Attorney Samuel Hirsch, who filed the first lawsuits blaming fast-food chains for his clients’ obesity, apparently isn’t happy over his unflattering portrayal in the documentary Super Size Me (see last Aug. 9). According to the New York Observer, Hirsch is suing filmmaker Morgan Spurlock and Samuel Goldwyn Films charging “Negligence, Unauthorized Use of Likeness, Disparagement to Reputation, and Defamation of Character, Fraudulent Inducement, False Misrepresentation, Damage to Business Reputation”; he’s seeking compensatory and punitive damages and “disgorgement of profits.” (Jake Brooks, “Spurlock’s Super Size Lawsuit”, New York Observer, Mar. 7)(likely to rotate off free site soon).
Author Archive
Broken thermometer? Close down the school
When tiny amounts of hazardous materials get spilled, major disruptions can result: “Suppose Marshall University had responded to a dropped vial of phenol by asking a janitor to clean it up, cautiously. The school would have feared, and perhaps rightly so, junk-science lawsuits over mysterious symptoms that someone near the spill might claim mysteriously to have developed. Evacuating the med school and bringing in the moon-suit patrol might have been unnecessary, but it reduced the school’s tort exposure.” (Gregg Easterbrook, “Hazardous Waste”, The New Republic, Mar. 21).
Quotable: absence of grace
From a column by Rob Asghar in the Ashland (Ore.) Daily Tidings on lawsuits over offensive remarks in the workplace (“Without a doubt, PC has gone too far”, Nov. 22):
The correlation between litigiousness and gracelessness is no accident. Within religious communities, the term “legalist” denotes a person who gives little grace to others if they transgress even the slightest religious commandment. (This is especially ironic when the religion is supposed to be about grace.)
For our hypersensitive secular society, we too have become legalists who feel that to sue is human and to forgive is a crime. And we are all poorer for this trend.
Freedom of Information Act
Using it to request sensitive information about companies that do business with the government, and then selling that information to competitors, has become a “cottage industry” in Washington over the past twenty years, reports Legal Times (Tom Schoenberg, “Spy Game: Corporate Rivals Use FOIA as Weapon”, Mar. 16).
Ford and the Crystal City sweethearts, cont’d
Auto Connection (Mar. 14, scroll to “Ford Appeals Frontier Justice”) has some new material on the astounding $31 million verdict against Ford from Zavala County, Texas, last discussed in this space Mar. 7. A few snippets:
In the testimony that followed [a Feb. 22 mistrial motion by Ford], it was revealed that not only had [juror Diana] Palacios failed to acknowledge her romantic entanglement [with plaintiff’s attorney Jesse Gamez] during jury selection, but had previously been a client of Gamez in other litigation, had been an aunt by marriage of one of the plaintiffs and indeed had solicited the plaintiffs to sue Ford and Guerrero and hire Gamez as their lawyer….
Incredibly, Ford’s motions were denied, but Juror Palacios was removed.
The next day’s Express-News carried a story about the motions and denials.
But a mysterious man went around to all the distribution points in Crystal City, buying up all the papers before anyone could read them. The San Antonio newspaper management 130 miles away quickly got wind of this, replenished the newspapers and ran an editorial the following day denouncing the act as an attempt to keep Crystal Citians from learning of their local conflicts of interest. The miscreant was never identified.
The trial went on, plaintiffs maintaining that Ford was negligent, because if the Explorer had only been equipped with a type of laminated side glass used by less than one percent of the world’s vehicles, the ejections and injuries would not have occurred.
UK: “£500,000 for youth injured in fall while trespassing”
Carl Murphy, 18, of Merseyside, England, has received £567,000 for injuries sustained while criminally trespassing on the roof of a private warehouse in 1996, from which he fell 40 feet, sustaining multiple injuries. Murphy, who has convictions for robbery, burglary and assault, “received his compensation after suing the company that owned the warehouse. He claimed that if the perimeter fence had not been in disrepair he would not have been able to gain entry and suffer his injuries.” Although groups representing victims of crime expressed anger at his getting a sum 50 times higher than a murder victim’s family could expect to receive from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, Murphy was unapologetic about his windfall, saying he planned to buy “a few houses and a flash car”: “This money is mine now and I’ll do what I want.” Murphy “was expelled from two schools in just over two years after his recovery and his family blamed the fall for his bad behaviour.” And more: “His mother, Diane, and her partner, Kevin Parsons, both 36, are currently serving three years in prison for setting up a heroin and crack cocaine business from their council house.” (Daily Telegraph, Mar. 14; Peter Zimonjic, “I’ll buy houses and a flash car, says yob awarded £567,000”, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 20; Joanna Bale, “Trespasser who fell through roof wins payout of £567,000”, The Times, Mar. 14).
Among other lessons to be drawn from the case, it kind of casts doubt on the idea, often heard from trial lawyers on this side of the Atlantic, that people wouldn’t feel such a need to sue if they had UK-style socialized medicine to take care of their injuries for them. More: Ralph Reiland comments in the American Spectator (Nov. 30).
Agence France-Presse sues Google
Because aggregating headlines, first sentences of stories, and (sometimes) tiny little thumbnails of pictures constitutes an outrageous trampling on the French news service’s intellectual property, it wants at least $17.5 million in damages. (“AFP sues Google for news aggregation”, PhysOrg.com, Mar. 20). We covered the issue Nov. 9.
Ohio: let’s not license eBay sellers
Ohio lawmakers are scrambling to change a recently enacted law which starting in May would forbid state residents from selling items on eBay unless they possess an auctioneer’s license. “Under the original bill, anyone selling an item on eBay was required to use a licensed auctioneer or become an auctioneer. Becoming an auctioneer requires serving a one-year apprenticeship to an auctioneer, attending classes and other requirements.” Last Wednesday the Ohio Senate passed a bill exempting online-auction sellers from the requirements; the bill “now moves to the Ohio House, where swift approval is expected after the Easter recess.” The Ohio Auctioneers Association, however, is still pressing to get the state to regulate drop-off consignment shops which sell items on eBay for a fee. (Michael Sangiacomo, “Senate votes to exempt eBay sellers from auctioneer’s license rule”, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Mar. 17; “Ohio law would regulate eBay sellers”, CNN/Money, Mar. 7).
No way to spend your old age
Quotable: “Being involved in a lawsuit is a lousy way to spend your old age” — author Dominick Dunne, 79, commenting on his agreement to settle, on terms which include an apology and an undisclosed sum of money, a defamation suit filed by former Rep. Gary Condit. (Michael Doyle, “Condit, Dunne sidestep big battle”, Modesto (Calif.) Bee, Mar. 17).
Update: Schenectady BBS defamation
Following up on our entry of last Aug. 31: Acting Supreme Court Judge Felix Catena has dismissed attorney Romolo Versaci’s defamation suit against Diane Richie, who called Versaci a “so-called lawyer” on a local online message board, saying the expression was by its nature rhetorical opinion and not actionable. Versaci has said he plans appeal. David Giacalone (Mar. 15) has the details.