And very likely not the last: “A grand jury indicted prominent Hollywood attorney Terry Christensen on Wednesday for allegedly hiring investigator Anthony Pellicano to wiretap Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, the ex-wife of billionaire and former MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian. Christensen is accused of paying Pellicano at least $100,000 to illegally eavesdrop on Bonder Kerkorian’s conversations with her attorney, a court mediator and others to gain a tactical advantage in a legal dispute.” Christensen’s firm, Christensen, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser, Weil & Shapiro of Century City, vigorously denied the allegations. (Jesse Hiestand, “Lawyer indicted in Pellicano case”, Hollywood Reporter, Feb. 16; Greg Krikorian and Andrew Blankstein, “Entertainment Lawyer Indicted in Pellicano Probe”, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 15). For our earlier coverage, see Feb. 7, etc.
Author Archive
OpinionJournal.com “Federation of Sites” — we’re part of it
The excellent free website associated with the Wall Street Journal editorial page, OpinionJournal.com, today launched something it calls its “Federation of Sites“. It’s a collection of websites published by policy institutes, magazines, and so forth, along with five weblogs, of which we’re honored to be one. (The other four: Instapundit, Volokh Conspiracy, Virginia Postrel’s Dynamist, and Eduwonk). Needless to say, our views should not be attributed to them or vice versa, although they may occasionally select postings from this site to reprint there. Check it out here.
Update: Calif. high court hears “Friends” harassment case
Back in the news:
The California Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a lawsuit brought by a writing assistant fired from the program, Amaani Lyle, who contends that the profanity-riddled and sex-laden diatribes of “Friends” writers constituted sexual harassment.
The company that produced the show, Warner Brothers, claims that programs about sex and relationships require frank and freewheeling discussion of the subject matter. The company has also warned that allowing Ms. Lyle to proceed with her case could put a strait-jacket on writers and dilute the quality of what Americans see on movies and TV.
(Josh Gerstein, “Sex Harassment Is Alleged By a Writer of ‘Friends'”, New York Sun, Feb. 15). According to the L.A. Times, yesterday’s session did not appear to go well for the plaintiff:
During a hearing in Sacramento, two of the state high court’s justices observed that Amaani Lyle, 32, was warned before she was hired for “Friends” that she would be subjected to sexually explicit talk in the writers’ room….
Justice Joyce L. Kennard appeared to find it significant that Warner Bros. had told Lyle to expect “a lot of sexual talk, very frank talk and at times vulgar” language. “She said, ‘No problem,’ ” Kennard related.
(Maura Dolan, “Justices Skeptical of ‘Friends’ Suit”, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 15). For our earlier coverage of the case, see Apr. 23, Jul. 19, Jul. 31, Oct. 19, and Nov. 17, 2004. Our coverage of harassment law generally is here.
The “Fairness Doctrine”
“Waco crash verdict stuns bus industry”
The verdict that Ted reported on Dec. 1 is stirring unease through the bus industry. Lawyers convinced a Texas jury that a tour bus was defectively designed because it did not come equipped with seat belts and laminated side window glass, even though neither are common in American tour bus design or mandated by the federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (Steve McGonigle, Dallas Morning News, Feb. 12). For more on the laminated glass issue, see May 16, 2005 and links from there.
Duller times in Australian outback
“The Outback’s Bachelor and Spinster Balls, one of Australia’s most cherished traditions and notorious for binge drinking, casual sex and dust, are at risk of dying out. …the growing culture of litigiousness ensures that insurance premiums are now so high that many balls have been forced to cancel. … ‘Insurance is killing a lot of events in the bush, including B and S balls and rodeos,’ said Barry McMahon, who runs a national Bachelor and Spinster website and has been to dozens of balls.” (Nick Squires, “Outback’s notorious B and S Balls bite the dust”, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Feb. 11).
Coursing of hares
California busybodies have found a new target at which to aim prohibitive legislation, says Dave Zincavage (Feb. 11).
Maquiladoras caused birth defects? $17M later, maybe not
In 1991 portions of Texas’s Rio Grande Valley saw an upsurge in babies born with neural-tube defects. Litigation resulted:
Residents and lawyers had blamed pollution, and General Motors and other U.S.-owned factories paid $17 million without admitting wrongdoing to settle a lawsuit accusing their border factories of poisoning the air.
The claimed linkage of cause and effect between the factory pollution and the birth defects was, to say the least, much controverted at the time, and is looking even less impressive in hindsight:
no chemical links to the disease were ever proven, and Texas health officials began suspecting fumonisin, a toxin in corn mold. Experts had noted a high concentration in the corn harvest just before the outbreak. Some Texas horses died from brain disease caused by the toxin.
Now, a study in the February issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives adds impetus to the corn-mold theory:
The study found that pregnant women who ate 300 to 400 tortillas a month during the first trimester had more than twice the risk of giving birth to babies with the defects than did women who ate fewer than 100 tortillas.
Blood samples indicated that the higher the level of fumonisin, the greater the risk of neural tube defects.
Tortillas are an inexpensive dietary staple along the Texas-Mexico border, and studies suggest that the average young Mexican-American woman along the border eats 110 a month.
(“Study: Bad corn caused birth defects”, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Feb. 8). See also Dallas Morning News, Mar. 4, 2001; AP, Jan. 2001; Nicole Foy, “Border birth defects are tied to poverty”, San Antonio Express-News, Apr. 9, 2004.
Among its other implications, the episode may suggest the safety gains to be had in the shift from a pre-modern food regime based on local farm and home production to the sort of industrially based food regime more familiar to most Americans. Even aside from the issue of folic acid fortification, a big-city tortilla factory run by a large company would probably have had a better likelihood of screening out moldy batches of corn.
Calgary Muslims may sue over cartoons
“The head of Calgary’s Muslim community is considering a civil lawsuit against two local publishers for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad — images that have sparked deadly riots overseas. “Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said he would consult lawyers to see whether it was possible to sue the Jewish Free Press and conservative Western Standard, which have published the cartoons; the general-circulation Calgary Herald has not. More: Feb. 10, etc. (Emma Poole, Calgary Herald/National Post, Feb. 13).
United Farm Workers’ libel-suit threats
The United Farm Workers, the agricultural labor union that rose to prominence under the leadership of the late Cesar Chavez with the support of countless Sixties idealists, has recently been the subject of unflattering coverage in the Los Angeles Times, Bakersfield Californian and L.A. Weekly, among other places. Now journalist Marc Cooper, who wrote the L.A. Weekly piece, says the union has sent him a demand that he retract or correct his piece on pain of being sued. Cooper says the L.A. Times and Bakersfield papers have received similar threats. “Even some lonely bloggers who have recently written about the UFW have been contacted by the union or its hired PR agents and directly warned not to continue criticizing it.” (Marc Cooper, “Gag Me With a Grape”, L.A. Weekly, Feb. 8; Cooper blog entry and comments, Feb. 8) (via Romenesko). The UFW’s side of the underlying controversies is here.