More zero tolerance madness: “Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik is calling for a new law that would make any drinking and driving illegal — even if the driver is not impaired.” (Becky Pallack, “Dupnik wants to outlaw any drinking at all by drivers”, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), Nov. 24)(via Radley Balko). More: DUIBlog, Dec. 1.
Author Archive
“Throwing the book at blogs”
Christmas parties
Australian employers, too, are rethinking them given the possible liability exposures (Nick O’Malley, “Bosses pull the plug on parties”, Sydney Morning Herald, Nov. 1). More: Sarah Pierce, “Avoiding Holiday Lawsuits”, Entrepreneur.com, Dec. 3, 2003; “Mistletoe or Legal Woes”, Lawyers.com, Dec. 3, 2004.
Politically quotable
“Blogs appear far more influential in the Democratic than the Republican party. With the waning influence of the labor movement — the blogs and the trial lawyers are picking up the slack as influential institutions.” — Marshall Wittman, Bull Moose Blog, Nov. 28.
Nanotech’s legal risks
They’re anything but infinitesimal, or so conferees were told recently:
“However,” Monica warns, “no industry — including the nanotechnology industry — is beyond the reach of American trial lawyers. Concerns about possible health and safety hazards posed by nanomaterials are being raised among labor unions and environmentalists; trial lawyers cannot be far behind. Some have even begun to compare nanotechnology to asbestos, a material plagued by $70 billion in litigation over the past three decades.”
Lawyer John C. Monica Jr. of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur in Cleveland, along with colleagues, wrote the paper, which was entitled “Preparing for Future Health Litigation: The Application of Product Liability Law to Nanotechnology.” (Keay Davidson, “Big troubles may lurk in super-tiny tech”, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 31)(more tech law coverage)(& welcome InstaPundit readers).
On the town
This evening I took advantage of the hospitality of the folks at TechnoLawyer.com who secured the use of a dandy bar in Tribeca for the launch of a new eBook they are giving away to their customers, “BlawgWorld 2006: Capital of Big Ideas“. The book is discussed at length over at Evan Schaeffer’s today by Ted, Mike Cernovich and others. I enjoyed meeting other guests, among them Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith Esq. and Arnie Herz of LegalSanity, both of which blogs are deservedly popular among practicing lawyers.
“TV’s pitchmen in pinstripe suits”
Arizona Republic takes a look at lawyers’ advertising (Hal Mattern, Nov. 27).
Tripped up by 10,000 rules
Our discussion of overcriminalization (Nov. 20) has got Coyote to thinking (Nov. 21) about some of the headaches involved in complying with labor and employment law:
Now, I’m not talking about chaining employees to the assembly line or even paying below the minimum wage. I am talking about $45,000 fines for not splitting the two portions of a Davis-Bacon wage out correctly on a pay stub or getting sued for not properly posting one of your required labor department posters or having a counter 1/2″ too high for ADA regulations.
Follow his links to learn about an instance in which labor regulators refused to concede that a camping business in a national forest qualified as recreational.
Roger Parloff on patent litigation
First BlackBerry, next eBay? As patent disputes threaten to shut down whole pillars of the electronic economy, the question becomes more urgent whether patent holders should be entitled to automatic injunctions against infringers. Abolishing the injunction entirely might be too radical, argues Fortune’s Roger Parloff; the better course may lie in giving judges more discretion. (“Pay Up — or You’re Done For”, Fortune, Dec. 12). More on the BlackBerry case: Oct. 11, May 2. And a news update: “Setback for BlackBerry maker”, Reuters/Money/CNN, Nov. 30.
L.A.: “Lawyer held in car crash fraud ring”
It’s not as if these fraud rings were anything new (more), but a few of the details this time are particularly piquant:
A lawyer recruited 29 people, including some from a Bible study class, to stage more than 60 automobile crashes on Los Angeles freeways and collected millions of dollars in bogus insurance claims, authorities said Wednesday.
Typically members of the ring would head out in two cars onto a freeway and box in an unsuspecting SUV or commercial truck, then slam on the brakes so as to cause an accident for which passengers in the lead car could file a legal claim.
Although no one was seriously injured in the accidents, one victim was forced to close his business after his truck was totaled, officials said….
Among those involved were members of a Bible study group from the Inland Empire, said Marty Gonzales, chief investigator for the California Department of Insurance….
Many of the suspects were illegal immigrants who were promised they would earn hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Gonzales said.
In reality, some were paid nothing….
According to the insurance commissioner’s office, [22-year-old Humberto] Carlon set up the accidents and Laufer [personal injury lawyer Bernard Laufer, 52, of Huntington Park] paid him a fee to represent the phony victims in claims against insurance companies….
Such crash rings are not new to Southern California.
A family of three burned to death on the Long Beach Freeway in 1996 in an accident linked to a crash ring.
(Amanda Covarrubias, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 24).