From the Times Online:
A former television presenter who became one of Britain’s highest-earning solicitors has been struck off for “disgraceful” misconduct in his handling of sick miners’ compensation claims.
Andrew Nulty, who earned £13 million from the claims in one year, joins a growing list of solicitors punished for their role in the coal health scandal, exposed by The Times.
Earlier: Feb. 3, 2009; Feb. 19 and Dec. 12, 2008; May 8, 2007.
At a Dix Hills, Long Island golf course, Dr. Azad Anand was injured when his golfing buddy hit the ball flying without yelling the traditional cry of “fore”. A New York appellate court, however, “said getting hit by an errant ball is an ‘inherent risk of the game of golf.'” [AP/Staten Island Advance] More: John Hochfelder discusses the concept of the “foreseeable danger zone“.
“The first time we ever lost a case in trial, it was 2001. We tried it in Beaumont, Texas, and lost $7.5 million. . . . The judge sat there through the trial reading a newspaper. At one point an objection was made, the bailiff taps him on the shoulder and says ‘judge, objection is being made.’ He looks at our lawyer and says ‘overruled.’ The plaintiffs’ lawyer raises his hand and says ‘no, judge, it was me.’ He says ‘sustained’ and goes back to reading the paper.” …
[U.S. Silica CEO John A.] Ulizio shares a memo that plaintiffs’ lawyer Joe Gibson sent to silica defendants in 2004 with a blunt offer: Settle our 9,000 cases for $900 million, or pay $1.5 billion in pretrial discovery alone, plus an even bigger verdict. “That’s the genius of the economics of litigation from the plaintiffs’ perspective. Sue a lot of people, sue on behalf of a lot of plaintiffs, get into an adverse jurisdiction, and then don’t make too big of a demand, so you can settle it for a relatively small percentage of the cost of defending the case,” Mr. Ulizio says.
Kim Strassel has a must-read account of how U.S. Silica beat a mass-tort fraud attempting to steal its solvency—and did so almost entirely by the luck of the MDL draw, as a different judge might have refused to conduct the hearings that exposed the wrongdoing. (See also Michael Krauss at Point of Law.)
Note that that $900 million proposal for 9000 bogus cases works out to $100,000/case—which is exactly what the Vioxx litigation settled for.
The former FDA chief and inveterate nanny-state advocate, David Kessler, has a new book arguing that chain restaurant food is excessively palatable, to the point where it effectively addicts the chains’ customers. Jacob Sullum at Reason accords Kessler’s theories all the respect they deserve.
It can get tricky when 1) having swine flu may itself count as a protected disability under laws like California’s; 2) innkeepers are required to report communicable disease to authorities; 3) they must nonetheless avoid infringing customers’ privacy; and 4) they can face liability for not taking steps to protect fellow guests and their own workers. And don’t even think of noticing that a new guest is arriving from Mexico… (via Childs; more on hotels and the ADA)
If I took advertising here at Overlawyered, I might worry more about how and whether to pursue higher traffic. In the mean time, columnist Alex Beam got me to come clean about what kind of subject matter seems to work best in getting droves of new visitors to notice the site. (It’s not class-action reform). [Boston Globe] (& welcome Virginia Postrel, Bob Trebilcock/Modern Materials Handling readers).
Yes, it’s Bob Dorigo Jones’ annual Wacky Warning Label contest. Aside from the year’s winner, mentioned in the headline, other top entries included “Do not use if you cannot see clearly to read the information in the information booklet” (on a wart-removal product), “Always use this product with adult supervision” on a cereal bowl, and a bag of livestock castration rings cautioning, “For animal use only.” [AP/Times & Transcript (New Brunswick, Canada); Foundation for Fair Civil Justice] (more on wacky warnings)
59-year-old Melinda Herrick, an art teacher who had been a Teacher of the Year honoree in the Houston schools, was charged with violating the “drug-free zone” law after cops found two Xanax pills in her car; the drug is often prescribed for panic disorder. Herrick protested that the car had been in the shop for repairs for more than a month before the incident; her daughter also drove the car. Students rallied on her behalf and the charges were finally dropped after she underwent a drug test which indicated that she did not use drugs. [Houston Chronicle via Obscure Store]
A bill sponsored by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) would criminalize a wide swath of controversial and impassioned speech on the internet, in everything from blogs to forums to email. Incredibly, it has fifteen sponsors. Eugene Volokh has details, and Hans Bader in the Examiner explores some of the implications.
Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker says the Centers for Disease Control invaded his privacy during the 2007 cause celebre over Speaker’s having taken an international flight while suffering an unusually dangerous form of tuberculosis. [CNN; earlier here, etc.; Patrick @ Popehat]