The capabilities of onboard GPS systems keep getting more impressive. And the product liability implications might nudge Detroit into using the information in ways unwelcome to customers, for fear of being blamed otherwise for crashes they might have prevented. [Volokh]
Archive for January, 2014
“Litigiousness, I always think, is a cry by losers”
Meet the lawyer who sued the Fort Lauderdale Bridge Club in a dispute over its having ended his membership. The club proceeded to declare bankruptcy under his courtroom onslaught: “Since then there have been more than 600 docket entries in the bankruptcy case as Rosen pursued numerous motions and litigation.” [Joe Patrice/Above the Law, Daily Business Report]
“Divorce Corp.”
Maryland roundup
Legislature’s back in session and no citizen’s liberties are safe:
- SB 65 (Benson) would require gas station dealers to maintain operational video cameras and retain footage for 45 days [Maryland Legislative Watch]
- HB 20 (GOP Del. Cluster) would require all public schools to hire cops [Gazette, MLW]
- SB 28 (Frosh) would lower burden of proof for final domestic protective orders from “clear and convincing” to “preponderance of the evidence” [MLW, ABA] One problem with that is that orders already tag family members as presumed abusers in the absence of real evidence, are routinely used as a “tactical leverage device” in divorces, and trip up unwary targets with serious criminal penalties for trying to do things like see their kids;
- Driving while suspected of gun ownership: what unarmed Florida motorist went through at hands of Maryland law enforcement [Tampa Bay Online] 2014 session in Annapolis can hardly be worse for gun rights than 2013, so it stands to reason it’ll be better [Hendershot’s]
- State begins very aggressive experiment in hospital cost controls: “I am glad there is an experiment, but I’m also glad I live in Virginia.” [Tyler Cowen]
- Scenes from inside the failed Maryland Obamacare exchange [Baltimore Sun] Lt. Gov.: now’s not the time to audit or investigate the failed launch because that’d just distract us from it [WBAL]
- Corridors run pink as Montgomery County school cafeterias battle scourge of strawberry milk [Brian Griffiths, Baltimore Sun]
- Plus: A left-right alliance on surveillance and privacy in the legislature [my new Cato at Liberty post]
- How did Maryland same-sex marriage advocates win last year against seemingly long odds? [Stephen Richer, Purple Elephant Republicans citing Carrie Evans, Cardozo JLG; thanks to @ToddEberly as well as Carrie and Stephen for kind words]
Judge finds asbestos-suit deceit, throws out $1 billion in liability
What percent of the dollar value demanded in asbestos litigation these days is grounded in deceitful or duplicative claims practices? Would 90 percent be an unreasonable guess? “A bankruptcy judge slashed by 90 percent the amount gasket manufacturer Garlock Sealing Technologies owes asbestos plaintiffs. … The judge cited the practice of plaintiff lawyers [of hiding] evidence their clients were exposed to products made by other companies, both by coaching their clients to deny exposure and by failing to disclose claims they made in other cases.” [Daniel Fisher/Forbes and followup and related, Joe Nocera/New York Times, Paul Barrett, Bloomberg Business Week, Charlotte Observer, order at TortsProf] On the patterns of multiple dipping exposed by Judge Janis Graham Jack in 2005 litigation, see Jim Copland’s summary here. I wrote about the coaching of asbestos claimants to “remember” working with certain products and not others in my 2004 book The Rule of Lawyers and in this earlier Reason column. More: Richard Faulk, WLF.
Little Leaguer, 14, throws helmet in air in celebration
It strikes his team’s coach, who then sues him. [Lakeside, Calif.; Deadspin]
January 17 roundup
- Among convict’s assortment of doomed pro se arguments: blaming Nike for not warning that its shoes might be injurious when used in stomping a victim [Oregon, Lowering the Bar]
- Reinstated University of Colorado “deviance” prof: colleges sacrifice academic freedom to risk/liability fears [Chronicle of Higher Education]
- Wisconsin court ruling “deals major setback to John Doe probe into recall elections” [Daniel Bice and Dave Umhoefer, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, earlier] About that Wisconsin Blue Fist: “what it was noisy about was a desire to be the clunking fist of state power” [Ann Althouse]
- Obama Administration’s “pursuit of group justice actually leads to injustice to individual students” [Mona Charen, syndicated, on the new racial guidelines on school discipline, and thanks for quote]
- Andrew Trask’s picks of 2013’s most significant class action cases and articles;
- Slate legal columns, like horoscopes, should be labeled “for entertainment only” [Ramesh Ponnuru]
- Remembering the days when Americans filed legal challenges against parking meters [Brian Doherty]
In Pittsburgh Feb. 4
I’ll be speaking at Duquesne Law.
“New Work: ‘Coyote v. Acme'”
We’ve mentioned Ian Frazier’s classic humor piece on the product liability suit filed by the hapless Wile E. Coyote against the Acme Corporation, purveyor of perennially disappointing bombs, anvils, rocket sleds, and other contraptions. Now “Pentagram’s Daniel Weil has reimagined designs for five of these gadgets, rendered as a series of highly detailed technical diagrams.” One reason the failure-to-warn element of the suit may be shaky: “The Coyote, like most males, never reads the instructions.” [Pentagram]
Judge declines to approve NFL concussion settlement
Among the key reasons, argues Max Kennerly: it released third parties including amateurs who weren’t being asked to pay anything. More: NYT (quoting Ted Frank).