Not quite the infallible science it seemed, as many were beginning to grasp even before the fiasco of the Brandon Mayfield case. (Jennifer L. Mnookin (University of Virginia Law School), “The Achilles’ Heel of Fingerprints”, Washington Post, May 29). More: David Feige, “Printing problems”, Slate, May 27.
Author Archive
NYC lead-paint law begins wreaking havoc
Exactly as predicted (see Dec. 15, Feb. 13): “Two months before it goes into effect on Aug. 2, the city’s new lead-paint legislation has caused nonprofit groups and private developers to shelve plans to redevelop buildings for low- and moderate-income tenants. … Frank Anelante, president of Lemle & Wolf, a developer and manager of lower-income apartments, primarily in the Bronx, said he had halted the rehabilitation of two five-story walk-ups in upper Manhattan because the procedures required by the law made apartment reconstruction impractical.” According to John M. McCarthy, executive vice president of the Community Preservation Corporation, the largest provider of mortgages for the city’s older midsize apartment buildings, the new law “leaves owners extremely vulnerable to damages in a lawsuit. We can’t provide mortgages under those circumstances unless the owner is able to get insurance at a reasonable cost.” (Alan S. Oser, “Lead-Paint Law Frustrates Plans for Low-Income Housing”, New York Times, May 28).
Publication day
Today is official publication day for the paperback edition of my book The Rule of Lawyers: How the New Litigation Elite Threatens America’s Rule of Law, which came out in hardcover last year. (Amazon is still listing it as forthcoming, but I’ve seen advance copies and shipments should be arriving at stores.) If you’ve only read the hardcover version, you’re missing the newly written Afterword in which I talk about the fast-food litigation, Texas’s comprehensive lawsuit reform, and many other recent topics. C’mon, order your copy today — or better yet, a bunch of copies to distribute to readers who need to catch up on this topic.
Ala.: trial lawyers bankroll “Ten Commandments” backers
Seven leading plaintiff’s law firms, which ordinarily donate to Democrats, have made themselves the leading backers of a so-called “Ten Commandments slate” of candidates for the Alabama Supreme Court backed by ousted Chief Justice Roy Moore, a hero to some on the religious right. Firms including Beasley, Allen of Montgomery; Cunningham, Bounds of Mobile; and Hare, Wynn, Newell and Newton of Birmingham have (through PACs) contributed 98 percent of the funding of Republican candidates Pam Baschab and Jerry Stokes, and about 44 percent of the support for Tom Parker. All three are running in the GOP primary against business-backed candidates. (Kyle Wingfield, “Parker, Baschab, Stokes get nearly $1 million from trial lawyers”, AP/AlabamaLive, May 28; Stan Bailey, “Brown spends over $1 million on race”, Birmingham News/AlabamaLive, May 28; Shaila K. Dewan, “The Big Name in Alabama’s Primary Isn’t on the Ballot”, New York Times, May 30). Update Jun. 4: one of the Moore-backed candidates wins.
One gateway latte, hold the sugar
“If you’re not alarmed by this situation [the availability of temptingly dessert-like coffee drinks at Starbucks] because you think coffee is no big deal, you must not be aware of the fact that the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has identified caffeine as a gateway drug. Last year it reported that ‘girls and young women who drink coffee are significantly likelier than girls and young women who do not to be smokers…and drink alcohol.'” (Jacob Sullum, “Bad Taste”, syndicated/Reason Online, May 28; Reason “Hit and Run”, May 24).
Blue-ribbon excuses: post-traumatic slavery syndrome
By reader acclaim, from Oregon: “A Portland lawyer says suffering by African Americans at the hands of slave owners is to blame in the death of a 2-year-old Beaverton boy. Randall Vogt is offering the untested theory, called post traumatic slave syndrome, in his defense of Isaac Cortez Bynum, who is charged with murder by abuse in the June 30 death of his son, Ryshawn Lamar Bynum. Vogt says he will argue — ‘in a general way’ — that masters beat slaves, so Bynum was justified in beating his son.” However, attorney Vogt may find it a challenge to secure the admissibility of the slavery-trauma theory, which has been accepted by neither the courts nor the psychiatric profession. Washington County Circuit Judge Nancy W. Campbell threw out pretrial testimony by Joy DeGruy-Leary, an assistant professor in the Portland State University Graduate School of Social Work, to the effect that the brutality of slavery, together with continuing racism, oppression and societal inequality, helps explain self-destructive, violent or aggressive behavior in African-Americans. Judge Campbell said she would reconsider allowing the defense in Bynum’s September trial, but only “if his lawyer can show the slave theory is an accepted mental disorder with a valid scientific basis and specifically applies to this case.” (Holly Danks, “Judge rejects slave trauma as defense for killing”, The Oregonian, May 31). According to David Bernstein, writing two years ago, the standards for admission of expert testimony in Oregon are not as tight as might be wished (“Disinterested in Daubert: State Courts Lag Behind In Opposing ‘Junk’ Science”, Washington Legal Foundation (PDF) Legal Opinion Letter, Jun. 21, 2002)(search on “Oregon” or scroll to near end of piece).
Virginia primitive, round 5
Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review Online (“The Corner”, May 18) has written in defense of the new Virginia statute, much criticized in this space, which declares null and void within the state not only civil unions but also any “partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage” (Mar. 19, Apr. 18, Apr. 23, May 12). As I noted two weeks ago, given the unclarity of the law’s drafting, a prolonged guessing game about its meaning may be inevitable; but some guesses are more plausible than others.
Australia: “Personal injury claims plummet”
Yes, it can happen: following the enactment of sweeping state-level liability reforms, the rate of personal-injury filings in Australia is way down and legal practices are closing or shrinking as business declines. In the state of Victoria, claims over public liability, assault, dog bites, slip-falls and school accidents have dropped sharply and a total of 19 medical negligence claims were filed in the six months to April 29, down from “hundreds of claims two years before”. (Fergus Shiel, Melbourne Age, May 11). In the state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, “The court’s Chief Judge, Reg Blanch, said statements of claim had fallen from a record 20,784 in 2001 to just under 8000 last year. …There are now only minor delays in bringing on a civil case, with the exception of motor vehicle claims, which require more documentation.” (Michael Pelly, “Lawyers in job void as claims drop”, Sydney Morning Herald, May 8). For more on the excesses which led to a public re-examination of “compensation culture” Down Under, see our Australia page.
Triple whammy for tobacco
Bad legal news comes in threes for cigarette makers: federal judge Gladys Kessler has ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice will be allowed to ask for disgorgement of $280 billion in past tobacco industry profits in the federal racketeering case against the industry (Nancy Zuckerbrod, “Judge: Government Can Seek Tobacco Profits”, AP/Washington Post, May 24)(more on suit). Health-program recoupment suits similar to those successfully pressed by state governments in the U.S. have been almost uniformly rejected in foreign courts, but an exception may be shaping up in Canada, where an appeals court in the province of British Columbia has just given its go-ahead to such a suit (Rod Mickleburgh, “Court upholds B.C.’s right to launch ‘big tobacco’ suit”, The Globe and Mail, May 21). And: “In the first verdict of its kind in the nation, a New Orleans jury decided Friday that four big tobacco companies should pay $591 million for a comprehensive, 10-year smoking-cessation program for a half-million or so of their Louisiana customers.” (Susan Finch, “Jury tells tobacco firms to pay up”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 22). More: On a somewhat brighter note, the California Assembly has narrowly defeated the scary bill sponsored by Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh and backed by the American Lung Association that would have prohibited parents from smoking in cars in which their children were riding (see Apr. 30) (Steve Lawrence, “Assembly rejects bill to bar smoking in cars carrying young kids”, AP/SignOnSanDiego, May 28); for more news on secondhand smoke controversies, see updates appended to post of Oct. 16, 2003 (scroll to end).
Suing Atkins for publicity
An animal-rights group that calls itself the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is assisting a disappointed dieter in suing the Atkins people over allegedly failing to warn that levels of bad cholesterol can rise on a meat-rich diet. A torts professor quoted by the Times says the complaint “reads as if it were done by someone who is doing it for reasons of publicity rather than private gain”, and even the named plaintiff pretty much admits that it’s more about headline-seeking than anything else. (Marian Burros, “Dieter Sues Atkins Estate and Company”, New York Times, May 27). Does the self-proclaimed Physicians Committee want publicity, then? Here’s some: National Council Against Health Fraud, Brian Carnell, Center for Consumer Freedom commentary and press release, ActivistCash.com . Together these links tell you all you probably need to know about the PCRM, which has also been extensively quoted in the press as a cheerleader for lawsuits against McDonald’s and other burger chains. Plus: yet more from CCF.