Tennessee: “A Murfreesboro man charged with animal cruelty after more than 100 frozen bodies of cats were found in freezers in his home is suing authorities for $1.5 million. The lawsuit was filed exactly three years after authorities confiscated 114 frozen bodies of cats and kittens from William Terry Davis’ home in an upscale golf course community in Murfreesboro.” Davis is represented by attorney Harold H. Parker. (Clay Carey, “$1.5M suit filed over frozen cats”, Gannett/Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Jan. 6; The Smoking Gun; “Man Sues Police For Seizing Frozen Cat Bodies From His Freezer”, AP/WTVF, Jan. 6; Nashville Scene, Jan. 5).
Author Archive
“Election Dejection”
November’s results obviously make it more of an uphill slog for legal reformers to win legislative victories; a roundup in Inside Counsel provides some details, quoting me along the way. (Mary Swanton, January). I venture a prediction that Democrats will use their new Congressional power to push legislation that would expand private causes of action in the employment field, a step that would gratify the plaintiffs’ bar and many union advocates alike. Contrary to an implication that the article may leave, private causes of action are at present very much alive and thriving in the wage and hour field, but they’re not (yet) authorized in the case of many other sorts of labor-law violations.
AP on Wacky Warnings
The wire service reports on this year’s M-LAW competition (see Jan. 4) (David N. Goodman, “Keep People Out of Wash, Label Warns”, AP/MyWay.com, Jan. 5). Aside from the ones mentioned by Ted the other day, a notable entry was the second-prize winner, found on a personal watercraft, “Never use a lit match or open flame to check fuel level”. Burma-Shave got there decades earlier:
He lit a match/
To check gas tank/
That’s why/
They call him/
Skinless Frank
Bob Dorigo Jones’ new book Remove Child Before Folding is here.
Alabama: a case of ethically failing upward?
“The state bar ordered that Stuart DuBose’s law license be suspended because of his role in an estate in which he collected a $1.2 million fee for writing a client’s will without ever meeting the dying man.” And DuBose faces a possibility of even sterner disciplinary action, such as a longer suspension or even disbarment, because the “Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the 45-day suspension wasn’t sufficient punishment for his actions.” However — and this is the part that really makes the story so perfect — DuBose is not exactly hurting professionally at the moment because voters in November elected him to be the circuit judge for Choctaw, Clarke and Washington counties despite publicity over the allegations. Although his official term does not begin until Jan. 15, he has already been sworn in. According to one newspaper account, disciplinary action could affect his ability to serve as judge. (“Jackson attorney still under ethics cloud takes oath early”, AP/AL.com, Dec. 23; Jim Cox, “Area lawyers once against, now for DuBose judgeship”, Clarke County Democrat, Dec. 14; Evan Carden, “DuBose takes oath to be circuit judge”, Clarke County Democrat, Dec. 28).
Sen. Edwards’ record (and some kind words)
Bill Dyer (Dec. 30), following up on Stephen Bainbridge (Dec. 28), has some thoughts about “whether Edwards’ career as a lawyer who primarily represented plaintiffs in personal injury cases is, by itself, a factor that ought to cut against his being President.” Along the way, he has some kind things to say about the authors of this site, which are much appreciated.
The question of what sort of pro bono work Sen. Edwards did during his legal career has also been getting attention recently (as in this guest post at Andrew Sullivan’s). For our take on that, see Jul. 27, 2004.
An over-diagnosis epidemic?
“The larger threat posed by American medicine is that more and more of us are being drawn into the system not because of an epidemic of disease, but because of an epidemic of diagnoses. … Medico-legal concerns also drive the epidemic. While failing to make a diagnosis can result in lawsuits, there are no corresponding penalties for overdiagnosis. Thus, the path of least resistance for clinicians is to diagnose liberally — even when we wonder if doing so really helps our patients.” (H. Gilbert Welch, Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin, “What’s Making Us Sick Is an Epidemic of Diagnoses”, New York Times, Jan. 2).
January 4 roundup
Usually it’s Ted who posts these, but I don’t see why he should have all the fun:
- Latest ADA test-accommodation suit: law school hopeful with attention deficit disorder demands extra time on LSAT [Legal Intelligencer]
- John Stossel on Fairfax County (Va.) regulations against donating home-cooked food to the homeless, and on the controversy over Arizona’s Heart Attack Grill
- More odd consequences of HIPAA, the federal medical privacy law [Marin Independent Journal via Kevin MD; more here, here]
- UK paternalism watch: new ad rules officially label cheese as junk food; breast milk would be, too, if it were covered [Telegraph; Birmingham Post]; schoolgirl arrested on racial charges after asking to study with English speakers [Daily Mail via Boortz]; brothers charged with animal cruelty for letting their dog get too fat [Nobody’s Business]
- Stanford’s Securities Class Action Clearinghouse reports impressive 38 percent drop in investor lawsuit filings between 2005 and 2006, with backdating options suits not a tidal wave after all [The Recorder/Lattman]
- Ohio televangelist/faith healer sued by family after allegedly advising her cancer-stricken brother to rely on prayer [FoxNews]
- Legislators in Alberta, Canada, pass law enabling disabled girl to sue her mom for prenatal injuries; it’s to tap an insurance policy, so it must be okay [The Star]
- California toughens its law requiring managers to undergo anti-harassment training, trial lawyers could benefit [NLJ]
- Family land dispute in Sardinia drags on for 46 years in Italian courts; “nothing exceptional” about that, says one lawyer [Telegraph]
- “For me, conservatism was about realism and reason.” [Heather Mac Donald interviewed about being a secularist]
New York Daily News nastygram
The humor website Chickenhead publishes a parody of the famous Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead” and promptly receives a threatening letter from lawyers for the Gotham tabloid (Dec. 29; mild tastelessness).
Ten-best lists
Christopher Taylor, at Word Around the Net, has nominated his choices for top ten outrageous lawsuits of 2006, giving us an appreciated acknowledgment along the way (Jan. 2). And I have a few critical things to say at Point of Law (Jan. 3) about the curiously narrow selection process by which some legal analysts nominate Top Threats To Civil Liberties.
His “day in court”, eleven years’ worth
Atlanta: “The term ‘litigious’ is frequently tossed about in legal circles, but on Wednesday its apparent embodiment stood in shackles before a Fulton County, Ga., judge who patiently heard him out before sending him back to the jail where he had spent the night.” 88-year-old attorney Moreton Rolleston, Jr., “who in October was feted for 50 years as a member of the Georgia Bar” and who once represented himself as the owner of the Heart of Atlanta motel in a landmark Supreme Court discrimination case, has been battling for 11 years “to avoid paying a $5.2 million judgment from a 1995 malpractice case brought by the estate of a former client”. “Rolleston has sued the [late client’s estate and lawyer], he sued the sheriffs of Fulton and Glynn counties, he sued the purchasers of properties sold to pay the judgment — he even sued the original trial judge, Isaac Jenrette.” “No one has been given more opportunity to have his day in court; and day, and day, and day, at great expense to all,” said the opposing attorney, Shelby A. Outlaw. (Greg Land, “In Shackles, 88-Year-Old Lawyer Argues His Case — and Loses Again”, Fulton County Daily Report, Dec. 11).