Overlawyered letters

My first thought at reading the articles you linked to in your "Detroy Marshall v. Burger King" post (Aug. 3), which were written by Anthony Marshall of Hotel & Motel Management, was that they were satire. For if they were, I would have complimented the writer on a sharp satirical tongue. However, after reading more I realized -- this guy is for real.

I found it funny to read an article calling for the end of tubs which included Mr. Marshall's list of features that his ideal shower would contain:

1) the threshold to the shower is made obvious by lighting or coloring so I see it and don't trip; 2) the flooring has an abrasive, nonslip-surface construction; 3) safety grab bars are installed on one or more of the shower walls; 4) bath mats, where appropriate; 5) all hot/cold water faucets or mechanisms have handles for easy gripping, no slippery knobs and large print instructions; 6) solid soap holders don't drip slippery wet soap goop onto the shower floor; 7) no soap dish holder unless it can withstand the weight of an emergency grab by a falling bather (this applies to inside shower towel racks, too); and 8) safety glass. I'm surprised I don't see suggestions for a rubberized shower floor.

One thing I found amusing is how many of Mr. Marshall's articles involved first person accounts of his near-fatal encounters with hotels. Chevy Chase might be safer at the local Ramada Inn than Mr. Marshall. -- R. Bennett, Baltimore

Posted by Walter Olson at 11:43 PM | Permalink

As an attorney I wanted to point out that it is not just jury verdicts that are driving up the cost of insurance and of doing business. While verdicts contribute to the picture, the process of litigation itself generates enormous costs.

Take a class action against an major insurer or manufacturer. Plaintiffs will conduct extensive discovery seeking to prove the existence of a claim and to identify the dimensions of the class in question. Given the need to search for and review the relevant documents and electronic files before production, the target company may spend millions of dollars a month defending such cases, whether or not the underlying claims have merit or not. Many costly additional steps are needed to protect the client from inadvertent disclosures and to protect others from privacy invasion, which itself might spawn more litigation.

The defense of product liability cases incurs similar costs before getting to the question of what the real flaw in the product is or may be. Enormous sums are spent on discovery of documents and deposing experts. A whole support industry has sprung up to feed resources into litigation. Liberal discovery and pleading rules in most states run up costs by allowing a plaintiff to file a suit and then attempt to discover from the defendant's documents and employees what his claim might be.

The real people getting rich in all of this are the lawyers on both sides, while the costs impact businesses large and small as well as public entities such as school systems. No one seems to be talking about the fundamental alterations in the system we need. -- Jay Strickland, Georgia

Posted by Walter Olson at 11:24 PM | Permalink

As one who myself has suffered what I believe to be wrongs at the hands of attorney Paul Minor, the news of the acquittals and non-convictions in the Mississippi judicial bribery trial (Aug. 12, Aug. 15) left me with a sad feeling that injustice has prevailed and that Pierre Proudhon was right when he wrote: "Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of the government."

In a newspaper interview, juror Shirley Griffin confessed her bias against the government and that she had refused to consider the evidence, "All that stuff the government brought back there was trash, all them boxes full of papers." Griffin also defended her refusal to consider the government's case by saying she had made up her mind from the beginning that the defendants were not guilty, "From the first day, I could have taken that pad and wrote not guilty all the way down it." But Griffin took an oath to listen and consider the evidence and to rule without bias. She did not do that, which may have given reason for the other two jurors to refuse to honor their oath as well. If anyone wasted federal taxpayer dollars, it was Juror Griffin who should have never sat on this jury and Judge Wingate who should have removed or sanctioned any jurors who refused to honor their oath to uphold the law.

U. S. Attorney Dunn Lampton's claim that he was satisfied that the trial exposed corruption, even if it did not result in convictions, is not enough. The Justice Department must see that violators of federal laws are brought to account. I sincerely hope the department retries the remaining counts against Minor and Judges John Whitfield and Wes Teel. If it does not, every state justice system is at risk. -- Nancy Swan, Mobile, Ala.

Posted by Walter Olson at 10:55 PM | Permalink

Thank you for covering the successful effort by state senator Andrew McDonald (D-Stamford, Darien) to bail out the Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder law firm through a special legislative fix in Hartford (Aug. 11). McDonald, who co-chairs the judiciary committee and is himself a trial lawyer, has been one of the biggest obstacles to medical liability reform in Connecticut. According to former state Democratic party chair George Jepsen, McDonald is a rising star of his party and will one day be governor. -- Leonard Ferrucci, New Canaan, Conn.

Posted by Walter Olson at 10:45 PM | Permalink