The parents of Rachel Corrie, the protester who died at 23 when she attempted to block an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home, are appealing a federal judge’s decision to throw out their lawsuit against Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc., which manufactured the bulldozer (Mar. 16, 2005). (Gene Johnson, “Rachel Corrie’s family appeals lawsuit against bulldozer-maker”, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Mar. 23). Were courts to invite lawsuits against companies for lawful sales of this sort, they would open up many opportunities for litigants to use tort law as a surrogate sanctions mechanism against foreign governments, even though in our constitutional scheme it is Congress and the executive branch, rather than the courts, which bear the responsibility of weighing the policy considerations in favor of or against such sanctions.
Author Archive
Thanks to Dave Kopel
…for his guestblogging here over the past week. For more of Dave’s writing, check out his main site as well as the Volokh Conspiracy.
“Extra-special education at public expense”
The amazing industry that has sprung up to advance parents’ demands that schools accommodate their “learning-disabled” offspring is an old story around these parts (see here and here, for example). Even so, the San Francisco Chronicle’s recent investigative report can provoke a gasp:
* Even though federal, state and other sources already spend more than $4 billion a year to subsidize the provision of special education in the state of California, school districts in the state still shift more than a billion dollars out of their regular school budgets to pay for accommodation demands that include “private day schools, boarding schools, summer camps, aqua therapy, horseback therapy, travel costs, personal aides” and dolphin therapy.
* Administrators at Woodside High on the Peninsula offered a 15-year-old with learning disabilities and anxiety “daily help from a special education expert” as well as “a laptop computer, extra time for tests — and an advocate to smooth any ripples with teachers. If an anxiety attack came on, he could step out of class.” Not good enough for his parents, who decided to send him to a $30,000/year private school in Maine. Their lawyer demanded that the district pay not only the tuition but also for the whole family’s repeated cross-country travel costs to visit him there.
* Schools routinely buckle under to demands they regard as unreasonable, not only to avoid the expense of litigation but because the law tilts against them; a single procedural misstep in the hugely complicated process can leave them liable for damages and hefty legal fees. Since secret settlements are common, taxpayers may find it hard to grasp the extent of the monetary hemorrhaging.
* “It’s a blank check,” said [Paul] Goldfinger, vice president of School Services. “The system is stacked so that one segment of the population — disabled children — has first call on funding, and the others get whatever’s left.”
Infuriating reading (Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 19). (& see Mar. 31 post, where comments continue).
Housekeeping note: older comments
I’ve had to turn off comments for entries older than seven days, because of the unending flood of comment spam. If you’ve got something important to say about an entry older than that — or if you’re involved in a running conversation that gets cut off when it reaches the deadline — drop Ted or me a line and we’ll consider accommodating you.
Medical wisdom patentable?
According to author Michael Crichton, writing in last Sunday’s New York Times, the statement, “Elevated homocysteine is linked to B-12 deficiency, so doctors should test homocysteine levels to see whether the patient needs vitamins” is not in the public domain; “A corporation has patented that fact, and demands a royalty for its use. Anyone who makes the fact public and encourages doctors to test for the condition and treat it can be sued for royalty fees. Any doctor who reads a patient’s test results and even thinks of vitamin deficiency infringes the patent. A federal circuit court held that mere thinking violates the patent.” The Supreme Court will soon have a chance to determine whether this is all as crazy as it sounds, or should remain so (“This Essay Breaks the Law”, Mar. 19). More: “B vitamin case reaches Supreme Court”, AP/USA Today, Mar. 20; Tony Mauro, “Supreme Court Tackles Patentability of Scientific Phenomena”, Legal Times, Mar. 22; Lattman, Mar. 21 and Mar. 22; Point of Law, Mar. 25. Update: Court decides not to resolve case (Tony Mauro, Legal Times, Jun. 23).
Welcome guestblogger Dave Kopel
I’ll be away on family business for a while, but our newest guestblogger, research director David Kopel of the Colorado-based Independence Institute, should have no trouble filling the gap. Well known as a participant at the Volokh Conspiracy, Dave is among the nation’s most prominent scholars on firearms and Second Amendment controversies, as well as a columnist at Denver’s Rocky Mountain News and a commentator on many other issues related to individual liberty. Welcome!
Lawyers’ reputations soaked in Poland Spring fight
“Mutually assured character destruction”: that’s what Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam says to expect from a trial that started March 7 in Portland, Me. federal court that pits some of the country’s better-known members of the plaintiff’s bar against each other. Among the cast of characters: Jan Schlichtmann, of “A Civil Action” fame, Steve Berman of Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, and Massachusetts tobacco litigator Thomas Sobol of the same firm, and Alabama’s Garve Ivey. At issue is whether lawyers breached legal ethics or sold out the interests of class members in their sharp-elbowed maneuvers to control the process of litigation and reach a lucrative settlement with Poland Spring’s parent company, Nestle. Also testifying is celebrity enviro-pol Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had signed up a water company he controls as one of the plaintiffs — gee, who knew RFK Jr. was tied in with hotshot plaintiff’s lawyers? (Alex Beam, “An uncivil action in Maine”, Mar. 8; Gregory D. Kesich, “Water bottlers in court to recoup lost settlement”, Portland Press Herald, Mar. 8; “Law firm’s handling of Poland Spring case at issue in trial”, AP/Boston Globe, Mar. 8; Gregory D. Kesich, “Water case puts lawyers’ ethics on trial”, Portland Press Herald, Mar. 10; “Witnesses tell of how Nestle case fell apart”, Mar. 17). The trial is expected to conclude this week. For more on the Poland Spring class actions, see Sept. 10, 2003, Feb. 2, 2004 and Jun. 25, 2004.
“Public health” imperialism
Once upon a time, the main mission of “public health” was to prevent the spread of contagious illnesses, and handing the members of that profession a lot of coercive power may have seemed like a sound idea. But now many of the profession’s members are demanding that government intervene against unhealthy individual lifestyle choices. Keep your laws off our bodies, please (Ronald Bailey, “Is Diabetes a Plague?”, Reason, Mar. 17).
Update: Danish Muslim groups to sue over cartoons
27 Muslim groups in Denmark have announced their intent to sue the newspaper Jyllands-Posten for defamation in a Danish court, and also plan to “report Denmark to the UN Commissioner on Human Rights for failing to prosecute the newspaper that first published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad”. (Jenny Booth and news agencies, “Danish Muslims sue over Muhammad cartoons”, The Times (U.K.), Mar. 17). Earlier coverage: Mar. 4, Feb. 14 (Muslims in Calgary, Alberta plan to sue), Feb. 10, etc.
Katrina medical volunteers, cont’d
“Dozens of federally insured medical providers have been blocked from helping the Gulf Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina because their medical liability protection doesn’t apply outside their own states.” (“Law keeps federally insured doctors on sidelines in disasters”, AP/Biloxi Sun-Herald, Feb. 9). More on Katrina medical volunteers: Sept. 19, Sept. 6, Sept. 2, Aug. 31.