“The University of California at Berkeley is being sued for running a website for school teachers called Understanding Evolution. Anti-evolutionists claim that the site breaches the American constitution on the separation of church and state because it links to religious organisations which believe faith can be reconciled with Darwin’s theory of evolution”. (Donald MacLeod, “Intelligent design opponents [sic] invoke US constitution”, EducationGuardian (U.K.), Oct. 18; Katie McCulloch, “Citing Religious Web Site, Parent Sues UC Berkeley”, Daily Californian, Oct. 14). More: CalStuff, Tim Sandefur, Ed Brayton, Not Your Father’s America.
Archive for October, 2005
Hurricane-chasing, cont’d
New Orleans criminal defense attorney Joseph Larre’s 300 clients were evacuated and now sit in lockups across the South, some as far away as Jacksonville, Fla. Many of his case records were destroyed by floodwater, and the city’s criminal courts have not reopened. So Larre, 47, drove around the city last week in his champagne-colored Ford Explorer and nailed signs to telephone poles announcing, in big red letters, “KATRINA CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT.”
By Friday, he had received 300 phone calls. At least two other lawyers, he said, have put up similar signs.
Larre said he hasn’t decided whom to sue for what. But he says he has heard from homeowners who fear that insurance companies will scrimp on settlements, as well as irate residents looking to haul New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and even the Red Cross into court.
As he considered potential defendants, Larre said, “I definitely like the oil companies and their insurance companies.”…
“You really hit the jackpot if you nail the Army Corps of Engineers,” he mused, standing in a mud-caked intersection in his shorts, T-shirt and running shoes.
(Douglas Birch, “Lawyers drawn to storm cases”, Baltimore Sun, Oct. 10).
Rosa Parks, 1913-2005
Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks is dead at the age of 92. Sadly, in the last years of her life, attorneys used her name to make her a plaintiff in a lawsuit she knew nothing about, with a result that substantially impairs artists’ First Amendment rights. We covered the story Apr. 15.
Geoffrey Fieger update
You will recall that Geoffrey Fieger’s modus operandi is to engage in outrageous behavior to get judges thrown off of cases and otherwise accuse judges who rule against him or his clients of misconduct (Nov. 20; Mar. 24). Now, in the aftermath of Hollins v. Jordan (Nov. 20 and links therein), Fieger is attacking an Ohio probate court judge who is daring to try to protect the settlement of the brain-damaged and legally incompetent plaintiff from Fieger’s machinations.
“This is all about intimidation,” [Judge] Corrigan said. He accused the plaintiffs’ out-of-town lawyers of “forum-shopping” to take the case away from him and give it to a Michigan judge more acquiescent to their wishes.
(James F. McCarty, “$30 million verdict spawns new legal battle”, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Oct. 9). This dispute is over a $1.5 million pretrial settlement with another defendant; the $30 million verdict is also on appeal.
Back in Michigan, Fieger is offering to spend millions of dollars of his own money to run for Michigan Attorney General on the Democratic ticket. (Steven Harmon, “Fieger ready to pour own cash into attorney general fight”, Grand Rapids Press, Oct. 21). Fortunately for the Democratic Party, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of support for the idea. (Kathleen Gray, “Fieger considers running for state attorney general”, Detroit Free Press, Oct. 12). John Engler easily beat Fieger, 62 percent to 38 percent, when Fieger ran for governor in 1998.
The targeting of the incumbent attorney general, Mike Cox, may be related to “an ongoing criminal investigation of a complaint from Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land about alleged filing irregularities on $400,000 of Fieger-financed spending opposing the successful 2004 re-election of Republican Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman.” (George Weeks, “Fieger isn’t faking bid for attorney general”, Detroit News, Oct. 13). Fieger has demonstrated his misunderstanding of principles of federal jurisdiction with a federal lawsuit against Cox and Land in an attempt to squelch the campaign finance investigation. (AP, Oct. 13).
Contesting a will? Watch out
Australia: Two sisters decided to dispute their brother’s favored position in a farm inheritance. Result? “the sisters spent [A]$450,000 in legal fees to get [A]$360,000. And the total cost of battling out the inheritance came to $605,000.” (Vanda Carson, “The lawyers will win”, The Australian, Oct. 21).
“Ottawa may sue U.S. gun makers”
Raising the question: did we do this during Prohibition to Canada’s whisky distillers, when their products flooded into this country across both land and water borders? And if we didn’t sue, could there be a lesson in that about the need for nations to respect each others’ sovereignty?
Canada is looking into ways to sue U.S. gun manufacturers for the spread of illegal weapons into this country, the Toronto Star has learned….
The policy will also be seen as another shot by Prime Minister Paul Martin’s government across the bow of Canada-U.S. relations.
Government sources told the Star yesterday that Canada will be looking into “every legal option” to stem a tide of crimes involving weapons that make their way into this country illegally from the United States, whether they’re sold through the Internet or smuggled across the border.
That includes possible suits against U.S. manufacturers, launched either in the United States or in this country if the firm has assets here as well, the sources said. Though no precise estimates are available, Toronto police have said repeatedly that almost half the gun crimes committed in Canada involved illegal, U.S. weapons.
(Susan Delacourt and Les Whittington, Toronto Star, Oct. 22 (reg))
Open season to hack trademark infringers?
Some years back attorneys Ronald Coleman, of Likelihood of Confusion fame, and Matthew W. Carlin, who has represented the interests of Barney, the children’s purple dinosaur, proposed that when other remedies fail intellectual property owners should request court permission to hack the websites of court-order-defying trademark infringers (“Hacker with a White Hat”, reprinted at Coleman Law Firm site). Declan McCullagh (Oct. 17) and Jonathan B. Wilson (Oct. 20) don’t think that’s such a great idea at all, nor do McCullagh’s commenters.
“A cult named Sue”
Yes, it’s the Scientologists again (see Apr. 16, 2004; Mar. 25-26, 2002; Mar. 19-20, 2001; May 3, 2000). This time they’re threatening a New Zealand parody site named ScienTOMogy.info, which is thus named in honor of Scientology adherent Tom Cruise (via Matt Welch, Reason “Hit and Run”, Oct. 19, headline and all). More: Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion, Oct. 22.
More coffee, less crime
Apropos of nothing in particular:
A would-be carjacker got a different kind of jolt from his intended victim’s morning cup of coffee, authorities said.
[…]
But the driver—who had just bought a cup of hot coffee—slammed the car door into the carjacker’s legs, threw the coffee at his neck and face and wrestled him to the ground, Hughes said.
(AP/CNN, Oct. 21) (tip of the Overlawyered cap to A.T.). The AP, of course, must be mistaken: the trial lawyers claim that everyone lowered the temperature of their coffee to a “lower industry standard” to make consumers safer in response to the Liebeck suit, and lukewarm coffee couldn’t possibly be used against a carjacker—unless ATLA wasn’t telling the truth, but that can’t possibly be, right?
Driving 55: profits before people?
The San Francisco Chronicle publishes an experiment (via Romenesko) recommending that people drive 55 mph on 70 mph-limit highways to save gas. What does this recommendation have to do with product liability? Well, it provides an interesting cost-benefit study. Read on.
1) We’ll leave aside the fact that one can’t do a legitimate comparison of gas savings by driving one way on the first leg of a round trip and the other way on the return leg. I get much better mileage driving into Washington, DC than on my return trip because the first leg is downhill and the second leg is uphill. Let’s just assume that it’s a level trip each way.
2) The author saved 2.1 gallons on a 200-mile drive. At $3/gallon, that’s $6.30 in savings—except it took him an extra 49 minutes to make the drive. Do you really value your time at less than an after-tax $8/hour? (Halve that if you’re driving with a passenger who’s also losing 49 minutes.) The article doesn’t mention the opportunity cost. The financial benefit actually ranges from tiny to negative.
3) The article does mention the safety issue. Getting passed 830 times (several times a minute) versus 94 times has to substantially increase the risk of a collision, especially given the article’s tales of being subjected to tailgating.
4) There’s a social cost externality from driving slow—you’re slowing down the drivers around you (wasting their time), and increasing their risk of a collision.
5) One might protest that there’s a social cost to gasoline usage that’s not reflected in the price of gasoline. But that’s an argument for raising the gas tax (and to stop complaining about alleged “gouging” at the gas pump), rather than for measures that crowd the roads and make driving more inconvenient.
In sum, the Chronicle and the 55 Conservation Project are making a recommendation that doesn’t really save that much (if anything) in the way of money, can substantially inconvenience others, and, most of all, make the roads more dangerous.
What’s the liability reform tie-in? Well, note that automobile companies have been hit with millions of dollars of product liability verdicts for design decisions less risky and more cost-saving than what the Chronicle and 55 Conservation Project are proposing here. (E.g., Mar. 21, Mar. 7, Dec. 21). And (as should be the case) no one thinks that these two institutions, or the drivers that unilaterally adopt their recommendation to needlessly drive slower than the prevailing traffic, should be held liable for the foreseeable consequences of the recommendation or its adoption.