Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

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CPSIA and youth motorcycles

Yet another casualty of this destructive law: Honda has sent a letter to dealers announcing that it will withdraw youth motorcycles and ATVs from the U.S. market. It says lead figures as an intrinsic part of the alloys used in building the vehicles.

The irony, of course, is that of all the imaginable safety hazards posed by the existence of youth motorcycles and ATVs, the danger that kids will eat the darn things must rank at the very bottom.

Some other likely casualties here (Flickr group).

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U.K.: “‘Barmy’ legal aid for failed asylum seeker”

Your job is just to get in, we’ll provide the free lawyers once you do: “A decision to give legal aid to a failed asylum seeker and fraudster has been described as ‘barmy’. Zimbabwean Quentin Chapingidza was granted legal aid after he was charged with falsely claiming £23,500 in student loans from Harrow Council in north west London for a three-year computer course. His loan application included a fake Home Office letter claiming he had indefinite leave to remain in the UK.” [Independent]

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Lawyer: Citibank should have protected me from advance-check scam

“I’m a capital ‘D’ Dumbass,” Houston lawyer Richard T. Howell Jr. said about the incident. His law firm is however suing on the grounds that the bank should have better explained the check-clearing process. The scam artist posed as a businessman in Japan who wanted to become a client of Howell’s firm. [Texas Lawyer, TechDirt]

Update March 2010: lawsuit still pending [KHOU h/t reader VMS]

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January 30 roundup

  • Irvine, California class-action lawyer Sandeep Baweja: sorry, I bet the class’s $2.7M wage/hour settlement on the stock market and lost it [ABA Journal, WageLaw]
  • Litigant alleges his iPod playlist is worth $1 trillion; also, another kicked-by-exotic-dancer lawsuit [Lowering the Bar]
  • Lawyers representing victims of Long Island’s “Agape” Ponzi scheme would do well to be modest [Scott Greenfield]
  • More on that litigation filed by Dallas developer H. Walker Royall against author Carla Main, who wrote a book critical of eminent domain abuse; her publisher, Encounter Books (which is also publishing a book of mine); a reviewer, and his newspaper; and even eminent scholar Richard Epstein, for giving a blurb [Real Clear Politics, Somin @ Volokh, Sullum/Reason “Hit and Run”, earlier]
  • “OMG, there’s mercury in the high-fructose corn syrup!” scare doesn’t sound very scare-worthy [Coyote]
  • Another reason we (sometimes) go too far in search of safety: “Availability Bias and Water Landings” [Cernovich]
  • Supreme Court mulls whether to grant certiorari on Bilski (business methods patent) case [SCOTUS Blog]
  • Trial judge lops $32 million off that $55 million verdict against San Diego Gas & Electric for helicopter crash into unlit utility tower [CalBizLit]

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January 29 roundup

  • Free class-action swag if you bought department store cosmetics between 1994 and 2003; not that they’re giving away the very best stuff or anything [Tompkins/Poynter, California Civil Justice, WSJ Law Blog, settlement site] We’ve been covering the story for quite some time;
  • Law school “can be a financial disaster” for unwary students [Law and More] Law schools not immune from economic downturn [Above the Law]
  • Bruce Bawer on Dutch prosecution of Islam-criticizer Geert Wilders [City Journal]
  • More on possible passenger suits after the miracle Hudson-landing USAir Flight #1549 [USA Today, earlier] Update: NY Post, NY Mag.
  • Bad news for patients and other living things: Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen somehow got named to a key FDA panel during the late Bush administration [Point of Law, Postrel, Bernstein/Volokh, Hooper & Henderson/Forbes]
  • “Friends weren’t really trying to reach me!” class action against Reunion.com encounters another setback [Spam Notes]
  • Stand and deliver it back: “Minnesota: $2.6 Million in Red Light Camera Tickets Refunded” [The Newspaper]
  • Gary, Indiana’s is the last standing of what were once thirty “gun sales = nuisance” suits filed by cities; now Indiana high court says it can go to trial [Point of Law]

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