Denny’s as “Public Health Enemy No. 1”, over-salty food as “silent killer” — yes, they really do talk that way at the uber-nannyish (and litigious) Center for Science in the Public Interest [AOL Slashfood, Consumer Law and Policy, Greg Conko/CEI “Open Market”]
Archive for July, 2009
Prisoner suits in the U.K.
The Labor government plans a crackdown on “trivial” inmate suits, with Justice minister Jack Straw citing “imaginative” lawyers as a source of problems. Controversial cases have included a £1 million compensation bill to prisoners forced to go cold turkey on narcotics withdrawal instead of being given a heroin substitute, and “one in which a prisoner won a legal battle to have his haircuts paid for by the state while on day release”. [Times Online]
Nancy Pelosi to address trial lawyers convention
She’ll be opening the AAJ annual convention tonight in San Francisco. Charles Krauthammer thinks the coziness between Big Law and certain parts of the political establishment may explain a lot about the faltering status of health care reform.
More: “Media Barred from Speaker Pelosi’s Speech to Trial Lawyers“. And John Steele Gordon at Commentary “Contentions” offers some ideas for health care reform that were probably not included in Pelosi’s speech.
“The only reason I gave you anything was because of you.”
“I didn’t like the case…” A Louisiana judge finds herself in trouble (via Judges on Merit and Dan Pero, who draw somewhat different lessons). More: affidavit by former judge central to FBI probe says he didn’t consider attempt at improper influence to be a success.
Back to the bad old days of notice pleading?
At Point of Law, I take up a topic dear to my heart that has flared up into headlines for the first time in, well, practically forever.
There’s a latex finger cot in my food
Every time a headline comes up along the lines of “Man sues eatery after claiming to find a condom in his soup” — and they come up fairly regularly — I am put in mind of the existence of “finger cots”, small objects made of latex or similar material and often worn by food handlers over individual fingers as an anti-contamination measure. If I were a journalist covering such a dispute, I’d want to ask both sides whether they had ruled out for sure the possibility that the object in dispute was a food handler’s finger cot. Wouldn’t you?
National Journal bloggers’ poll
Apparently I’m the only “right-leaning” blogger who thinks the Obama administration has been reasonably skillful as a political matter in its pursuit of health care reform, even if I disagree with its goals. Maybe I’m just grading on the curve by way of comparison with the Clintonites’ fiasco.
Great moments in lawyer Twitter marketing
Should we assume this Southern California lawyer is even aware of the Twitter account sending out messages in his name? The “Bio” line seems to have been drawn up by someone trained in the Borat school of copywriting:
Bio Hi I am Attorney Robert A. B[…]. I am running a successful personal injury Lawyer in Los Angeles California. My Law firm offer legal representation for……………
As of this evening, 186 Twitter users have seen fit to follow the account.
“Filial responsibility” laws and nursing home bills
A number of states have what are sometimes known as filial responsibility laws which obligate adult children to pay for their parents’ medical and nursing-home care. In Pennsylvania, nursing home lawyers have been known to pursue lawsuits against out-of-state children who are estranged from the parents in question. (Monica Yant Kinney, “If mom can’t pay, adult child must”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jul. 12).
More on these laws: Jane Gross, NYT; Everyday Simplicity; Do Ask Do Tell.
Coffee cup warning
From Cleveland’s Erie Island Coffee Co., which now has a shop in the city’s East Fourth St. restaurant district. Courtesy @fourgreenis who records it at Twitpic.