More than $100 million in professional fees has been billed so far in the auto-parts maker’s insolvency. (Lattman, Dec. 14).
Author Archive
New guestbloggers on deck
Over the coming holidays we’re expecting no fewer than three guestbloggers to join us, each of them an experienced blogger new to posting on this site. Drop by tomorrow to see who’s the first.
$5.5 million mammography verdict
It’s not going to wind up helping patients, argue two letter writers in Portland’s Oregonian (Dec. 1)(via KevinMD). Leonard Berlin, M.D., thinks providers do not always give the public a realistic view of the benefits and limitations of cancer screening (“A Manifesto for Truth-in-Mammography Advertising”, Imaging Economics, Nov. 2004).
“Our easy lawsuit funding process!”
An outfit called Oasis Legal Finance wants your business.
“Unlike love…”
Thought for the day: “Unlike love, more law does not make the world a better place.” (Gary Slapper, Times Online (UK), Dec. 11).
Update: paper money design unfair to blind
The Treasury Department is appealing U.S. District Judge James Robertson’s ruling (Nov. 29) that it’s unlawful for the nation’s paper currency not to be redesigned in ways that would make it more easily used by the visually handicapped. (“Feds Say No To Blind-Friendly Paper Money”, AP/CBSNews.com, Dec. 12). The Gimp Parade (Dec. 16) rounds up lots of links on the controversy.
“Judge orders Illinois to pay up”
Loser-pays is alas the exception in our system, but it does have its moments: after a judge declared unconstitutional a law in the state of Illinois attempting to ban the sale of violent videogames to minors, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly ordered the state to pay $510,250 in legal fees to the game sellers, and it seems Kennelly meant business, since he has announced “the time for waffling has passed” as to the state’s coming up with payment. (John O’Connor, “Judge wants legal-fee payment plan from Blagojevich”, AP/Chicago Tribune, Dec. 11; Mark Whiting, 1up.com, Dec. 12; Slashdot, Dec. 13 and comment thread at Slashdot which mentions us and includes some discussion of loser-pays generally.
Web “addiction”, cont’d
Business Week is urging us all to take seriously a lawsuit by IBM employee James Pacenza of East Fishkill, N.Y., sacked for improper internet use at work. Pacenza’s attorney has filed a $5 million wrongful-termination suit and is advancing web-addiction theories/excuses for his client. Business Week quotes various sources who are eager to predict some sort of emergent legal status for internet addiction — maybe as a covered condition under the Americans with Disabilities Act — but it all still seems pretty unlikely to me. (Catherine Holahan, “Virtually Addicted”, Dec. 14). On “BlackBerry addiction”, see Oct. 2, etc.
Nanny-state watch: warning labels on larger-size clothes?
The British Medical Journal, already well established as a source of policy recommendations noxious to individual liberty, is at it again:
Clothes made in larger sizes should carry a tag with an obesity helpline number, health specialists have suggested. Sweets and snacks should not be permitted near checkouts, new roads should not be built unless they include cycle lanes and food likely to make people fat should be taxed, they say in a checklist of what we might “reasonably do” to deal with obesity.
(Nigel Hawkes, “Larger-size clothes should come with warning to lose weight, say experts”, Times Online (UK), Dec. 15).
Annals of Pennsylvania libel law
As we have had occasion to note in the past, the home of Ben Franklin has somehow wound up as a place where newspapers are unusually vulnerable to intimidation by the threat of lawsuit (see Mar. 16, 2004, Nov. 21, 2006, etc.). Paul Carpenter, the excellent columnist with the Allentown Morning Call, sheds a bit of light on a case with which he was personally involved, Bufalino v. Associated Press (692 F.2d 266 (2d Cir.1982)). (“Small newspaper leads the way against bullies”, Nov. 26).