Multi-billion dollar (and down) extortion edition:

• Merrill Lynch and CSFB appeal extortionate Enron class-action certification. [Point of Law; AEI (Feb. 9); WLF brief]
• More on the extortionate and lawless $500 billion Wal-Mart class certification. [Point of Law]
• Mississippi Supreme Court rejects extortionate medical monitoring class actions. [Behrens @ WLF]
• Lawyer Daniel Hynes tries to extort $2000 from New Hampshire bar holding Ladies’ Night. [Foster’s Daily Democrat (h/t B.C.)]
• Colorado Civil Justice League stops legislative attempt at giveaway to local trial lawyers. [Point of Law]
• Wisconsin court: family can be sued for babysitter’s car accident when returning home from dropping off child. [AP/Insurance Journal]
• Fox seeks to dismiss Borat suit on anti-SLAPP grounds. [Hollywood Reporter Esq. via WSJ Law Blog]

• Passaic County jury: $28M for “wrongful birth.” [NorthJersey.com]
• Former AG (and Dem) Griffin Bell: “Judicial Leadership Emerging In Asbestos And Silica Mass Torts” [WLF]
• Utah legislature considering med-mal reform for ERs. “Neurosurgeons in this town have to pay over $90,000 a year just for the privilege of getting out of bed on a Friday night to drain the blood from the brain of a victim of a drunk driver crash. And they say, I’m not gonna do it. Because the patients are sicker. The procedures are sometimes more invasive and more risky with more complications. Why take that risk if they don’t have to?” [KCPW via Kevin MD; Provo Herald]

• A little-read blog promoting a soon-to-be-pulped fictional account of tort reform is really begging for a link from us, what with three out of the last five posts making amateurish (and often false) personal attacks on this site’s authors or soliciting others to also fling poo. No dice.

Filed under: asbestos, Borat, Colorado, ladies' nights, Mississippi, New Hampshire, roundups, Utah, Wisconsin, wrongful birth and wrongful life