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Hosting Blawg Review #220 on Monday

Next Monday, July 13, Overlawyered will once again play host to the weekly traveling roundup of interesting posts from around the legal blogosphere, Blawg Review.

If you’d like to nominate a blog post for inclusion, follow the convenient guidelines at Blawg Review or Twitter it to @walterolson or @overlawyered. You’ll need to get it in by Saturday night for consideration, but it helps me greatly if you send it sooner than that.

You can learn more about Blawg Review here. Last week’s Blawg Review #219 was at Cathy Gellis’s Statements of Interest, and you can check out other recent editions #218 at Adrian Dayton’s Marketing Strategy and the Law, #217 at Thomas Colson’s Securing Innovation, #216 at John Bolch’s Family Lore, #215 at Carolyn Elefant’s MyShingle, and #214 at CharonQC. Overlawyered hosted the review once before: that was #33 back in November 2005.

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Florida and zero tolerance

Florida governor Charles Crist has signed SB 1540, a bill that “requires school boards to revisit their zero-tolerance policies” and is aimed at [Tallahassee Democrat:]

reducing the number of juveniles who are needlessly thrust into the system because of minor infractions — most commonly, petty disobedience.

Consider cases from several headlines: In March, a Lakeland boy was suspended from school for intentionally passing gas on a school bus. In Hernando County, an 11-year-old girl was suspended for bringing a plastic butter knife to school. A student in Brandon was suspended because a calculator he brought to school was equipped with a “knife-like object.”

Ken at Popehat has more discussion, and links to our zero-tolerance archive.

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Companies vs. their fans: Pez sues Pez museum

The famous maker of candies and candy-dispensers is suing the owners of the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia in Northern California, claiming that its venture into Pez homage, which includes a Guinness-record largest replica of a Pez dispenser, infringe the firm’s trademarks and “deceive the public into thinking that the museum is operating under the authority of Pez.” [San Mateo County Times via Doctor Popular/Laughing Squid and BoingBoing] On Pez’s jealousy of its name, see this 1999 post; more on fans-as-infringers here.

More: Ron Coleman is being disrespectful (“You can’t handle a real Pez museum”); Brian Baxter, AmLaw Daily.

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Fen-phen: were client’s medical records mishandled?

The story is from Kentucky, but it’s different from and evidently unrelated to the much-publicized episode in which three lawyers from that state arranged to divert large sums from the proceeds of a group settlement of fen-phen claims. Patricia Fulkerson of Nelson County sued the lawyer and law firm that had represented her in her fen-phen claim, saying that the lawyer sexually harassed her and that the law firm (quoting Andrew Wolfson in the Louisville Courier-Journal) “exaggerated her heart injuries — and those of other clients — so it could collect higher fees”:

A former paralegal in the firm, Fonda Walters, testified in a deposition that it exaggerated the injuries of a half-dozen clients, and that their initial test results, which had showed little or no heart damage, were altered. …Walters acknowledged she was fired from the firm in connection with a dispute over a bonus she claims she was owed.

The law firm’s defense raised (inter alia) an interesting argument:

Those lawyers also have argued that the alleged altering of Fulkerson’s medical records by the Florida-based firm of Wasserman Riley & Associates also doesn’t amount to negligence because “the claimed goal of the alleged malpractice was to get her more money.”

Apparently the judge rejected that argument, though. In a second Journal-Courier report dated June 22 — the same date as the above item, but presumably subsequent to it — Wolfson reports that Fulkerson’s lawsuit “has been successfully mediated and will be dismissed, lawyers for both sides said.” Speaking to the Broward-Palm Beach (Fla.) New Times, partner Jay Wasserman called the claims of diagnosis-embellishment “absolute nonsense”:

Wasserman also says there were only about six claims filed among the many prospective clients who received the complimentary tests. “If [falsifying results] was going on, why didn’t we have a much bigger number?” Wasserman asks, adding that since the reports were produced by experts and would be part of the case, it wouldn’t be possible to fake them, even if he wanted to.

More: Ronald Miller.

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“Legal Bills Swayed Palin, Official Says”

High cost of the ethics wars? Today’s New York Times quotes Alaska’s lieutenant governor on the reasons for the governor’s surprise departure:

At the news conference, Ms. Palin cited numerous reasons for quitting, including more than $500,000 in legal fees that she and her husband, Todd, have incurred because of 15 ethics complaints filed against her during her two and a half years as governor. She said all of the complaints had been dismissed, but she still had to pay lawyers to defend her.

More: Lawrence Wood/Examiner, Anchorage Daily News and earlier.

Further: WSJ Law Blog with letter from Palin lawyer Thomas Van Flein (outlining possible after-the-fact state indemnification of cost of officials’ legal counsel when complaints are found without merit).

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