There’s already a class action demanding medical monitoring. [Dionne Searcey, WSJ Law Blog]
Author Archive
“Rape by deception” in Israel
“A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.” [Guardian] Rape by deception is a crime in many although not all jurisdictions, with impersonation of a woman’s husband or lover being one classic fact pattern giving rise to charges; two years ago, in a debate over such a law in Massachusetts, critics expressed unease about which other sorts of misrepresentations might be reached as well [CBS News]
As for the civil-law side, a few years back (to quote from the manuscript of my forthcoming book Schools for Misrule):
a Northwestern law professor, building on the undeniable fact that many persons behave badly on the dating market, proposed as a remedy the development of a new tort of “sexual fraud,” which would allow lawsuits for cash damages against persons who use lies or insincerity to get others to sleep with them (“Of course I’m not married.”) It was one of the year’s most widely hailed and talked-about articles.
More: Max Fisher, Atlantic Wire (rounding up reactions); Eugene Volokh (including link to discussion of Massachusetts bill). And: comments from Andrew Sullivan’s readers.
“Crazy claims no reason to reject class action, lawyer says”
“Ludicrous claims shouldn’t have caused U.S. District Joseph Goodwin to reject a class action over economic damages from heart medicine Digitek, according to Fred Thompson of Motley Rice.” [Chamber-backed WV Record] The background of the court action is interesting too:
Litigation began in 2008, after Actavis Totowa discovered 20 pills of double thickness in a batch at its plant in Little Falls, New Jersey.
Actavis Totowa recalled the batch, and no plaintiff has produced a double thick pill.
Some plaintiffs nevertheless claimed personal injuries and wrongful death. Others claimed only economic damages.
Thompson sought certification of a national economic damages class or single state classes in West Virginia, New Jersey, Kansas and Kentucky.
Judge Goodwin found that the claimants were too disparate in their posture to be joined appropriately as members of a single class; some had put in for the cost of such things as eyeglasses and enemas.
“The Nation’s Worst Attorneys General”
At only #3, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal demands a recount [Hans Bader, CEI, PDF]
NHTSA consumer complaint Hall of Fame
P.S. More seriously, Fumento has a piece out in the new Forbes about how weaknesses in the NHTSA consumer database helped fuel the Toyota panic. He provides damning details about how press outlets like CBS News, the L.A. Times and U.S. News turned “a motley collection of anecdotes, many of them absurd” in which “anybody can enter anything” into assertions that Toyota acceleration has “caused” or “led to” 89 or more deaths. Read it here, with more at CEI.
Mortgage watchdog site, sued by critics, may go broke
“A SLAPP statute that depends on a finding that the suit was brought in bad faith is nearly worthless,” writes Paul Alan Levy of a Maryland enactment that was not enough to save the publisher of the “Mortgage Lender Implode-o-Meter” blog. [Consumer Law & Policy, more, earlier here and here, h/t @petewarden]
“Patent marking” lawsuit craze
Now it’s caught up with Apple. Earlier here, here, here, etc. More: video from Washington Legal Foundation.
“The Regulatory Avalanche From Washington, D.C.”
New obligations and liabilities for employers, as catalogued by the law firm of Ogletree Deakins.
“When the Victim Is the Criminal”
Scott Greenfield relates the case of a California woman who found it only too easy to engineer criminal charges over fictitious harassment. “Notice that it was left to the defendants to investigate? That’s because the police already had their perps in custody. … It really can’t be this easy for someone to hatch a scheme and use the machinery of the legal system to her own advantage.” [Orange County Register]
Update: New York bill banning short-term rentals
Advocates have been hawking the ban in the state legislature as a tenant protection measure. To their dismay, however, Gov. Paterson has signaled that he intends to veto the bill. [NYT, earlier] The Times travel section had a story over the weekend praising the new kind of “Social B&B” arrangement as a welcome travel bargain, but the newspaper does not seem to have realized that there is any connection between its two articles.