Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Author Archive

Royall pain to his critics

Jacob Sullum at Reason “Hit and Run” (Dec. 10):

I want to write a blog post about H. Walker Royall, the Dallas developer who sues people when they criticize his abuse of eminent domain, but I’m afraid he’ll sue me. After all, he sued Wright Gore III over a website that detailed the city of Freeport’s attempt to condemn land occupied by the Western Seafood Company, a business owned by Gore’s family, so Royall could use it for a luxury marina project. And he sued Carla Main, a journalist who wrote a book about the legal struggle over the Gores’ land, along with her publisher, Encounter Books [also a publisher of mine — W.O.]. He sued University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein, one of the country’s leading authorities on eminent domain, for writing a blurb that appeared on the cover of Main’s book. He even sued two newspapers that published reviews of the book.

So after thinking carefully about my potential legal exposure, I have decided not to say that Royall…

I can’t go on. I just can’t. I’m so scared of Royall that I can’t even repeat the colorful epithets that Sullum might apply to Royall if he dared (which he doesn’t) for fear that Royall will then find some excuse to sue me too. But you can go read them if you dare. More: Tim Sandefur, PLF on Eminent Domain.

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Dreier LLP scandal

From bad to worse: “According to a declaration by the firm’s Controller John Provenzano, millions of dollars owed to clients appeared to be missing from the firm’s accounts.” (Dan Slater, WSJ law blog; American Lawyer; earlier).

In general clients who suffer by a law firm’s defalcations, and cannot be made whole by suits against the law firm, are at risk of losing all or most of the money they’d entrusted; however, New York, where the Dreier firm is headquartered, at last report afforded broader provisions for clients than did most states. I took note four years ago of the not-especially-generous state of lawyerdom’s collective “client security” funds.

P.S. More on client security funds in comments. Larry Ribstein has thoughts on the Dreier firm’s unusual organizational structure. As for all the “dating Maxim models” stuff about the extravagance of Dreier’s personal life, that is pure tabloid-style sensationalism and will under no account be exploited in this space.

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Sliding down stair railing while drunk

“One may sympathize with the family of Todd Jette, who was killed in an unsuccessful attempt to slide down a stair railing at Adobe Gila’s Bar and Grill in Dayton, Ohio. … One has less sympathy for the lawyers who have just filed suit on behalf of Jette’s estate, arguing that the restaurant was negligent for failing to save Jette from himself.” (Social Services for Feral Children, Dec. 9; “Greene restaurant facing lawsuit”, WHIO, Dec. 9; Kelli Wynn, Dayton Daily News, Dec. 13, 2006).

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More patent litigation sanctions

A trend? Following up on yesterday’s post about the camera and Medtronic cases: “A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday upheld an attorney fee award of nearly $17 million because of baseless filings and bad faith patent litigation by two drug companies. A district court awarded the fees to Takeda Chemical Industries, which had sued two generic drug companies — Mylan Laboratories and Alphapharm Pty. Ltd. — for patent infringement. …The district court agreed with Takeda that both companies lacked a good faith basis for their certification filings and had engaged in litigation misconduct.” (Marcia Coyle, “Panel Upholds $17M Attorney Fee Award, Cites Bad-Faith Patent Litigation by Drug Companies”, National Law Journal, Dec. 9).

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Bad anonymous reviews for donut shop

Zebulon Brodie, the owner of a Dunkin’ Donuts on the Eastern Shore, “argued to Maryland’s highest court yesterday that the host of an online forum should be forced to reveal the identities of people who posted allegedly defamatory comments” about his eatery. The comments were posted at NewsZap.com. (Henri E. Cauvin, “Md. Court Weighs Internet Anonymity”, Washington Post, Dec. 9; Citizen Media Law, Dec. 11).

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Microblog 2008-12-09

  • Everything that makes Chicago politics what it is: Gov. Blagojevich shook down a children’s hospital [Massie] Time to play Name That Goon: guess which statements are by Illinois governor and which by Tony Soprano [Daily Beast] The most closely watched Obama appointment is and should be the U.S. Attorney for Chicago [@patrickruffini]
  • Many writers including me relied on UAW assertion that oft-heard $73/hour figure for GM compensation was misleading because it included vast army of retirees; but per one new paper, the number really does reflect only payments for currently active workers [James Sherk, Heritage] Contra, the New York Times sides with the original critique of the number [David Leonhardt]
  • Green activists contact the authorities to report illegal logging, turns out to be beavers [OK!; Poland]
  • Pride and Prejudice: the Facebook feed [DeeDee Baldwin]
  • Economists invite volunteers to play game simulating investment behavior. Usual result? Bubbles & crashes [Postrel]
  • “Watermelon smell”, “ferret odor”, “gasoline fumes”: Japanese site uses Google maps to track stinky locations [Japan Probe via Tyler Cowen]
  • Subprime-implosion lawsuits haven’t gone well for plaintiffs, who’ve had trouble showing guilty state of mind [CCH Wall Street] But are things beginning to shift in their favor? [Frankel, American Lawyer]
  • Nifty “Atlas of True Country Names” displays place names as their underlying meanings [Telegraph]

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Excessive entanglement of press and state

One reason of many it’s a bad idea:

[Illinois Gov. Rod] Blagojevich, Harris and others are also alleged [in the federal indictment] to have withheld state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field. The statement says this was done to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members who were critical of Blagojevich.

More: Eugene Volokh. Similarly: Patterico.

P.S.: “When the Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs wanted permission to install lights at Wrigley Field, Ald. Ed Vrdolyak let it be known it would require an end to editorial criticism of him. An editorial responded that the Cubs would ‘be playing morning games on a sandlot in Gary first.’ Vrdolyak — this will surprise you — is now headed for prison, another victim of Fitzgerald.” (Steve Chapman, Reason, Dec. 11).

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“Thank goodness for especially greedy lawyers in high-profile lawsuits”

David Giacalone figures that at least the jaw-dropper fee cases serve one useful purpose: they remind judges, the public and the legal profession itself “that we really do have a ban on unreasonable fees and expense charges — we [lawyers] can’t agree on them, charge them, or collect them”. With discussion of the Coughlin Stoia/Coke, Lawrence v. Miller, and certain lawyers’ willingness to bill two clients full freight for the same hour on the clock. (f/k/a, Nov. 21).

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