Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

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Notable quote

The whole point of the rule of law is the certainty it gives the citizen. There is no greater injustice than for a citizen to be unable to determine what legal consequences would flow from an action contemplated.

— Matthew Parris, writing on the vaguely worded speech-prohibitions in the British Government’s proposed Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. (“This is no sort of way to make a law -– and no sort of law to make”, The Times (U.K.), Jun. 25). For more on the legislation, see Jul. 16, 2004 and Jun. 11, 2005.

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“Paw laws”

A British view of the campaign in American courts (see May 10, etc.) to allow recovery of sentimental value, emotional anguish and so forth when domestic animals are killed or injured (Philip Sherwell, “Now pets really are part of the family thanks to US ‘paw laws'”, Daily Telegraph, Jun. 26).

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Update: Suing a “recovered memory” critic

The L.A. Times has a lengthy account of the continuing litigation against famed psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, who after publishing an article in Skeptical Inquirer casting doubt on the “recovered memory” claims of a claimed abuse victim described as Jane Doe, was sued for defamation and invasion of privacy by the real-life woman behind the pseudonym. We originally posted on the case Aug. 26, 2004. (Maura Dolan, “Memory, Pain and the Truth”, Los Angeles Times, Jun. 21)(via Nordberg). More: LawLimits (Jun. 23) has more, including the latest procedural status of the case (Calif. Supreme Court agrees to review Loftus’s attempt to get the case thrown out under the state’s “anti-SLAPP” law, which a lower court declined to do).

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Update: U.K. court rejects smoker’s lawsuit

Once again the inevitable worldwide triumph of tobacco litigation turns out to be not so inevitable after all: “In the first case of its kind in Britain, a judge rejected Margaret McTear’s attempt to sue Imperial Tobacco over the death of her husband Alf 12 years ago. … Lord Nimmo Smith, at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, said the test case failed on every count. He ruled that Mr McTear knew what he was doing and there was no proof that his cancer was caused by a particular cigarette brand.” (Auslan Cramb, “Widow fails to pin blame on tobacco company”, Daily Telegraph, Jun. 1). Ever the gracious loser, Northeastern University lawprof-advocate and interest-nondiscloser Richard Daynard called the ruling “an extraordinarily ignorant opinion”: “The UK suffers from a conservative, narrow-minded judiciary who don’t know or don’t want to know the relevant medical and social facts,” he said. (Stephen Davis, “Smokescreen”, New Statesman, Jun. 27)($).

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Update: DVT claim fails in Australia

The High Court of Australia has dismissed a claim against British Airways and Qantas by a businessman who suffered a stroke arising from deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), sometimes known as “economy-class syndrome”, after a long-distance flight (see Sept. 12, 2004). “If his case had succeeded, it could have opened the floodgates to dozens of DVT cases which had been prepared to go before Australian courts.” (Chris Herde, “Court throws out DVT-related case”, The Australian, Jun. 23). More: Oct. 3, 2004 and links from there.

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Odium toward sodium

Jacob Sullum has more on the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s lawsuit (see Feb. 25) demanding that ordinary salt be regulated as a food additive (“Suing sodium”, Reason, Jun.).

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Estee Lauder class action

Retiree Diane Hutto of Fort Walton Beach, Fla. bought the giant cosmetics company’s “anti-aging” products, but aged anyway. A refund of what she paid wouldn’t do the trick, it seems; her lawyer’s asking for class action damages that could exceed $5 million depending on the size of the class. (Patrick Danner, “Retiree sues Estee Lauder over anti-aging claim”, Knight Ridder/Salt Lake Tribune, Jun. 18).

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Over at Point of Law

The mystery guestblogger over at Point of Law has now been revealed: it’s Prof. Martin Grace of the highly recommended site RiskProf. He’s an insurance and liability expert and will be contributing comments this week and next. We originally announced that there would be a second guestblogger at Point of Law this week as well, but that personage is being held at an undisclosed location and is expected to stop by next month instead.

Also at Point of Law, check out Ted’s posts on Kelo v. New London, the eminent domain case decided today by the Supreme Court, and on anesthesiologists and malpractice; Jonathan B. Wilson’s posts on recent California Supreme Court rulings on punitive damage limits, a $300 million fee for Bill Lerach, and scary scam suits by prison inmates; and my contributions on such topics as how some securities lawyers get clients and the politics of loser-pays.

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Questions not to ask

Advice for employers, at job interviews (“Interview questions you shouldn’t ask”, HRHero.com, Jun. 17, adapted from Louisiana Employment Law Letter)(via Michael at George Lenard’s).

More: reader Mark Moss comments:

The first item on the list of questions you can’t ask prospective employees is, “What is your age?” But sitting on my desk right now is a memo from HR about “I-9 Compliance Update”. The DHS requires me to show my employer documents showing citizenship or right to work in this country — either 1 from list A (e.g., a passport), or one each from list B and C (e.g., driver’s license and Social Security card).

Apparently, HR is on their honor to skip over the date of birth listed on these documents.

And: George Lenard writes in to say:

Regarding the above observation, as I noted in our comments section, there is a distinction between illegal and unwise questions.

ASKING about age when it’s irrelevant is a red flag, smoking gun or whatever, not to mention divisive. (Response: “What’s it to you, youngster? How old are YOU, son?”).

KNOWING about age incidentally, whether from passport, birth certificate, drivers license, or gray hair, wrinkles, and baldspot, is inevitable at some point. I’d look to keeping such information out of the early screening process at least, so the early rejects can’t claim age discrim (OK, you and I both know they can CLAIM and SUE for anything whatsoever; I’m talking about doing so without confronting a strong defense — employer’s ignorance.)

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