In North Philadelphia, ten-year-old Porsche Brown was pulled out of class, handcuffed and taken to the police station after scissors were found in her book bag. “School district officials acknowledged that the girl was not using the item as a weapon or threatening anyone with it.” (Susan Snyder, “Scissors get girl in legal trouble”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 11) (via Balko). The police and schools chief have now apologized. (Maryclaire Dale, “Police? school chief apologize for schoolgirl?s arrest over scissors”, AP/Lansdale Reporter, Dec. 15).
Author Archive
Vt.-Va. lesbian custody battle
Lawyers’ pro bono obligations
Robert Starr, a Manhattan lawyer who is director emeritus of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, suggests that working for groups like NYSTLA that oppose litigation reform should count as pro bono work for lawyers. According to the New York Law Journal, “In April, the [New York] state bar House of Delegates voted to expand its definition of pro bono to include: activities to improve the law, the legal system or the profession; financial assistance to legal services organizations and services to organizations that protect civil rights, liberties or public rights; or when standard legal fees would ‘deplete the organization’s economic resources.'” (Elizabeth Stull, “Many Solo, Small Firm Attorneys Lack Time, Resources for Pro Bono”, New York Law Journal, Dec. 13)(via Giacalone). Update Jan. 23: more controversy.
Land of junk-fax lawsuits
Illinois lawyers have established their state as the new hotbed of junk-fax litigation, according to Chicago Business. “In 2002 in Downstate St. Clair County, a Circuit Court judge ordered Seventeen Motors Inc. to pay $7 million for sending about 33,000 unsolicited faxes.” Cleveland-based Charter One Bank recently “agreed to pay $1.8 million for sending unsolicited faxes to about 70,000 phone numbers.” And “Cook County Circuit Court Judge Patrick McGann alone has since 2002 presided over more than 100 lawsuits, all seeking class action status, filed against senders of junk faxes.” Particularly active in the business: Daniel Edelman and his firm of Edelman Combs Latturner & Goodwin LLC. (Shruti Dat? Singh, “An IL industry: junk-fax law suits”, Chicago Business, Dec. 12). For more on junk-fax litigation, see Mar. 19, 2004, Jul. 19, 2003, etc.
Guestblogger tomorrow
Quite a few promising candidates responded to our call for guestblogger volunteers and we expect to be hearing from several of them in coming months. The first will be debuting tomorrow.
Mutiny of the bounty-hunted, cont’d: Calif. schools
Under California law, if school districts do not comply with public records requests within a stated period, they can be liable for requesters’ legal fees. In July and early August, as many officials were leaving for vacation, various Bay Area districts received requests for “school board members’ statement of economic interest — a document that details an elected official’s investments”. When the statements were not forthcoming within the prescribed period, lawsuits promptly followed demanding legal fees. The requesting organization, which calls itself Nolex Group, turns out to be run by a lawyer and to have no immediately visible purpose other than filing the requests. The Emery Unified district settled for a reported $2,500, but others resisted, with one defendant’s lawyer calling the action a “holdup lawsuit” and another saying that “These guys are trying to line their pockets at the expense of schoolchildren.” After the local news media took an interest, Nolex, which appears to be based from the Walnut Creek home of attorney Scott Hammel (with help from attorney Byron Done), “said it planned to drop six suits it had filed against San Mateo County school districts.” Hammel has vehemently denied improper motivations. (Jahna Berry, “Calif. Schools Blast Records Request as ‘Holdup Lawsuit'”, The Recorder, Nov. 24; “Lawyers Target Schools For Easy Money”, KRON, Oct. 21; Ethan Fletcher, “Alleged shakedown suit dropped”, San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 7).
Workers get $211K, lawyers bag $2.57 M?
Speaking of class actions against Wal-Mart: “Six lawyers who represented Oregon workers in their fight for overtime pay from Wal-Mart say that the world’s largest retailer should pay them $2.57 million for the time and money they spent trying the case. Wal-Mart opposes the request, saying that it would be an exorbitant payday for a case that had a relatively small judgment. In September, a U.S. District Court judge in Portland awarded 83 Wal-Mart workers back wages, penalties and interest totaling $211,000, an average of $2,542 each.” (“Lawyers want $2.57 million from Wal-Mart”, Salem Statesman-Journal, Dec. 9)
Flattering to be considered…
The magazine Legal Affairs is promoting an online poll to pick “the country’s most influential and important legal thinkers — the ones whose ideas are pushing the law forward (or backward, as the case may be).” The list of 125 names is divided among judges, academics, and writers/commentators (what, no practitioners?). Their selection of nominees (explained here) has already been criticized, and online polls are not likely to mean much given the technical ease of stuffing the ballot box in most cases.
In the “writers/commentators” category, as you’ll see, their search for candidate names led them very far down into the barrel, if not to scrape its bottom. Awfully flattering to be included in such company, though.
Class actions: Wal-Mart sued over obscenity in song
“Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which promotes itself as a seller of clean music, deceived customers by stocking compact discs by the rock group Evanescence that contain the f-word, a lawsuit claims.” (“Wal-Mart sued over Evanescence lyrics”, AP/USA Today, Dec. 11). On behalf of Melanie and Trevin Skeens, residents of Washington County, Md., attorney Jon D. Pels of the Bethesda, Maryland firm of Pels, Anderson & Lee LLC is demanding up to $74,500 for each copy sold of the CD in Maryland, and is vowing to expand the litigation into other states. (Julie E. Greene, “County couple sues Wal-Mart over lyrics”, Hagerstown, Md. Herald-Mail, Dec. 10). A Google search reveals that three years ago attorney Pels filed an intended class action against Atlantic Records, AOL Time Warner and Slip-N-Slide Records on behalf of a different Maryland parent, saying obscenities were not edited out of a supposedly “clean” version of Trick Daddy’s Thugs Are Us. (Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, “Trick Daddy Accused By Maryland Mom Of Having Dirty ‘Clean’ LP”, VH1.com, Jun. 26, 2001). More: The Christian Science Monitor’s account is sympathetic to the claimants and their lawyer (Dec. 20).
UK religious insult bill
Britain’s Home Secretary defends the proposed incursion on free speech (David Blunkett, “Religious hatred is no laughing matter”, The Observer, Dec. 12) while a Spectator writer questions whether Blunkett has been “behaving in a manner that suggests he is as mad as a box of frogs” (Rod Liddle, “Ha ha! You can’t insult Islam but I can”, The Sunday Times, Dec. 12). See Jul. 16 and (Australia) Dec. 3. Plus: Matthew Parris weighs in (“Mockery, calumny and scorn: these are the weapons to fight zealots”, The Times, Dec. 11) (via Andrew Stuttaford).