- Resolving dispute over author Pearl Buck’s lost manuscript was easier once we locked the lawyers out of the negotiating room, heirs say [Phila. Inquirer]
- After U.K.’s Channel 4 ran explosive show documenting pro-beheading, anti-Western rants at some leading mosques, government mulled race-incitement prosecution against… the network [Guardian via Reason “Hit and Run”]
- Breach-of-contract claim: 1-800-FLOWERS told his wife about the flowers he bought for his mistress, after promising not to [Lat, Houston Chronicle]
- “What are you going to do about lawyer jokes?” bar association demands of press-agent hopeful [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
- You can buy fake doctor’s excuses on the web these days, not that anyone would ever abuse the Family and Medical Leave Act of course [Associated Press]
- Federal judge flays Qualcomm for “gross litigation misconduct” in defending patent suit, orders it to pay opponent’s fees [WSJ Law Blog]
- Jersey regulators keen to shutter eatery whose cook was dealing cocaine without owner’s knowledge, reminding Ralph Reiland of the fate of a restaurant whose manager “should have known” of sex harassment [Press of Atlantic City; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]
- Dropped out of Congressional race after domestic-violence arrest, now suing former father-in-law for lost salary she’d have earned on Capitol Hill if elected [Dayton Daily News]
- New at Point of Law: Atul Gawande says our malpractice system’s a “disaster”; Katrina canal-breach sense restored; Ohio Supreme Court rules against governor on product-liability veto; Paul Minor sentencing hearing (see also); and much more;
- Sacramento law firm that boasted of women’s advancement was itself a den of sleazy male behavior, complainants say [The Recorder]
- Craigslist roommate classifieds tripped up by “fair housing” law [two years ago on Overlawyered]
Author Archive
Allergic to cheese, sues McDonald’s for $10 million
Jeromy Jackson says he repeatedly told the McDonald’s in Morgantown, W.V. that he needed his two Quarter Pounders without cheese, because he was allergic to cheese; “From this point forward, Mr. Jackson repeatedly asked as to the status of his food and whether it had no cheese, and took multiple preventive steps to assure his food did not contain cheese,” his suit says. On biting into the sandwich, his suit alleges, he suffered a severe allergic reaction and had to be rushed to a hospital (Cara Bailey, “Man allergic to cheese seeks $10 million from McDonald’s”, West Virginia Record, Aug. 8).
James Taranto is not what you would call sympathetic toward the action (Aug. 9): “So apparently the ‘multiple preventive steps’ he took ‘to assure his food did not contain cheese’ did not include looking at the damn sandwich before eating it”.
Edwards – lawyer $ = Richardson or Dodd?
Yes, we’ve run several critical items on presidential fundraising lately (disclaimer), but this added bit seemed worthy of note:
…More than half of the Edwards donors who listed their occupations said they are attorneys, and they have given seven times more than any other profession, according to an Associated Press analysis of campaign finance data. …
In the first six months of the year, Edwards raised $23 million. But without the roughly $7 million collected from donors identified as attorneys, his numbers would fall closer to that of lower-tier candidates, such as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd.
It should be noted that “donors identified as attorneys” is a term of art. Many donations from, e.g., lawyers’ family members or persons whose livelihood derives from litigation support services will not be so identified. Candidates Clinton and Obama have raised about one-sixth of their funds from donors identified as attorneys. (Mike Baker, “Attorneys still bankroll Edwards effort”, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Aug. 1). More on Edwards’ fund-raising here, here, here, here, here, etc.
P.S. I see the Times is also tackling the subject today: Leslie Wayne, “Lawyers’ Dollars? Not Just to Edwards”, New York Times, Aug. 9. (& welcome readers of Prof. Bainbridge, guestblogging at Andrew Sullivan’s).
Chasing I-35W bridge clients
While “the divers are still in the river looking”:
Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis said he has received at least a dozen telephone calls from law firms, most of them local, since it became public knowledge that a pregnant Somali woman, Sadiya Sahal, and her 2-year-old daughter, Hanah Mohamed, were among those missing after the collapse.
The calls started coming about 4 p.m. Thursday, less than 24 hours after the collapse, and haven’t stopped, Jamal said. Some of the attorneys have asked for telephone numbers and other personal information about Sahal’s family, Jamal said.
“This is the worst form of ambulance-chasing,” Jamal said. “The divers are still in the river looking, and the attorneys keep calling us.”
(Chris Serres and Matt McKinney, “Question of liability rises”, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Aug. 8)(via Ambrogi who got it from Minnesota Lawyer Blog).
Update: My mother, the car
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which is fairly described these days as neo-Prohibitionist, continues to promote the development of automobiles which will be mechanically inoperable in the presence of indicators of drunkenness. A new Nissan prototype includes alcohol sensors in both the driver and passenger seat. Passenger? (Classical Values, Aug. 4). Earlier: Aug. 19, 2005, May 28, 2006.
More from DUI Blog: “Imagine if even one of these gizmos malfunctions — at high speed.”
Defensive EMS practice
From the comments to this July 30 post at KevinMD about defensive medicine:
“Spreading to paramedics?”
Doc, it’s been prevalent in EMS for years. Virtually every EMS system in this country is designed specifically to serve less than 1% of its run volume – cardiac arrest patients.
We continue to spinally immobilize (now there’s a misnomer!) trauma patients, despite the evidence that clinical exam criteria can safely clear these patients and other evidence that questions whether pre-hospital spinal immobilization is even beneficial.
We fly people on helicopters based on nothing more than mechanism of injury, despite the mounting number of fatal crashes and the fact that 95% of those patients flown to the ED were discharged home directly from the ED. That’s right – we flew them on a $10,000 flight, and they weren’t even sick enough to be admitted.
Prehospital care is a bastion of defensive medicine. Has been for some time.
New Yorker cartoon caption
In the new (Aug. 13) issue, the picture shows a dad in living room admonishing son: “We don’t want you inviting friends over to play. There are liability issues.”
More: reader James Fulford notes in comments:
This is visible online at at the New Yorker Store. You can buy a print or in some cases, the original art. In the same issue, there’s defensive medicine: “I don’t like the look of these. I better send them up to legal.” (A doctor holding x-rays and a patient sitting on the examination table.)
And the criminal defense bar:“Make eye contact with the jury, but not homicidal-maniac eye contact.” (Lawyer to client.)
Great moments in accountants’ liability
“An en banc Superior Court panel has ordered a new trial in a case in which a western Pennsylvania trial judge awarded $102.7 million in 2003 to one of the owners of a property company identified as being at the center of a mid-1980s Ponzi scheme.” Two couples, Thomas and Barbara Reilly and Edward and Karen Krall, each jointly owned half the stock in Canterbury Village Inc., a property development that was oversold in what was later described as a Ponzi scheme that bilked thousands of investors. When Canterbury Village landed in bankruptcy proceedings, an Ernst & Young predecessor was called in to organize the books, which were in great disarray. According to a judge’s footnote, “the male halves of Canterbury Village’s two couple-owners pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from the Ponzi scheme.” Mr. Reilly served about four years on fraud and tax evasion charges. The eventual reorganization plan approved by the court barred the Reillys and Kralls from any stake in the emerging business entity.
The Reillys then proceeded to sue Ernst & Young, alleging that its report had contained inaccuracies which had injured their business interests. When the Reillys filed requests for admissions in support of their allegations, Ernst first missed a deadline to respond and then, granted a do-over, omitted to include a required verification from its lawyer. The judge in response deemed Ernst to have agreed to all the requested admissions — in effect, preventing the firm from contesting the key elements of the Reillys’ case. A verdict was then entered on behalf of Barbara Reilly that “included $34 million for her ownership interest in Canterbury Village — half of the $68 million appraised value — plus an additional $50,945,222 in interest, based on a rate of 6 percent per annum beginning in 1986, for a total compensatory damage award of $84,018,989. Yeager also awarded her $18.17 million in punitive damages for a total verdict of $102,718,989.” The appeals panel has now decided, however, that loss (in effect) of its right to mount a substantive defense is too harsh a sanction for Ernst’s procedural fumblings, so a retrial is on its way. (Asher Hawkins, “Retrial Ordered in Nine-Figure Fraud Case”, Legal Intelligencer, Jul. 27; Karen Kane, “Seven Fields developer faults Ernst & Young in lawsuit”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 25, 2002).
Criticizing Saudi financiers
Whether or not you reside in the U.K., the range of reading material available to you regarding the tangled banking relationships of the Middle East is being shaped and constrained by the London libel courts. (Gary Shapiro, “Libel Suit Leads to Destruction of Books”, New York Sun, Aug. 2; Mark Steyn, “The vanishing jihad exposés”, syndicated/Orange County Register, Aug. 5; earlier here and here).
August 6 roundup
- Patent suit by firm called Parallel Processing demands that all Sony PlayStation 3 consoles be impounded and destroyed [ArsTechnica, Slashdot]
- It’s not all going to Edwards: a scorecard on presidential campaigns’ law-firm fundraising [National Law Journal]
- Link roundup on Oregon criminal charges against fanny-swatting 13-year-olds [Right Side of the Rainbow; earlier]
- New at Point of Law: Spitzenfreude is mirth derived from ethical pratfall of NY’s moralist governor; Florida’s insurance fiasco; more on those “medical” bankruptcies; Alabama judge appoints special prosecutor in Dickie Scruggs affair after feds take a pass; and much more;
- One hurdle for court action by survivors of slain Middle East contractors against Blackwater: the four men had signed contracts agreeing not to sue their employer [Henley; W$J]
- Saying swim diaper should suffice, Akron mom and “fair housing” advocates sue condo that barred pre-potty-trained kids from pool [AP/FoxNews.com]
- Not only are those punitive new Virginia traffic laws unpopular, but a judge has just declared them unconstitutional as well [Washington Post; earlier here and here]
- Pepsi settles class actions over minute quantities of benzene that might form when soft drink ingredients combine [Reuters, Food Navigator, Journal-News]
- U.K. considers making it easier for unmarried cohabitators to go to court when their households break up [Times Online]
- Did a securities fraudster use protracted depositions to browbeat his victims? [Salt Lake City Tribune]
- “Victims’ Rights Amendment” to U.S. Constitution, promoted as giving crime victims a fairer shake, is bad idea for lots of reasons [eight years ago on Overlawyered]