October 2006 Archives

My opening shot is up at the Point of Law featured discussion on Election '06 and legal reform. More: I've also posted there reader Thomas Zak's comments, made in response to mine.

• A WSJ Law Blog commenter thinks I'm too restrained in criticizing the plaintiffs' bar. [WSJ Law Blog]
• The Bush administration just might accomplish something else reform-related in its last two years. [Point of Law; Ideoblog]
• 12-year-old California boy tries to jump over five-foot-long Halloween decoration that has chicken wire sticking out, hurts himself, 2-1 court decision says he can sue school district for failing to supervise him. [Los Angeles Daily News]
• Jaycees may be forced to disband over haunted house lawsuit; they've stopped running the haunted house already. [Quad City Times]
• Judge Easterbrook: "Gobs of judicial (and law-firm) time have been squandered by the combination of sloppy drafting, repeated violations of Rule 65(d), and inattention to all sources of subject-matter jurisdiction. If these lawyers were physicians, their patients would be dead." [Blue Cross and Blue Shield Assoc. v. American Express Co. via Bashman]
• Britons vandalize speed cameras. [NY Times]
• Roger Pilon on California Prop 90. [LA Times via Bashman]
• How to use a condom optimally, and save $13.5 million a year to boot. [Marginal Revolution]
• You like me! You really, really like me! Or, if not "like," a small fraction of you tolerate me enough to download my writings off of SSRN. [Torts Prof Blog]

Under California law, if you're digging on your property and you find prehistoric remains, you must contact the state's Native American Heritage Commission.

The commission then assigns a person known as the "most-likely descendant" to consult with the landowner. But there's sometimes tenuous or no ancestral ties between the "descendant" and the uncovered bodies, scientists and American Indians said. ... Praetzellis and other researchers said it is more important for American Indians to be involved in the moving of ancient remains than to force them to prove a genetic link after being left out entirely for decades.

"They just have to say, 'Yeah, I feel culturally connected to those remains,'" said Jeff Fentress, a San Francisco State anthropologist. "It is really up to that person to determine how to handle that burial."

Landowners often pay consulting fees to persons on the designated "descendant" lists, and some persons of American Indian descent say they would like to be on the lists but were left off because of politics. Some Indian activists are also upset that the state law does not give the "descendant" the right to block development. (Matt Krupnick, "Ancient remains causing problems", Contra Costa Times, Oct. 18). Earlier: Jul. 16, 2005, etc.

Ted mentioned this one in his roundup yesterday, but it merits a post of its own, duly assigned to our "personal responsibility" archive: Jeffrey Klein and Brett Birdwell were 17 "when they trespassed onto railroad property and climbed atop a rail car" because they wanted to see the view from there. They were shocked by a 12,500-volt wire and severely injured. The incident took place in Lancaster, Pa. but through the miracle of forum selection the lawsuit against Amtrak and Norfolk Southern landed before a jury in Philadelphia, a locality notably more favorable for plaintiffs than Lancaster. An attorney said the railroads should have posted signs for the benefit of trespassers warning of the overhead hazard and also should have had the electricity turned off at the time. As Ted pointed out, Birdwell, who was awarded $6.8 million, had injuries transient enough that he's now serving with the Army in Afghanistan. ("$24.2 million for men burned atop rail car", AP/MSNBC, Oct. 27; Brett Lovelace, "Verdict: $24.2M", Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, Oct. 27; Janet Kelley, "A $24.2M question", Lancaster New Era, Oct. 27)(& Coyote Blog). Update: railroads appeal (AP, Nov. 15).

Just announced at my other website, Point of Law:

Tomorrow we kick off our next featured discussion, a four-day round-robin on the election and its implications for legal reform. It won't be a debate format, more like a free-for-all of commentary and reporting that will tackle such topics as:

1) Races around the country where law and litigation have been an issue, or a motivating force;

2) Activist state attorney generals on the ballot, or running for higher office;

3) Ballot propositions to watch on election night;

4) Implications for lawsuit reform and other legal issues if one or both Houses of Congress turn Democratic.

Ted Frank, Jim Copland and I will all be participating, and we also expect surprise guests to stop by for one or more days. In fact, if you've got something interesting to say about the legal politics of Election '06, we invite you to send any of us an email (my address is editor - [at] - this-domain-name - .com) to ask about contributing.

• My Oct. 28 WSJ op-ed is now on-line for free. [AEI]
• Your tax dollars at work: $24.2 million for two 17-year-old trespassers burned by high-voltage electrical wires six feet above the top of an Amtrak train that they had climbed. The one who received "only" $6.8 million had injuries minor enough that he's serving in the Army now. [Lancaster Online via Northridge Buzz Blog]
• Refuting trial lawyers' claims of repealing McCarran-Ferguson as a panacea for insurance rates. [Point of Law]
• "At what point are these accommodations exacerbating learning disabilities, and creating life disabiltities?" [Ivey; Wall Street Journal]
• $1.5 million verdict: plaintiff blamed her bipolar disorder on a nurse's error that caused a lung to collapse. [Columbus Ledger-Enquirer; see also Kevin MD commenters]
• Trial lawyers insult West Virginia businessmen for daring to challenge their hegemony. [Institute for Legal Reform]
• Bank of America overcredits account, takes money back, gets hit with California state class action verdict that could cost billions. [Point of Law]
• Latest Duke lacrosse case outrage: prosecutor's office says it hasn't even interviewed alleged victim. [Volokh; Outside the Beltway; Corner]
• In anticipation of Philip Morris v. Williams, hear the great Sheila Birnbaum argue State Farm v. Campbell. [Oyez MP3 via Mass Torts Prof]
• Kristol: the U.S. Senate still matters because of judicial nominations. [Weekly Standard]
• Election challenge to Washington state incumbent Supreme Court justice who is supported by trial lawyers. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer via Bashman]
• Don't tell AG Lockyer, or he'll want to sue the fat for global warming. [NY Times via Kevin MD]

Jack Thompson, the Florida lawyer with a seldom-rivaled knack for keeping this site supplied with material (Oct. 20, etc., etc.), has fired off a cease-and-desist letter to the publisher of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon demanding that it stop publication of the game because participants can use it to create characters based on him. A Slashdot posting explains that Thompson's "image is not actually a selectable character in the game," but John Scalzo at the Gaming Target website (scroll down) has published instructions on how to use the game's build-a-fighter mode to create a character based on Thompson, widely loathed among hobbyists because of his courtroom assaults on popular games (among the character's features: "puffed out self-important look... Banshee Scream. ...no victory pose because, let's face it, he's never won"). More: XBoxic, GameShout, CNet/GameSpot (& welcome Ron Coleman readers).

So Native American activists are trying -- again -- to get it invalidated as a trademark. (Jeremy T. Elman, "Can Trademark Law Help Minority Groups Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?", Law.com, Oct. 12).

"A Danish court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Muslim groups against the newspaper that first published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that triggered protests across the world this year." (AlJazeera.net, Oct. 27; Volokh, Oct. 26). Syrian legislator Mohammed Habash, who heads the Islamic Studies Center in Damascus and is apparently deaf to ironic overtones, charged the Danish court with "[wanting] to impose their way of thinking on all other nations.” ("Arab dismay at cartoons verdict", Irish Examiner, Oct. 26). Earlier: Mar. 19, Mar. 31, etc.

That's the title of my "Rule of Law" column in today's Wall Street Journal.

The trial lawyers have now enlisted themselves in the war against terror. One can imagine a parody -- a team of wing-tipped attorneys parachuting into the wilds of Afghanistan, armed with subpoenas forcing Osama bin Laden to produce all relevant documents and secure his attendance at a 20-day videotaped deposition (damn the Geneva Conventions against torture). The legal and photocopying bills alone crush al Qaeda.

The reality is more prosaic, and less amusing. For just as Willie Sutton legendarily said he robbed banks "because that's where the money is," plaintiffs' attorneys are weaving creative legal theories to hold legitimate third parties liable for the intentional acts of terrorists. This friendly fire could end up doing almost as much financial damage as the terrorists themselves, with the lawyers getting rich in the process.

Remember that the reason anti-reformers justify Stella Liebeck's infamous hot coffee lawsuit against McDonald's is because McDonald's was allegedly the only one selling coffee hot enough to burn? The family of a Dallas Cowboys coach has hired an attorney to sue McDonald's over allegedly tainted food. Here's how Jeff Carlton of the AP describes him:

Cecil W. Casterline, the Haley's lawyer, has previously sued Whataburger and Wendy's on behalf of clients allegedly scalded by coffee.

Eugene Volokh has a good laugh at the expense of an upstate New York publication called the North Country Gazette (Oct. 23 and 25). More: I should have made clear that it was David Giacalone who noticed the Gazette's unusual policy and called it to the attention of the blogosphere; he has subsequently found himself drawn into a dispute with Gazette proprietor June Maxam. More: Carolyn Elefant, Typical Joe, and PhDiva (here, here and here).

Forty-five percent of Americans would support it, according to a new Zogby poll. Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance warns against repeating our great-grandparents' mistakes: "a new Prohibition is not the answer -- not if we want to stay safe, sane and free." (Huffington Post, Oct. 26; more).

• Bill Moyers calls his lawyers. [Adler @ Volokh]
• Jim Copland: 9/11 suits against New York City over emergency recovery work "simply wrong." [New York Post]
• Did the PSLRA help shareholders? [Point of Law]
• 32-year-old Oregon grocery store employee sues, claiming that Green Day stole his never-recorded high-school writings. [Above the Law]
• Does one assume the risk of a broken nose if one agrees to a sparring match at a karate school? [TortsProf]
• "At KFC (né Kentucky Fried Chicken), the chicken is still fried. At Altria (né Philip Morris), the cigarettes still cause cancer. And at the American Association for Justice, some will say that the trial lawyers are still chasing ambulances." [New York Times via Point of Law]
• More on global warming lawsuits. [Point of Law]
• Dahlia Lithwick, wrong again when bashing conservatives? Quelle surprise! [Ponnuru @ Bench Memos; see also Kaus] Earlier: POL Oct. 6 and links therein. Best commentary on New Jersey gay marriage decision is at Volokh.
• Michael Dimino asks for examples of frivolous lawsuits. What's the over-under until it turns into a debate over the McDonald's coffee case? [Prawfsblawg]
• Unintended consequences of campaign finance reform. [Zywicki @ Volokh; Washington Times]
• Who's your least favorite Supreme Court justice? [Above the Law]
• More on Borat and the law. [Slate] Earlier on OL: Dec. 9 and links therein.
• "Thrilled Juror Feels Like Murder Trial Being Put On Just For Her." [Onion]
• A revealing post by the Milberg Weiss Fellow at DMI: companies make "too much" profit. I respond: "Again, if you really think the problem is that insurance companies charge 'too much' and make 'too much' money, then the profitable solution is to take advantage of this opportunity and open a competing insurance company that charges less instead of whining about it. (Or, you could use a fraction of the profits to hire a dozen bloggers and thus solve the problem at the same time keeping the whining constant.)" [Dugger]

Let's be clear: one can take the position that there needs to be more judicial accountability and that too many judges overstep their bounds, and still think that Amendment E—the likely-unconstitutional South Dakota ballot proposal to end civil immunity for judges and jurors and establish an unanswerable "special grand jury" to oversee these things—is positively insane cuckoo bonkers. Opponents of the measure have set up a good website discussing the issues.

For aficionados of one-sided litigation coverage, here's a lulu from the Associated Press. It's an article on the lawsuit (National Federation of the Blind v. Target) seeking to establish that companies violate the Americans with Disabilities Act when they do not design their websites so as to make them "accessible" to users who are blind, deaf, lacking in motor skills needed for mouse use, etc. The article fails to mention the courts' rejection of the disabled rights groups' position in the Southwest Airlines case, though it's the major existing precedent on the point. And aside from a ritual and uninformative denial by the retailer defendant Target that it is liable, the article presents as uncontroversial the demand that non-accessible websites be declared unlawful, with not a hint of why anyone might consider it a thoroughly disastrous idea. Oh, wait: the article does incorporate a bit of controversy, by recording worries that a victory for the plaintiffs in the Target case might not go far enough and come out being "read too narrowly. Not every business or Web site is subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act, said [Washington, D.C. lawyer] John D. Kemp". (Seth Sutel, "Blind Web surfers sue for accessibility", AP/San Jose Mercury-News, Oct. 24).

Who says we shrink from giving lawyers favorable publicity? From a report earlier this month in the Rocky Mountain News:

The California law firm Lerach Coughlin sought $96 million in legal fees when it engineered a $400 million shareholder class-action settlement with Qwest Communications over alleged securities fraud.

So how much did Denver attorney Curtis Kennedy seek when he prevailed in getting those legal fees slashed to $60 million - thus providing $36 million more for the shareholders?

Only $40,500. That's the 90 hours Kennedy spent on the case times his hourly rate of $300 times 1.5, according to a federal court filing this week. ...

Other attorneys might have tried to get a percentage of the $36 million.

"I just think that would be hypocritical after asking the judge to apply moderation" to the $96 million request by Lerach Coughlin, Kennedy said.

Kennedy was representing the Association of U S West Retirees in the case. (Jeff Smith, "Lawyer asks for $40,500 in legal fees", Rocky Mountain News, Oct. 12)(via Securities Litigation Watch).

I have written a piece on the Philip Morris v. Williams case for the Business and Media Institute. For other views, see Anthony Sebok (Brooklyn Law), Alan Morrison (Public Citizen), and Adam Cohen (New York Times). Morrison argues that the federal courts have no role in reviewing state-court decisions, which makes one wonder what his position is on habeas corpus. Cohen's op-ed misstates what happened in Andrade, which was a case of collateral (and thus limited) review, rather than a direct appeal, like Williams, where a civil defendant does not even have the option of collateral review.

Earlier on Point of Law (from which this was cross-posted): Oct. 12; May 30; Feb. 2.

Update: The American Constitution Society press briefing on Philip Morris v. Williams (in which I participated with Peter Rubin, Neil Vidmar, and Bill Schultz) is now online.

Kimberly Ososio, canned from her job as an editor at The Source magazine, portrayed the magazine's offices as a "raunched-out workplace where executives watched porn, smoked pot and called female employees "b------." An attorney for the magazine admitted that coarse and profane language was common there but said it was aimed at all parties, "not a gender-specific conduct". A jury agreed with Osorio's claim that she was sacked for complaining about sexualized goings-on; she also complained of defamation, but lost on sexual discrimination and harassment counts. (Jose Martinez, "Hip-hop mag bagged", New York Daily News, Oct. 24; The magazine already faces bankruptcy proceedings due to other business problems. (Leonard Greene, "Editor's New 'Source' of Woe", New York Post, Oct. 25; Peter Carlson, "Hip-Hop Editor Wins Suit Over Her Firing", Washington Post, Oct. 25; Joshua Rhett Miller, "Ex-Source editor hopes ruling redefines rap", Metro New York, Oct. 25).

Once again, second thoughts prove unavailing after modesty is cast to the winds: "A magazine that published a photograph of a woman baring her breasts at a pig roast for motorcycle enthusiasts did not intrude on her privacy, a federal judge has ruled. Tonya Barnhart sued Paisano Publications LLC, publisher of Easyriders magazine, after it ran the picture of her in its March 2005 issue, claiming unreasonable intrusion, false light invasion of privacy and appropriation of her likeness." But U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz of Maryland ruled against Barnhart on summary judgment. Her behavior "cannot reasonably be said to have constituted a private act," Motz wrote. "She exposed herself at an outdoor fundraising event open to any members of the public who purchased a ticket." ("Judge: Photo of woman baring her breasts didn't violate privacy", Examiner.com, Oct. 23; "Woman Can't Sue Magazine After Flashing Breasts", AP/WBAL, Oct. 23; link to Memorandum and Order). Similar: Jul. 4, 2006, etc.

"To avoid charges of 'racism,' we disciplined black and white students differently." (Edmund Janko, City Journal/OpinionJournal.com, Oct. 25). According to the byline, "Mr. Janko taught in the English department of Bayside High School in New York City from 1957 to 1990.".

One would think that Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood's steering of $14 million in taxpayer money to a friend instead of using government attorneys at a fraction of the cost would be a major scandal, but The Sun Herald allows the story to be derailed into a trial-lawyer attack on lawsuit reform— and this is the "one hand/other hand" focus the reporter took:

"Some say the GOP pushes it because trial lawyers are the Democrats' last major source of campaign funding. Others say Republicans push such changes to protect their major source of funding, big business."

That reform demonstrated itself to be good public policy (especially in Mississippi, where its legal system was a notorious and shameful "judicial hellhole") doesn't seem to enter the equation. (Geoff Pender, "Battle over lawyer fees", Oct. 25).

Notes Cato's Tim Lynch: "The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) recently bestowed its 'Champion of Justice' award to former Attorney General Janet Reno." (Oct. 10). Radley Balko, like Lynch, wonders what NACDL could have been thinking (Oct. 13).

Following urgings by prominent attorney and frequent Overlawyered mentionee Willie Gary, a jury in Pensacola, Fla. had awarded the sum to a road builder who said he was defamed by an investigative-journalism piece in the newspaper chain's Pensacola News-Journal (Mar. 30-31, 2001; Dec. 23, 2003; Jan. 7, 2004). The Florida appeals court "ruled that Joe Anderson's case should have been dismissed because he mischaracterized his lawsuit as a 'false-light claim' to get around a two-year statute of limitations that applies in libel cases. The court said that since its decision was based on the statute-of-limitations issue, it did not rule on several other arguments for reversal raised by the newspaper." (Ginny Graybiel, "News Journal suit reversed", Oct. 21).

• I'm speaking at the National Press Club today on the Philip Morris v. Williams case. [Point of Law; Medill summary; Bashman analysis]
• How much skin color discrimination is there? [Somin @ Volokh]
• Latest in the Ninth Circuit follies. [Above the Law]
• Difficulty of making causal link between lung disease and 9/11 dust. [NY Times; TortsProf]
• Kirkendall on the Skilling sentence. [Kirkendall]
• Quelle surprise: ATLA dishonestly attacks me. [Point of Law]
• Ford seems to have settled, instead of fighting, the ludicrous Texas Garcia decision where they got blamed for a drunk-driving accident with unbelted passengers. [Point of Law; CFIF]
• Scalia: “The more your courts become policy-makers, the less sense it makes to have them entirely independent.” [AP]
• Richard Epstein on legislators v. Wal-Mart [EconTalk Podcast]
• Environmentalists v. private property rights. [CEI blog]
• Litigious Pennsylvania judge Joan Orie Melvin sues for a pay-cut. [Bashman]
• Why law firm associates work so hard. [Marginal Revolution]

News.com.au is starting to backtrack from its original claim, noting that the foodstuff is still sold in American stores. Moreover, the US Embassy tells an Overlawyered commenter there is no ban. Here's our contribution to the discussion: the FDA regulation on folate, which at no point limits the addition of folate to breads and grains. We vote: "urban legend" leading from overenthusiastic border official, though the story is so widespread now, it may always stay an urban legend until Snopes gets around to refuting it.

Remember the legislation proposed in California by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Jun. 2, 2004), and passed amid much hoopla, asserting a claim by the state to 75 percent of punitive damage awards? It's raised "not even a penny" for the state's Public Benefit Trust Fund, reports John Howard for Capital Weekly ("Behind-the-scenes shell game marked punitive-damages plan", Sept. 7). This is pretty much what I predicted in my WSJ op-ed at the time; it's just too easy for lawyers to escape the law's reach by settling cases before final judgment (if necessary, characterizing the sums that change hands as compensatory only). Decs and Excs Sept. 20 also points out peculiarities in the law's specified time span of coverage that would have encouraged evasive action. Schwarzenegger has now vetoed a renewal of the law, but on grounds that the renewal had been saddled with amendments added without adequate discussion; he left the door open to reconsider the issue next year.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued ExxonMobil last month over its policy of requiring pilots of its planes to retire at age 60. The federal agency prefers individualized assessments of age-related inability to handle the duties of the job -- which in this case might mean that an employer would start the removal process for an elderly pilot only after a legally bulletproof file had been assembled documenting the pilot's decline in capabilities.

Exxon Mobil spokesman Russ Roberts said the company's policy addressed the issue of safety and was modeled after Federal Aviation Administration guidelines. He said the policy is long-standing and consistent, not arbitrary and discriminatory.

"Our pilots face the same challenges commercial pilots do flying large, complex, high-speed jets," he said. "We told the EEOC that we would not change our safety practices in response to complaints filed by pilots."

(Steve Quinn, "Suit Accuses Exxon of Age Discrimination", AP/CBSNews.com, Sept. 23). At the Denver Post, columnist Al Lewis discusses this and other recent age-bias lawsuits ("Gray hair + pink slip = lawsuit", Sept. 27). More on the subject: Oct. 19, etc.

A threat of litigation forced the Castro Valley High to fire two assistant coaches, have an "ombudsman" attend practice, and allow a six-person committee including parents choose a starting line-up for the girls' basketball team.

Attorney Andrew Sweet, who is speaking for the parents, said the program was out of control last year. "These kids were coming home from practices and leaving games crying," Sweet says.

Sweet admitted that Nibarger wasn't screaming at the players, playing favorites or subjecting them to physical abuse. It was more a matter of "communication" and "utter vindictiveness.'' That sounded pretty vague, so Sweet went back to the parents and came up with some specific allegations.

Sweet says Nibarger once threw the girls out of the gym when a practice was not going well. (The parents' group says it was 45 minutes early; Nibarger says it was "10 to 15.'') She didn't attend picture day. (Neither do other Castro Valley coaches.) She cut the playing time of anyone who complained about her coaching decisions. (She's proud of her record of playing 9 to 10 players a game.) Once, Sweet says, Nibarger was in a restaurant, saw the players and left without saying anything. (She says she wanted to respect the privacy of what appeared to be a players-only meeting.)

The company almost seems to base its business plan on stepping into legal trouble (Katie Hafner, New York Times, Oct. 19).

With echoes of the debate over campus "sexual consent" policies, here's a funny short film that has been around for a while, but which I didn't hear about until lately. It's directed by Jason Reitman, who went on to do Thank You For Smoking. Adult content (original from Atom Films/YouTube version)(h/t: reader M.C.).

...and gets sued for malpractice by a second law firm contending that even more would have been extracted had the winning lawyers thrown in a claim under California's wide-open unfair competition law. Result: San Francisco's Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff has agreed to pay $1.5 million to resolve the claims (whether "for nuisance value" or "in contemplation of losing" will have to be left for others to decide), malpractice insurance rates for plaintiff's lawyers may experience upward pressure, and class action lawyers have been sent a lesson, namely that they'd better throw in every colorable charge to play it safe in future. The underlying lawsuit was an overtime action against the Farmers Insurance group. (Matthew Hirsch, "Rudy Exelrod Settles Malpractice Suit", The Recorder/Law.com, Oct. 11; Internet and Class Action Law Blog, Oct. 11).

Australians are particularly unhappy. (Kelvin Healey, "US bans Vegemite", The Courier Mail, Oct. 22; News.com.au, Oct. 21; Tim Blair via Dylan). If you're an American fan, act fast before Ebay shuts down the auction.

Update: The Australian press and bloggers appear to have fallen for a new urban legend.

Notes New York Times columnist Floyd Norris: "Now you may face a patent infringement suit if you use a tax strategy someone else thought of first. ...a federal appeals court ruled in 1998 that business methods can be patented, and since then the Patent Office has issued 49 tax-strategy patents, with many more pending." Paul Caron has more (Oct. 20; Floyd Norris, "Patent law is getting tax crazy", NYT/IHT, Oct. 19; Slashdot).

P.S. At Slashdot, commenter msobkow writes: "Patience. It's a matter of time before the remains of SCO patent the use of patent lawsuits as a business model. The hope would be to get into a lawsuit over that patent, creating a potential infinite recursion and thereby an infinite revenue stream out of thin air."

"Police dogs are being muzzled to prevent them from biting criminals. Instead of clamping their jaws around the legs of suspects, the dogs are trained to leap at their targets and disable them with a flying butt. ... The policy follows a rise in compensation claims against forces from members of the public, and even serving officers, who have been bitten by police dogs. One force, in Greater Manchester, has paid out £59,000 in five years to 36 bite victims." (Ben Leapman, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 15).

When anti-videogame crusader and perennial Overlawyered favorite Jack Thompson (Sept. 26, Oct. 15, etc.) lost his case over "Bully", he dashed off the following letter to the judge who ruled against him:

Dear Judge Friedman:

Now that you have consigned innumerable children to skull fractures, eye injuries from slingshots, and beatings with baseball bats, without a hearing as to the danger, let me tell you a few things, with all respect for your office and with no respect for the arbitrary way in which you handled this matter. I can handle an adverse ruling by a judge. I’ve had plenty of those in my lifetime, and that’s fine. But the way you conducted yourself today helps explain why a great Dade County Judge, the late Rhea Pincus Grossman, could not abide you. She was not the only one . . . .

Next time you promise a “hearing,” I’ll bring a parent with me whose kid is in the ground because of a kid who trained to kill him or her on a violent video game. Try mocking that person, I dare you.

Full text of the letter here courtesy GamePolitics; via Lat who got it from ACSBlog. And a commenter at ACSBlog writes:

Jack Thompson did his part to inspire me to go to law school. I knew that if people of his mental capacity could succeed in the profession, I certainly could.

More: GamePolitics.com reports that lawyers for the game company are seeking to have Thompson held in contempt of court (further update here; h/t RebeccaFrog).

In Omaha, which recently enacted a restaurant smoking ban, authorities are urging vigilant citizens who notice illicit smoking to call 911 to summon a police response. The local emergency coordinator has objected, saying 911 calls over smoking could overwhelm the system and distract dispatchers from more dire emergencies, but the police department says it is sticking by its advisory. ("Dial 911 To Report Smokers", KETV, Sept. 28; "911 Director: Smoking Reports Could Overwhelm System", Sept. 28).

Unsolicited email arrived a few hours ago from a return address of EmploymentRights@media-uplink.com with the message: "Do You Know Your Rights As An Employee? Are Your Work Rights Being Neglected? Are You being paid for: Overtime? Putting your uniform on or off? Time spent preparing for your shift? Attending safety meetings? Travel time and expenses?" The link, when clicked, led to this page at a domain entitled legalleadshost.com. Overtime and employee-classification suits have emerged as a highly lucrative field of practice for the plaintiff's bar in recent years. "In December, a California jury awarded $172.3 million to Wal-Mart workers for missed meal breaks." (Sophia Pearson and Margaret Cronin Fisk, "Wal-Mart Loses Pennsylvania Suit Over Missed Breaks", Bloomberg, Oct. 12).

Charles Murray and David Post add their voices ("The G.O.P.'s Bad Bet", New York Times, Oct. 19; Volokh Conspiracy, Oct. 19). Earlier: Oct. 10, Oct. 12, etc. More: George Will, "Prohibition II: Good Grief", Newsweek, Oct. 23.

So claims Nikki Finke. Ten lawyers from his firm have apparently testified before a grand jury. (David M. Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner, "Lawyers Called to Grand Jury in Pellicano Wiretap Case", New York Times, Oct. 18). Our previous thirteen posts on the Pellicano case.

"After walking past her husband's silent gaze in a courthouse hallway, the woman testified that she knew of plans by her daughter and her husband to frame [teacher] Danny Cuesta, 30, for rape. She said it was part of a scam to sue the North Babylon School District." NB, however, that the witness is going through a divorce with her husband, and the prosecutors are alleging that the mother participated in the teacher's cover-up. (Alfonso A. Castillo, Newsday, Oct. 18; AP/WSYR, Oct. 4).

A new European Commission proposal would require Web sites and mobile phone services that feature video images to conform to standa