Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

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Turn those credit slips into gold

The Chicago law firm of Edelman, Combs, Latturner & Goodwin, LLC has some wonderful news for you:

We are looking for electronically generated credit / debit card receipts which show either (a) the card expiration date or (b) any digits of the credit/ debit card number other than the last five.

In order to protect consumers against identity theft, an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act with a final effective date of December 4, 2006 requires merchants who accept credit/ debit cards and issue electronic receipts to program their machines to not show either the expiration date or more than the last 5 digits of the credit/ debit card number. The expiration date is important because a thief can use it together with the last four or five digits of the number to reconstruct the entire card number.

It is a violation to show either the expiration date or more than the last 5 digits of the card number. (We have seen some receipts where 4 or 5 other digits are shown, and that is a violation.) It is not necessary that any identity theft have actually occurred. Damages for a willful violation are $100 to $1,000 per receipt. The class representative may be able to obtain some additional compensation.

We have a number of pending cases alleging this violation and are interested in other merchants who are violating the law.

The burgeoning volume of entrepreneurial litigation over insufficiently blinded credit slips is the subject of a recent Wall Street Journal article: see Robin Sidel, “Retailers Whose Slips Show Too Much Attract Lawsuits”, Apr. 28, reprinted Cattle Network, Apr. 28. For more about name partner Daniel Edelman, see Nov. 15, 1999 (infamous BancBoston settlement), Feb. 7, 2000, and Dec. 11, 2006. The Edelman firm’s website has a long listing of notable case involvements which boasts of its role in mortgage escrow class actions, but does not mention BancBoston.

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Sellers of used CDs

New burdens are being heaped on them by state legislators who appear intent on protecting the interests of the original music providers:

In Florida, the new legislation requires all stores buying second-hand merchandise for resale to apply for a permit and file security in the form of a $10,000 bond with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. In addition, stores would be required to thumb-print customers selling used CDs, and acquire a copy of state-issued identity documents such as a driver’s license. Furthermore, stores could issue only store credit — not cash — in exchange for traded CDs, and would be required to hold discs for 30 days before reselling them.

(Ed Christman, “New laws create second-hand woes for CD retailers”, Reuters/Billboard, May 4; Ars Technica, May 7). According to HardOCP, used game CDs are affected by the rules as well. (May 8).

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Oz: Failed suicide try, sues health service

“A man who fell from a tree after an aborted suicide bid is suing a Sydney health service, claiming not enough was done to treat his depression ahead of the accident.” Timothy Walker decided to kill himself 11 days after his discharge from a psychiatric facility, but instead was left a quadriplegic. He “is suing the Wentworth Area Health Service for negligence, claiming not enough was done to care for him” and that he should have been given medication. (Lisa Allan and Kim Arlington, “Man sues over aborted suicide tree fall”, AAP/The Australian, Apr. 16)(via LegalJuice). Update Jun. 6: judge rejects case.

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May 8 roundup

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Tasteless lawyer-ad Hall of Fame

“Life’s short. Get a divorce,” proclaims the Chicago billboard of the law firm of Fetman, Garland & Associates. Flanking the message: big pictures of a buxom temptress in black lace bra and, on the other side, a half-clad muscleman. Reaction has been strong:

“It’s grotesque,” said John Ducanto, past president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. “It’s totally undignified and offensive.”

“It trivializes divorce and I think it’s absolutely disgusting,” Rick Tivers, a clinical social worker at the Center for Divorce Recovery in Chicago, told ABC News. …

One of the genuine lions of the American divorce courts — New York’s Raoul Felder — said the ad was a new low for the profession.

“This has to be the Academy Award of bad taste,” Felder told ABC News. …

[The billboard] peers down into an area of Rush Street known as the “Viagra Triangle” for its three, trendy singles bars in an affluent section of Chicago known as the “Gold Coast.”

(Chris Francescani, ABCNews.com, May 7). Update May 10: billboard pulled down after alderman reports it to building inspector as lacking a permit.

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Glendora v. Savarino: Bob Hope photos prove unavailing

Rather than even try to summarize the case, we’ll let Law.com do it for us: “A New York judge has limited a public-access TV personality’s use of small claims courts following her repeated abuse of the system. In dismissing her claim that a Cablevision employee ‘poisoned’ her sponsors’ minds, the judge noted that the woman, who goes by the name Glendora, submitted 360 handwritten pages of documentation, including ‘multiple copies of a 60-year-old photo of the plaintiff with Bob Hope … [and] commentary about the impressive geographic expanse of the City of Yonkers.'” (Mark Fass, “Old Photos of Bob Hope Fail to Carry the Day for Litigious TV Personality”, New York Law Journal, May 3).

P.S. Glendora’s website is here (plays video)(hat tip Gunner of No Quarters Blog, who suggests checking out show # 4260 for more on the hostess’s style in suit-filing).

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