Backed by big-firm lawyers, a non-producing company that claimed its patents underlay the online shopping cart sued dozens of retailers and extracted tens of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts in the Eastern District of Texas and elsewhere — until an appellate ruling declared its patents invalid. Despite its absence of products, the company’s website offered “tech support.” [Joe Mullin, Ars Technica]
Archive for January, 2013
Great moments in unionized public employee tenure
Broward County, Fla. transit bus driver Larry Moore “was disciplined 19 times” and “was held responsible for nine accidents with other South Florida drivers.” After a so-called last-chance warning in 2008 he “went on to be disciplined seven more times, for five preventable accidents and two clashes with customers, county personnel records show.”
The Sun Sentinel reported earlier this month that one driver, Charles Butler, who cost taxpayers $73,005 in a lawsuit settlement, was involved in 21 accidents while driving a county bus. Twelve were deemed preventable, and 10 involved him hitting another driver. He is still driving, despite having reached the firing threshold. …
[Transit director Tim] Garling said the county follows the union contract, which calls for progressive levels of discipline.
[Sun-Sentinel, newspaper’s earlier coverage of Butler case here and here]
January 29 roundup
- In job bias dispute: “Federal Court Says Veganism Might Qualify As A Religion” [Religion Clause]
- Perennially credulous L.A. Times drops broad hints that Toyota settlement vindicates sudden acceleration theories, others know better [LA Times, NLJ earlier]
- “Cato Named America’s Most Effective Think Tank Per Dollar Spent” [Dan Mitchell, Nick Rosenkranz]
- Disappointing: Transportation Sec. LaHood said to be “sticking around for a while” [Roads and Bridges, earlier] That was quick: only hours later, he says he’s leaving after all [WaPo]
- It became necessary to destroy the sex workers in order to save them [Melissa Gira Grant/Reason]
- Profile of lefter-than-thou NY attorney general Eric Schneiderman [NY Mag]
- As rural pub tradition declines, Irish government rejects proposal to ease DUI laws [AP]
Sensational new fraud allegations in Chevron-Ecuador case
Roger Parloff at Fortune on eye-popping new allegations in a case we’ve been following for a long time (e.g.):
In Manhattan federal district court this morning, Chevron filed the declaration of a former Ecuadorian judge, Alberto Guerra, who describes how he and a second former judge, Nicolás Zambrano, allegedly allowed the plaintiffs lawyers to ghostwrite their entire 188-page, $18.2 billion judgment against Chevron [in the Lago Agrio environmental litigation] in exchange for a promise of $500,000 from the anticipated recovery.
The bribery charge is completely new, and the ghostwriting charge is more sweeping and better substantiated than before.
Since some readers may be having a hard time keeping all the case’s scandals straight, here’s a précis. Chevron has now presented evidence of two distinct, large-scale, ghostwriting frauds which, among other problems, it maintains, taint the Ecuadorian judgment.
Complicating Chevron’s claims of vindication — and opening an avenue for the plaintiff’s camp to argue against giving any credence to the new allegations — the oil company acknowledges that it has made and intends to go on making payments of “living expenses” to the former Ecuadorian judge, now resident with his family in the United States. Read the whole thing here.
More from Kevin Williamson at National Review Online:
Curious fact: As a senator, Barack Obama did see fit to intervene in the Chevron case — on the side of the Ecuadoran government. After meeting with an old basketball buddy — the abovementioned Mr. Donziger, who stands to make billions of dollars as the plaintiffs’ attorney in the case — Barack Obama wrote a letter to the U.S. trade representative arguing that Ecuador’s actions should not be held against the regime when negotiating trade privileges. Donziger, with the help of a $10,000-a-month lobbyist, also got Andrew Cuomo to threaten to intervene in the case, even though the jurisdiction of the Empire State stops well north of Ecuador.
Yet more: Daniel Fisher, Forbes.
How Massachusetts spends its tobacco money
You know, the money that was said to be so vital to fund “tobacco control” programs. What percentage of the state of Massachusetts’s haul (more than $250 million a year from legal settlement proceeds, aside from outright taxes) do you think actually gets spent on such things? Guess, then click through to my new Cato post.
Even more dangerous than tripping over pets
Medblogger Shadowfax (All Bleeding Stops) considers a study on the hazards of children’s bouncers. (via White Coat)
Loyalty oaths with religious affirmations…
A prerequisite for a high school diploma in Arizona, if some lawmakers there get their way. [Mike Sunnucks, Phoenix Business Journal]
Class action roundup
- Pursuing well-worn script following exposure of fib-laden memoirs, class action lawyers sue demanding reader refunds for Lance Armstrong autobiography [ABA Journal]
- Adventures of Ted Frank’s CCAF: Easy Saver coupon settlement; Southwest Airlines drink voucher; Asus Computer dongle giveaway. Plus: “Citigroup Plaintiff Lawyers Fire Back At Fee Objectors” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
- Wrongful termination complaint contains its share of juicy allegations regarding well-known plaintiff’s firm Hausfeld LLP [Andrew Trask]
- Calif.: “Judges Accuse Class Lawyers of Misconduct” [The Recorder; The Complex Litigator (Clarke v. First Transit, PDF)]
- Aiming to undermine Concepcion ruling, plaintiff lawyers seek to overwhelm system with arbitration demands [Reuters, earlier]
- How to get your class action settlement disapproved by the judge [Andrew Trask]
- “Papa John’s Facing $250 Million Text Message Spam Lawsuit” [PC Mag]
“Guns are largely forbidden in Bermuda…”
…but Mayor Bloomberg of New York, one of the nation’s most famously anti-gun politicos, has a dispensation for armed bodyguards from his own NYPD. [NY Times via Instapundit]
Judge dismisses Motel Caswell forfeiture action
Massachusetts: “A Tewksbury motel owner who just beat back U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s three-year bid to seize his business has become the latest critic to accuse the Hub’s top fed of prosecutorial bullying. … The feds first tried to grab [Russ] Caswell’s property in 2009 under drug seizure laws, citing numerous drug busts at the motel. Caswell’s defense team argued that he was not responsible for what guests did. And his lawyers found there was actually more drug activity at nearby businesses, and theorized the government was going after Caswell, who has no criminal record, because his mortgage-free property is worth more than $1 million.” [Boston Herald; earlier]