I’ve got a new piece up at City Journal (a slightly different version appears in today’s New York Post) on the controversy over the disbarred lawyer’s role as designated faculty at the upcoming Hofstra legal ethics conference. Thanks for links to Instapundit, NRO “The Corner”, Brothers Judd (cross-posted from Point of Law).
Posts Tagged ‘WO writings’
New Times column — the costs of health privacy
My new column in the Times (U.K.) is on the many costs of HIPAA, the federal law which even now prevents institutions from releasing the Virginia Tech psychopath’s health records (privacy rights extend after death) and played a notable role (along with the Buckley Amendment/FERPA) in restricting the chances for relevant actors to compare notes on his symptoms of madness before it was too late (Walter Olson, “Could less rigid privacy laws have prevented the Virginia tragedy?”, Apr. 20).
More: Dr. Wes has some additional HIPAA thoughts, as does Jeff Drummond at HIPAA Blog.
Welcome Dallas Morning News readers
The newspaper reprinted my warning labels column yesterday (Walter Olson, “Product labels have come unglued from reality”, Mar. 25). Reader Gary Neyens of Round Rock, Tex. wrote in to say he enjoyed the piece and added one of his own favorite stories:
I recently replaced the serpentine (fan) belt on my Ford pickup. The Ford Motorcraft packaging warned “Shut off engine before checking or replacing belt”. I know the reason for this warning – – Somebody, somewhere…
While on the subject of publicity, Legal NewsLine did a whole article (with file photo!) based on my recent column about not counting the trial lawyers out (Rob Luke, Anti-business suits still surging, warns tort-reform expert”, Mar. 21). Last month New York Post reporter Janon Fisher quoted me in an article on the “firefighter’s rule” which historically has barred injured public rescue personnel from suing the people they were rescuing, or others whose negligence allegedly led to disaster (“Firemen file arson lawsuits”, Feb. 2). And a couple of publicity clips from last year that I didn’t round up at the time: at the North County Times’ The Californian, Bridgit Jordan quotes me on Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-tobacco philanthropy (“Donation may go up in smoke”, Aug. 22); and Joseph Goldstein of the New York Sun quotes me in an illuminating article about the “creeping oversight” of New York City government operations obtained by the feds through consent decrees and the like (“Bush Administration, in Series of Federal Lawsuits Against New York Agencies, Gains Creeping Oversight of Local Government”, Aug. 15).
“Business has not trounced the trial lawyers”
My latest column in the Times Online explains why Business Week and some other media outlets are being at best premature (and that’s putting it diplomatically) in declaring the American plaintiff’s bar down for the count. Opening excerpt:
America’s litigation fever is cooling off, or so one hears. Merck & Co is doing reasonably well defending suits over its painkiller Vioxx, while actions blaming foodmakers for obesity have sputtered. Doctors’ malpractice-suit payouts are said to be flat (at what by other countries’ standards are still unthinkably high levels). Last month, the Supreme Court ruled on a punitive damage case in favor of tobacco giant Philip Morris, which has become a Wall Street favorite after wrestling down its perceived legal risks. Nearly every American politician claims to be on board with reform, even the nation’s most famous plaintiff’s-lawyer-made-good: “We do have too many lawsuits”, said John Edwards during the 2004 Presidential debates. A recent Business Week cover sums it up: “How Business Trounced the Trial Lawyers”.
And yet one wonders whether a contest is being called prematurely. … To call a high-water mark is going to require more evidence than we’ve seen so far.
P.S. Other reactions to the Business Week cover story came from Bizzyblog (“Year’s Most Unintentionally Comical”), Roger Parloff (article itself was better than headline), and me at Point of Law (see also this WSJ column).
Cocktail napkin not to be used for navigation
I’ve got a short piece in The American, the recently launched American Enterprise Institute magazine, about the problem of overzealous warning labels, taking as my point of departure Bob Dorigo Jones’s new book Remove Child Before Folding. Alert readers will notice that the piece is based on my Times Online column of a few weeks ago, adapted with about three paragraphs’ worth of new and added material, mostly on how liability law helps worsen the problem. (Walter Olson, “Warning: This Column Might Give You Something to Think About”, The American, Mar. 6).
For more coverage of Remove Child Before Folding, see Jan. 6, Jan. 26, etc. Reason magazine editor Nick Gillespie, incidentally, reviewed the book in the New York Post here.
New Times column — “US capital markets must learn from London”
My new column in the Times (UK) Online is up this morning, and discusses yesterday’s issuance of the much anticipated Paulson Committee report on the need to revive flagging U.S. competitiveness in international capital markets by reforming the workings of our securities and class-action law. (Dec. 1). For more on the work of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, see PoL Oct. 19, Nov. 30, Dec. 1, etc.
Andrew Sullivan, “The Conservative Soul”
I’ve got a review in today’s New York Post of Andrew Sullivan’s new book, The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How To Get It Back. A brief excerpt:
The “conservatism I grew up with,” notes Sullivan, stood for “lower taxes, less government spending, freer trade, freer markets, individual liberty, personal responsibility and a strong anti-communist foreign policy.” Defining figures such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher spoke regularly of human freedom as the great aim of political life. “It has long been a fundamental conviction of the Republican Party,” declared the 1980 GOP platform, “that government should foster in our society a climate of maximum individual liberty and freedom of choice.”
Somehow from there we arrived at the presidency of George W. Bush, whose pronouncement on the state’s proper role – “When someone hurts, government has got to move” – owes more to LBJ than to Barry Goldwater.
Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum brusquely waves aside “this whole idea of personal autonomy,” this “idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do.” Ex-Democrats of the McGovern-Dukakis era once popularized the line “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me”; if the Santorums prosper, plenty of old-line Republicans will be ready to sing the same refrain.
(Walter Olson, “Reforming the Right”, Nov. 5). Andrew Sullivan responds here.
New Times column — Katrina verdict
My new column at the Times (U.K.) Online is on last week’s Mississippi Katrina insurance verdict. (Walter Olson, “Insurers can breathe easier over Katrina lawsuits”, Aug. 30). Concluding paragraph:
Major coverage issues remain to be resolved (and appealed), but at least we can take note at this point that America is not Zimbabwe or Bolivia. As Dickie Scruggs said before the Leonard ruling, “If you win it, it’s a huge win. If you lose it, you spin it the best way you can.”
Also, I was a guest last evening (6:30 p.m. Eastern) on Marc Bernier’s high-rated radio show, “The Talk of Florida” to discuss the article.
“Rumpelstiltskin, LLP”
[Bumped to make it the top post Monday morning; originally posted Saturday. Also check out the comments section on this post, which includes comments from readers who’ve been on both sides of junk-fax lawsuits.] I’ve got a contribution in the “Rule of Law” section of Saturday’s Wall Street Journal (Jul. 29, sub-only) on the ongoing litigation (especially class action litigation) over junk faxes, a topic often addressed in this space. It concludes:
No doubt you can make a case that getting at the most heinous wrongdoers through bounty-hunting is preferable to never getting at them at all. But note that where crimes are indisputably serious, the rewards for informing are fixed and often modest. The typical reward for helping solve a bank robbery is $5,000. At rewardsforjustice.net, the U.S. government offers bounties for information leading to the capture of leading terrorists: Even notorious masterminds tend to be worth at most $5 million, while turning in Osama bin Laden will win you $25 million.
If Osama had sent 100,000 junk faxes, there’d be a bigger price on his head.
New London Times column: MySpace suit
I’ve got a new online column up at the British paper, my second. I discuss the recent lawsuit seeking to blame the social-networking site for not providing a virtual chaperone for a 14-year-old Texas user who went out on an inadvisable date. (Walter Olson, “Teens, sex, and MySpace”, Times (U.K.), Jul. 18). For earlier coverage of the MySpace suit, see Jun. 21, Jun. 23, and Jun. 26.