“The Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments [last] Wednesday about a case that will decide if hosts are responsible for the behaviour of their alcohol-consuming guests. The issue stems from a 1999 New Year’s Eve drunk driving accident caused by Desmond Desormeaux, who left a house party near Ottawa after consuming 12 beers.” A victim in the subsequent crash “has been seeking compensation from Desormeaux’s hosts, Julie Zimmerman and Dwight Courrier, for letting him drive home drunk.” The Ontario courts have thus far ruled against her case. (CTV, Jan. 19). See Sept. 12, 2002. Many but not all American states have embraced social-host alcohol liability, and the topic has also stirred controversy in Australia, where the high court of the largest state, New South Wales, rejected the principle recently (Feb. 23, 2005).
Archive for January, 2006
A Million Little Plaintiffs III
Another class action over the James Frey affair; this one, in Seattle, seeks, inter alia, recovery for “lost time” spent reading the book, prompting the Bookslut blog to reconsider its opposition to tort reform. It is the third class action filed; an underpublicized class action was filed in California on the 13th, and we reported on the more prominent Illinois class action on Jan. 17. Of course, if “lost time” is actionable, everything is, and we might as well turn over the keys to the country to ATLA. Earlier: Jan. 12. Recommended reading: Michael Greve, Harm-Less Lawsuits?
Update: Eric Goldman has a copy of the complaint and more detail.
“Trump sues author who questioned his billions”
Real estate mogul and television personality Donald Trump has sued Warner Books and New York Times reporter Timothy O’Brien for $5 billion, saying O’Brien’s new book about Trump maliciously portrays him as being worth no more than $250 million when the accurate figure would be upwards of $2 billion. (Claudia Parsons, Reuters/Washington Post, Jan. 24; Greg Levine, “Trump Sues Over Bio Book; Launches Travel Web Site”, Forbes, Jan. 24; Gina Serpe, “Trump’s Billion-Dollar Defaming Claim”, EOnline, Jan. 24).
Australia roundup
Australia’s enactment of significant legislative curbs on liability claims has had the desired effect, according to coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald last year:
Public liability and personal injury writs have nosedived and insurance premiums fallen in the wake of restrictions on people’s right to sue, two new reports have found.
Released yesterday, the reports show insurance has become more affordable in the past 12 months while the number of people suing councils, government departments and public groups has fallen dramatically….
The Assistant Treasurer, Mal Brough, who released the reports at an Insurance Council of Australia conference, said tough decisions by federal, state and territory governments were behind the falls.
“The Commonwealth, state and territory governments took hard decisions to halt a blowout in unaffordable and frivolous claims,” he said. “This has resulted in real and tangible benefits to the community in the form of more affordable and accessible insurance cover.”
“Cover is more widely available, premiums are coming down and personal responsibility has been restored,” said Insurance council executive director Alan Mason. (“Liability claims take a tumble”, AAP/Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 12). As if to symbolize the turn in sentiment, the High Court in October, over dissents from two of its members, denied recovery (Vairy and Mulligan, PDF) to two men who in separate incidents had injured themselves diving on the New South Wales coast and sued municipal authorities (Melbourne Herald Sun, undated). More on the trend: Dec. 9, 2003 and May 30, 2004; PoL Apr. 15, 2005.
Not that all the problems have been solved. Bret Walker, SC, former president of the Law Council of Australia, delivering the annual lawyers’ lecture for the St James Ethics Centre, warned that ethical tangles for Oz lawyers are multiplying as law slides into the status of big business; enterprise lawyers are getting too close to their clients, while the rise of large class actions, and of suits backed by professional litigation funders, poses its own perils: “No one who has advised, or appeared, on either of these models or modern litigation could be unaware of the fertile soil they present for conflicts of the most venal kind.” (Richard Ackland, “It’s a dodgy law of nature that says big is better”, Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 21).
Among Australians keen on steering clear of litigation risk are famed children’s entertainers The Wiggles:
As part of the Wiggles circus, [Paul] Paddick [friendly pirate “Captain Feathersword”] has had to curb his natural exuberance. For example, none of the Wiggles ever touch children. And when they are photographed with children, they always adopt their now-famous “pointy fingers” pose — “so there is no doubting where their hands are”, Paddick explains….The Wiggles team insisted that touching children, however innocently, was inappropriate — and open to the risk of litigation, particularly as the monetary value of the Wiggles brand name rose. (Steve Meacham, “The master of sword play”, Sydney Morning Herald, Dec. 3).
Publicity roundup; Joseph Goulden, “The Money Lawyers”
In the Washington Post, Brandt Goldstein gives me a mention in the course of reviewing The Money Lawyers, the new book by Joseph Goulden profiling some of the country’s most powerful attorneys (“Legal vultures”, Washington Post, Jan. 18). I gave this book a blurb, which can be seen on its back jacket (“Eye-opening and timely. Goulden gives us a close look at some of the nation’s most powerful lawyers. Both friends and foes will learn a great deal.”)
On Dec. 18 the Chicago Sun-Times took note of Ted’s entry about the cautionary wording on a Milky Way chocolate bar, “Warning: contains milk”. (Zay N. Smith, “An intelligent look at who knew what”, Chicago Sun-Times, not online). I’m quoted in an editorial (I think that’s what it is) on punitive damages in the Fredericksburg, Va. paper (“Punitive-damage reform takes a big step in the General Assembly”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, Jan. 20). Aileen Cho of the Engineering News Record quoted me in an article on a New York jury’s ruling that the city’s Port Authority was largely responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing (“Jury Says Agency Liable in Bombing”, Nov. 7, not online). And in the ABA Journal eReport, G.M. Filisko quotes me airing some of my differences with AEI’s Alex Tabarrok concerning the workings of the lawyer’s contingency fee (“Fee Caps Won’t Solve Liability Crisis, Study Says”, Sept. 23).
Mandatory seat-belt laws
“Primary enforcement” proposals are raising libertarian hackles in Massachusetts. (Scot Lehigh, “Reining in seat belt enforcement”, Boston Globe, Jan. 17).
Script anachronism sinks idea-theft claim
Writers Ronnie Niederman and Judith Shangold sued Disney, claiming that in publishing “Summerland,” a novel by author Michael Chabon with a baseball theme, the entertainment giant’s Miramax Books subsidiary had ripped off one of their own 1995 idea submissions to Disney. Trouble is, the theatrical plot they claimed to have submitted in 1995 contained numerous references to the Palm Pilot personal organizer, a product not introduced until 1997. Citing “voluminous, independent and irrefutable evidence” that the plaintiffs did not create the treatment at the time they said they did, federal judge William H. Pauley concluded “that there was ‘clear and convincing’ evidence that the plaintiffs had committed a fraud on the court and ‘manipulated the judicial process.'” He dismissed their case and ordered them to pay Disney’s legal fees in an amount to be determined later. (Mark Hamblett, “Judge Blasts Bogus Proof, Rejects Claim Against Disney”, New York Law Journal, Jan. 18). Jonathan Edelstein comments at Head Heeb (Jan. 21).
Another warnings contest
Columnist Beth Quinn, inspired by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch’s annual “Wacky Warnings” contest (Jan. 6), is offering her own version.
Elsewhere, it appears that trial-lawyer front-group Center for Justice & Democracy, which held its “First Annual Zany Immunity Awards” in late 2004, has chosen not to repeat the exercise, perhaps because of the fact that we exposed that the immunity laws in question weren’t so zany.
Reader request: an Overlawyered logo
Here’s a request for some graphically adept reader out there: a media organization which would be potentially helpful in sending traffic our way has asked for an Overlawyered site logo (to display on their page) which should measure 130 pixels wide by 150 pixels high. It doesn’t need to be fancy, and in fact shouldn’t be, but the challenge, I think, will lie in adapting a 12-letter word into a logo taller than it is wide. Lacking either a flair for this sort of thing or a decent graphics program, I’m not sure how to proceed — but maybe some reader out there can help.
Follow-up: Readers came through with many excellent logos: see Jan. 29 and subsequent posts. Thanks!
Bountiful bankruptcies, cont’d: UAL
Kirkland & Ellis, counsel to bankrupt United Air Lines, has thus far run up a tab of $84,892,637.50 handling the matter. Ten other law firms are also in on the action; for example, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, which represents United’s unsecured creditors, has billed some $38 million in fees. (Eric Herman, “Lawyers fly high on United bankruptcy”, Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 23). Lattman and Ribstein comment (both Jan. 23).