“Some San Antonio apartment complexes are refusing to rent to people with tattoos and body piercings.” How long before someone proposes passing a law against such bias? (“Some SA Apartments Banning Tattoos”, WOAI, Sept. 26). More: Coyote.
Author Archive
Fans sue relocating sports teams
“Two Sonics and Storm season-ticket holders plan to file a lawsuit today, accusing the new team owners of defrauding ticket buyers who believed assurances that they intended to keep the teams in Seattle.” The franchises have announced plans to move to Oklahoma City, but some fans say it won’t be as much fun to watch them in the mean time knowing they’re destined to leave. Seattle personal injury lawyer Michael Myers is representing Carolyn Bechtel and Patrick Sheehy in the suit, which was arranged by Save Our Sonics and Storm, a local group trying to block the move. (Jim Brunner, Seattle Times, Oct. 1). Separately, Seattle city officials have sued on different grounds: “The city wants a court order forcing the team to play out its lease at KeyArena through September 2010 instead of paying a cash settlement to leave early.” Owners say the team lost $17 million playing in Seattle last year. (“Blame flies as city sues Sonics”, Sept. 25).
Watch what you say about lawyers dept.: Amiel Cueto
A month ago St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan wrote a less-than-respectful column reporting on the course of a controversial defamation suit filed by disbarred local attorney Amiel Cueto. Now Cueto has notified McClellan that he regards him as having acted as an “agent” of the defendant in the suit, the Madison-St. Clair Record, and he’s threatening him with compulsory process as a witness. McClellan, whom Overlawyered readers will remember as having been the target of appalling legal bullying from Metro-East plaintiff’s lawyers in the past, retains his cheerful tone in a new column. (Bill McClellan, “Amiel Cueto has a gift, or maybe he doesn’t”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 31; “Accusations, lawsuit make me nostalgic”, Sept. 30).
The underlying action arose from an item that ran in the U.S. Chamber-supported Madison-St. Clair Record on Jan. 30, 2006, alleging that Cueto, who served six years in prison on an obstruction of justice conviction, had been spied at a meeting of St. Clair County judges. “Once one of the most powerful lawyers in Southern Illinois, Cueto was said to have ‘owned’ fifteen of St. Clair County’s seventeen judges in the mid-1990s,” the column further asserted. Cueto sued the paper, in a hard-fought action currently in process. In other actions, as Ted noted Feb. 26, Cueto has sued the Illinois Civil Justice League and its political action committee over a campaign ad, and a local resident over a letter to the editor in the Belleville, Ill. News-Democrat (Malcolm Gay, “Power Broken”, Riverfront Times, Sept. 5; Ann Knef, “Amiel Cueto takes aim at ICJL”, Madison-St. Clair Record, Feb. 20; ICJL, Dec. 4, 2006).
Canada: class action plaintiff’s lawyers on the hook?
Canada has moved toward more liberal allowance of class-action litigation in recent years; it has also, like most non-U.S. countries, chosen to retain its historic principle of “loser-pays”, or “costs follow the event”, fee shifting. What happens when prevailing defendants seek an award of costs against losing class plaintiffs, assuming that the individual class members cannot be reached for the purposes of assessing costs? In a bitterly fought lawsuit over unclaimed veterans’ pension accounts, the federal government in Ottawa went after three class lawyers for C$4 million in costs out of their own pockets. The Ontario Court of Appeal denied its petition, but the lawyers say they feel chilled from organizing more such suits. In all, the federal government spent an estimated C$6 million in legal fees and C$10 million in other costs successfully defending the pension suit. (Randy Richmond, “Ottawa claimed denying justice”, London Free Press, Sept. 20). Earlier London Free Press reports by Randy Richmond on underlying lawsuit: “One Last Battle: Dark Politics”, Oct. 30, 2006; “An ugly fight for veterans’ benefits”, Oct. 31.
Facebook and the law
What if any are the legal issues raised by employers’ use of Facebook and similar social networking sites to check out job applicants? (George Lenard, CollegeRecruiter.com blog, Sept. 1; via Between Lawyers). What about prosecutors who decide to use it to gather incriminating evidence? (Arbitrary and Capricious, Sept. 16, via Legal Blog Watch).
Speaking of Facebook, Overlawyered’s own recently launched group there is now up to 171 members, but that’s way short of the number that would cause Ted to empty his wallet for charity as promised, and there’s only 24 hours or so to go on his offer. Anyone for a last-minute surge?
Apple sued for dropping iPhone price
Queens, N.Y. resident Dongmei Li has sued the tech giant, along with AT&T and Steve Jobs, over the $200 slash in the price of the much-ballyhooed cellphone less than two months after its launch. Among her many claims are that Apple unfairly deprived her of the chance to sell her early-bought iPhone at a profit, and that the $100 store credit Apple offered early buyers was inferior to the full refund they could have obtained if they decided they didn’t like the product right away. (Kasper Jade, “Apple, Jobs, AT&T sued over iPhone price cut, rebates”, AppleInsider, Sept. 28; Tom Krazit, “One More Thing”, CNet, Sept. 28; more comments at TechMeme; Katherine Mangu-Ward, “When Bad PR Happens to Good Economics”, Reason, Sept. 14). At the Apple Insider Forums, commenter Ken Laws quotes a passage describing another part of the suit:
“The lawsuit goes on to accuse Apple, Jobs and AT&T of forcing customers into 2-year service agreements with AT&T and imposing hefty $175 termination fees.”
I’ll never forget that terrifying night. I was just sitting at home, minding my own business, when Steve Jobs and a platoon of AT&T thugs burst through my front door…. Hovering helicopters and troops with vicious, snarling dogs kept the damned in line as we waited, huddled in fear, knowing our only choices were to sign the two year contract or be put up against the back wall of the Apple Store and shot.
I survived that night. But I know a lot of people who didn’t. I see their faces whenever I get a call on my iPhone, because I screwed up my contacts list and all the portraits are wrong.
Earlier iPhone suits: Jul. 30, Sept. 25, and (trademark claim): Jan. 10.
Class-action suit against New England Patriots
By reader acclaim: “A New York Jets season-ticket holder filed a class-action lawsuit Friday against the New England Patriots and coach Bill Belichick for ‘deceiving customers.'” Carl Mayer of Princeton Township, N.J., is suing over revelations that the Patriots unlawfully videotaped signals from Jets coaches in a Sept. 9 game. Mayer and his attorney, Bruce Afran,
calculated that because customers paid $61.6 million to watch eight “fraudulent” games, they’re entitled to triple that amount — or $184.8 million — in compensation under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act and the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act.
Mayer and Afran, who consider themselves public interest lawyers, have been thorns in the side of New Jersey politicians for years, filing lawsuits and demanding investigations to advance their grievances. They are well known in the state but generally have had little success in their causes.
Both have lost bids for elected offices, and Mayer once served as a presidential campaign adviser to Ralph Nader.
(Dennis Waszak Jr., “Jets fan sues Pats, seeks $184 million”, AP/Boston Globe, Sept. 28; ProFootballTalk “Rumor Mill”, Sept. 28). More: Sadly, No!.
Tenn. politico: in case of emergency call my TTLA friend
Tennessee state representative Rob Briley chaired the Judiciary Committee in the state House, and also held a seat on a study committee “assigned to recommend changes in the state’s DUI laws.” So you might regard it as unseemly of him, after having smashed his vehicle into a pickup truck on the afternoon of Sept. 8, to have led police on a 100-mph chase in Wilson and DeKalb counties. The chase culminated in his being apprehended and charged with offenses that included drunken driving, evading arrest, and vandalism. The vandalism consisted of doing “about $1,000 worth of damage to the patrol car by kicking and punching the back door and window”, according to police, who say they found an empty bottle of bourbon and several bottles of prescription meds in Briley’s SUV.
What raised some eyebrows around the state is that when officers at the Wilson County Jail had him fill out a form listing a “next of kin” or other person he wanted contacted, Briley, who is going through a divorce, named Mary Littleton, lead lobbyist for the Tennessee Association for Justice, formerly known as the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association. His explanation later was that Ms. Littleton was a logical person to name since she knew a lot of lawyers and he was going to need a lawyer. Briley has now resigned his Judiciary chairmanship as well as the seat on the DUI commission, and says he’s in rehab. Indeed, he claims he was headed for a rehab center on the afternoon in question — so eager to get there, perhaps, that 100 mph seemed only reasonable. He has now retained Ms. Littleton, who describes herself as a long-term friend, and two other attorneys to represent him. (Eric Schelzig, “Video shows Rep. Briley berating police, sobbing”, AP/Ashland City Times, Sept. 12; Kleinheider blog, WKRN, Sept. 13; Sheila Wissner, “Briley listed lobbyist as contact after DUI arrest; has no memory of chase”, The Tennessean, Sept. 13; Michael Silence, Sept. 13; Tom Humphrey, “Rep. Briley steps down from chairman position”, Knoxville News-Sentinel, Sept. 15; Sheila Wissner and Sheila Burke, “Arrest report says Briley had been committed”, Ashland City Times, Sept. 15).
“A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar”
No, I still haven’t seen a copy of this documentary (Apr. 19), which has been getting rave reviews all over the place and is a new Ebert & Roeper weekly pick. It’s just out on DVD now, and available on Amazon, where it’s selling briskly. Here’s the New York Times’s review:
Writer-director Eric Chaikin’s feature-length documentary A Lawyer Walks Into A Bar. . . offers a witty, seriocomic look at myriad aspects of the American legal process and judicial system. It hones in on six individuals, all prospective attorneys at the time of the film’s production, and follows them through trials and travails as they approach and take the formidable bar. Chaikin then uses the subjects’ stories as springboards to broader digressions on U.S. litigation. The film features a myriad of celebrity guest appearances, from both well-respected attorneys and entertainers. Participants include: attorneys Alan Dershowitz, Mark Lanier and Joe Jamail; comics Eddie Griffin and Michael Ian Black; TV commentators John Stossel and Nancy Grace, and many others.
The producers interviewed me at length as part of their research in making the film, and they tell me that some of the resulting footage appears in the bonus tracks on the DVD. The film’s website is here. More: Above the Law, Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites, David Giacalone (scroll down), Suzanne Howe @ Counsel to Counsel.
Boston’s libel judge, out and about
Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy is well known to readers of this site for winning a $2 million libel suit (upheld by the state’s high court) against the Boston Herald, which had published pieces portraying him as soft on crime and insensitive to victims. When the paper wired Murphy $3.4 million in June (the sum included interest), Legal Times’s Tony Mauro cited the episode as one of a string that had led the press to be newly wary of having to face off in court against judges (“Press Frets as More Judges Sue for Libel”, Jun. 22). And in July a state disciplinary panel filed misconduct charges against Judge Murphy for having sent the Herald’s publisher a “bring me a check and keep quiet” letter that media critic Dan Kennedy termed “fascinatingly repellent“.
Judge Murphy has maintained that because of the stories the Herald ran about him, he has suffered debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]. As of Aug. 1, he was on sick leave for this disorder, although Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick rejected his request “to retire early with a special judicial disability pension that would have netted him 75 percent of his salary”. Which makes it all the more surprising that a Herald reporter-photographer team would catch the judge looking relaxed and at ease over two days at the races in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where he bet at the $50-minimum window, picnicked with his wife and chatted with other spectators. Call it one of those miracle recoveries (Jessica Van Sack, “Bay State judge plays ponies for two days at N.Y. track”, Boston Herald, Sept. 27).