Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Author Archive

New at Point of Law

Dozens of new posts at our sister site, including: plagiarism on the Harvard Law faculty; bill to revive Rule 11 sanctions for meritless litigation moving through House; more coverage of a lawyer’s attempt to collect “referral fee” of more than $140,000 from Illinois widow; Steve Bainbridge on attorney campaign donations and scoundrel Joe Kennedy; a sonnet on scientific evidence; class action fees in the InfoSpace and Ameritech cases, plus a paper on coupon settlements and an in-production Madison County movie; in praise of the Michigan Supreme Court; big fees in the really old days; public environmental suits, including the one on global warming; and Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus urges philanthropists to support legal reform.

For employment-law buffs, there are new posts on legal protection for messages on employee T-shirts, California and federal overtime regulations, and the Wal-Mart class action. For those who follow product liability there’s coverage of fen-phen fraud arrests, firearms liability and asbestos bankruptcies. Plus election-year politics, including Jim Copland, Ted Frank and more. Shouldn’t you bookmark it today?

Filed under: , , , , , , ,

U.K.: toward Christmas pantomime sensitivity

In Devon, England, a community theater producer who faced accusations of hate speech last year after staging a Christmas pantomime entitled Snow White and the Seven Asylum Seekers has announced that he has begun production on a presumably less offensive show, Snow Person and the Seven Completely Ordinary People. The north Devon village of Merton near Okehampton had banned producer Bob Harrod’s pantomime last year following advice from the government’s Commission for Racial Equality and a regional race council, after complaints that the show’s satirical portrayal of asylum seekers might violate laws against racially offensive speech. The show featured seven asylum seekers with names like Chemical Ali, Comical Ali, Back Ali, Dark Ali, and Bowling Ali. The nearby village of Langtree, however, agreed to host the production. (“New target for Snow White writer”, BBC, Sept. 11; Nov. 3 and Dec. 1, 2003)(via Norvell). More on British hate speech laws: Jul. 16, 2004, Dec. 18-19, 2002,

Filed under: , ,

Court: Flatley can sue sex-charge lawyer for extortion

A California appeals court has ruled that Michael Flatley, famed for the dance productions “Riverdance” and “Lord of the Dance”, can sue D. Dean Mauro, “a Waukegan, Ill., attorney who filed a $35 million suit falsely accusing the Irish dancer of raping an ex-stripper in a Las Vegas hotel room.” Twenty-five days after a sexual encounter between Flatley and Tyna Marie Robertson, Robertson called police to claim the encounter had been rape. According to the court ruling, “Mauro spent the next few months calling the dancer’s lawyers … threatening to ‘go public’ with the allegations, to ‘ruin’ Flatley and demanding $1 million for his and Robertson’s silence.” After Flatley sued Mauro for extortion, Mauro unsuccessfully invoked the protection of the state’s “SLAPP” (“Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation”) statute and also unsuccessfully claimed that his communications with Flatley’s lawyers were protected by the litigation privilege for lawyer-to-lawyer communication. “The only thing he did was represent his client,” said James Holmes, a lawyer for Mauro. “It’s all privileged.” The original lawsuit by Robertson was withdrawn after Flatley countersued. (Mike McKee, “Calif. Court Revives Lord of the Dance’s $100M Extortion Suit Against Lawyer”, The Recorder, Sept. 3). Update Jul. 30, 2006: Calif. high court agrees Flatley can sue.

Filed under: ,

Illinois court race: what it takes to win?

Careful about crossing the Litigation Lobby, cont’d: Dwight Kay, the finance chairman of Republican Lloyd Karmeier’s campaign in the hotly contested race for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court (see Aug. 29, etc.), is crying foul and suing two political consultants over a visit the two paid to the home of Kay’s ex-wife in which Kay says the two falsely represented themselves as disability investigators and sought to elicit information from her about the couple’s divorce. One of the two consultants, Doug Wojcieszak, heads up a group called Victims and Families United, which is backed by trial lawyers in Illinois’s famed Madison County and promotes their interests. Wojcieszak and co-defendant Tom Denton of Tactical Consulting in Carbondale deny the charges and call the suit politically motivated and an example of hypocrisy (Jim Muir, “Two local men accused of Constitutional rights violations”, Southern Illinoisan, Aug. 12; “Defendants say lawsuit politically motivated”, same date).

Per AP, “Wojcieszak admits visiting Diane Kay on July 13. He said he was looking into Dwight Kay’s legal past since the candidate Kay supports, Karmeier, ‘wants to limit others’ access to the courts. …Wojcieszak also denies allegations he was behind an incident of garbage rifling last spring outside the Okawville office of Sen. David Luechtefeld, a longtime friend of Karmeier’s and chairman of his campaign.” (Susan Skiles Luke, “Lawyers group to watch judicial election ads”, AP/Chicago Sun-Times, no longer online). Curiously, Wojcieszak “served for a year as the executive director of Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch, a tort-reform group” and later switched sides. (Illinois Times, May 27).

Filed under: , , ,

Ritter family’s malpractice suit

The family of John Ritter has sued Burbank’s Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, charging failure to diagnose and treat the late comedian’s aortic dissection in timely fashion, and medblogger Galen reacts in a less than sympathetic manner (Sept. 9, strong language; “Ritter family files wrongful death lawsuit”, SignOnSanDiego, Sept. 9). KevinMD (Sept. 10), Sydney Smith (Sept. 10) and Chris Rangel (Sept. 11) also weigh in, and the latter adds thoughts about the hospital death of Bee Gees member Maurice Gibb.

Filed under: , ,

Update: Oz high court agrees to review DVT case

Australia’s high court has agreed to review an appellate court decision (see Dec. 28) disallowing a a test case against Qantas and British Airways over so-called economy-class syndrome, the deep vein thrombosis suffered by a passenger after a long flight. A decision in favor of the claimant, businessman Brian Povey, could open the door to many more such suits against Australian airlines. (Ian Munro, “DVT case could open floodgates to stricken fliers”, Melbourne Age, Sept. 11). Update Jun. 25, 2005: high court dismisses case.

Filed under: ,

Update: James Blair Down case

More developments in the Madison County case (Mar. 25, etc.) that Prof. Lester Brickman called “the most abusive class-action settlement of the decade, if not the century.” “Circuit Judge Phillip J. Kardis approved on Thursday a plan to notify potential claimants in the suit against Canadian con man James Blair Down.” However, New York attorney Jody Pope, representing objectors, says class members are not receiving proper notification of their right to make claims. The case involves prominent plaintiff’s firms Ness Motley (now Motley Rice) and Korein Tillery. (Paul Hampel, “Suit against con man nears settlement”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 9).

Filed under: , , ,

Punitive-sharing: Arnie caves

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law a bill bestowing on the state a 75 percent share of punitive damage awards — but only after the details of the measure had been radically revamped in a manner highly unwelcome to critics of the litigation system. Negotiators agreed to a “lawyers eat first” principle, absent in the original proposal, which would guarantee private counsel a 25 percent share of the state’s take; they also stripped away a provision, much sought by defendants, which would have barred multiple punitive damages over a single course of conduct. Finally, they applied complicated time restrictions to the new law which makes it likely that it will cover relatively few actual cases unless later extended (“Governor Signs Bill Adopting Court Budget Reform, Giving State Share of Punitive Damages”, Metropolitan News-Enterprise, Aug. 18; Dan Walters, “Details torpedo Schwarzenegger’s budget gimmick on civil lawsuits”, Sacramento Bee, Sept. 8). George Wallace at Declarations and Exclusions has more. The state trial lawyers’ association, which styles itself Consumer Attorneys of California, declared itself “gratified” by the governor’s turnaround on the issue. (“Schwarzenegger’s Punitive Award Fund Part of Budget”, Bloomberg, Jul. 29, no longer online). More: Victor Schwartz, Mark Behrens and Cary Silverman have a paper on the subject from Washington Legal Foundation (Sept. 3, PDF). And Southern California Law Blog covered it Sept. 4.

Filed under: ,