on class action settlements negotiated.”