Not your usual AG candidate

Former California Gov. Jerry Brown is overwhelmingly favored to become the state’s next attorney general, but don’t assume he’ll necessarily follow in the footsteps of Bill Lockyer:

“I’m going to take a very practical, common-sense approach as attorney general,” Brown said in a recent interview. “I’m someone who’s acutely aware of the fact that we as a state have added 25,000 laws since I was governor. I think we ought to give people some space to live their lives.” …

And don’t assume that he will agree completely with Lockyer’s decisions. Asked about the global-warming lawsuit, Brown said he’d have to “take a good look at it.”

“I think there’s an issue of causation there,” he said, adding that California needs to consider automakers’ “imploding” financial situation. …

“He was the first politician to turn litigation into a press release [as California Secretary of State, elected in 1970],” said Hiestand, the former Brown aide [Fred Hiestand, now prominent in California litigation-reform circles].

In post-Watergate 1974, the reform-minded Brown was swept into the governor’s office. One year later, Brown and the Legislature were besieged with pleas from doctors facing skyrocketing malpractice insurance costs. Brown called a special session that would eventually lead to the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, or MICRA, California’s law capping pain and suffering awards at $250,000.

Hiestand remembers philosophical discussions with Brown on the best ways to compensate malpractice victims. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1964, Brown clerked for state Supreme Court Justice Mathew Tobriner, a contemporary of tort expert and future chief justice Roger Traynor. Brown, Hiestand said, recalled Traynor’s critical dissent in a 1962 case where a woman injured on a bus was awarded $134,000 for non-economic damages. Traynor said such awards were troubling because they are tied to subjective amounts of pain and suffering.

“At one point Jerry looks at me and says, ‘Money is a false god. If you’re in pain, you should turn to religion, sex or drugs,'” Hiestand said.

(Cheryl Miller, “Former Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown Runs for State Attorney General”, The Recorder/Law.com, Oct. 16)(cross-posted from Point of Law’s Featured Discussion on the election, which is still going great guns).

Filed under: attorneys general, Bill Lockyer, governors, Jerry Brown, politics

UK: Publishing grifter’s photo = violating her human rights?

Jewelers in Kensington, West London, have been repeatedly victimized by a conwoman who poses as a wealthy shopper from Dubai and scoops up thousands in merchandise when novice clerks are distracted. The latest victim of the scam, jewelry designer Isabel Kurtenbach, says she asked police about posting a store-cam photo of the thief to warn other shops, and was told not to because it would be a violation of the perpetrator’s human rights. (Evening Standard, Oct. 26; Daily Telegraph, Oct. 27)(via Zincavage). Subsequently, the Lord Chancellor said the police’s advice had been “plainly wrong” and that storekeepers had every right to post such photos. (Guardian, Oct. 30).

Filed under: crime and punishment, United Kingdom

Lowbrow liquor labels

Paternalism watch: Seattle has banned, in certain areas of the city, the sale of “29 brands of cheap booze favored by the homeless,” including Thunderbird, Richard’s Wild Irish Rose and Night Train Express. “But on the streets of downtown and Capitol Hill, people who acknowledged they were homeless and drunk seemed to find ways to make do.” (Kery Murakami, “Alcoholics finding way around ban”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Nov. 2)(via Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”).

Filed under: alcohol, Seattle

Better not cross this developer

We would never call him litigious or anything, but Morton A. Bender seems to have quite a reputation around Washington, D.C. and environs:

Bender, a 73-year-old native Washingtonian who made a fortune in the family construction business, is one of the most determined men in town, both admirers and detractors say. This is not a man who likes to negotiate. He enjoys a good fight.

The local and federal courts hold stacks of cases in which he is sometimes the defendant but more often the plaintiff. He says he can’t keep track of all the people and institutions he’s currently suing and doesn’t know how many lawyers he’s hired. “I saw the mayor at an event, and he said, ‘How many cases do you have against the District?’ and I said ‘a few,’ ” Bender said….

“I stand up to be counted,” Bender is fond of saying. “No one stands up for rights anymore.”…

Early discussions between Bender and the neighbors about his plans went nowhere. He ended up suing one neighbor over a retaining wall that encroached 15 inches onto his new property. He won in D.C. Superior Court but not before the judge questioned why Bender brought the case.

“It seems to be the height of folly, laced with a bit of vindictiveness the source of which is unknown to the court, for plaintiff to insist that this attractive and necessary wall be removed simply so that it can be reconstructed about two feet further down the hill,” Judge Geoffrey M. Alprin wrote.

(Lyndsey Layton, “In D.C., It’s Big Names Vs. a Litigious Developer”, Washington Post, Oct. 30).

Update: verdict against hip-hop magazine

Following up on our Oct. 26 report: “A judge [Oct. 31] lopped off nearly half of the $15.5 million verdict fired-editor Kimberly Osorio won from her ex-bosses at The Source, the bankrupt bible of the hip-hop industry.” (Thomas Zambito, “Judge halves Source-suit payout”, New York Daily News, Nov. 1)

Filed under: harassment law

Andrew Sullivan, “The Conservative Soul”

I’ve got a review in today’s New York Post of Andrew Sullivan’s new book, The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How To Get It Back. A brief excerpt:

The “conservatism I grew up with,” notes Sullivan, stood for “lower taxes, less government spending, freer trade, freer markets, individual liberty, personal responsibility and a strong anti-communist foreign policy.” Defining figures such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher spoke regularly of human freedom as the great aim of political life. “It has long been a fundamental conviction of the Republican Party,” declared the 1980 GOP platform, “that government should foster in our society a climate of maximum individual liberty and freedom of choice.”

Somehow from there we arrived at the presidency of George W. Bush, whose pronouncement on the state’s proper role – “When someone hurts, government has got to move” – owes more to LBJ than to Barry Goldwater.

Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum brusquely waves aside “this whole idea of personal autonomy,” this “idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do.” Ex-Democrats of the McGovern-Dukakis era once popularized the line “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me”; if the Santorums prosper, plenty of old-line Republicans will be ready to sing the same refrain.

(Walter Olson, “Reforming the Right”, Nov. 5). Andrew Sullivan responds here.

Filed under: WO writings, wrong right

“Next to go: duck-duck-goose”

Some thoughts on the “safety”-driven (in fact, lawsuit-driven) repression of schoolyard play: “I feel very sorry for elementary school teachers if the kids don’t run around the playground chasing one another. All that energy is going to come out one way or the other – better outside than in.” (Dean P. Johnson, “Schools are banning tag. What’s next: musical chairs?”, Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 3).

Filed under: child support, schools

Update: Calif. ADA lawyer suspended

Setbacks for key figures in a prominent disabled-access filing mill:

Two of the attorneys behind an onslaught of ADA lawsuits in California — including at least 20 involving Monterey County restaurants and wineries — have run into serious legal troubles of their own.

Thomas Frankovich, who represented plaintiff Jarek Molski in hundreds of handicapped-access lawsuits over the last five years, was suspended June 19 from practicing in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The six-month suspension came after one judge on the court, Edward Rafeedie, declared Frankovich a “vexatious litigant” and said he would recommend Frankovich for disciplinary action because of his “abusive and predatory litigation practices.”

(Paul Miller, “Indictment, suspension for two ADA lawyers”, Carmel Pine Cone, Jul. 21). Also in June, as was mentioned here in a post at the time (Jul. 5; see also Patterico, Jul. 1), Los Angeles attorney Stephen Yagman, who had represented Frankovich in defense of his ADA practice, was himself indicted on federal charges of tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud. In February 2005, after Judge Rafeedie had threatened Frankovich with sanctions, Yagman had said that “Judge Rafeedie’s mean-spiritedness, his cruelty, and his contempt for civil rights make Hitler look like a humanitarian.” (Paul Miller, “ADA lawyer’s new strategy: Insult the judge”, Feb. 11, 2005). More on Yagman: Jessica Seigel, “Cop griller”, George, Mar. 1998; Patterico, Jun. 3, 2004.

More Carmel Pine Cone coverage of Frankovich and Molski here, here, here and here. Our coverage: Sept. 21 and Dec. 12, 2004, Jan. 8 and Mar. 18, 2005. And for a very different point of view, once again, here’s Mary Johnson, “Jarek Molski’s problem — and I don’t mean access”, Ragged Edge, Oct. 24, 2005, arguing that Frankovich and Molski just aren’t good enough at getting their story out.

Filed under: ADA filing mills, bankruptcy, disabled rights, ethics, Jarek Molski, Stephen Yagman, Thomas Frankovich

“Citing stress, cop sues man whose life he saved”

A heartwarming human-interest story, indeed: police Sgt. Ron Nametko of Denville, N.J. was hailed as a hero two years ago when he “talked a suicidal sheriff’s officer into putting down his weapon and surrendering. Now the sergeant, who has since retired with a disability, is suing the man who pointed a loaded gun at him, citing emotional distress from the incident.” Nametko’s suit also names a neighbor, Doug Wilkins, accusing him of aiding and abetting Patrick O’Connor’s actions. (AP/Newsday, Nov. 2; Bill Swayze and Margaret McHugh, “After saving man’s life, ex-Denville cop decides to sue him”, Newark Star-Ledger, Nov. 2).

Filed under: emotional distress, personal responsibility

Teenager accused of possessing painkillers…

…so prosecutors in Morris County, N.J. seized his family’s three cars. “Neither of the parents were aware of their teenage son’s prescription painkiller use, nor were any of the cars registered in his name. The family currently has no means to get to work or transportation. Gerald Trapp Sr. is a Bloomfield police officer.” The youngster, Gerald Trapp Jr., 19, accepted a diversion program for first-time offenders in lieu of trial but did not admit any wrongdoing. (Peggy Wright, “Prosecutor wants to keep 11 seized cars”, Oct 27; TheNewspaper.com, Oct. 28)(via Nobody’s Business, Oct. 28).

Filed under: forfeiture, New Jersey