Japan, a country known for its extremely low rate of litigation, has furnished very little fodder for this site over the years, but here’s one that was worth the wait: “A group of teachers and translators in Japan on Wednesday sued Tokyo’s outspoken nationalist governor for allegedly calling French a ‘failed international language,’ a news report said. Twenty-one people filed the lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court, demanding that Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara pay a total of 10.5 million yen ($94,600) compensation for insulting the French language in remarks last October, national broadcaster NHK said.” (AP/CentreDaily, Jul. 13). More: LanguageLog weighs in (Jul. 19).
Author Archive
Some “framing” advice
Speechwriter/ghostwriter Jane Genova (Apr. 10), commenting on one of linguistics guru George Lakoff’s suggestions for semantic reformulation of public debate: “Dems, be prepared to be laughed at when you start calling trial lawyers ‘public-protection attorneys.’ Then you’ll not only be yesterday but ridiculous.” Other bloggers, rounded up on Technorati, don’t seem to care for the idea much either.
No running — this is a playground
Courtesy Matt Conigliaro (Jul. 18): swings and other fun elements are disappearing fast from South Florida playgrounds under lawyering pressure. “To say ‘no running’ on the playground seems crazy,” says Broward County School Board member Robin Bartleman, whose own 6-year-old daughter is disappointed in the playground at Everglades Elementary in Weston. “But your feelings change when you’re in a closed-door meeting with lawyers.” “Play is one of children’s chief vehicles for development,” said University of Texas emeritus professor Joe Frost, who runs the Play and Playgrounds Research Project there. “Right now it looks like we’re developing a nation of wimps.” (Chris Kahn, “In the pursuit of safety, teeter-totters and swings are disappearing from playgrounds”, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jul. 18). See Sept. 8, Mar. 5, etc. More: Liz Lightfoot, “Schools ‘wrap children in cotton wool'”, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), May 3.
Thanks to Jeff Lewis
…for his guestblogging contributions over the past two weeks. For more, see his Southern California Law Blog and LawLimits.
“Parents asked to pay alimony to son’s wife”
As New Jersey Law Blog summarizes the case (May 19): “Cynthia Idleman claims that after her husband [Douglas] lost his job and suffered a disabling medical condition his parents have supported their family for the last two years by giving them about $20,000 per month. She claims that by having done so, ‘they have stepped into the shoes of their son’ and, thereby, assumed a continuing obligation to support not only their grandchildren, but also her.” See “Divorce Case Focused On In-Law Support”, WINS, May 17; Lisa Brennan, “Lawyers Wince at Grandparental Alimony Claim”, New Jersey Law Journal, May 26. Among those commenting: Enlighten-NJ, Michael Capanzzi, and the Michigan Medical Malpractice blogger.
Update: Stifling archaeology, the tribal way
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is now sponsoring that very troublesome bill, formerly championed by the departed Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, to amend the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act so as to expand Indian tribes’ power to assert control over prehistoric human remains not associated with any still-existing tribe (see Oct. 18, 2004). The bill would go far to reverse scientists’ victory in the nine-year court battle over tribes’ asserted right on cultural grounds to reclaim the remains of 9.300-year-old Kennewick Man (Aug. 9, 2004, etc.) Cleone Hawkinson, president of Friends of America’s Past, “says the change would make it impossible to study the earliest inhabitants of North America. ‘American archaeology would come to a standstill,’ she said.” A hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is scheduled for Jul. 28. (Sandi Doughton, “Fate of Kennewick Man study unclear”, Seattle Times, Jul. 15).
More: reader Carey Gage writes in to advise, “check out Moira Breen’s site on this issue. She has been all over it for years.”
“Bet-your-company” cases
Med-mal at Point of Law
At our sister site, Jim Copland has posted a critique of a new advocacy paper from the misnamed Center for Justice and Democracy purporting to find that medical malpractice insurers rake in money far faster than they pay it out; he finds that the report is careful to count the (rising) revenues of insurers moving into the med-mal market, but entirely omits to count the payouts/losses of major insurers that have been departing the market. Convenient, that! Martin Grace has further thoughts on the same report, and also comments on evidence that liability issues are causing physicians to relocate.
And more: Ted Frank reports on the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s just-announced and “baldly activist” decision striking down caps on non-economic damages, and also on recent claims that anesthesiologists’ success in reducing injury rates somehow refutes the need for liability reform. And I’ve posted items on lawyers’ turning down $500K cases as too small; “patients’-rights” front groups; do lawyers get better care when they are patients, or worse?; and M.D.s’ apologies.
Champerty and maintenance watch
The law firm of Cellino & Barnes bills itself as the largest personal injury firm in western New York, and the “faces of [name partners Ross M.] Cellino and [Stephen E.] Barnes grace a reported 150 billboards across upstate New York. The attorneys’ names and likenesses frame their phone number and the one-word question ‘Injured?'” However, the firm has now gotten itself into hot water: an appellate panel has suspended Cellino and censured Barnes for, among other infractions, “advancing financial assistance to clients that was unrelated to the expenses of litigation”.
The unanimous five-judge panel found that Cellino and Barnes advanced financial assistance to clients beyond the expenses of litigation and, when they subsequently became aware that such actions violated the disciplinary rules, “arranged for the establishment of, funded and controlled [a] company owned by respondent Cellino’s cousin and that they did so in order to continue loaning money to clients.”
At common law, champerty (supplying clients with money in exchange for a share in the action) and maintenance (supplying them with money in order to keep their lawsuits going) were both offenses, but the prohibitions have tended to fall into disuse or to be repealed outright in recent times. On champerty, see Jun. 19, 2005, Jun. 27, 2004, Oct. 25, 2003, and this excerpt from The Litigation Explosion. (Mark Fass, “Bad Lawyer, No Billboard”, New York Law Journal, Jun. 14; Michael Ziegler, “Cellino & Barnes leaders punished”, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Jun. 11; Rick Pfeiffer, “Lawyers Cellino and Barnes found guilty of violating conduct code”, Tonawanda News, Jun. 11). More on the Barnes law firm: Jan. 31, 2006.
Bootleg chow
Gunner at No Quarters (Jul. 13) rounds up material on underground restaurants in the U.S. and Italy. One factor operating in their favor: the chance to set smoking policies that please the clientele as opposed to the authorities.