Posts Tagged ‘tort reform’

June 7 roundup

  • Monday’s polar bear panel at AEI is a panel about the law of polar bears and the effect of the FWS decision to list them as threatened, rather than a panel featuring polar bears. So no fish will be served. Volokh’s Jonathan Adler will be there, though. [Volokh; AEI]
  • Limiting lawsuit abuses lowers costs from litigation, creates jobs in long run. [Engler & McQuillan @ Detroit News]
  • HBO to small businesses: prepositions are okay, but conjunctions will lead to injunctions. [Baltimore Sun]
  • A one-sided love letter to Cozen O’Connor in the Philadelphia Inquirer over its September 11 litigation is a bit too revealing about its deep-pocket searches: “Cozen lawyers also had to be sure that such a defendant made financial sense, for the firm and its clients.” Culpability, of course, isn’t in the equation; and the newspaper story fails to account for the public-policy implications of having trial lawyers stepping on foreign policy. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
  • Life imitates “The Office”: law firm offers “love contracts” for dating workers. [ABA Journal]
  • More evidence of FDA overwarning, even when the science and law does not justify it. [Kyle Sampson @ Product Liability Law 360]
  • Business tries to bully small website with litigation; small website successfully fights back. [CL&P Blog]
  • “[Ron] Paul accomplished the one thing he’s always been good at: using political appeals to get people to send money. I don’t feel freer.” [Henley via Kirkendall]
  • “It’s infuriating how all three presidential candidates prattle on about the need to fight global warming while also complaining about the high price of gasoline.” [Postrel]
  • Story on Vioxx settlement and Merck winning reversals heavily quotes me. [Product Liability Law 360 ($)]

Barack Obama and tort reform: is he really bipartisan?

In an interview of Senator Barack Obama on Fox News, Chris Wallace questioned Obama’s claims of being a post-partisan leader who reached across the aisle.  In response, Obama identified his support of the Class Action Fairness Act tort reform bill.  Is this persuasive evidence of bipartisan behavior?  I explore the question in today’s Examiner.

Sen. Cornyn introduces lessons-of-Lerach bill

The Texas Republican, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is introducing legislation that

would make several key reforms to current securities class action law to increase the accountability of and transparency for attorneys filing these lawsuits and the institutional plaintiffs they often represent. Specifically, it would require:

DISCLOSURE OF PAYMENTS BETWEEN PLAINTIFFS AND ATTORNEYS

Plaintiffs and attorneys would submit sworn certifications identifying any direct or indirect payments, promises of such payments, and other conflicts of interest between them, as well as all political contributions made to elected officials with authority or influence over the appointment of counsel in the case.

COMPETITIVE BIDDING FOR LEAD COUNSEL

Courts would include a competitive bidding process as one of the factors for the selection and retention of lead counsel for a class of plaintiffs.

STUDY TO DETERMINE APPROPRIATE ATTORNEYS FEES

GAO would commission a study of the last 5 years of fee awards in securities class action cases to determine the average hourly rate for lead counsel.

(release, Congressional Record statement). (cross-posted from Point of Law). More: hailed by Lisa Rickard of U.S. Chamber.

“Why Doctors Are Heading for Texas”

Tort reform, of course, resulting in substantially lower medical malpractice premiums and expenses, and an influx of 7000 doctors, including into many underserved regions. One indirect benefit: with less money spent on medical malpractice lawyers, self-insuring hospitals can spend more on doctors and on medical practice:

Take Christus Health, a nonprofit Catholic health system across the state. Thanks to tort reform, over the past four years Christus saved $100 million that it otherwise would have spent fending off bogus lawsuits or paying higher insurance premiums. Every dollar saved was reinvested in helping poor patients.

Also of relevance: the amusing results when Texas added evidentiary standards of medical harm to their asbestos and silicosis docket. Suddenly, over 99% of the cases went away because so few suing plaintiffs had a doctor willing to certify harm. (Joseph Nixon, WSJ, May 17). Related: POL Nov. 6, 2006 and POL Nov. 7, 2006, where I debate Texas law professor Charles Silver on these issues. Suffice it to say that the last year and a half has provided more support for my position than his.

Update: more data at Texas Medical Association website.

May 12 roundup

  • Canada free speech: Islamic group files complaint against Halifax newspaper over cartoon of burka-wearing terror fan; two more libel suits aimed at online conservative voices; growing furor over complaint against Steyn/Macleans [National Post]
  • More than 5,000 students committed crimes last year in Philadelphia schools, but none were expelled — consent decrees tying system’s hands are one reason [Inquirer]
  • U.K.: Man threatened with legal action for flying pirate flag as part of daughter’s birthday party [Guardian]
  • Bankruptcy judge doesn’t plan to accept at face value Countrywide’s claim that it generated false escrow documents by mistake in foreclosure [WSJ, WSJ law blog]
  • Amid bipartisan calls to step down, Ohio AG Marc Dann [Apr. 19, May 6] hires an opposition researcher [Adler @ Volokh] on top of Washington lobbyist [Legal NewsLine], after being rebuked by judge for political suit [Dispatch]. And where’s that ethics form on the Chesley flight? [Dayton Daily News]
  • Missouri med-mal claims fall sharply after legislated damages curb [Springfield News-Leader]
  • More on Dartmouth prof Priya Venkatesan, the one who wants to sue her students — as suspected, she’s a devotee of deconstructionist Science Studies [Allen/MtC; earlier]
  • Covert plan to sabotage Chinese economy? [Wilson Center event]
  • What, never? Well, hardly ever: Docs continue to assail notion that various complications such as patient delirium, clostridium difficile infection, iatrogenic pneumothorax, etc. — not to mention falls — are “never events” [KevinMD various posts; earlier]
  • Mich. high court agrees anti-gay-marriage amendment bars municipal health benefits for domestic partners, just what key proponents had claimed it wouldn’t do [Rauch @ IGF, Carpenter @ Volokh, earlier]
  • Private service rates the safety of charter air providers — but can it afford the cost of being sued after giving a bad rating? [Three years ago on Overlawyered]

March 1 roundup

  • Oregon Supreme Court plays chicken with SCOTUS over $79.5 million punitive damages award in Williams v. Philip Morris case. [Sebok @ Findlaw; Krauss @ IBD; POL Feb. 1]
  • Speaking of punitive damages, I did a podcast on Exxon Shipping v. Baker. I can’t bear to listen to it, so let me know how I did. [Frank @ Fed Soc]
  • Arkansas case alleged legal sale of pseudoephedrine was “nuisance” because meth-makers would buy it; case dismissed. [Beck/Herrmann]. This is why I’ve stockpiled Sudafed.
  • Lawyers advertise for refinery explosion victims before fire goes out. [Hou Chron/TLR]
  • Connecticut Supreme Court: cat-attack victim can sue without showing past history of violence by animal. [On Point] Looking forward to comments from all the anti-reformers who claim to oppose reform because they’re against the abrogation of the common law.
  • Op-ed on the Great White fire deep pockets phenomenon. [SE Texas Record; earlier: Feb. 2]
  • “FISA lawsuits come from Twilight Zone.” [Hillyer @ Examiner]
  • Legislative action on various medical malpractice tweaking in Colorado, Hawaii, and Wyoming. [TortsProf]
  • Request for unemployment benefits: why fire me just because I asked staffers for a prostitute? [Des Moines Register]
  • “So much for seduction and romance; bring in the MBAs and lawyers.” [Mac Donald @ City Journal; contra Belle Lettre; contra contra Dank]
  • Where is the Canadian Brandeis standing up for free speech? [Kay @ National Post]
  • In defense of lobbying. [Krauthammer @ WaPo]

The Patent Reform Act of 2007

My latest Liability Outlook is on the Patent Reform Act of 2007:

Despite some in the media calling patent reform dead, on January 24, 2008, the Senate placed S. 1145, the Patent Reform Act of 2007, on the general calendar. The next few weeks will be critical to the legislation, which the House passed in September. Although much of the discussion has focused on the different perspectives and concerns that the high tech and the biotech/pharma industries have about the legislation, the fact remains that the patent litigation system is broken. Congress should make every effort to fix it by writing into this legislation reasonable formulas for damage awards and venue rules that discourage forum-shopping. …

Affiliates of Erich Spangenberg’s Plutus IP have sued 476 different defendants in 42 lawsuits. The vast majority of those lawsuits allege infringements of patents that Plutus IP purchased for $1,000. The use of invalid patents in litigation is more than theoretical. Philip Jackson sued his attorneys, Chicago plaintiffs firm Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro, for malpractice after his $12.1 million jury verdict against Glenayre Electronics Inc. was reduced to under $3 million; Niro challenged the malpractice suit by claiming that th e patent Jackson had successfully enforced was invalid. In 2006, approximately 6,000 defendants were sued in 2,800 patent cases; in 2007, the six thousand mark was reached in early October, implying a 30 percent increase in patent litigation in a single year. Such litigation stifles substantial technological innovation. Patent trolls claim to block entire fields, and one cannot hope to innovate in these areas without the financial capital to handle the threat of patent litigation. IBM has 370 corporate patent attorneys, not just to avoid the pitfalls of infringement, but to create a patent portfolio that can provide counterclaims (or cross-licensing opportunities) if a commercial entity were to sue them for infringement. Since the late 1990s, patent litigation costs have outstripped patent profits.

Judicial Hellholes 2007

ATRA’s remarkably successful annual Judicial Hellholes report highlighting the high and low points of several jurisdictions’ legal systems is out. (PDF) Regular readers will recognize many of the stories and jurisdictions (and an op-ed I wrote even gets a shout-out), but the report is a handy summary of the year in tort reform and lawsuit abuse. Lots of news coverage (AP/Fool.com; National Law Journal; the Examiner; others) and blog coverage (Lattman; Bader; Torts Prof; NAM; NAF; Murnane; Pharmalot).

Does tort reform affect insurance rates?

In my radio interview last week, I was asked about the Wisconsin Association of Trial Lawyers’ claim that tort reform measures have no effect on medical insurance rates. ATLA’s “fact sheet” on medical malpractice reform makes the same claim. A 2003 HHS compilation of studies on the matter, linked on our old medical page, refutes that proposition. (HHS, “Confronting the New Health Care Crisis”, Mar. 3, 2003 at Tables 6 and 7).

Read On…