To stockbrokers who could help bring in plaintiffs, Milberg Weiss could be very nice. (Parloff, Jul. 12)(cross-posted from Point of Law).
Author Archive
So few class-action antitrust trials
Although the New York attorney general had already extracted $3 million in penalties on the charges, a jury returned a defense verdict in a class-action suit charging that Macy’s and other department stores conspired to fix the price of high-end tableware. Plaintiffs admitted they had no direct evidence of a conspiracy and jurors in San Francisco federal court declined to infer one. Manufacturer/defendant Lenox had already paid $500,000 to be let out of the case.
What was truly unusual about the case, however, was that it went to trial at all, given the pressure to settle on defendants in such situations:
Antitrust attorneys say the verdict was remarkable if only because the case made it all the way to trial.
“In terms of a price-fixing class action going to trial, I honestly can’t think of one,” said James McGinnis, a partner at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, who briefly represented May Department Stores, one of the defendants, at an early stage in the case.
Usually, said lawyers on both sides of the bar, a combination of sky-high financial risks and the prospect of criminal prosecution is enough to encourage a settlement. Defense attorneys, for example, may not want to lay all their cards on the table in a civil case while prosecutors are watching.
(Matthew Hirsch, “Macy’s Beats Antitrust Price-Fix Rap”, The Recorder, Jul. 5).
Don’t let it touch your eyes
The many warnings on a curling iron. (DrugNazi, Jul. 7)(more on warning labels).
Next stop for boys’ team-cutting: high schools?
The quota pressures of the federal Title IX law have resulted in the axing of hundreds of men’s college sports teams, and now activists are preparing to intensify their legal campaign at the high school level, reports Jessica Gavora:
At the center of the pro-quota activists’ marching orders for Congress today is something called the “High School Sports Information Collection Act.” It’s modeled after the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA), which for a dozen years has forced colleges and universities to annually report their athletic participation and expenses — broken down by sex — to the feds. The EADA was meant to be, and is, a one-stop-shopping list for trial lawyers and activist groups looking for schools to sue for failing to meet the Title IX quota. Now, courtesy of Senators Olympia Snowe and Patty Murray, they are about to have the same litigation hit list of high schools.
In a year in which Rutgers, James Madison, Ohio University, Butler, Clarion, Slippery Rock, and Syracuse have eliminated hundreds of men’s roster spots in full or in part due to Title IX, we have yet to see — thankfully — boys’ high-school teams eliminated under the law. But we are beginning to see boys athletic opportunities be limited due to Title IX quota creep in high schools.
(Jessica Gavora, “Title IX Trickle-Down”, National Review Online/CBSNews.com, Jun. 20)(broken link now fixed).
Searle Freedom Trust request for proposals
Now this is the sort of thing likely to be of interest to some of our readers: the philanthropic Searle Freedom Trust concentrates on U.S. domestic policy and “aims to foster research and encourage public policies that promote individual freedom and economic liberty”. It
seeks to pursue its mission through new media and invites interested parties to submit applications for grants of up to $250,000. All ideas are welcome and will receive consideration. …
Proposals that may hold particular interest include fellowships for bloggers who focus on government spending, tort reform, or problems in higher education; projects that encourage emerging filmmakers and video producers and help them develop their talent; and podcasting.
Proposals must be submitted by October 1 and are being handled by John J. Miller, for whose bona fides we can vouch. (cross-posted from Point of Law).
Dunkin’ Donuts unfair to Muslim franchisee?
“A discrimination lawsuit filed by a Muslim Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee who was not allowed to renew his contract with the chain because of a refusal to sell pork products can proceed, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday.” For many years the donut chain had permitted Walid Elkhatib to refrain from including bacon, sausage or pork in breakfast sandwich offerings, because of religious scruples, but in 2002 it insisted that he carry the line with meat included, and he sued on religious-discrimination grounds. According to the coverage, Circuit judge Ilana Diamond Rovner apparently found it significant that the donut chain had allowed some franchisees in the area not to carry the breakfast sandwiches, for reasons that included, e.g., limited space. It sounds, though, as if the deal that Elkhatib wished to carry forward was somewhat different: he wanted to go ahead and keep selling the sandwiches without putting meat in them, which would presumably have implications for what franchising strategists call the consistency of the customer experience. (“Muslim Dunkin’ Donuts Owner Can Sue Over Pork, Appeals Court Says”, Reuters/FoxNews.com, Jul. 10; Samuel Estreicher and Michael J. Gray, “Religion and the U.S. Workplace”, Human Rights Magazine (ABA), Summer 2006)(& welcome Michelle Malkin readers).
Pearson’s pants appeal
Litigation and the D.C. schools
In a hard-hitting series last month, the Washington Post investigated the enduring calamity that is the Washington, D.C. public school system, which persistently ranks at or near the bottom among the nation’s leading cities. (Dan Keating and V. Dion Haynes, “Can D.C. Schools be Fixed?”, Jun. 10; April Witt, “Worn Down by Waves of Change”, Jun. 11)(via Frum). Along with familiar problems of cronyism, mismanagement and undislodgeable incompetents, there is another persistent theme: “Reformers’ lawsuits have backfired, time and again.” For instance:
The activist group Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools tried to force city officials to help the schools in 1992 by suing over fire code violations in dilapidated buildings. Members thought they were helping [Superintendent Franklin L.] Smith by forcing Mayor Marion Barry, the D.C. Council and Congress to pay to rebuild the schools.
Instead, D.C. Superior Court Judge Kaye K. Christian closed schools with fire code violations. The suit dragged on for years. It contributed to the 1996 ouster of Smith, a favorite of Parents United activists. …
“In our wildest imaginings, we never thought this would happen,” Delabian Rice-Thurston, then executive director of Parents United, told The Washington Post the day Smith was fired. “The whole thing — the lawsuit, the court dates — it all backfired. Be careful what you wish for; you might get it.”
And then this, on special ed:
[Former superintendent Arlene] Ackerman balked when she discovered that the school system was paying millions of dollars annually to lawyers representing special education students who had successfully sued for better services. A lawyer sending a short form letter setting up a meeting might bill the schools $450, she said. Ackerman persuaded Congress to cap the amount lawyers could bill the schools at $80 an hour, she said.
Instead of winning plaudits for saving money, “you would have thought that I was responsible for World War III,” Ackerman said. “I started getting pressure — ‘we don’t need to get a cap,’ ‘this is not fair’ — and I mean from all parts of the community. Somebody said to me these were trial lawyers who support certain politicians.”
Ackerman was summoned to meet with [Anthony] Williams, by then the mayor, about raising the cap. She resigned before the meeting took place, and her initiative was soon rolled back, she said. Williams, in a recent interview, conceded that he “might have caved in” to political pressure even though he fundamentally believed Ackerman had been right to limit money spent on lawyer fees that could have gone to classrooms.
Overall, the Post reports, special-ed lawsuits
wound up forcing the system to spend about $120 million a year to pay private tuition for 2,400 students out of a system of 55,000, plus $75 million for special education transportation. That left less money to fix the system’s own inadequate special education programs that sparked the lawsuits in the first place.
32 years later
The Rhode Island attorney general’s office has charged a man with rape based on a memory “repressed” by the complainant “until recently”. Harold Allen of Narragansett, 48, at the time of the alleged incident was sixteen years old, as was the complainant. Allen has pleaded not guilty, and through his attorney says he never had relations with the woman, though he was acquainted with her. There is no statute of limitations on the charge of first-degree sexual assault. (“Man charged with rape 32 years later”, AP/EyewitnessNews, Jun. 14; Volokh, Jul. 3).
July 9 roundup
- Judge Ramos disallows settlement of Citigroup directors derivative suit: deal had met defendants’ needs, plaintiff’s lawyers’ too, but not shareholders’ [PDF of decision courtesy NY Lawyer]
- Drove a golf cart into the path of his car as it was being repossessed, jury decides he deserves $56,837 [MC Record]
- Per ACOG, 92 percent of NY ob/gyns say they’ve been sued at least once [NY Post edit; more]
- New British online-gambling law could trip up some virtual-world/massively multiplayer online games [GamesIndustry.biz]
- Good news for bloggers: Iowa-based site can’t be sued in New York just because it answered questions from NY reader and accepted NY donations [Best Van Lines v. Walker, Second Circuit; McLaughlin]
- Another great idea from Public Citizen: let’s not use new drugs till they’ve been on the market for seven years [Pharmalot via KevinMD]
- After conviction of Mississippi trial lawyer Paul Minor in judicial corruption scandal, squabbling drags on over sentencing [Jackson Clarion-Ledger]
- Conservative public interest law firms “can win some big cases [but] are notorious for lacking follow-through” [Tushnet, L.A. Times]
- Contestants in Australian business dispute probably wound up spending more on the litigation than had been at stake in the first place [Sydney Morning Herald]
- New at Point of Law: New Hampshire governor vetoes trial lawyers’ bill; global warming litigation to be bigger than tobacco?; the Times notices HIPAA;
- It’s my emotional-support dog, and my lawyer says you have to let it into your store [eight years ago on Overlawyered, before these stories started getting common]