He’s got plenty of time, alone there in his prison cell, to work on making sure his legal rights get asserted far and wide. (Serge F. Kovaleski, “Unabomber Wages Legal Battle to Halt the Sale of Papers”, New York Times, Jan. 22).
Author Archive
Cop who snatched body part wins reinstatement
Annals of public employee tenure, this time from Norwalk, Ct.: “The city will not appeal a state Labor Department ruling to reinstate police Officer Liam Callahan, a nine-year veteran fired last fall for taking a skull fragment from the scene of a May 2005 accident. ‘The laws in the state are such that it’s extremely difficult to overturn a ruling,’ Deputy Corporation Counsel Jeffry Spahr said yesterday after discussing the matter in executive session with the Norwalk Police Commission.” According to numerous press reports, co-workers of Callahan’s said he planned to use the skull fragment as an ashtray. An investigation concluded that Callahan’s statement after being confronted that he had intended to return the fragment was not credible. (Created Things (Jeff Hall), Jan. 16; Brian Lockhart, “City officer in skull-fragment case reinstated”, Stamford Advocate, Oct. 24). And on the sued-if-you-do, sued-if-you-don’t front, note well: “Callahan and the city still face a civil lawsuit from [victim Alfred] Caviola’s family.” Unless Callahan personally turns out to provide a deep pocket, it appears the longsuffering taxpayers of Norwalk may find themselves on the hook for who knows what sort of payout — juries in other cases have expressed outrage at mishandling of decedents’ remains — even as the city is unable to sever the actual perpetrator of the act from its payroll.
Kids’ ice slides
Now endangered in Scotland. (Murdo MacLeod and Scott McCulloch, “Banned: ice slides in the school playground”, The Scotsman, Jan. 21).
“Candid Camera”
Apparently the long-running show was sued very little, if at all, by victims of its hidden-camera stunts. Was that because, as host Allen Funt maintained, the show’s spirit was genial rather than sadistic, in contrast to more recent shows? Or because its liability releases (presumably proffered to the victims after the embarrassing stunt had been sprung) were more likely to be upheld? Or just because people then weren’t as primed to sue? (Ann Althouse, Jan. 20).
January 22 roundup
- “Don’t Google the lawyers.” Do judges need to be that explicit in admonishing jurors? [New Jersey Law Journal]
- Ky. lawyers bail out of hospital-infection suits [Courier-Journal, Dr. Wes, KevinMD]
- Man accused of extorting Oprah Winfrey earlier inserted himself into dispute arising from Prudential workplace-bias suit, lawyer says [Sun-Times]
- Nevada smoking ban scuppers taverns’ business, no real surprise there unless your name’s Bloomberg [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
- Panic! Another thermometer spill! (earlier, here and here) [Szwarc, and sequel]
- Write your legislator urging vote on pot decriminalization, get reported to police [Sullum]
- Heavy-handed: Calif. lawmaker proposes ban on spanking kids <4 years old [Saunders, Fisher]
- Think twice before driving your neighbor to the hospital: the Border Patrol just might seize your car [Tucson Citizen via Reason “Hit and Run”]
- Golf club ejectee sued for discrimination, but club says it was because of his many financial scams [Las Vegas Sun]
- Populist Dems vs. free trade: we’re all the losers [Chapman, syndicated]
- Student sues over excessive summer homework [Two years ago on Overlawyered]
Extra time on exams, cont’d
The “secret world of the ADA”: professors grading exams aren’t supposed to know whether a given test-taker got extra time as an accommodation, but there are often ways you can tell, says San Diego lawprof Gail Heriot, especially when the essay comes in twice as long as other students’. Still, when she tries to find out what percentage of her class is getting extra time — not asking for names, just a rough figure on what share — she’s told it’s “none of your business”. (The Right Coast, Jan. 10). More: Jun. 2 and Dec. 8, 2006, among many others.
“Prof. defends right to send feces”
Good news for poo-flingers: a Colorado lawyer is arguing (on behalf of a client facing misdemeanor charges) that there’s a First Amendment right to deliver dog droppings to someone’s office as a means of political self-expression, at least if the lucky recipient is a member of Congress. (AP/Boston Globe, Jan. 18).
January 19 roundup
- New legislation aimed at regulating “grassroots lobbying”: will it hit political bloggers? (Answer: apparently not.) [McCullagh, Hardy, Sullum, Bainbridge, Reynolds]
- Upper East Side merchant sues vagrants whose cardboard-box loitering ruins his location [NYSun, NYTimes]
- “People probably aren’t thinking about potential legal liability when they’re having casual sex,” says lawprof about new Calif. trend of spousal VD suits [KEYE-TV via KevinMD]
- “Devious, dissembling, dodgy. And that’s just the police”. Theodore Dalrymple on UK criminal justice [Times Online]
- Daniel Boulud of restaurant fame, targeted by lawsuit campaign, says he won’t pay to make worker advocates go away [NYTimes]
- Erin Brockovich on the warpath against recycling facility in Apple Valley, Calif. [Fumento/TCS]
- As a lawyer, Pres. John Adams represented Redcoats after Boston Massacre; what would he say about Guantanamo flap? [NYSun editorial]
- Nearly all radiologists frustrated with practice, liability is top reason [LocumTenens.com]
- Duke profs who egged on lynch mob in bogus rape case stand on melting ice floe of credibility [Reynolds, Althouse, Podhoretz, Bainbridge here and here, Allen]
- Ringling Bros. trainee says clown college was harder to get into than law school [Five years ago on Overlawyered]
Rapper asks $900 million for Canadian border hassles
Jerome Almon, who owns the Detroit rap music label Murdercap, has sued Canadian officials demanding $900,000,000 over alleged hassles in his attempts to cross the border. Almon, whose musical oeuvre includes works entitled On Ya Neez Bitch and How Stella Got My Backhand, says that although his police record contains arrests only and not convictions, Canadian border control personnel have delayed his entry to the country on dozens of occasions, sometimes for hours. He is representing himself in the suit. (“Detroit rapper sues over alleged Canadian border hassles”, CBC, Jan. 17; Paul Egan, “Detroit record label head alleges harassment against border officials”, Detroit News, Jan. 18; P2Pnet).
A reminder
For readers who haven’t figured this out on their own:
* When we post on Overlawyered about a real or potential lawsuit, it doesn’t necessarily mean we think the case is without merit. We regularly discuss meritorious cases.
* Not infrequently lawsuits we discuss are well founded on existing law, but that existing law is ill-conceived and deserves to be reconsidered. Or both law and lawsuit may make perfect sense, but the level of damages demanded may be excessive or implausible. Or the combatants on one side or both may pursue dubious tactics and theories. Or the media coverage of the case may have been credulous or one-sided. You get the idea.
* Sometimes it’s not clear what if anything either side did wrong in pursuing a dispute, but the case still stands as a monument to the high cost of resolving things through legal process. A recurring example: the family feud over a legacy that ends by consuming the estate in litigation costs.
* We also discuss a certain number of cases that are just plain interesting: they raise novel or non-obvious legal issues, or they shed light on human nature as it manifests itself in legal disputes. And, yes, it does happen on occasion that I take note of a case without being sure what I myself think of it.
* Finally, Ted and I are two different people and don’t always agree with each other.
Sorry if this introduces complexity where people were expecting to find simplicity.