- Don’t miss Roger Parloff’s tour de force coverage in Fortune blowing whistle on that dodgy suit in Moscow against Bank of New York Mellon, adorned by participation of lawprofs Dershowitz and Blakey [PoL overview, main article]
- Digital remixes and copyright law [Lessig, WSJ]
- Surgeon at Connecticut’s Greenwich Hospital revealed as drug abuser, Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder now pressing suit on behalf of general class of patients, which sounds like it means “whether harmed or not” [Greenwich Time, Newsday via TortsProf weekly roundup]
- Chicago sheriff halting foreclosures, or maybe not, reportage is confused [Reuters, big discussion at Steve Chapman blog] And is Obama taking the idea national with bid for 90-day moratorium on foreclosures? [AP]
- Foie gras-style financial gavage? “None of banks getting government money was given a choice about it, said one of the people familiar with the plans.” [Bloomberg, Bernstein @ Volokh] More: Ann Althouse, Kuznicki/Cato at Liberty.
- Trey Allen law firm in Dallas agrees to pay $840,000 restitution after profiting from staged car crash scheme, but Allen’s lawyer says client wasn’t aware of any fraud [ABA Journal]
- Smoking bans, alcohol taxes contributing to steep decline of English village pubs [Newsweek]
- Bias-law panel rules Wal-Mart within its rights not to hire a female applicant for Santa Claus position [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
Posts Tagged ‘Texas’
“I am sorry….”
September 15 roundup
- Saying fashion model broke his very fancy umbrella, N.Y. restaurant owner Nello Balan sues her for $1 million, but instead gets fined $500 for wasting court’s time [AP/FoxNews.com, NY Times]
- Spokesman for Chesapeake, Va. schools says its OK for high school marching band to perform at Disney World, so long as they don’t ride any rides [Virginian-Pilot]
- More on Chicago parking tickets: revenue-hungry Mayor Daley rebuffed in plan to boot cars after only two tickets [Sun-Times, Tribune]
- Too old, in their 50s, to be raising kids? [Houston Chronicle via ABA Journal].
- Britain’s stringent libel laws and welcome mat for “libel tourism” draw criticism from the U.N. (of all places) [Guardian]
- Beaumont, Tex.: “Parents sue other driver, bar for daughter’s DUI death” [SE Texas Record, more, more]
- “Three pony rule”: $600,000 a year is needlessly high for child support, even if mom has costly tastes [N.J.L.J., Unfiltered Minds]
- Advocacy groups push to require health insurers and taxpayers to pay for kids’ weight-loss camps [NY Times]
- Lester Brickman: those fraud-rife mass screening operations may account for 90 percent of mass tort claims [PoL]
Texas: another case for payee notification
ABA Journal: “After stealing more than $1.6 million from at least 46 clients over a six-year period, then-personal injury attorney Steven Bearman reportedly kept working as a Houston lawyer while awaiting trial after his 2006 arrest.” Among other defalcations, “Bearman settled clients’ cases without telling them”, exactly the sort of misconduct that payee notification (having insurers give notice directly to claimants of the timing and amount of settlements) is meant to stop. Texas unfortunately is not one of the dozen states that have enacted the reform (per an ABA compilation, they are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island).
College should have warned student not to run on street
From the “Not About the Money” files; reader D.W. writes:
Seguin is about 35 miles east of downtown San Antonio. The deceased student/athlete was an adult, chose to run on a busy street despite ample on-campus facilities, and chose to run with traffic instead of facing it. The story doesn’t say, but the street in question is actually US90, possibly the heaviest traveled street in town aside from I-10. So naturally it’s the university’s fault she was struck and killed. Oh well, it could have been worse, at least they were only held 5% responsible.
(Ron Maloney, “Jury finds TLU partially responsible”, Seguin (Texas) Gazette-Enterprise, Aug. 29; more background here and here).
Is It In the Job Description?
And you thought you had a tough day at work.
Apparently, that pales in comparison to the day that one undercover cop had from Texas. His job was so rough, he claims that he had to have sex with a prostitute during a sting operation. Unfortunately for him, his superiors didn’t think it was required. After being suspended, he’s brought suit challenging his discipline. At trial, here is his, ahem, money quote: “If you are asking if I had an orgasm, yes. It was a job, sir,” the cop said. “I didn’t have pleasure doing this. I was paid to do it.” (Beaumont Enterprise, 8/21)
Touch-a-car-for-the-longest contest
In Longview, east Texas, the Patterson Nissan dealership held a contest awarding prizes to the participants who could hold their hands on a car the longest. One contestant dropped out, ran to a nearby store where he broke a gun out of its case, and shot himself. The dealership has now settled the lawsuit by Richard Thomas Vega II’s widow claiming that the stress and sleep deprivation of the event amounted to “brainwashing” and that the sponsors failed to make allowances for temporary loss of sanity. (AP/FoxNews.com, Aug. 17).
July 31 roundup
- Raft-flip mishap at Riviera Beach, Fla. water park: family’s collective weight far exceeded posted limit on warning signs, they’re mulling suit [Palm Beach Post]
- New Rigsby/Katrina depositions include sensational new allegations of Scruggs misconduct as well as touches of pathos [Point of Law]
- “Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet” [The Onion]
- So much coverage of Hasbro vs. Scrabulous but so little solid reportage by which readers might judge strength of copyright infringement claims [Obbie]
- City of Seattle spokesman says police actions in shootout with gunman might have “saved countless other lives”, which hasn’t saved city from being sued by injured bystander [Seattle Times]
- First the vaccine-autism scare, now this? “Mercury militia” crows after FDA agrees to move forward with statement on possible risks of dental amalgam, but maybe there’s not a whole lot for them to chew on [Harriet Hall, Science-Based Medicine]
- Of lurid allegations in paralegal Angela Robinson’s suit against Texas plaintiff potentate Richard Laminack, the most printable are the ones about chiseling fen-phen clients and not paying overtime [American Lawyer; Laminack response]
- U.K. attorney suing former bosses for £19 million: that wasn’t me at the interview, that was my alternative personality [Times Online]
- Allegation: Foxwoods croupier thought he could mutter lewd comments in Spanish about Anglo female patrons, but guess what, one was entirely fluent [NY Post]
- “Richard Branson claims to own all uses of ‘Virgin'” [three years ago on Overlawyered]
July 20 roundup
- Judge Henry Lackey, who went to feds to report bribe attempt by Dickie Scruggs associate, gets award and standing ovations at Mississippi bar convention, says he was just doing a judge’s job [NMC/Folo]
- Related: should Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Khayat have used official university stationery for his letter pleading leniency for chum/ benefactor Scruggs? [Daily Mississippian and editorial via YallPolitics, continuing coverage at Folo; earlier]
- Stephen Dubner: if lawyer/subscriber can sue Raleigh News & Observer over perceived decline in its quality, who’s next? [NYT/Freakonomics blog, earlier]
- Maneuvering over retrial of Kentucky fen-phen defendants Gallion and Cunningham [Lexington Herald-Leader]
- A Fieger sideshow: though acquitted in recent campaign laundering prosecution, controversial lawyer fared less well in lawsuit against Michigan AG Michael Cox; Sixth Circuit tossed that suit and upheld order that Fieger fork over attorney fees to Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman over subjecting the justice to unfounded vilification [ABA Journal; fixed typo on Circuit]
- Citing long history of frivolous litigation, federal judge in central Texas fines disbarred lawyer Charles Edward Lincoln and his client and bans Lincoln from bringing any more federal suits [SE Texas Record]
- Faced with $18 million legal-malpractice jury verdict, Indiana labor law firm stays in business by agreeing to make token payment, then gang up on its liability insurer for the rest [Indianapolis Business Journal, Ketzenberger/Indy Star via ABA Journal]
July 3 roundup
- Texas probate and estate lawyers seldom prosecuted when they steal funds, clients told they should just sue to get it back [Austin American-Statesman investigation]
- About a third of the way down the center strip, then just a bit to the right, you’ll find us on this much-linked map of the campaign season’s most influential websites [Presidential Watch ’08]
- Given the enormous liability exposure, would a doctor rationally want a major celebrity as a client? [Scalpel or Sword via KevinMD]
- The loser-pays difference: Canadian franchisees pursue failed class-action claim against sandwich shop Quiznos, judge orders them to pay costs of more than C$200,000 [BizOp via ClassActionBlawg]
- Annals of extreme incivility: judge condemns “heartless attack” at deposition on opposing lawyer’s pin honoring son killed in Iraq [Fulton County Daily Report]
- You keep an open wi-fi connection at home and your neighbor uses it to download music improperly. Are you an infringer too? [Doctorow via Coleman]
- As you’ve probably heard if you read blogs (but maybe not otherwise), one Canadian “human rights” tribunal has dropped action against Mark Steyn and Maclean’s; another still pursuing case [SteynOnline]
- Prison-overcrowding lawsuit could lead to early release of 27,000 California inmates [TalkLeft]
- “He absolutely would’ve gotten this DOJ job but for the anti-liberal bias … and he can’t land any other jobs?” [commenter KenVee on lawsuit over politicized Department of Justice Honors/Intern programs, Kerr @ Volokh, background]