Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Author Archive

Claim: Spitzer’s floozy used my lost ID

New Jersey dental assistant Amber Arpaio found herself an asterisk-to-an-asterisk in the history of political scandals when it was reported that Ashley Dupre used Arpaio’s lost driver’s license to pass for more than 17 when she made a “Girls Gone Wild” video that later became notorious after the exposure of Dupre’s paid liaison with Gov. Eliot Spitzer. So now Arpaio is suing Dupre and Joe Francis, impresario of the “Girls Gone Wild” series. The news coverage of the lawsuit contains no indication that Arpaio suffered any damage to her credit record or other tangible interests from the affair, but she wants upwards of $10 million in cash solace for defamation and invasion of privacy, and, per her attorney, because “when someone searches her name on the Internet, pornographic material comes up.” Much better, when someone searches her name on the Internet, for intimations of litigiousness to come up. (Nancy Dillon, “Duped by Dupre: N.J. woman charges Spitzer call girl with identity theft”, New York Daily News, Jul. 17; AP/Comcast, Jul. 17)(& Prettier Than Napoleon). Plus: complaint at The Smoking Gun (h/t commenter VMS).

More 7/22: Thanks to commenter Eric Turkewitz for pointing out that Dupre had posed as Arpaio in actual news coverage, not just in the signing of film releases and the like, which makes the basis for the suit less unreasonable than I had hastily assumed.

Filed under: , , ,

Google AdWords class action

It will come as no surprise to anyone who surfs the Web much that many parked domains and 404 error pages on otherwise active websites carry Google keyword ads. (If you don’t know what a parked domain is, this is one; if you don’t know what a 404 error page is, here’s ours.) It might also seem reasonable that ads in these locations would be glanced at and even clicked on by some non-trivial number of visitors, who will often be looking for information on the relevant topic (that’s the idea behind keywords) and, frustrated in their initial search for content, might be ready to check out an advertiser’s substitute content. However, Boston lawyer Hal K. Levitte professes great dismay and consternation that 15 percent of the $887.67 he spent on his ad campaign went toward placements in such inferior spots, resulting in 693 clickthroughs and no actual conversions to prospect or client status. So he’d like class action status to sue for fraud and unjust enrichment on behalf of all other Google ad customers (Legal Blog Watch, Jul. 16).

P.S. From comments, reader J.B.:

Not sure what’s fraudulent here, when Mr. Levitte set up his ad campaign in Google AdWords he was given the opportunity to specify whether he wanted his ads to appear only on Google search result pages, or also in other places such as these parked domains.

In addition, Google gives you the option to pay less for clicks from these “inferior” spots, because as he found out, they often result in less-desirable visitors.

We in the technology world have a saying for people like Mr. Levitte: “RTFM”

Filed under: , ,

ADA: Sure, call him a “professional plaintiff”

“I have no problem being accused of being a professional whatever,” says Allen Fox, who’s filed 139 disabled-accessibility lawsuits over six years in concert with attorney Samuel Aurelio, as many as eight of the similarly worded complaints in a day. Most of the complaints result in the payment of legal fees and Fox, of West Palm Beach, Fla., pays nothing on the rare occasions he loses.

Aurilio, who has filed 274 ADA cases in Florida, including Fox’s, laments that a few lawyers have given all of those who fight for the disabled a bad name. The poster child is a North Miami lawyer who in 2003 was sanctioned by U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks for filing 13 lawsuits on behalf of a man he claimed was a quadriplegic who later walked in to give his deposition in one of the cases.

Not only was the man not disabled, he “did not know what a quadriplegic was, and when the term was explained to him, he was repulsed by the thought of being so incapacitated,” Middlebrooks wrote in a blistering 18-page order sanctioning lawyer Lawrence Fuller.

Fuller was also admonished by the Florida Bar; by one estimate, he’d taken in $3 million in his ADA practice by that point. (Jane Musgrave, “‘Pro Plaintiff’ Crusades for Disabled Access”, Palm Beach Post/Lakeland Ledger, May 12).

Filed under: ,

Compelling disclosure of commenters’ identities

A judge in Westchester County, N.Y. (hey, that’s here!) has ruled on the circumstances under which libel complainants can employ compulsory process to unveil the identity of anonymous ill-wishers on blogs and online forums. In this case the plaintiff is Richard Ottinger, a former liberal Congressman who’s now the dean of Pace University Law School (NYLJ via Greenfield).

Filed under: , ,

L.A. Times warning sign contest

Readers turned it into more of a general funny-sign contest, but some of the entries hint at a legally driven tendency to overwarn. Among the most disturbing messages is the one on #53, “Toilets and urinals flushed with reclaimed water. Do not drink.” (Scroll to “As if you would anyway“).

P.S. From comments, Jane T.: “Yesterday I noticed that a commercial for a drug that is prescribed to reduce the size of enlarged prostates issued a warning (in the ad) that women should not take it for various reasons none of which were that women do not have prostates.”

Filed under:

McDonald’s drive-through window speakers

When driving through the hamburger chain’s order line, Karen Tumeh, who is hearing-impaired, doesn’t like to use the order box, which she says makes her hearing aid screech. Her lawsuit apparently construes the Americans with Disabilities Act as entitling her instead to place her order upon arriving at the pickup window and wait there until it is ready, even if other customers are lined up behind her. Employees at a Lincoln, Neb. outlet of the hamburger chain allegedly told her that if she couldn’t or wouldn’t use the order box she should come inside and order from the counter rather than hold up other patrons in the car line. (Clarence Mabin, “Hearing-impaired woman sues McDonald’s”, Jul. 15; AP/Omaha World Herald, Jul. 16).

Filed under: , ,

Mere “pawn of counsel”

Class actions of the lawyers, by the lawyers, for the lawyers? To quote the Law.com summary: “A federal judge has rejected a proposed co-lead plaintiff for the Monster Worldwide securities fraud class action because the representative knew nothing about the case. Southern District of New York Judge Jed Rakoff had some pointed words for lead plaintiffs counsel Labaton Sucharow, saying the Steamship Trade Association International Longshoremen’s Pension Fund was ‘simply the willing pawn of counsel’ because it ‘has no interest in, genuine knowledge of, and/or meaningful involvement in this case.'” Judge Rakoff noted that pension fund co-chairman Horace Alston had represented himself under oath as the fund’s most knowledgeable person about the suit. “However, Mr. Alston then testified that he did not know the name of the stock at issue in this case, did not know the name of either individual defendant, did not know whether STA-ILA ever owned Monster stock, did not know if an amended complaint had been filed, did not know whether he had ever seen any complaint in the action,” leading Judge Rakoff to declare that he would “not be party to a sham.” (Mark Hamblett, “Lead Plaintiff Pick Rejected as Merely ‘Pawn of Counsel'”, New York Law Journal, Jul. 17).

Filed under: , , ,

State court judges: elect, or appoint?

I’ve got a lengthy new post up at Point of Law on this topic. Excerpt:

… some of our friends in the business community have lately been taking up as one of their big causes the direct voter election of state court judges. They argue in a populist vein that the common people ought to exert control over the judiciary and that methods such as gubernatorial appointment or “Missouri Plan” merit-screening panels are too open to influence behind the scenes from bar insiders, politicians, and trial lawyers. They also appear to believe that litigation outcomes will be fairer and more predictable from a business person’s point of view when judges hold their offices by election than when they are appointed. … I must say that I find it really odd that business groups have gone off on this kick….

Filed under: ,

July 16 roundup

  • Another compilation of the hundred best law blogs, with a familiar name among the nine “general” picks, so thanks for that [“Criminal Justice Degrees Guide” via ABA Journal]

  • Europe has a transnational association of personal injury lawyers, funded by the EU, but with no wheeler-dealer, masters-of-the-universe vibe in evidence [PoL]

  • Delta wasn’t liable in Kentucky Comair crash, but some plaintiffs sued it anyway in what their lawyer describes as an “abundance of caution” — that’s a diplomatic way to put it [Aero-News Net; link fixed now]

  • U.K.: Mom told she’d need to pass criminal record check before being allowed to take her own son to school [Telegraph]

  • Regular coverage of the litigious exploits of delusional inmate Jonathan Lee Riches, if you’ve got the stomach for them [Dreadnaught blog]

  • Federal Circuit reverses $85 million infringement verdict won by Raymond Niro, blasted by critics as original “patent troll” [AmLaw Daily]

  • “Determined to defeat lawsuits over addiction, the casino industry is funding research at a Harvard-affiliated lab.” [Salon]

  • Hired through nepotism by in-laws, then fired after divorce, sues on grounds of “marital status discrimination” [eight years ago on Overlawyered]

Filed under: , , , , , , , , ,

Shipboard art auctions

A Southfield, Mich. company named Park West has made a big business of conducting art auctions on cruise ships offshore, while leaving more than a few dissatisfied customers in its wake. Fine Art Registry, a subscriber website founded by Theresa Franks, has published some of those customer complaints as well as original articles warning of Park West’s practices. “In April the company sued Ms. Franks; Fine Art Registry’s lead writer, David Phillips; and a Dalí specialist that the site quoted, Bruce Hochman, for defamation.” And as so often proves to be the case when a business reacts to criticism by suing its critics, the suit has if anything stimulated further press curiosity about the business’s practices. (Jori Finkel, “Art Auctions on Cruise Ships Lead to Anger, Accusations and Lawsuits”, New York Times, Jul. 16). More: Donn Zaretsky, Art Law Blog.

Filed under: , , ,