Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Author Archive

Columnist-fest

Because we haven’t done a columnist-fest in a long time:

* “I’m struck by how little attention has been given to one of the biggest problems in America’s judicial system: the enormous cost and creativity-killing pace of ordinary civil cases. … War is what a lawsuit is”. (John Stossel, syndicated/TownHall, Dec. 7).

* For years and years liberal groups have been cheering the federal government’s right to attach burdensome regulatory strings when colleges accept its money. Now, with the Solomon Amendment controversy, they finally get to learn about the other side of the story (Steve Chapman, “When Liberals Oppose Strong Government”, syndicated/Chicago Tribune, Dec. 8).

* “No Couch Potato Left Behind”: George Will on a $3 billion federal program to subsidize owners of obsolete TV sets (“The Inalienable Right To a Remote”, syndicated/Washington Post, Dec. 8).

Filed under:

Alberta lawmakers: go ahead, sue Mom

“Alberta has become the first province in Canada to enact legislation allowing children to sue their mothers for injuries suffered in the womb. But the law applies only to damage suffered in car accidents.” The idea isn’t really to foment legal strife between infants and their moms, but just to give the family a new way to tap its auto insurance policy, quite possibly with the support and connivance of the mother who will be the ostensibly adverse party in the case:

Jim Rivait, spokesperson for the Insurance Bureau of Canada, says the new law is going to have an impact on insurance premiums right across the country.

“Any time you have an increase in claim costs, it has to flow through to what policy holders pay for auto insurance premiums,” said Rivait.

Not to mention the wear and tear on the principles underlying a legal system if collusive and tactical litigation comes to be winked at. (“New Alberta law will permit some lawsuits against mothers”, CBC/Sympatico-MSN, Dec. 3) (via KevinMD).

Filed under:

Judge demands freeze on Boston Herald’s assets

Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy, having won a libel judgment of more than $2 million against the Boston Herald, smaller of the city’s two big newspapers, is now demanding that a court order the paper’s assets frozen to guarantee payment of the judgment. (Jonathan Saltzman, “Court is asked to freeze Herald’s assets”, Boston Globe, Nov. 29). Dan Kennedy at Media Nation (Nov. 29) says that the Herald’s original article criticizing Murphy was anything but a model of good journalism.

But free-press advocates ought to be concerned that a sitting judge can have some influence over the Herald’s future — and possibly its very survival — because of reporting that amounted to criticism of how he performed his public duties. That, more than anything, is what the First Amendment was designed to protect.

(via Romenesko). For the chilling effects of libel awards won by judges in Pennsylvania, see Mar. 16, 2004, etc.

Filed under: , , , , ,

“Lines Are Drawn for Big Suit Over Sodas”

The New York Times finally weighs in on the impending case against Big Soda (see Dec. 5). Maybe it took them longer than expected to get the spin in favor of the suit just right. Prof. Daynard’s role gets somewhat downplayed this time around, the Center for Science in the Public Interest looms larger, and the most priceless bit comes at the end:

One detail yet to be decided is whether the group will seek financial damages. Under Massachusetts’s consumer protection law, successful plaintiffs are entitled to $25 per violation, which could mean $25 for every time a student has purchased a soda in a public high school in Massachusetts over the past four years.

Mr. Gardner said he and the other lawyers realize that damages could run into the billions. “We haven’t decided about this yet,” he said. “We don’t want this to come off looking like a greedy-lawyer lawsuit.”

(Melanie Warner, New York Times, Dec. 7). Comments: Volokh.

Filed under: , ,

$450K settlement after “ride them hard” remark

Two secretaries will share a settlement of around $450,000 from the Atlantic City, N.J. school district and its insurer after filing sexual-harassment charges. Carol Lee and Jennifer Torres sued following

a comment Assistant Superintendent Thomas J. Kirschling made to them and two others in July 2002. At some point mid-month, Kirschling said “I ride them hard and put them away wet.”

The two secretaries sent him a memo saying they were outraged. He later explained and apologized, according to a subsequent memo.

Kirschling was apparently using a rural idiom that means someone is tired or worked hard. The phrase is taken from the need to cool down a horse after strenuous exercise. Only a mistreated horse is stabled while it is still sweating.

After the women complained, the district assigned an outside attorney to investigate, but that probe inadvertently lapsed….

The school board approved the settlement at a meeting last month, although some members considered the amount excessive. “Board member John Devlin said ‘It’s nuts, though, just for that comment.'” (Derek Harper, “Harassment settlement in A.C. totals $450,000”, Press of Atlantic City, Dec. 2; “A.C. school board settles harassment claim for undisclosed sum”, Dec. 1)(& welcome Ramesh Ponnuru, Cathy Young, Michael Fox, Dave Zincavage, Liberty Belles readers).

Filed under:

Compiling a list of annoying people

That was apparently all it took to get an eighth-grader thrown out of East Central Junior High in Stronghurst, Ill. Naturally, it’s a zero-tolerance case: “In the post–Columbine massacre environment, [superintendent Ralph] Grimm said it is appropriate to err on the side of caution in these circumstances.” The student also faces possible criminal charges of disorderly conduct. (Craig T. Neises, “Student faces discipline over ‘list”, Burlington (Ia.) Hawk Eye, Nov. 30)(via Taranto)(more zero tolerance).

Filed under: ,

Roger Scruton interview

An excerpt from the interview (pt. II) with the British philosopher at Right Reason:

My advice to President Bush would be to look at the ways in which the power of the state might be needed in order to support the autonomous associations and ‘little platoons’ of American civil society. There are two evils in particular which need to be addressed: the litigation explosion, which has vastly increased the risk of small businesses, and also sown discord among neighbours; and the disaster of the inner cities, which have suffered from the worst effects of American zoning laws and laissez-faire aesthetics, with the result that the middle class has fled from the city centres, causing social decay at the heart, and an unsustainable growth in transportation and suburban infrastructure all around. I believe that federal policies could be initiated that would address both these evils, without increasing the role of the state in the conduct of litigation or in the planning of city streets.

Filed under: ,

“Captain of ferry that crashed sues NYC”

“The captain of the Staten Island ferry that crashed in October 2003, killing 11 people, is suing the city. Michael Gansas wants his job back, with back pay, or he wants the city to arbitrate his grievances in front of a labor panel.” (AP/WJLA, Dec. 4). According to an AP story last month, Gansas’s “silence following the crash infuriated survivors, victims’ relatives and city officials, who accused him of handicapping the investigation” and he “was fired soon after the crash for failing to co-operate with the investigation”. When he did talk, he evidently didn’t deliver the gospel truth, either, it seems:

Gansas initially was accused of making false statements for telling United States coast guard investigators that he was in the pilot house when Smith passed out and had tried in vain to right the ferry. He later struck a deal with prosecutors to co-operate in their case against ferry supervisor Patrick Ryan in exchange for dropping the charge.

Ryan pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting he chose not to implement or enforce a rule requiring that ferries be operated by two pilots.

In a WCBS-TV interview last month, however, Gansas “says he initially lied about where he was during the crash because he wanted to share the blame. ‘I felt I had a responsibility as a captain to shoulder some of the blame for the actions of (assistant pilot) Richard Smith'”, he said. (“Captain lied to shoulder blame”, APNews24, Nov. 5). For more of Gansas’s side of the story, see Hasani Gittens and Brad Hamilton, “Crash-Ferry Capt. Suing for His Job”, New York Post, Dec. 4 (alleging that he “cooperated with investigators” after the crash).

Filed under: