Class-action lawyers including Seattle’s Hagens Berman (Feb. 16, Mar. 6 and Mar. 29, 2004; Nov. 24, 2003; Sept. 9-10, 2002, etc.) sued Apple last week in the name of buyers of the popular iPod, claiming the nano screen on the device tends to scratch easily and become unreadable. They are seeking remedies including a refund of moneys paid “plus a share of the company’s profits on the music player’s sales”. (“Nano Owners Sue Apple”, Red Herring, Oct. 20; Ina Fried, “Suit filed over Nano scratches”, CNet, Oct. 21).
Author Archive
Globetrotting Hausfeld
Lawsuit impresario Michael Hausfeld, whose doings often figure in these pages, is on “a crusade to export America’s legal system around the world,” per one recent U.S. magazine profile. He claims to share case ideas regularly with a network of lawyers in countries around the world, according to a profile in the U.K. publication The Lawyer (Jon Robins, “Michael Hausfield [sic] brings class actions to the UK”, Oct. 24)(via Schaeffer). More on Hausfeld: Jan. 11, Apr. 13, Jul. 25, 2004; May 24, 2001; Mar. 2 and Aug. 13-14, 2000.
Stadium patdowns
Greg Skidmore at Sports Law Blog (who has guest-blogged on this site) analyzes the ACLU-aided suit against the Tampa Sports Authority challenging the National Football League’s anti-terror measures.
California’s Proposition 79
As CoyoteBlog (Oct. 18) notes, this ballot initiative on drug prices contains a sneaky, little-discussed provision that will empower trial lawyers to file bounty-hunting suits against pharmaceutical companies if the companies charge prices “that lead to any unjust and unreasonable profit”, with a minimum $100,000 plus fees guaranteed to plaintiffs if a jury agrees that they have proved this (very hazily defined) offense. California has already earned the title of “Shakedown State” because of its bounty-hunting provisions on chemicals, disabled rights, consumer, education and labor law. And the San Diego Union-Tribune editorially criticizes Consumers Union for backing the benighted measure.
UC Berkeley sued over evolution website
“The University of California at Berkeley is being sued for running a website for school teachers called Understanding Evolution. Anti-evolutionists claim that the site breaches the American constitution on the separation of church and state because it links to religious organisations which believe faith can be reconciled with Darwin’s theory of evolution”. (Donald MacLeod, “Intelligent design opponents [sic] invoke US constitution”, EducationGuardian (U.K.), Oct. 18; Katie McCulloch, “Citing Religious Web Site, Parent Sues UC Berkeley”, Daily Californian, Oct. 14). More: CalStuff, Tim Sandefur, Ed Brayton, Not Your Father’s America.
Hurricane-chasing, cont’d
New Orleans criminal defense attorney Joseph Larre’s 300 clients were evacuated and now sit in lockups across the South, some as far away as Jacksonville, Fla. Many of his case records were destroyed by floodwater, and the city’s criminal courts have not reopened. So Larre, 47, drove around the city last week in his champagne-colored Ford Explorer and nailed signs to telephone poles announcing, in big red letters, “KATRINA CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT.”
By Friday, he had received 300 phone calls. At least two other lawyers, he said, have put up similar signs.
Larre said he hasn’t decided whom to sue for what. But he says he has heard from homeowners who fear that insurance companies will scrimp on settlements, as well as irate residents looking to haul New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and even the Red Cross into court.
As he considered potential defendants, Larre said, “I definitely like the oil companies and their insurance companies.”…
“You really hit the jackpot if you nail the Army Corps of Engineers,” he mused, standing in a mud-caked intersection in his shorts, T-shirt and running shoes.
(Douglas Birch, “Lawyers drawn to storm cases”, Baltimore Sun, Oct. 10).
Contesting a will? Watch out
Australia: Two sisters decided to dispute their brother’s favored position in a farm inheritance. Result? “the sisters spent [A]$450,000 in legal fees to get [A]$360,000. And the total cost of battling out the inheritance came to $605,000.” (Vanda Carson, “The lawyers will win”, The Australian, Oct. 21).
“Ottawa may sue U.S. gun makers”
Raising the question: did we do this during Prohibition to Canada’s whisky distillers, when their products flooded into this country across both land and water borders? And if we didn’t sue, could there be a lesson in that about the need for nations to respect each others’ sovereignty?
Canada is looking into ways to sue U.S. gun manufacturers for the spread of illegal weapons into this country, the Toronto Star has learned….
The policy will also be seen as another shot by Prime Minister Paul Martin’s government across the bow of Canada-U.S. relations.
Government sources told the Star yesterday that Canada will be looking into “every legal option” to stem a tide of crimes involving weapons that make their way into this country illegally from the United States, whether they’re sold through the Internet or smuggled across the border.
That includes possible suits against U.S. manufacturers, launched either in the United States or in this country if the firm has assets here as well, the sources said. Though no precise estimates are available, Toronto police have said repeatedly that almost half the gun crimes committed in Canada involved illegal, U.S. weapons.
(Susan Delacourt and Les Whittington, Toronto Star, Oct. 22 (reg))
Open season to hack trademark infringers?
Some years back attorneys Ronald Coleman, of Likelihood of Confusion fame, and Matthew W. Carlin, who has represented the interests of Barney, the children’s purple dinosaur, proposed that when other remedies fail intellectual property owners should request court permission to hack the websites of court-order-defying trademark infringers (“Hacker with a White Hat”, reprinted at Coleman Law Firm site). Declan McCullagh (Oct. 17) and Jonathan B. Wilson (Oct. 20) don’t think that’s such a great idea at all, nor do McCullagh’s commenters.
“A cult named Sue”
Yes, it’s the Scientologists again (see Apr. 16, 2004; Mar. 25-26, 2002; Mar. 19-20, 2001; May 3, 2000). This time they’re threatening a New Zealand parody site named ScienTOMogy.info, which is thus named in honor of Scientology adherent Tom Cruise (via Matt Welch, Reason “Hit and Run”, Oct. 19, headline and all). More: Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Confusion, Oct. 22.