The meter in the Enron bankruptcy just hit $700 million (Brendan I. Koerner, “Explainer: Who Pays Enron’s Legal Bills?”, Slate, Jul. 15)(see Dec. 6 and links from there). And it’s not as if the execs in the Pacific Gas & Electric bankruptcy are doing too shabbily for themselves either (David Lazarus, “Bankruptcy has its rewards for PG&E execs”, San Francisco Chronicle, Jul. 23).
Author Archive
Anonymous accusers (of the expert kind)
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
When a doctor is sued for malpractice in Illinois, another physician must sign a statement certifying the lawsuit has merit.
Moreover, the physician alleging malpractice must be an expert in the field. The idea is to prevent frivolous lawsuits.
But there’s a catch. The name of this expert physician is kept secret. …
When the expert’s name isn’t revealed, there’s no way for the defense to question his or her qualifications, said Robert Kane of the Illinois State Medical Society.
The plaintiff’s bar in Illinois is strenuously defending the right of their certifying experts to remain anonymous, saying they might face retaliation if they revealed their identities. However, it seems the current policy also has the convenient effect of insulating the lawyers themselves to some degree from accountability for misconduct:
Dr. William Sullivan, an emergency room physician at Advocate South Suburban Hospital, believes a certifying physician should not be able to hide behind anonymity. Sullivan once was sued at another hospital, along with about 10 other doctors, by the family of a woman who died from car accident injuries.
Sullivan said he was named as a defendant, even though his only involvement in the case was to insert an IV line. When the case against him was dropped, Sullivan, who is also an attorney, turned around and sued the woman’s law firm for “malicious prosecution.”
Sullivan also sued “physician John Doe,” the doctor who certified Sullivan had committed malpractice. Sullivan said he needed to interrogate Dr. Doe in order to prove the case against him had been frivolous. But Sullivan never was able to learn Dr. Doe’s identity, so he had to drop his case.
(Jim Ritter, “Doctors seek to lift veil on malpractice cases”, Chicago Sun-Times, Jul. 5 (link no longer online except as $ archives))(& letter to the editor, Jul. 26).
Alien Tort Claims Act
…discussed by Jim Copland at Point Of Law, here and here. Also discussion of tobacco litigation (here and here), asbestos bankruptcies and Wal-Mart. And of course my discussion with Michael Krauss of whether gun-suit pre-emption by Congress is compatible with the Constitution continues on the featured discussion page, with one more day left to go before we wrap things up.
Calif. state senator Joe Dunn
He made a fortune suing doctors, then moved up to the California State Senate as a Democrat representing Orange County communities including Anaheim, Santa Ana, Fullerton and Garden Grove. Now he’s one of the chief guardians of trial lawyer interests in Sacramento. Will he run for state attorney general in 2006? (Michael A. Glueck, “The runaway trial lawyer”, Jewish World Review, Jul. 9). Dunn was chief sponsor of the first-in-the-nation bill signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis last year, authorizing lawyers to file private damage suits over labor code violations; see Oct. 20.
Vermont and Alberta radio
On Monday I was again a guest on Laurie Morrow’s True North Radio show reaching listeners around Vermont and nearby states. And yesterday I was a guest on QR77 in Calgary, Alberta, on the afternoons with Dave Taylor, with guest host Rob Breakenridge substituting for Taylor. To book a broadcast interview on my book The Rule of Lawyers, email me directly or contact Jamie Stockton at the St. Martin’s/Griffin publicity department: 212-674-5151, ext. 502.
More guns, more federalism
My friendly debate at PointOfLaw.com with Prof. Michael Krauss of George Mason University on federalism and the gun pre-emption bill has now gone through two rounds and has attracted notice from Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review Online and from Jacob Sullum and Nick Gillespie at Reason “Hit and Run”. Check it out and you’ll learn more about the federal Commerce Clause, states’ tendency to engage in “beggar-your-neighbor” strategies on product liability, and the question of whether the failure of most of the municipal gun suits means we can relax about a threat to Second Amendment liberties.
“Aspiring doctors with learning disabilities file bias suit”
“Would-be California medical students with learning disabilities filed a discrimination suit Monday saying their prospects of becoming doctors are being thwarted because they aren’t given enough time on the medical school entrance exam.” Disability Rights Advocates in Oakland is backing the suit, which demands extra time and a distraction-free setting. (Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, Jul. 20). For more on the war on entrance exams and other educational admission standards, see Nov. 13 and links from there. More: RightRainbow. (& letter to the editor, Jul. 26)
“Public liability — a f?te worse than death”
Britain: the need for liability insurance is “the hidden, insidious enemy of variety in communal life”, choking off all manner of neighborhood get-togethers and local fun. Goodbye to a football barbecue: “In order to cover against someone contracting a stomach ailment and then deciding to sue, it would have cost the football club more than ?250 for one afternoon to run the barbecue”. Goodbye also to the local annual tradition of “pole-walking” on a greased telegraph pole in a seaside Welsh village, deemed uninsurable though no one had actually hurt themselves seriously doing it. And “no one dares go ahead without cover. It is happening everywhere: f?tes and fund-raising events shredded of anything that might carry potential for injury, and thus potential for fun.” (Jim White, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Jul. 5).
“Public liability — a f?te worse than death”
Britain: the need for liability insurance is “the hidden, insidious enemy of variety in communal life”, choking off all manner of neighborhood get-togethers and local fun. Goodbye to a football barbecue: “In order to cover against someone contracting a stomach ailment and then deciding to sue, it would have cost the football club more than ?250 for one afternoon to run the barbecue”. Goodbye also to the local annual tradition of “pole-walking” on a greased telegraph pole in a seaside Welsh village, deemed uninsurable though no one had actually hurt themselves seriously doing it. And “no one dares go ahead without cover. It is happening everywhere: f?tes and fund-raising events shredded of anything that might carry potential for injury, and thus potential for fun.” (Jim White, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Jul. 5).
“Public liability — a f?te worse than death”
Britain: the need for liability insurance is “the hidden, insidious enemy of variety in communal life”, choking off all manner of neighborhood get-togethers and local fun. Goodbye to a football barbecue: “In order to cover against someone contracting a stomach ailment and then deciding to sue, it would have cost the football club more than ?250 for one afternoon to run the barbecue”. Goodbye also to the local annual tradition of “pole-walking” on a greased telegraph pole in a seaside Welsh village, deemed uninsurable though no one had actually hurt themselves seriously doing it. And “no one dares go ahead without cover. It is happening everywhere: f?tes and fund-raising events shredded of anything that might carry potential for injury, and thus potential for fun.” (Jim White, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Jul. 5).