Posts Tagged ‘proximate cause’

N.J.: mower sent golf ball flying

At least that was Thomas Guhl’s theory as to why the ball struck his windshield with high velocity while he was driving near the Eagle Oaks Golf and Country Club, injuring him. His $725,000 settlement is based on the theory that the golf club was negligent for not installing netting along Asbury Avenue that would have kept balls from landing on a neighboring homeowner’s lawn, and that Canfield Lawn and Landscaping was negligent because it hadn’t checked that lawn for golf balls before mowing. (“Man injured by golf ball gets $725K”, AP/Newark Star-Ledger, Jul. 31).

Bipartisan group of SEC chairs, law professors, speak out against “scheme liability”

The trial bar’s efforts to broadly expand the securities laws through judicial fiat is challenged in an amicus brief filed in Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta (earlier: Jul. 31, etc.), including former SEC chairs Roderick Hills, Harvey Pitt and Harold Williams; and law professors Richard Epstein, Joseph Grundfest, Stephen Bainbridge, and Larry Ribstein.

Update: Not only has the Department of Justice come out in favor of affirmance (despite extensive lobbying by the plaintiffs’ bar), but both major stock exchanges—who interests unquestionably parallel the interests of investors as a group—filed amicus briefs seeking affirmance. But watch the press portray this as “businesses versus investors” instead of “businesses and investors versus trial lawyers and government officials seeking donations from trial lawyers.”

Update: Oral argument is October 9. AEI will hold a panel discussing the case October 5.

Nancy Grace sued for guest’s suicide

I’m not a big Nancy Grace fan, but this lawsuit by the parents of Melinda Duckett seeking to hold Grace liable for Duckett’s decision to commit suicide is ludicrous. One hopes that Deratany is not unethically raising the hopes of his clients in bringing a lawsuit with no hopes of success for his own publicity-seeking benefit, under which circumstances mentioning the lawsuit here only furthers that problem. The parents’ lawyer, Jay Paul Deratany, was previously in the news for threatening a parasitic lawsuit seeking $1 million from Knicks player Antonio Davis because Davis went into the stands to protect his wife from being attacked by an aggressive Chicago fan, even though Davis made no physical contact with anyone; the dispute settled within a week without actual litigation after bad publicity for Deratany’s client (the son of a prominent political operative) caused the attorney to backtrack from the million-dollar damage claim. (A Jay Paul Deratany is also the author of the poorly-reviewed Chicago theater production “Two Grooms and a Mohel.” Perhaps a coincidence.)