Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

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I’ve got a short piece in The American, the recently launched American Enterprise Institute magazine, about the problem of overzealous warning labels, taking as my point of departure Bob Dorigo Jones’s new book Remove Child Before Folding. Alert readers will notice that the piece is based on my Times Online column of a few weeks ago, adapted with about three paragraphs’ worth of new and added material, mostly on how liability law helps worsen the problem. (Walter Olson, “Warning: This Column Might Give You Something to Think About”, The American, Mar. 6).

For more coverage of Remove Child Before Folding, see Jan. 6, Jan. 26, etc. Reason magazine editor Nick Gillespie, incidentally, reviewed the book in the New York Post here.

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Want to be on my jury? Let’s see your handwriting

Oh well, at least it’s not as intrusive as driving around their neighborhoods and interviewing their acquaintances:

[Bob] Marx, a personal injury attorney at The Law Offices of Robert Marx in Hilo, Hawaii, regularly hires a handwriting expert to help him select a jury.

“I feel like it’s a significant competitive edge,” he said. “It’s not 100 percent accurate, but if you know some history or a little bit more about a potential juror together with this analysis, it helps a whole lot more.”

Since the mid-1990s, Marx has paid an expert to analyze jurors’ handwriting for all of his big trials. The findings help paint a picture of the jurors and point out characteristics such as whether they are likely to be leaders or followers, if they are analytical or visual, or toward which side they are likely to be sympathetic.

Marx’s last three juries awarded a total of $31 million, and he said handwriting analysis helped him.

(Vesna Jaksic, “Looking for Clues in a Juror’s ‘John Hancock'”, National Law Journal, Feb. 27).

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“Teens prosecuted for racy photos”

16-year-old A. and her 17-year-old boyfriend J. took risque photos of the two of them cavorting and emailed them from A.’s home computer to J’s email account. “Neither teen showed the photographs to anyone else.” The photos nonetheless somehow came to the attention of Florida police, both teens were prosecuted on child porongarphy* charges, and by a 2-1 vote, a Florida appeals court in January dismissed A.’s constitutional claim (Declan McCullagh, CNET/News.com, Feb. 9). Discussion: Lippard Blog, Feb. 10. (* = deliberate misspelling)

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Coca-Cola promotion tweaks client-chasers

Let’s just hope no one tells the Kentucky bar about the new Coke Zero campaign, with its reference to a supposed law firm by the name of Covet & Yourminy. (Stuart Elliott, “Can’t Tell Your Cokes Apart? Sue Someone”, New York Times, Mar. 5). The Times misses the chance to mention the similarity of the widely noted AllTel campaign last year (Jul. 6, Aug. 3).

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March 6 roundup

  • NY trial lawyers furious over state medical society’s plan to put informational posters and postcards in docs’ waiting rooms re: Topic A [Kingston Daily Freeman]

  • But can you sue Spider-Man? “Superheroes” linked to multiple pediatric injuries [BlogMD]

  • By reader acclaim: German farmer’s suit claims teenagers’ fireworks scared his ostrich Gustav right out of the breeding mood [AP/Jake Young]

  • Doug Weinstein is a fan of Edwards, but many of his commenters aren’t [InstaLawyer first, second posts]

  • Former Georgia legislator, author of bill that resulted in Genarlow Wilson’s 10-year sentence (see Feb. 8), says he’s sorry [Towery @ TownHall]

  • A lesson for grabby New Orleans Mayor Nagin? “In the massive floods of 1993, levees broke up and down the Mississippi — and no one sued. They rebuilt.” [Surber]

  • “Defamation of religion” soon to be regarded as contrary to int’l law? [Brayton channeling Volokh](more: Stuttaford)

  • Wouldn’t you just know: Bertolt Brecht’s sly legal dodges, at expense of Kurt Weill and other collaborators, still keep litigators busy long after his death [National Post]

  • U.K.: “Rectorial liability is a time bomb under every enticing glebe” [Guardian]

  • NYC subway system didn’t own or control access stairs, but can be sued over slip-fall anyway [Point of Law]

  • Grocery worker with Down’s Syndrome couldn’t follow basic sanitary rule, but that didn’t mean supermarket could fire him [three years ago on Overlawyered]

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“Jury rules for girl in bike-skate crash”

Updating yesterday’s post about a widely discussed New Jersey case: “Deliberating just 15 minutes, a Morris County civil jury at 4 p.m. today declared that a Chester Township teenager was not to blame in 2003 when she collided with a bicycling physician while riding her in-line skates.” (Peggy Wright, Morristown Daily Record, Mar. 5). Earlier, it was reported: “The girl was knocked to the ground in the collision and bruised, but her parents have not filed a countersuit.” (“Bicyclist sues child roller-skater over accident”, AP/CourtTV, Mar. 1).

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Lingering on

David Nieporent has completed the customary week in the guest-blogger’s chair but we’ve invited him to stay on and do some more posting, and he’s generously agreed to give it a try. Congratulate us/him…

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Says Yahoo used her picture in ad, wants $20M

In Ohio, Shannon Stovall is suing Yahoo for allegedly using her picture in an ad for its email services without permission. She wants $20 million, including “a portion of the profits that have been generated through the use of her likeness, and to cover her legal fees.” (GoogleWatch, Mar. 1). “Mitchell Yelsky, one of three attorneys handling Stovall’s case, said his client ‘has previously modeled and worked for modeling agencies.'” (Anne Broache, “Woman accuses Yahoo of stealing her image”, CNET, Mar. 2). For the $15.6 million “Taster’s Choice Guy” award in Christoff v. Nestle USA, see Feb. 2, 2005 and Nov. 16, 2006.

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Inline skater-bicyclist collision

11-year-old Lauren Ellis was inline-skating down her street in Chester Township, N.J., one afternoon when a bicyclist approached her from behind, rang his bell and shouted “watch out”. Was she responsible, by her startled reaction, for the resulting collision, which broke the cyclist’s collarbone? Unluckily for young Ms. Ellis, the bicyclist happened to be a “prominent fertility doctor” named Alexander Dlugi who says he had to miss work as part of recovering from the mishap. (Peggy Wright, “Doctor sues girl, 11, over inline-skating collision”, Morristown Daily Record, Mar. 1). Update Mar. 6: jury returns defense verdict.

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