“Indonesia’s highest court ordered Time magazine to pay $106 million in damages for defaming former dictator Suharto by alleging his family amassed billions of dollars during his 32-year rule, officials said Monday.” (Ali Kotarumalos, “Time Magazine Loses Suit Against Suharto”, AP/Huffington Post, Sept. 10).
Author Archive
Chicago parking tickets
The city known for ghost voters also has ghost parking signage, it would seem:
[Heather Thome] was dismayed when she returned to find a police officer had just written a ticket for violating a parking ban from 4 to 6 p.m.
“I asked him where the sign was,” said Thome, 35, a temp worker. “He said there used to be a sign on ‘that’ pole, and it hasn’t been there for two years. My logical question was, ‘How can you write a ticket?’ And he told me he doesn’t want to, but his boss tells him he has to go out every day and write tickets.” … She [appealed but] still was found liable.
(Gary Washburn, “City rakes in revenue from tickets”, Chicago Tribune, Aug. 12). More: Cernovich.
“Everybody, that is, except the guys who did it.”
Mark Steyn throws down the gauntlet:
Last week the New York Times carried a story about the current state of the 9/11 lawsuits. Relatives of 42 of the dead are suing various parties for compensation, on the grounds that what happened that Tuesday morning should have been anticipated. The law firm Motley Rice, diversifying from its traditional lucrative class-action hunting grounds of tobacco, asbestos and lead paint, is promising to put on the witness stand everybody who “allowed the events of 9/11 to happen.” And they mean everybody – American Airlines, United, Boeing, the airport authorities, the security firms – everybody, that is, except the guys who did it.
According to the Times, many of the bereaved are angry and determined that their loved one’s death should have meaning. Yet the meaning they’re after surely strikes our enemies not just as extremely odd but as one more reason why they’ll win. You launch an act of war, and the victims respond with a lawsuit against their own countrymen.
But that’s the American way: Almost every news story boils down to somebody standing in front of a microphone and announcing that he’s retained counsel. Last week, it was Larry Craig. Next week, it’ll be the survivors of Ahmadinejad’s nuclear test in Westchester County. As Andrew McCarthy pointed out, a legalistic culture invariably misses the forest for the trees. Sen. Craig should know that what matters is not whether an artful lawyer can get him off on a technicality but whether the public thinks he trawls for anonymous sex in public bathrooms. Likewise, those 9/11 families should know that, if you want your child’s death that morning to have meaning, what matters is not whether you hound Boeing into admitting liability but whether you insist that the movement that murdered your daughter is hunted down and the sustaining ideological virus that led thousands of others to dance up and down in the streets cheering her death is expunged from the earth.
(Mark Steyn, “No terrorism, just war?”, Orange County Register, Sept. 9; Anemona Hartocollis, “Little-Noticed 9/11 Lawsuits Will Go to Trial”, New York Times, Sept. 4; also to the point).
September 10 roundup
All-New England edition:
- Massachusetts bar-exam flunker drops suit over gay-marriage question [Boston Herald, OnPointNews; see Jul. 7]
- “We cannot get rail service between Nashua and Boston because a cap on liability may be unconstitutional in New Hampshire thanks to the trial lawyers” [letter in Nashua Telegraph; earlier news story]
- Whodunit? Everyone, as in a certain Christie novel: Rhode Island nightclub fire lawsuits name 93 different defendants [New York Times; see Feb. 16, 2006]
- Update: skull-fragment-keeping officer Callahan departs the Norwalk, Ct. police force [Created Things; earlier Jan. 23 and Jun. 21]
“Inappropriate and unethical behavior”
Litigious populist Larry Klayman, once a legal scourge of the Clinton White House and a repeat mentionee on this site (May 7 and links from there), has once again drawn rebuke from the bench. This time Judge Walter Tolub has denied Klayman the right to appear in his Manhattan courtroom, saying Klayman’s “record demonstrates more than an occasional lapse of judgment, it evinces a total disregard for the judicial process”:
The judge cited seven instances in which Klayman had been rebuked or sanctioned by federal judges. One of those was Southern District of New York Judge Denny Chin, who in 1997 sanctioned Klayman for making “preposterous” claims and engaging in “abusive and obnoxious” behavior.
Klayman, who vows to appeal the ruling, is seeking the right to represent former New York Post gossip reporter Jared Paul Stern in a lawsuit against billionaire Ronald Burkle. (Anthony Lin, “Klayman Denied N.Y. Admission in Former Gossip Reporter’s Suit Against Billionaire”, New York Law Journal, Sept. 7).
Mississippi judicial scandal: Paul Minor sentenced to 11 years
Once among the South’s most financially successful and politically influential plaintiff’s lawyers, attorney Paul Minor was sentenced on Friday to 11 years in federal prison following his conviction in a judicial bribery scandal we’ve covered extensively at this site. Two former judges convicted in the case, John Whitfield and Wes Teel, drew sentences of 110 months and 70 months respectively. Minor’s lawyers had asked that he be sentenced to time served, and supporters had sent letters by the sackful asking for leniency. (“Gulf Coast lawyer Paul Minor gets 11 years in prison for bribing Miss. judges”, AP/Natchez Democrat, Sept. 7; Jimmie Gates, “Minor, ex-judges sentenced in bribery case”, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Sept. 7).
Judge Henry Wingate also fined Minor $2.75 million and ordered him to pay $1.5 million in restitution, not quite as telling a blow to his fortunes as one might assume, given that “Minor earns up to $2.5 million a year from a settlement with tobacco companies,” not to mention all the other money he’s made (Robin Fitzgerald, “‘Lady Justice Is Sobbing”, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Sept. 8). Minor is also being sued by insurer USF&G, which paid out a $1.5 million settlement to a bank represented by Minor in a case before Judge Teel. (Julie Goodman, “Minor’s legal woes won’t end when he goes to prison”, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Sept. 8).
Judy Cates running for judgeship
Longtime readers of this site may remember attorney Judy Cates of Swansea, Ill., who filed and later settled a defamation lawsuit against St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan over a humorous and disrespectful column McClellan had written regarding a controversial class-action settlement Cates and other lawyers had reached with magazine sweepstakes firm Publishers Clearing House (Nov. 4 and Nov. 30, 1999; Feb. 29, 2000; for other watch-what-you-say-about-lawyers cases from Madison County and thereabouts, see Dec. 23, 2004). More recently, Ms. Cates served as elected president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (Jul. 3, 2006). And now she’s thrown her hat into the ring for a seat on the state Fifth District Appellate Court, which sprawls over 37 counties. She’ll mount a challenge in the February Democratic primary to Jim Wexstten, who was appointed this year to fill a vacancy on the court and who is regarded as a moderate-to-conservative Democrat. The Post-Dispatch’s coverage forgivingly (or perhaps prudently) does not mention her having sued the paper’s columnist (Adam Jadhav, “Swansea lawyer to challenge appointee for judgeship”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 25; Nicholas J.C. Pistor, “Lawyer’s entry heats up race for appellate court”, Aug. 28; “Not recommended” (editorial), Madison County Record, Aug. 18).
Attorney-presidents
We’re very likely to have one next time (Jill Lawrence, “For next president, USA likely to call on lawyer”, USA Today, Sept. 5).
“Coney Island side show ‘freak’ studying to become a lawyer”
Tattoo-covered Eduardo Arrocha, who’s been eating nails for 15 years in the sideshow role of “Eak the Geek”, has decided to become a lawyer and has begun studies at Cooley Law School in Lansing. (AP/MLive, Sept. 4). James Taranto rather unkindly speculates that Arrocha’s career switch “will improve the prestige of both professions” (WSJ Best of the Web, Sept. 5).
Pro bono as profit center, cont’d
Just so you’re totally clear on the meaning of the term pro bono when you read it from now on:
McMinimee [Seattle Public Schools attorney Shannon McMinimee] says it’s “disingenuous” for the law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, to go after money when the firm took the case pro bono. But firm spokesman Mark Usellis said “pro bono” means their clients don’t have to pay.
“The thing that’s really important to us in a civil-rights case is that Congress specifically and explicitly wrote into the law that if the government is found to have violated citizens’ civil rights, then the prevailing party should seek fee recovery,” he said.
Most governments can argue, as Seattle Public Schools is, that they don’t have much money. But going after the fees helps deter other government bodies from violating civil rights, Usellis said….
If the firm wins, the fees likely wouldn’t be covered by the district’s insurance carrier, McMinimee said. So the money would have to come out of the district’s $490 million general-fund budget.
(Emily Heffter, “Law firm wants school district to pay $1.8M”, Seattle Times, Sept. 6).