The innovation might itself prove to be quite an effective weapon for use in tormenting hapless victims (Feral Child, Oct. 14; Ki Mae Heussner, “Calling Out Bullies Incognito: New Site Lets Students Report Bullying, Harassment Anonymously”, ABC News, Oct. 16; more on snitchlines here, here, and here).
Author Archive
October 29 roundup
- District court tosses $5.2 million punitive damage award against TASER in closely watched case [CalPunitives, Feral Child]
- You mean demanding that opponent submit to a “PET brain scan” is vexatious? [The Briefcase, Stemple v. Dunina, Ohio]
- Election’s implications for federal courts [NLJ, NYT, Steven Calabresi @ WSJ]
- Don’t even think of using “the cash machine legal clinic” as your slogan if Louisiana implements tough new lawyer-ad rules [New Orleans City Business]
- Our long national slide toward “election by litigation” [Hillyer, D.C. Examiner] Plus: America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® RFK Jr. emerges as “election law huckster” [Weigel, Reason “Hit and Run”]
- While privacy laws ratchet ever tighter on private actors, publicly available court documents blare out Social Security numbers and other sensitive data [Ambrogi]
- Which is the worse deal, using your own bank’s ATM or patronizing one of those awful payday-loan outfits? No peeking [Coyote]
- “DMCA: Ten Years of Unintended Consequences” [EFF]
“Common-sense justice in Alaska”
Manhattan Institute fellow Marie Gryphon, in National Review, on the state’s loser-pays rule:
Alaska’s unique rule is a product of its history. When the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, the icy wilderness had so few inhabitants that the U.S. neglected to establish immediately any civil law there at all. Congress instituted a civil legal system for Alaska in 1884 through an Act that borrowed from Oregon’s civil code and applied it to the new territory virtually wholesale. At that time, an Oregon statute allowed the prevailing party in a civil suit to recover attorney’s fees from the loser. While Oregon unwisely dumped its loser-pays rule eventually, Alaska embraced loser pays and stuck with it. …
The Alaska Judicial Council conducted a review of Alaska’s loser-pays rule in 1989 and found that, while the law could not deter filings by irrational plaintiffs, it did reduce the number of low-merit lawsuits in Alaskan courts. The Council also found that a majority of Alaskan attorneys liked the system and believed that it functioned well.
(cross-posted from Point of Law).
Microblog 2008-10-28
- ’98 master tobacco settlement: not just bootleggers and Baptists, but also “televangelists.” [Morriss, Regulation, h/t Ted] #
- Slants and biases in Associated Press reporting aren’t new, but they’ve become impossible to ignore [WaPo] #
- Unplanned result of bailout: lenders back off from deals to sell distressed real estate at cut price [Coyote] #
- GM needs to tear up contracts with its unions, retirees, and dealers, which means it needs bankruptcy [Bainbridge] #
- No kidding: gorgeous photography of slime molds [English Russia] #
- Blog primer on credit default swaps and other financial derivatives [Derivative Dribble] #
- Wouldn’t it be more helpful to save the epithet “socialist” for times when it’s really, you know, accurate? [Ron Coleman] #
- State of New York staring into fiscal chasm, years of $10 billion+ deficits [NYPost] #
Even palimony has limits
“If any practical legal principle can be extracted from the gnarled facts of Bayne v. Johnson v. Johnson, it is probably this: You can’t get palimony if you cohabit with a married man and his wealthy, elderly wife and then leave him because he won’t leave her.” (Michael Booth, “When Palimony’s at Stake, Three’s a Crowd”, New Jersey Law Journal, Oct. 28).
“Scandal in Louisiana’s criminal courts”
“[Jerrold] Peterson said he was instructed to write up and file the denials [of pro se appeals by indigent convicts] without ever showing the appeals to the judges. Peterson handled about 2,400 such cases in the 13 years he was in charge of them.” (Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”, Oct. 28). Under the court’s rules, “every criminal writ application is supposed to be reviewed by three judges”. Peterson committed suicide and his farewell note called attention to the scheme. (James Gill, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Oct. 10).
Evicted — by his own class action lawyers
The Center for Public Representation, a Massachusetts “public interest law” group that specializes in disability-related lawsuits, filed a civil-rights class action in the name of 640 profoundly mentally disabled residents of nursing facilities demanding that the state Department of Mental Retardation move them into group homes, the better to be part of the “community”, as the catch-phrase has it. A judge agreed and ordered the transfer. Among the 640 patients was Eric Voss, who is severely disabled and has been living for seven years at a Groton pediatric nursing facility called Seven Hills. Now Eric’s parents, Frank and Barbara Voss, are fighting the order, saying that their son never had any choice about joining the action and that forcing him out would endanger the quality of his care and deprive him of surroundings and staff that have become like home. “U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, has filed legislation that requires parents and guardians to be notified about class-action suits, and to allow them to opt out.”
“Our children can’t speak for themselves, so we will fight for them,” Voss said. “If individuals like Eric are moved, they won’t live long. They shouldn’t have to give their lives for a lawsuit that has nothing to do with them.”
(Rita Savard, “‘We’re prepared to fight'”, Lowell Sun, Oct. 12; alternate version; Rolland v. Patrick settlement agreement, PDF; AvertRollandTragedy.org, advocacy site).
MP3 takedowns, the pre-emptive way
Takedowns without DMCA takedown notices: a hosting company pulls down a user’s posted MP3 song files because the user, an indie record label, can’t produce a copyright registration certificate for them — and never mind that they’re the label’s own material posted with the okay of its artists. (Tamera Bennett, Oct. 20, Gordon Firemark, Oct. 21; via Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion).
Microblog 2008-10-27
- “Energy independence is no more desirable than coffee independence, banana independence, or car independence.” [David Henderson, EconLog] #
- L.I.R.R.: a disability certification outfit disguised as a railroad [Bogdanich, N.Y. Times] #
- Even post-scandal, private attorneys for towns can still collar lucrative NY state pensions [Peddie, Newsday] #
- Lining up for bailout bucks: automakers and even mass transit [Carney] #
- Poll of worst law firm names (“Low, Ball & Lynch”) [Greatest American Lawyer; h/t @SCartierLiebel] #
- List of legal newsfeeds on Twitter, now updated [JD Scoop] #
DRI charity-race “Assumption of Risk and Waiver of Rights”
It was only natural for the professional organization of the civil defense bar, the Defense Research Institute, to include bulletproof disclaimer language when sponsoring a charity race for its own lawyer-members at its annual meeting, which took place earlier this month in New Orleans. As Robert Ambrogi points out, the waiver/disclaimer warned of the risks of high altitude (in a famously low-altitude city) and asked the signer to affirm that various horrific-sounding risks, such as those of terrorism, “contribute to my enjoyment and excitement and are a reason for my voluntary participation”.