Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Author Archive

House passes cheeseburger bill

As it did last year (see Mar. 11, 2004). This time the margin is wider, 306-120 instead of 276-139. The Senate, as usual, is the sticking point. (Libby Quaid, “House Votes to Ban Obesity Blame Lawsuits”, AP/MyWay.com, Oct. 20).

More: Jacob Sullum (Oct. 20) takes a dim view of the bill because of its expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause, and also suggests that the bill contains a rather wide loophole:

[It] makes exceptions not only for violations of express warranties but for violations of state or federal law that result in excessive calorie consumption. The latter exception would apply to Pelman v. McDonald’s, the case in which two overweight teenagers seek to blame the chain for their chubbiness. The suit was dismissed twice by U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet for failure to adequately state a claim, but it was revived by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which ruled that the plaintiffs could pursue their argument that McDonald’s violated New York’s Consumer Protection Act through deceptive marketing practices.

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Broken newsfeed — advice from readers?

Despite our attempt last week to fix our RSS/XML newsfeeds for the benefit of readers who keep up with the site that way, it looks as if we haven’t succeeded. A reader writes:

I was missing my daily dose of Overlawyered, but wrote off your lack of activity to your domain move and hosting issues. But such is not so … your newsfeed from overlawyered.com is broken. The XML has no style associated, and chokes the newsreaders I’ve tried to use on it (Thunderbird, Blagg and a FireFox plugin).

We would be grateful if technically knowledgeable readers took a moment to advise us how to get this task done.

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Sentenced at Merrill Lynch

Tom Kirkendall wonders (Oct. 16) why a former energy trader who admitted that he stole $43 million from his employer, Merrill Lynch, just got a comparatively lenient sentence of 3 1/2 years, while former Merrill employee Jamie Olis (May 18, 2004), who “did not receive a dime from the [accounting hype] that is the basis of his alleged crime”, got 24 years:

Let’s see. Embezzle $43 million and, if you get caught, cop a plea and serve 3 1/2 years. Or, do your job, don’t embezzle a cent, defend your innocence against criminal charges even when your employer serves you up as a sacrificial lamb so that the employer can avoid criminal charges, and then endure either as long, or much longer, a sentence if you are convicted.

Correction: my foulup. As I should have remembered, Olis was a Dynegy, not a Merrill Lynch, employee. Tom K. does discuss the sentences handed out to two Merrill employees who, like Olis, were not alleged to have profited personally from their misdeeds.

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At DRI in Chicago Thursday

The Defense Research Institute has been kind enough to invite me to speak on two panels at its annual meeting in Chicago on Thursday. The first panel will touch on topics including litigation-curbing reforms (a topic on which DRI and I have been known to come down on opposite sides), while the second will discuss the changing role of state attorneys general. I know many DRI members read this site: if you see me at the conference, feel free to come up and say hello.

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Student: dorm’s ferret ban violates ADA

At Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, 19-year-old freshman Sarah Sevick has filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department saying her rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act were violated by the dorm’s ban on her pet ferret, which she says she needs at hand to calm her during panic attacks related to a physical disability. (“Disabilities complaint filed after ferret banned from dorm”, AP/Houston Chronicle, Oct. 14). For more on claims to accommodation of companion animals under disabled-rights law, see May 5, etc.

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Florida self-defense

” When Florida passed a law in 1987 making it easier for citizens to get licenses to carry concealed firearms, opponents predicted that blood would run in the streets. ‘When you have 10 times as many people carrying guns as you do now, and they get into an argument and tempers flash, you’re going to have people taking out guns and killing people,’ one gun-control activist said.” But instead, Florida’s murder rate has been cut in half since then. “The warnings of gun-control advocates about that law were way off the mark. So when you hear them warn that another law concerning firearms will lead to unnecessary bloodshed in Florida, skepticism is in order.” The “stand your ground” rule is old hat elsewhere around the country, but the Brady Campaign doesn’t go around trying to scare tourists away from the many other states where it’s the law. (Steve Chapman, “Expanding the right to self-defense”, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 16).

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