Overlawyered

Chronicling the high cost of our legal System

 

Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Law Professor Sues Above the Law Blog”

by Walter Olson on November 3, 2009

Ben Sheffner at Copyrights & Campaigns, Michael Krauss at Point of Law and Karen Sloan at the NLJ have details on a pro se suit filed by University of Miami lawprof Donald Marvin Jones.

Tagged as: false light, law schools, legal blogs, online speech

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The trouble with Holmes

by Walter Olson on November 3, 2009

When you hear a judge praised for his literary skill in writing opinions, remember the fate of Carrie Buck [Terry Teachout]

Tagged as: judges

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Authentic handmade Chinese noodles

by Walter Olson on November 3, 2009

Yet another interesting food that may never be the same following a safety crackdown, in this case by the Los Angeles health department [L.A. Times via Katherine Mangu-Ward, Crispy on the Outside]

Tagged as: food safety, Los Angeles

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November 3 roundup

by Walter Olson on November 3, 2009

  • American Federation of Teachers backs off earlier aggressive trademark stance against critical website [AFT Exposed via Ron Coleman, earlier]
  • Unintended but ever-so-predictable consequence of cash-for-clunkers: cheap used cars now a lot less cheap [Coyote]
  • Strange that Pat Robertson doesn’t seem to know hate-crime laws cover crimes motivated by religious bias [Neiwert]
  • Court rules against New York law firm’s debt collection practices [ABA Journal]
  • Trouble amid the Lamborghinis: rumors swirl of financial defalcations at prominent south Florida law firm [WSJ Law Blog and more]
  • Ohio: “Man dressed as a Breathalyzer for Halloween is arrested for DUI” [Obscure Store]
  • Blawg star Mark Herrmann (Drug & Device Law) writes a brief in Supreme Court case on (unrelated) topic of prosecutorial immunity for misconduct [Scott Greenfield]
  • Administration’s task force on medical liability reform meets amid signs it won’t accomplish much [Wood, ShopFloor; related, Stanley Goldfarb/Weekly Standard]

Tagged as: debtor-creditor law, medical malpractice, trademarks

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Coming back for alimony 20+ years after disavowing it

by Walter Olson on November 2, 2009

AlkonISeeRudePeopleSeems to pass for acceptable practice in Massachusetts. [Jennifer Levitz, WSJ, via Amy Alkon, who by the way has a new book coming out momentarily called I See Rude People -- for the benefit of the FTC, I should say I've neither seen nor requested a free copy.]

Tagged as: divorce, Massachusetts

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75 years of hospital records

by Walter Olson on November 2, 2009

Tampa: “When medical malpractice lawyer Michael J. Trentalange asked St. Joseph’s Hospital for every ‘adverse incident’ report made since the hospital opened in 1934, the hospital pushed back hard. In July, the hospital sued him, and Trentalange sued right back, the Web site Health News Florida reported.” (AP/Sarasota Herald Tribune via White Coat).

Tagged as: discovery, Florida, hospitals, medical malpractice

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The New York Times finally reports on CPSIA

by Walter Olson on November 2, 2009

[Bumped Monday a.m. for readers who missed it over the weekend]

The piece appears in the business section of Saturday’s Times, and it’s a perfectly good one as far as it goes. It starts off with a wooden toy maker in Ogunquit, Maine, who estimates that it would cost him $30,000 to secure testing for the 80 items he makes, using such materials as maple, walnut oil and local beeswax. It touches on the strains between large and small manufacturers, nytimesas well as the thrift-store and vintage-book angles. Overall, it’s really not a bad piece of its sort.

Aside from its timing, that is. The Times has now gotten around to covering some of the harm done by this law ten months after the Washington Post and other media had begun reporting the basic outlines of the story; nine and a half months after a furor had built to national proportions, prompting both members of Congress and the CPSC to hurry out supposed clarifications; nine months after hundreds of bloggers were on the case, the law’s effects on thrift stores were making headlines from coast to coast, and the Times’s continuing failure to report on the law’s effects had commentators noting its “weird blind spot” on the issue; eight and a half months after a deeply clueless Times editorial assailed critics of the law who The Times wakes up“foment needless fears that the law could injure smaller enterprises like libraries, resale shops and handmade toy businesses”; seven and a half months after protests by minibike dealers began drawing wide national coverage; seven months after critics rallied on Capitol Hill, and the Washington Post joined in reporting on the law’s dire effects on vintage (pre-1985) kids’ books; and so on to the present.

Okay, so the Times was — well, not a day late and a dollar short, but more like 300 days late and many billions of dollars in overlooked costs short. Still, let’s be grateful: the paper’s news side has now implicitly rebuked the editorial side’s fantastic, ideologically blinkered dismissal of “needless fears that the law could injure smaller enterprises”. And the Times’s belated acknowledgment of the story can serve as permission for other sectors of the media dependent on Times coverage — including some magazines and network news departments — to acknowledge at last the legitimacy of the story and begin according serious attention to the continuing CPSIA calamity. When they do, they will find much to catch up on. (& welcome Handmade Toy Alliance, Chris Fountain readers)

PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGE from Ethel Everett, illustrator, Nursery Rhymes (1900), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.

Tagged as: CPSIA, CPSIA and toys, Maine, New York Times

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November 2 roundup

by Walter Olson on November 2, 2009

  • Worst, most dangerous legal trend of the moment: trial lawyers continue big Capitol Hill push to overturn Supreme Court’s valuable Iqbal and Twombly decisions on lawsuit procedure [Point of Law and more, Thomas Dupree/WLF, Beck & Herrmann and more, earlier]
  • Lawyers rush to courthouse to beat deadline for new Oklahoma limits on liability suits [Tulsa World]
  • Spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown admits he’s taped reporter conversations without their consent, seeming violation of California law [SF Chronicle]
  • UK: motorist could face prosecution for splashing kids by driving through puddle, at what she says was kids’ request [BoingBoing]
  • “Is the pay czar unconstitutional?” [Bainbridge on McConnell, WSJ; Ribstein on link to PCAOB case]
  • More “deceptively named fruity cereal” suits in California [Lowering the Bar ("I still think this is like claiming emotional distress because you just learned 'The Hobbit' isn't a true story,") Ken at Popehat ("Froot of the Poisonous Tree of Litigiousness"), earlier here, here, here, here, etc.]
  • A city of stool pigeons: Chicago to pay those who inform on tax cheats [NBC Chicago]
  • Ill-fated stint as pole dancer leads to lawsuit against Arizona bar [Above the Law]

Tagged as: advertising, California, Chicago, Jerry Brown, Oklahoma, pleading, strippers and exotic dancers, United Kingdom, whistleblowers

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What it means for a product to be “safe”

by Walter Olson on November 2, 2009

Don Boudreaux has some thoughts on that. [Cafe Hayek]

Tagged as: CPSIA, product liability, safety

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Two books set to hit on Scruggs scandal

by Walter Olson on November 1, 2009

One is co-written by Alan Lange of YallPolitics blogging fame. [Freeland] More: Joe Palazzolo, “Scruggs Prosecutor Writes Tell-All Book”, Main Justice.

Tagged as: Dickie Scruggs, Mississippi, on other blogs, scandals

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Britain’s criminal libel and sedition law

by Walter Olson on November 1, 2009

The House of Lords will back its long-overdue abolition. [Guardian]

Tagged as: free speech, United Kingdom

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“Dracula Files Product Liability Suit Against Wooden Stake Manufacturers”

by Walter Olson on November 1, 2009

Hallowe’en legal humor [Carbolic Smoke Ball]

Tagged as: humor

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Three-year-old wanders from Connecticut home

by Walter Olson on October 31, 2009

And now police have charged mom with a felony. [AP/Hartford Courant]

Tagged as: child protection, Connecticut

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Buried on page 1431: Potemkin tort reform

by Ted Frank on October 30, 2009

Commentary’s Jennifer Rubin notices:

A friend points out a little nugget of absurdity and political mendacity in the Pelosi health-care bill. Remember Obama’s effort to try a “test” for tort reform? (We don’t actually need a test, since it has worked to lower medical malpractice coverage and help increase access to doctors in states that have tried it.) Well, Pelosi’s bill has an anti-tort-reform measure. On pages 1431-1433 of the 1990-page spellbinder, there is a financial incentive for states to try “alternative medical liability laws.” But look — you don’t get the incentive if you have a law that would “limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages.”

In other words, Congress is providing a financial incentive to uncap damages. Marvelous.

Tagged as: medical, Nancy Pelosi, noneconomic damages, politics, tort reform, trial lawyer earmarks

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A new mass tort, at the cash register?

by Walter Olson on October 30, 2009

Concern is raised over bisphenol-A (BPA) in printed cash register receipts [Gordon Gibb, Lawsuits and Settlements] Adds reader Rogers Turner: “Brilliant…what does almost every single person in the U.S. touch multiple times a day?”

Tagged as: toxic torts

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Breaking: $16.6 M award in “Hold your wee” case

by Walter Olson on October 30, 2009

A Sacramento jury has told a radio station to pay $16.6M in the “Hold your wee for a Wii” contest death [Radio Online, earlier here; via Bill Childs, TortsProf].

Tagged as: broadcasters

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Hallowe’en costumes at the deposition

by Walter Olson on October 30, 2009

Boston lawyers recall a very strange sexual harassment lawsuit in which the defendant’s CEO “wore a different Halloween costume to each day of his [six-day] deposition”. [Zach Lowe, AmLaw Daily]

Tagged as: Boston, discovery, harassment law

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Anti-reform incentives in House health bill

by Walter Olson on October 30, 2009

Jennifer Rubin at Commentary has the scoop on how the bill’s language will reward states financially if they do not “limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages”. P.S. And see Ted’s fuller treatment above.

Tagged as: Barack Obama, medical malpractice

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