As we’ve been noting for a long time (Mar. 24, 2006, etc.), it’s increasingly common for parents of kids with disability diagnoses, after deciding that the public schools are not doing a good job of educating their kids, to enroll the kids in private school programs and stick public school taxpayers with the resulting high bill, citing federal disabled-ed law. (Parents of non-disabled offspring, needless to say, do not enjoy legal options of this sort if they believe the public schools are failing their kids.) Now the Supreme Court has accepted for review a case in which, according to the New York Times’s account, a former chief executive of Viacom did not even give a public school program a try before enrolling his son in a private school and demanding that New York City pick up much of the resulting bill. The New York Times’s account is distinctly unsympathetic toward the parent, and quotes Julie Wright Halbert, legislative counsel for the Council of the Great City Schools, as saying: “Many wealthy, well-educated people are gaming the system in New York City and around the country.” (Joseph Berger, “Fighting Over When Public Should Pay Private Tuition for Disabled”, Mar. 21; Amity Shlaes, “After Viacom, Freston Makes Case for Special Ed”, Bloomberg, Mar. 16; Mary Ellen Egan, “A Costly Education”, Forbes, Apr. 9 (sub)).
Author Archive
“Dad sues over car damaged in chase”
Because if your insurer wasn’t willing to pay for damages to your car incurred after your family member led police on a high-speed chase, why was it willing to collect the premiums in the first place? (Beth Warren, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Apr. 6).
Ontario lottery scandal
A major scandal has erupted in Ontario in recent weeks following reports that some lottery retailers have for years been cheating their customers out of winning tickets, instead cashing in the tickets themselves. Now the law firm of McPhadden, Samac, Merner & Barry has filed a would-be class action lawsuit on behalf of all persons who bought lottery tickets since 1975, charging that the lottery failed to exercise its responsibility to prevent cheating, and demanding C$1.1 billion including C$100 million in punitive damages.
Perhaps the most interesting question raised by the legal action is: assuming a remedy cannot be had against the rogue retailers, what is a suitable remedy against the allegedly negligent lottery authorities? According to CTV, the law firm has proposed to hold a “free lottery”, or, perhaps more precisely, a lottery that would compensate for past unfairness by enabling Ontarians to buy a ticket which would be eligible for a payoff above the usual. (Those who could prove they had played the lottery in the past would be entitled to one free ticket.) (“Class-action suit launched against lotto agency”, Mar. 28).
Details of the proposed “remedial” lottery are hazy in the CTV account, but a couple of practical difficulties immediately come to mind. Start with the assumption that a “remedial” pot would be fixed at a certain lump sum intended to punish the province for its past negligence — let’s say C$100 million — and that such a sum greatly exceeds a typical lottery pot. Since there is no upper limit to the number of tickets that purchasers could buy in pursuit of the extra-large pot, the province might in fact wind up making money on its penitential lottery, even taking into account the obligation to dispense a certain number of free single tickets to persons who could bring in the paperwork to show they were past lottery players. Alternatively, assume that the province undertakes to run a one-time penitential lottery with a higher payout than usual — say, 95 percent rather than the usual 40 or 60 percent or whatever. Again it’s possible that by stoking player interest in a much-publicized “good-odds” lottery, the authorities will come out ahead (perhaps having hooked many novices into buying their first lottery tickets).
The practical difficulties if the province is so rash as to promise a lottery with a payout of, say, 110 percent of the money put in, will be left as an exercise to the reader.
“Twelve Angry Men”
At American Thinker, Michael Margolies notes the fiftieth anniversary of “one of Hollywood’s most revered, indeed sacrosanct films”, but finds the work on calmer viewing to be emotionally manipulative, stacked from first frame to last, and even “dishonest”. (“12 Angry Men Turns 50”, Mar. 31).
Breathalyzers-for-everyone, again
This time the awful idea of installing alcohol sensors in everyone’s car has surfaced in Pennsylvania, and in worse form than ever: cars would refuse to start even when a driver’s blood alcohol level was much below the legal maximum. (Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”, Mar. 27). Earlier: May 28, 2006 (New York).
Look around, there’s negligence everywhere
Around the age of eleven, I had settled on an ambition: I would become a lawyer. A friend of my Aunt Marge’s had introduced me to the wonders of the law: “Look around you — negligence everywhere, as far as the eye can see.” “How about that person crossing the street outside the crosswalk,” I asked, “is that negligence?” “It sure is.” The perspective was illuminating….I found myself in a world in which everyone was at fault for something if only you looked closely enough. This would, of course, include oneself.
“Choices and Consequences” in Mary Eberstadt, ed., Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys (Threshold Editions, 2007).
“Send settlement offer form letter. Pray”
This “lawsuit decision matrix” is just a parody, the real-life RIAA would never litigate abusively (BBSpot via everybody).
“NYPD’s fault my cop wife shot me”
“The ‘Casanova’ cop who was allegedly shot by his wife, a fellow officer, as payback for his wandering eye is suing the NYPD for $3 million, claiming they should have known she was too nuts to carry a gun. … Alison [Spicer-Jamison] is charged with shooting Todd [Jamison], 44, in a jealous rage last April 10 when she learned he’d strayed from their marital bed less than a year after they married. … Todd Jamison’s suit also names the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the City of New York, the NYPD, and his wife, who’s currently incarcerated at Rikers Island, awaiting a trial date.” (Stefanie Cohen, New York Post, Mar. 31).
“Homeless men win $45,000 in suit over sleeping near feces”
“Three homeless men mistakenly arrested last year on charges of sleeping too close to a pile of feces have settled a lawsuit against the city of Las Vegas for $45,000.” Police made the arrest although a sleeping-too-close-to-feces provision in one of the city’s ordinances had in fact recently been repealed. The ACLU of Nevada proceeded to sue:
The men sought $2 million each in compensatory and punitive damages. Their attorney E. Brent Bryson said Wednesday the $45,000 settlement was reasonable.
“The realities are that these individuals are not capable of maintaining and sustaining an ongoing litigation,” he said. “This quick money to them represents an ability for them to get back on their feet.”
Bryson collected a $15,000 fee from the settlement.
Two of the three men say they haven’t decided yet what to do with their $10,000 windfalls, a sum that will equally well pay for a fair bit of not-getting-back-on-their-feet should they choose to spend it that way. (“Vegas homeless men win $45,000 in suit over sleeping near feces”, AP/Las Vegas Sun, Mar. 29; “Homeless men win $45,000 settlement with City of Las Vegas”, KVBC, Mar. 29).
Doing serious time for undersize lobsters
The sad case of seafood importer (and now federal prison inmate) David Henson McNab may be the sort of thing Alexander Hamilton had in mind when he wrote of the presidential pardon power: “The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.” (Jonathan Rauch, “Pardon Libby? Maybe, But Not Alone”, National Journal, Mar. 30)(will rotate off free National Journal site, check then at author’s site or Reason).