Why they might be giving you a parting x-ray whether or not anyone thinks you strictly need one (Dr. Val, Apr. 2).
Author Archive
“Innovative” city suits against foreclosing lenders
City governments, sometimes in league with private counsel working on contingency fee, “have started suing banks and mortgage companies to recoup their costs” on such services as “fire departments, police, code enforcement or even demolition” in blighted neighborhoods. “The lawsuits were filed in recent months under different theories, in state and federal court. Cleveland and Buffalo filed suits under public nuisance laws. Minneapolis’ suit was brought on consumer fraud grounds, while Baltimore took the unusual approach of filing suit in federal court under alleged Fair Housing Act violations.” Bank of New York says it was included in Buffalo’s suit against 39 lenders even though it neither originated nor purchased loans, but merely acted as trustee. (Julie Kay, “Empty Homes Spur Cities’ Suits”, National Law Journal, May 9).
“Foam firms offer $30m to settle Station lawsuits”
Kentucky fen-phen trial opens
We’ve extensively covered the scandal over charges that attorneys William Gallion, Shirley Allen Cunningham Jr. and Melbourne Mills Jr. siphoned off $65 million or so in settlement money due claimants in the diet drug litigation, using the proceeds to buy, among other things, the Preakness-winning race horse Curlin. Ted notes the latest developments over at Point of Law, as does Carter Wood. (Wolfson/Courier-Journal, WSJ law blog).
More from WSJ law blog: Mills’ lawyer tells jury his client “was hospitalized for an ‘alcoholic seizure’ a month after the case was settled, didn’t take part in any court hearings and was too drunk at the time to be responsible,” while prosecutor says “that Mills ‘sat back and laughed’ when the other two described a plan to overcharge the clients.”
“Doctor Who’s new enemy: the BBC lawyers”
“A Doctor Who fan who gave away knitting patterns which created vague recreations of the programme’s aliens has been threatened with legal action by the BBC for copyright infringement.” (Andy Bloxham, Daily Telegraph, May 14). More: Times Online.
“Inmate caught trading food”
WordPress site now operating
Update: Since it’s awkward to keep two blogs going at once I’ve now switched the WordPress site to function as the “main” blog. Old post addresses generated by Movable Type (which lack the “php” suffix) still appear to work.
Earlier: Looks like I’ve fixed the problem of imported MT posts being misattributed to the wrong authors. I’m also trying out a new design “theme” (XMark by Lisa Sabin-Wilson) which fixes some glaring problems we had with the previous test theme (such as italics not rendering properly) and looks, in general, blog-friendly. At the moment it’s not a great fit for the accustomed look and feel of the site but it seems to be highly customizable, and should be considered a work in progress.
As an experiment, we’ve made commenting somewhat easier and you may notice that your comments appear immediately.
No, honey, nothing special happened today (II)
Airline mechanic Arnim Ramdass, 52, allegedly “disconnected the phone line at home and forbade his stay-at-home wife, Donna Campbell, 48, to watch television, Campbell claims in a lawsuit. Eventually, however, she learned the truth: Ramdass, along with 16 other mechanics at Miami International Airport, had won a $19 million lottery jackpot.” (Martha Neil, “Wife Sues Husband for Share of Secret $600K Lottery Win”, ABA Journal, May 13). See Nov. 20-21, 1999 (similar case from California).
Rebuilding your pool fence
We’re requiring you to do it, but we’re also forbidding you to do it, explain the nice folks at Town Hall (Maggie’s Farm, May 4, via Never Yet Melted).
Site housekeeping
* Comments on the main site are still broken, sorry. Update: Comments now working since WordPress changeover.
* Yesterday was one of our biggest Instalanches ever, with about 7,000 Glenn Reynolds readers coming over to visit this post.
* You can see our rapidly evolving WordPress “sandbox” here. One vexing problem we’ll need to fix: most of the posts from guestbloggers are being attributed to the wrong contributors. That problem is evident in this recent post, which was really authored by Jim Copland; the case names don’t render properly either. The posts in the sandbox may accept comments (which may or may not survive in a reconstructed site) but any permalinks are not really permanent and are apt to break soon. Comments about the reconstruction itself are best added to this post. Update: Sandbox removed since WordPress version has gone live.