Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

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Lawyer conceals client’s death from opponent

Only after the settlement was in hand did a Minnesota lawyer let slip the rather material fact that his client had some time back departed this earthly frame. [Minneapolis Star-Tribune “The Whistleblower” via ABA Journal] Ironically, the lawyer was suing over a credit report that had mistakenly reported his client as dead (back when he was alive). The lawyer, who had been disciplined seven other times, has now been barred from working for a year.

More: Discussion in comments at Legal Ethics Forum, including Prof. Monroe Freedman: “I disagree with [this kind of] result.”

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Court asked to force couple to use township water

The court ruled a while back that an elderly Claysburg, Pa.-area couple, Donald R. and Janet Burket, are legally obliged to hook into the Greenfield Township water system. “They have done that and they are paying the standard monthly rate for township water, but the Burkets contend that while they are hooked into the system, they should not be required to actually use the water for daily living purposes.” Janet Burket says the chlorine bothers her, and the township has gone back to court in search of a court order compelling them to use public water “for all human consumption in the residence,” on pain of contempt fines. [Altoona Mirror, editorial; mediator assigned]

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Salt reactions

  • The report in the Washington Post that the Food and Drug Administration intends to work toward mandatory limits on salt in processed food provoked some negative public reaction, and now the agency has issued a public statement not exactly denying the story, but complaining that it “leaves a mistaken impression that the FDA has begun the process of regulating the amount of sodium in foods. The FDA is not currently working on regulations nor has it made a decision to regulate sodium content in foods at this time.” Emphasis added to point out the cagey phrasings: there is no denial that the agency’s leadership intends to do all these things in the future, exactly as the Post reported.
  • In what is known as coordinated publicity, the trial balloon, if a trial balloon it was, was sent up to coincide with the release of a large National Institute of Medicine report pushing for salt reductions. More: WSJ Health Blog;
  • In more coordinated publicity, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Ct.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Ia.) held a conference call with reporters demanding that the agency move faster to regulate salt. “I don’t want this to take 10 years. … This is a public health crisis,” said DeLauro (via Carter Wood at ShopFloor, who comments and in a separate post points out some CSPI lawyer angles);
  • Welcome listeners from Ray Dunaway’s morning show on WTIC Hartford, where I discussed these issues this morning.
  • And here’s an apparently new group calling itself “My Food, My Choice” that has come up with a good epithet for NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s squad of food regulators: “bland-lords“.
  • More: Stanley Goldfarb, Weekly Standard.

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Too late

Sorry, says the West Virginia high court, but renewing your lapsed auto insurance policy the day after your crash won’t fly [WV Record] The decision reversed a lower court ruling ordering Progressive Insurance to pay the claim, which had been filed not by the driver but by a bank and car dealer.

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