- Patent trolls are thriving, one study finds [271 Patent Blog, The Prior Art, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, PDF]
- One plaintiff’s lawyer’s view: Did Rep. John Murtha Die From Medical Malpractice? [Turkewitz]
- “Rubber stamps for two [class action] settlements” [Ted Frank, Center for Class Action Fairness, AOL and Yahoo cases]
- Little League and baseball bats: “America’s favorite pastime collides with favorite pastime of personal injury lawyers” [Bob Dorigo Jones]
- States push home day-care providers into unions [Stossel]
- U.K.: “Cardiologist will fight libel case ‘to defend free speech’” [Times Online] More on British libel tourism: Frances Gibb, Times Online (“It’s official – London is the libel capital of the world” ), Citizen Media Law, Gordon Crovitz/WSJ, N.Y. Times.
- From a half-year back, but missed then: FBI says Miami lawyer bought stolen hospital records for purposes of soliciting patients [HIPAA Blog, Ambrogi/Legal Blog Watch]
- Would-be Green Police can be found in Cambridge, Mass., not just Super Bowl ads [Peter Wilson, American Thinker via Graham]
Posts Tagged ‘Ted Frank’
KALW and free lawyers in deportation cases
I give an interview to KALW on the question, a question I’ve written about at length.
Wherein I’m supposedly worth three electoral votes
Stephanie Mencimer suggests that 11% of Alaskans would have switched their votes to Obama in 2008 if they knew that the eeeevil author of this op-ed was in Anchorage helping Governor Sarah Palin address the politically-motivated “Troopergate” investigation. Color me skeptical.
January 16 roundup
- Caution: Warning label overload. Why wacky warnings matter. [Ted Frank @ Sphere]
- Further evidence of efficiency of product liability limits when federal safety regulation is already in place. [Philipson/Sun/Goldman NBER Working Paper No. 15603]
- Army seeks to court-martial soldier in Afghanistan for possessing “child pornography” when his mother sends him family photos that include a four-year-old in a swimsuit. [AP/WaPo via Riehl; WQAD]
- Burger King coffee is hot, too. [Virginian-Pilot]
- The “slush pile” disappears, in part because of fear of plagiarism litigation. [WSJ]
- Schwarzenegger faces fight on his proposed tort reforms. [Legal Newsline (I’m quoted)]
- I’m speaking at NYU Law January 21 at an American Constitution Society panel on class action issues. [NYU Law]
- Off topic, but I believe that this may be the first time I’ve been listed in the index of a book.
December 29 roundup
- “Trial lawyer group hails Senate health care bill as ‘stunning victory'” [Point of Law]
- Christopher Hitchens on our leaders’ absurd reaction to the attempted plane bombing [Slate] More: Stewart Baker on the security challenges [first, second]; Mark Steyn [first, second]
- Lots of coverage for Ted Frank’s Center for Class Action Fairness and its objection in a Yahoo! settlement [Zywicki/Volokh, Stier/Mass Tort Lit, CCAF, Turkewitz; Drum] And the Center has also filed objections in an AOL settlement of claims arising from advertising copy placed in the footers of emails;
- Sad: “Texas Man Freed by DNA Sues Over ‘Excessive’ Attorney Fees” [AP/Law.com]
- Litigious creationists: promoters of “intelligent design” back in court yet again [L.A. Times via WSJ Law Blog]
- “One Possible Class-Action Defense Strategy: Disappear and Live in a Tent” [Lowering the Bar]
- “Softballer can’t slide, wants money” [Elie Mystal, Above the Law; Queens, N.Y.]
- Litigators advised to use social media to snoop on players in their cases [Trial Lawyer Tips]
Class action objection
Eric Turkewitz, noted plaintiff’s-lawyer blogger, teams up with Ted Frank, noted Overlawyered.com blogger, to object to a Yahoo! class action settlement.
November 18 roundup
- “Common sense makes a comeback” against zero tolerance in the classroom [USA Today]
- Slip at Massachusetts antiques show leads to lawsuit [Wicked Local Marion]
- Update: Washington Supreme Court takes up horn-honking case [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- MICRA as model: “California’s Schwarzenegger stumps for medical liability reform” [American Medical News]
- “Inventing a better patent system” [Pozen, NYT]
- Google Books settlement narrowed to countries with “common legal heritage” [Sag, ConcurOp]
- One way to make ends meet: cash-strapped Detroit cops are seizing a lot more stuff [Detroit News via Business Insider]
- What temperatures are hot coffee actually served at? Torts buffs (including our Ted Frank) want to know [TortsProf exchange with Michael Rustad and followup, more and yet more]
California civil Gideon
California has enacted the nation’s first “civil Gideon” law, providing free counsel to litigants in child custody and eviction cases. I’m quoted in the Wall Street Journal’s article, saying why that may not be such a good idea.
September 23 roundup
- There are “almost certainly” many innocent persons in prison today wrongly convicted of shaking a baby to death [Radley Balko, Reason] Harris County, Texas forensic examiner under scrutiny [same, Reason “Hit and Run”] L.A. Times on forensics reform [same]
- Feds order large private insurer Humana to pull criticisms of Obama health plan from its website [David Henderson, Eugene Volokh and followup]
- Why would anyone market lawyers’ services through blog comment spam? Especially at Popehat? [first and second posts]
- “Revolving door” for officials of regulatory agencies tends to lead to law firms [Naked Capitalism]
- Tenure trouble: teacher’s union head “would protect a dead body in the classroom” [Ron Bailey, Reason on Brill “Rubber Room” article, earlier]
- Google asked to unmask user in another defamation suit (Turks & Caicos developer) [Brian Kumnick, FindLaw “Injured”]
- “Fired Ave Maria Law Prof Gets Tenure in Whistle-Blower Settlement, Lawyer Says” [ABA Journal, background Washington Monthly]
- Ted Frank on Ameritrade settlement [Center for Class Action Fairness, earlier]
“Hot coffee is back!”
In an op-ed in the Examiner last week, I express curiosity why the trial bar continues to insist that the infamous McDonald’s coffee case came out correctly decided, to the point that trial lawyer blogs express excitement that a documentary is going to be made about the subject. Of course, if the movie just parrots the urban legends trial lawyers have spread about the case, that would be something else—the fact that the filmmaker was fundraising at the AAJ convention but hasn’t shown her face around any of the tort reform conventions suggests a certain direction about the film.
Speaking of McDonald’s, I’ll be in the Bay Area next week at a couple of law schools giving a presentation called “The Law of McDonald’s: Hot Coffee, Obesity, and Prank Phone Calls” : Golden Gate University Law School on September 10, and UC-Davis on September 11. I’ll also be at UC-Berkeley Law on September 8, and Santa Clara University Law on September 9 talking more generally about tort reform and patent reform specifically.