As mentioned in our last post, Stuart Taylor, Jr. has consented to let us reprint his point-by-point rebuttal to ATLA’s attack on his Dec. 15 Newsweek cover story “Lawsuit Hell” (see Dec. 8, Dec. 12, Dec. 15). We’ve split it into two posts of which this is the second.
Author Archive
Newsweek vs. ATLA: Stuart Taylor, Jr. responds (I)
Newsweek, as is typical for a newsweekly, published only a terse editorial response (see previous post) to the litigation lobby’s concerted attack on its reporting. However, Stuart Taylor, Jr., the distinguished veteran journalist who (with Evan Thomas) was principal author of the feature, has kindly consented to let us reprint his more detailed point-by-point rebuttal to ATLA’s official gripe catalogue, published under the title “Spin or Facts? A Look Behind Newsweek’s Series ‘Lawsuit Hell’“. Because of the length of Taylor’s response, we’ve split it into two posts, the first responding to the first six points of ATLA’s critique and the second responding to the rest. Check out in particular, under heading #6, ATLA’s false (and remarkably brazen) assertion that the Tillinghast study’s $233 billion estimate of the cost of the liability insurance sector includes “the cost of the entire property/casualty insurance industry” and in particular the cost of hurricanes and similar damage. (It doesn’t.)
Newsweek responds to trial lawyers
In response to the fusillade of abuse it got from trial lawyers and their allies over its Dec. 15 cover story “Lawsuit Hell” (see Dec. 8, Dec. 12, Dec. 15), Newsweek has now published (Jan. 12 issue) a short editor’s note (reprinted at end of this post) standing by its reporting as “both accurate and fair”. (More later today on this.)
ATLA, Public Citizen et al. had complained loudly about how the magazine reported a jury award against Stanford University’s hospital as being $70 million while supposedly concealing from readers that the “present value” of this future stream of outlays was only $8 million. Newsweek’s editors respond effectively to this charge, but we will add one further point to what they say, namely that other major press outlets likewise reported the (accurate) $70 million figure at the time of the Stanford verdict. ATLA would have looked rather silly had it made clear that its complaint was about the magazine’s having followed the lead of the AP, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Recorder (PDF reprint) on this point. More: Lawyers’ Weekly USA now trumpets the Stanford case under the $71 million banner as one of its “Top Ten Jury Verdicts of 2003“.
Newsweek’s editorial note follows:
Satanic abuse trials
Canada had them too, in places like Saskatoon and Martensville, Saskatchewan. Colby Cosh elucidates (“Which witch will we hunt next?”, National Post, Jan. 2)(his weblog)(our earlier coverage: Sept. 4, 1999, Apr. 17, 2001, etc.). More: Gerry Klein, “Saskatchewan not sorry for malicious prosecution: Family accused of sadistic child abuse”, CanWest/National Post, Jan. 9.
New reader letters
Latest batch includes letters upbraiding us for our ignorance of the Olympic sport of curling; calculating the impact of head-on crashes; wondering about how things may look when judges get awards; and offering a proposal for trial lawyer accountability.
As an experiment, we have occasionally been enabling comments to entries in our letters section. In the case of the letter we ran Dec. 14 on the Schwartz v. Citibank late-fee class action, this resulted in more reader discussion than we could have anticipated, with more than 80 readers putting in their two cents (or 5 cents, or 17 cents, depending on how big their refund was from the legal settlement). We’ve now closed the comments, but left the discussion intact.
Not with an Explorer, you don’t
“U-Haul International Inc. is forbidding its stores to rent trailers to customers who plan to tow with the Ford Explorer, saying it no longer can afford to defend product liability lawsuits linked to the best-selling SUV. … U-Haul — North America?s largest trailer rental company with more than 17,000 outlets — implemented the policy Dec. 22, saying the ban was not related to safety. ‘U-Haul has chosen not to rent behind this tow vehicle based on our history of excessive costs in defending lawsuits involving Ford Explorer towing combinations,’ the company told The Detroit News. … U-Haul has no ban on rentals to Mercury Mountaineer owners, although the vehicle is mechanically a carbon copy of the Explorer.” (Eric Mayne, “U-Haul rejects Explorers”, Detroit News, Jan. 8)(& letter to the editor, Mar. 18).
Another record traffic day
Yesterday set a new record for visitor traffic at this site, with 10,798 unique visitors (up from the 4,000-5,000 we get on a typical weekday) and something like 24,000 pages served. All we can say is that a whole lot of people read Walter Williams’s column.
Web accessibility: still waiting for a case
In October 2002 a federal judge ruled against a claim that Southwest Airlines had violated federal law by failing to make its web site fully accessible to disabled internet users; the judge said a Web site isn’t a “place of public accommodation” covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act because it isn’t a “place” at all. In large part because of that ruling, there hasn’t been the rush that many of us expected to file ADA complaints against online publications and e-commerce providers. But the National Council on Disability, a federal agency, put out a position paper last summer (Jul. 10) aimed at renewing the push to get ADA applied to the Web. And disability rights activists, who are conceding nothing, hope to re-litigate the issue. “‘The Southwest Airlines ruling has set back the process of trying to get Internet sites covered by the ADA,’ said Curtis Chong, who heads the computer science division of the National Federation of the Blind. ‘But one of these days we’ll find a better place to file a better suit and maybe try and get it taken care of.'” If that ever happens, all hell is likely to break out in the online world. (Mark Thompson, “Courts Yet to Make Definitive Ruling on Online Access for the Disabled”, Online Journalism Review, Dec. 10). In its update the magazine quotes at considerable length what I told a Congressional panel in Feb. 2000 (and even runs my picture). Update Feb. 8, 2006: NFB sues retailer Target under California state law.
Judge dismisses ethics case against Gary
Well, that was quick: “A judge Wednesday dismissed ethics complaints against prominent attorney Willie Gary and his partner. Circuit Judge Brian Lambert didn’t offer a reason for throwing out the case against Gary and Madison McClellan on the second day of a three-day hearing, although he had been considering several motions for dismissal, including one arguing there was a lack of evidence.” (see Jan. 5 and Apr. 1-2, 2002). “Judge dismisses ethics case against Willie Gary”, AP/Palm Beach Post, Jan. 7). (Note: this is AP’s corrected account, replacing an earlier version which affirmatively attributed the dismissal to lack of evidence.). More on the dismissal from Law.com: Harris Meyer, “Florida Judge Dismisses Ethics Case Against Willie Gary”, Miami Daily Business Review, Jan. 8. Update Sept. 5, 2005: underlying case and related litigation settle for sum upwards of $120 million.
In related matters, Evan Schaeffer, a plaintiff’s attorney practicing in fabled Madison County, Ill., links to our coverage of Gary and also recommends (as “antidote”) a Jonathan Harr New Yorker profile (PDF) which takes a rather more favorable view than we do of the Stuart, Fla.-based lawyer’s successes. And the St. Petersburg Times analyzes Gary’s recent $18 million win against Gannett in a “false light” defamation case (see Dec. 23; Mar. 30, 2001). The interesting thing about the “false light” doctrine is that it lets a publication be held liable for defamation even if all of the individual facts it printed were correct. (Stephen Nohlgren, “State: Case’s verdict shows truth no certain shield for media”, Jan. 4).
“Attack dog attorney”
Curmudgeonly Clerk, traveling along on a South Texas highway, sees a billboard for a law firm emblazoned with the words “Abogado Perro” –“Dog Lawyer” in Spanish — along with a picture of a snarling Doberman Pinscher. Doesn’t sound as if it was meant to solicit dog-bite cases, either. One of his commenters says a Dallas lawyer has a shark on the top of his building. (Jan. 5)