Stuart Taylor, Jr. takes a hard look at the Kerry/Edwards ticket and weighs the likelihood that it will do much to rein in the litigation biz. Quotes my comment comparing Sen. Edwards to a cleaned-up Michael Moore (“Edwards and the Problem with the Trial-Lawyer Lobby”, National Journal/Atlantic Online, Jul. 13). At Salon, reporter Tim Grieve pens an all-out defense of Edwards which is kind enough to quote me in two places (“The GOP war on trial lawyers”, Jul. 13 (subscription or ad-based “day pass”)). And the Dallas Morning News, in the person of editorial columnist Rod Dreher, includes this site in a short list of recommended weblogs, coincidentally quoting an item of mine on locally based lawyer Fred Baron and his involvement with this year’s Democratic ticket (“Welcome to the blogosphere”, Jun. 23).
Author Archive
Products we don’t see
“Another measure of the magnitude of the high cost of lawsuit abuse is the number of products and services that have been withdrawn from the U.S. market due to fear of liability, irrationally applied. Volvo, for example, makes an integrated child booster seat that is not sold in the U.S. because of product liability concerns….
“Similarly, fears of silicone implant lawsuits in America caused Japanese silicone makers to quit production of silicone coating for hypodermic needles, which reduces the pain of an injection. The director of one of these firms stated, ‘We’re sure our product is safe, but we don?t want to risk a lawsuit.’…
? Monsanto Company abandoned the planned production of a safe, biodegradable, and effective reinforcing phosphate fiber that would have been a substitute for asbestos.
? Union Carbide decided to forego developing a suitcase-sized kidney dialysis unit and offering intravenous equipment.
? Sunstar, a health-spa manufacturer, decided not to market a safety device due to a liability-related increase in its insurance costs. The product would have set off an alarm every time the cover of a spa was opened. Because the product was a safety device, only one insurance company was willing to write a policy.
— Excerpted from Steven B. Hantler (DaimlerChrysler Corporation), “The Seven Myths of Highly Effective Plaintiff’s Lawyers”, Manhattan Institute Civil Justice Memo #42, Apr. (PDF) (more on paper)
William Lerach and Milberg Weiss
…and the kind of coverage they get in the New York Times, discussed on Point Of Law this morning.
Canada: no psychic-trauma damages for rescuer
“A former Canadian sailor will not be allowed to sue Swissair for the trauma he suffered following the crash of Flight 111 in 1998, a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge ruled today. Lorne Joudrey, 40, had argued that the airline should compensate him for the psychological damage that resulted from his role in the recovery operation in the days after the jet plunged into the ocean near Peggy’s Cove, N.S., killing all 229 people aboard.” (“Ex-sailor can’t sue Swissair over trauma”, Canadian Press/Toronto Star, Jul. 7). For a similar ruling from a federal judge in New Mexico, see Apr. 1.
“Naming a character after a famous person costs writer $15 million”
That’s Eugene Volokh’s capsule summary (Jul. 12) of the jury result reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Tony Twist, the former rock ’em-sock ’em Blues hockey player, was awarded $15 million Friday by a jury that concluded comic book artist Todd McFarlane had profited by using Twist’s name without his permission. McFarlane, formerly the principal artist and writer of Spiderman comics, gave the name Tony Twist to a violent New York mob boss in McFarlane’s Spawn comics in the early 1990s.” (Peter Shinkle, “Tony Twist wins $15 million verdict”, Jul. 10). Brian J. Noggle also comments.
The men behind Edwards
I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal arguing that the scariest thing about John Edwards (see Feb. 19 and many other links on this site) is the “tightly organized fund-raising and electoral machine” he has constructed most of whose key backers “are drawn from the tiny handful of tort lawyers even more successful than he”. In particular, four of the most powerful men behind Edwards — Fred Baron, John O’Quinn, Tab Turner, and Paul Minor — personify in various ways some of the most objectionable features of today’s personal-injury litigation scene. (Walter Olson, “Edwards & Co.”, Jul. 12, paid subscribers only)(free OpinionJournal.com version).
Defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment
George Will, Lynne Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudolph Giuliani, and Bob Barr are all on record opposing this wretched would-be Constitutional amendment, and they’re right. See Faith Bremner, “Conservatives opposing marriage amendment”, Gannett News Service/The Coloradoan, Dec. 11, 2003. For our earlier posts on the subject, see Feb. 20 and Feb. 25. For a comeback to the ripely absurd “FMA is needed to bolster fertility rates” argument, see Jacob Levy, Volokh Conspiracy, (Jul. 9); for some ribbing of social conservatives who seem determined to borrow the “precautionary principle” from enviro absolutists for this occasion, see Jane Galt’s co-blogger “Mindles H. Dreck” (Jul. 8, Jul. 9). “As for the gay Republicans whose votes Mr. Bush might then lose, Mr. Weyrich [Paul Weyrich, prominent in the Washington religious right] wrote, ‘Good riddance.'” (Carl Hulse and David D. Kirkpatrick, “Senate Braces Itself for Fight on Gay Marriage”, New York Times, Jul. 9). And the same kind sentiments to you, sir!
More: And the Chicago Tribune (Jul. 13), and the Wall Street Journal, and Richard Epstein…. Update Jul. 14: defeated 48-50 on procedural vote. Yet more: Dale Carpenter (U. of Minn. Law School), “The Federal Marriage Amendment: Unnecessary, Anti-federalist, and Anti-democratic”, Cato Institute White Papers, Sept. 23; Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), “The Marriage Amendment Is a Terrible Idea”, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 28 ($).
Review: “The Wisdom of Crowds”
In Sunday’s New York Post, I favorably review James Surowiecki’s new book The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations (though I didn’t like the title and think it leaves anything but an accurate impression of the book’s contents). (Walter Olson, “Mob Wisdom”, Jul. 11). On-topic snippet: Surowiecki offers an account (among much else) of “why juries, political factions or artistic coteries that start out with similar leanings can talk each other into more extreme positions than any of them took originally”.
Spoliation at the U.P. line
“In one recent 18-month period, seven federal and state courts imposed sanctions on Union Pacific, the nation’s biggest railroad, for destroying or failing to preserve evidence in crossing accidents, and an eighth court ordered a case retried. One sanction has since been overturned on appeal.” Big New York Times front-pager endorses charges from plaintiff’s bar that the railroad has been less than diligent in preserving potentially unhelpful evidence after rail-motor vehicle crashes (Walt Bogdanich, “In Deaths at Rail Crossings, Missing Evidence and Silence”, Jul. 11).
News of diocesan bankruptcies
Sign of the times: Bankruptcy Creditors’ Service, Inc., has launched a new publication entitled Catholic Church Bankruptcy News, its mission being to keep track of legal proceedings in the case of the insolvency of the Diocese of Portland, Oregon, and whatever other dioceses or church institutions follow the same path into Chapter 11 under pressure from abuse claims. Subscribers will have to pay $45 for each issue, expected to appear approximately every 10 to 20 days, but a sample issue can be perused for free. (via Amy Welborn). One of the claimants suing the Portland diocese over abuse, whose trial had been set for Jul. 6 until stayed by the bankruptcy filing, is demanding $135 million; another wants $36.5 million. For more, see Ashbel S. Green, “Church bankruptcy and the courts”, Religion News Service/Salt Lake Tribune, Jul. 10.