Under a new clause added to handbooks distributed earlier this month at the 289 schools run by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, parents and students “must agree to not sue the archdiocese, their parish or school over disciplinary and academic measures such as expulsion or being held back.” (David Andreatta, “Holy Outrage”, New York Post, Sept. 15)(via Amy Welborn, who comments).
Archive for September, 2004
U.K.: compensation-culture roundup
It isn’t just the fox-hunt ban: “According to the British Horse Society, dozens of pony trekking centres and riding schools are being forced to close because of spiralling insurance costs and customer claims. Some riding schools have seen insurance costs increase five-fold in the past five years.” (Richard Alleyne, “Injury claim culture ‘is killing off our riding schools'”, Daily Telegraph, Jul. 14). “Children’s charities have been forced to cancel activities and shut down centres because of a big rise in insurance premiums as a result of the fear of parents making compensation claims for trivial incidents,” reports the Daily Telegraph; the prospect of U.S.-style litigiousness spreading to Britain is widely blamed (David Bamber, “School trips and charities hit by soaring insurance costs”, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 29). A sanitized childhood without cuts and scrapes is too dire to contemplate, thinks Quentin Letts (“A child has a right to dirt and bruises”, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 22). David Davis, shadow Home Secretary, sounded the alarm last month in the Spectator (“Victim nation”, Aug. 28). And insurance broker AON has published a report on the problem entitled “Blame, Claim and Gain” (PDF). For more, see many entries on our U.K. page. P.S. More from the Telegraph, from May (Joshua Rozenberg, “Is there a compensation culture?”, May 20). And from September (Liz Lightfoot, “Adventure pursuits ‘too risky for schools'”, Sept. 28).
Next at Point of Law: presidential debate
For its monthly Featured Discussion, our sister website Point of Law has lined up a debate on legal reform and the presidential race. Could John Kerry “go to China” and bring about a significant overhaul of the malpractice system? Would a second GWB term result in more progress toward nationwide reform than has the first? Ron Chusid D.O. of Doctors for Kerry will face off against our own Ted Frank. Look for things to get started Monday; the discussion will be found here (bumped Sept. 20).
Update: 1-800-PIT-BULL
According to David Giacalone (Sept. 15), a referee/judge has decided that the law firm of Pape & Chandler has a constitutional right to use a logo depicting a pit bull and a 1-800-PIT-BULL telephone line, and has accordingly dismissed the Florida Bar’s ethics complaint against the firm (see Aug. 23). Update Jan. 15, 2006: Florida Supreme Court rules against firm.
Welcome Romenesko readers
Jim Romenesko’s widely read media-watch weblog, sponsored by the Poynter Institute, links to our Wednesday commentary with the following blurb: “U.S. News screw-up: Why doesn’t mag reveal sources?” (see left column)
Also, I keep getting web-based publicity of a more personal nature. The co-blogger of Jane Galt (who is a perfect hostess, by the way) recounts my evenings out, so does James Taranto, Andrew Tobias discusses my political sentiments, and — is nothing too private? — Martin Grace has a comment on my sleeping habits.
Juror #4’s little nip
Juror #4 did seem awfully convivial and garrulous, didn’t he? Not to say scatterbrained. The reason became clearer after the verdict when he admitted that his Poland Spring water bottle had been half filled with vodka. But the judge declined to upset the defendant’s conviction: “There is apparently no law against drinking while serving as a juror and deliberating the fate of a fellow New Yorker.” (Michael Wilson, “Retiree Found Guilty, Juror Found Tipsy, and Verdict Stands”, New York Times, Sept. 16). Fool in the Forest has more (Sept. 17).
Libel: the damage winning can do
About a year ago the conservative magazine National Review (disclosure: I’ve written for them and for a while served as a contributing editor on their masthead) was sued by a Muslim activist who claimed to have been defamed by an article containing inaccuracies about his connection to a controversial gathering. The communications director for the local chapter of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) expressed the hope that the lawsuit would “deter hate-mongers from undermining the character and work of those who do not share their extremist views.” The magazine eventually succeeded in getting the suit thrown out and even got a small payment from the plaintiff, but its libel insurance policy carried a $50,000 deductible, and its total expenses exceeded $65,000. It’s opened an appeal for contributions to cover the resulting hole in its budget — a “post-defense defense fund”. As Voltaire put it, “I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one.”
Oz: “Policeman gets $500,000 after tripping”
Senior constable Terence William Hall, 43, tripped on an unlit footpath on a rainy night at Narrabri Police Station in New South Wales. He got a hematoma from the bump “and was later told he was suffering from deep vein thrombosis”, and now he has A$500,000 to show for it. (AAP/Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 7).
Human subjects protection regs
Federal regulations require universities to maintain something called an Institutional Review Board which preapproves research on human subjects to make sure it is not improperly injurious to the persons being studied. There is a certain kind of logic to such requirements when it comes to, say, invasive medical experiments. “Yet the human subjects protection racket has been able to extend its claws around social science research, subjecting it to the same rigmarole as demanded of the medical types,” writes Mark Kleiman (Sept. 8). “This is stupid, because almost no social science research actually poses important risks to its subjects that couldn’t be handled perfectly well by an informed-consent system audited retrospectively rather than a pre-approval system”. He adds:
Worse, since social-science research is often controversial, the risks of censorship are much more prominent, especially given diversity requirements demanding, for example, that a representative of prisoners be involved in clearing any study involving prisoners.
Any collection of data from an identifiable person counts as “human-subjects research,” even, for example, interviewing a group of judges about how they handle probation revocations. How answering such questions puts the judge at risk is more than I can figure out. And heaven help you if you submit a proposal saying “I intend to ask judges what happens in probation cases.” That’s far too vague: you have to submit a questionnaire for review, as if you knew in advance what questions were going to turn out to be relevant.
Update: for more, see Point of Law, Dec. 7, 2006 (paper by Dale Carpenter).
Wrongful birth (cont’d)
Yorba Linda, Calif.: The basic fact pattern underlying this wrongful-birth suit will be familiar to longtime readers of this site (Aug. 22-23, 2001, Jul. 1, 2003, etc.): little Leilani Duff’s parents say they love her, but also say they’d have aborted her if they’d realized she was at risk of spina bifida, so they’re suing their obstetrician, Dr. William Dieterich, for unspecified damages. (Claire Luna, “If Only We’d Known, Parents Say”, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 9). The L.A. Times’s account includes the following comment about the incentives this burgeoning field of litigation may be sending to doctors practicing in the field:
The rise in wrongful-life suits and the threat of legal responsibility for a child’s defects puts obstetricians in the uncomfortable position of recommending, if not insisting on, abortion when there is the slightest doubt, said one physician.
“On one side you have a liability mess that puts you on the hook for the rest of the child’s life,” said Dr. T. Murphy Goodwin, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at USC’s Keck School of Medicine [and also, as the article notes, a member of the American Assn. of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists].
“The other side, you have carte blanche to avoid the potential for these kinds of problems by shading the discussion to advocate abortion. There’s almost no adverse reaction if a doctor tells someone to terminate a pregnancy based on faulty information.”