Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘United Kingdom’

Daily Roundup 2008-12-28

Daily Roundup sounds better than Microblog, if you ask me.

Tomorrow, I predict that somewhere, someone will be sued.

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Hokey Religions and Ancient Weapons are No Match for a Good Blaster at Your Side, Kid

Aspiring Jedi in the United Kingdom are out of luck this holiday season (assuming that Jedi have an analogue to Christmas), as the Woolworth’s retail chain, still a going concern over there, has restricted light sabers for purchase by adults only.  The store’s fear?  The Star Wars themed toys might be mistaken for firearms.

“A toy”                                                                     “An automatic pistol”

While even firearms opponents in the UK concede this decision is over the top, is it more appropriate to blame retailers, who may suffer liability in the event that a child was, I don’t know, injured because some fool mistook a light saber for a real firearm, or the activists and Labour government who have created laws that make such liability a real worry?  After all, the chain, like most merchants, presumably weighed its own risks, and found profits from sale of toy light sabers wanting in the balance.

You’re on your own, kid.

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“MPs accuse courts of allowing libel tourism”

Sounds like British libel law is finally getting seriously controversial in Britain: “Lawyers and judges were accused by MPs yesterday of using ‘Soviet-style’ English libel laws to help the rich and powerful to hide their secrets. …Bridget Prentice, the Justice Minister, told MPs that the Government would announce a consultation on libel and the internet, and the high cost of defamation proceedings.” (Dominic Kennedy, Times Online, Dec. 18).

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Elton John loses Guardian libel case

Another indication that British courts may be steering defamation law away from its highly pro-plaintiff posture of the past: “In a groundbreaking libel decision, the judge said that ‘irony’ and ‘teasing’ do not amount to defamation.” The entertainer Elton John had sued over a spoof “diary” that depicted his involvement in a major AIDS charity as insincere and self-serving.

“It’s significant,” said media law expert Mark Stephens of the ruling. “What [Mr. Justice] Tugendhat has done is move us closer to the US system where you can’t get damages for satire and humour, except in the most exceptional cases.”

(Duncan Campbell, The Guardian, Dec. 13).

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U.K.: “Lawyers made millions from sick miners”

“The men who became two of the highest-paid solicitors in Britain by mishandling the claims of almost 100,000 sick miners will be struck off [= disbarred] after being found guilty of misconduct yesterday. James Beresford and Douglas Smith, partners in the South Yorkshire firm Beresfords, took advantage of vulnerable miners by putting their own commercial goals before those of their clients, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found. The company earned more than £115m under a government scheme for compensating miners with health claims, and Beresford himself made more than £16m in one year.” Among allegations the tribunal accepted as valid were acting in a conflict of interest and structuring fee arrangements in a way not in the clients’ best interest. (Afua Hirsch, Guardian, Dec. 12; Point of Law, Nov. 28).

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Microblog 2008-12-04

  • MDs retreating from hospital-based practice for many reasons, including legal [Happy Hospitalist]
  • Mark Twain: “It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.” Know that feeling [h/t @lawfirmblogger]
  • Among Murdoch properties, stolid WSJ has begun sharing stories with tabloid NYPost, think of the satiric possibilities [Calderone/Politico]
  • Oral history of libertarian magazine Reason over 40 years, lots I didn’t know about its past [Brian Doherty and many others]
  • As rescuers neared, “immaculate” champagne service: sang-froid of staff and guests under Taj siege [Daily Mail] Security at Mumbai’s Oberoi hotel couldn’t get gun permits from gov’t [WSJ] Tunku Varadarajan: What India must do now [Forbes]
  • Good! Obama camp hedging support for EFCA (card-check, imposed union contract) bill [Las Vegas Sun h/t @Eric_B_Meyer]
  • Lap dancing “is not sexually stimulating”, British parliamentary committee is told [Guardian via Feral Child]

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Pork-handling and religious accommodation, cont’d

Hasanali Khoja, a Muslim chef employed by London’s Metropolitan Police as a catering manager, has filed a discrimination claim after being asked to prepare breakfasts with pork sausages and bacon, saying he had been assured he would not have to handle the meat products. (David Barrett, “Muslim police chef claims religious discrimination over sausage and bacon breakfasts”, Telegraph, Nov. 2). The Minnesota meat-packing case discussed earlier is here.

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Microblog 2008-11-30

  • Torquay, England: cops to give flip-flops to drunken women exiting nightclubs to reduce high-heel trip/fall risk [Daily Mail]
  • Mumbai attack introduced new terrorist tactics, expect to see them employed elsewhere [John C. Thompson/National Post, Bill Roggio] Heroic hotel employees [Reuters] Twitter, Flickr come into their own as breaking news sources during attacks [TechCrunch]
  • “15 ways to get more out of Pandora” [Lifehacker h/t @lilyhill]
  • NYT covers legal difficulties of pursuing pirates (but we did get to the story first) [NYT]
  • Interview with Eve Tushnet [Norm Geras via Ann Althouse]
  • “Dear @barackobama – thank u 4 another email with ‘donate’ at the bottom. Pls note my future donations will be called ‘taxes'” [@JerseyTodd]
  • Pictorial tour of America’s ugliest motel [Lileks] At the time people were duly impressed. What equivalents are we building today?

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