“Early in his career, officials found that Lieutenant [William] White had planted white powder on a suspect in a drug arrest, which cost him his job — though he won it back with the help of the police union.” White, who has headed the narcotics squad in the New Haven, Ct. police force, is now at the center of a widening corruption scandal. (Jennifer Medina, “For Connecticut Officer Charged With Theft, a Career of Ups and Downs”, New York Times, Mar. 15; “Bail set at $2 million for New Haven officer caught in sting”, AP/WTNH, Mar. 14; Mary E. O’Leary, “Ortiz: More arrests likely” (bail bonds angle), New Haven Register, Mar. 15).
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Stores for selling banned products
Paternalists aren’t going to like this idea: “let anything the government would have banned be sold only at special ‘would have banned’ stores, whose customers pass a test showing they understand that regulators disapprove. The reason we don’t allow such stores seems obvious: we expect people would shop there.” (Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias, Mar. 2)(via Cowen at Rev. Marge).
To protect, serve, and litigate
In 2001, Harry Ruiz, a municipal police officer in New Jersey, was called to a disturbance at a local ballroom, which had been rented by a nearby sports bar to televise some World Cup matches. By the time he responded, the altercation had moved onto the street outside the building. When he responded, he was assaulted by one of the patrons, and he received head and neck injuries which left him permanently disabled.
This, obviously, was the fault of the bar, as well as the owner of the ballroom. The claim? They failed to provide adequate security. To recap: a trained police officer responds to reports of violence, gets injured, and sues the owner of the premises on the theory that they should have had security guards at the site to protect him from the people he had come to arrest!
Traditionally, the Firefighters Rule meant that police and firefighters were not allowed to sue for injuries they incurred while doing their job, in part based on the theory that this was the risk they were paid to take. But this week, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that Ruiz could proceed with his lawsuit. Although the state Supreme Court here is generally considered the most activist in the country, it’s the state legislature at fault in this case. The court was simply straightforwardly interpreting the words of the 1994 statute which abolished the Firefighters Rule in New Jersey; a copy of the court opinion is here.
So, be careful when you call the police or fire department for help; you might find yourself being sued by the people who were supposed to be assisting you.
Walter previously covered an even more outrageous case involving this law: Nov. 2006.
Another Brockovich Medicare suit dismissed
This time it’s the federal court for the Eastern District of Tennessee that’s sent the glamourpuss bounty-hunter packing:
Plaintiff and his associate Erin Brockovich have filed 49 nearly identical complaints in jurisdictions across the country. Kris Hundley, Brockovich Teams Up With Local Firm, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 21, 2006. Many of these complaints have already been dismissed . . .
Roy F. Harmon III at Health Plan Law explains why this one failed too (Mar. 13). For more, see Jun. 22 and Nov. 18, 2006 as well as, on the general Brockovich phenomenon, my October 2000 treatment in Reason.
The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and… ATLA?
In October 2000, Al Qaeda attacked the U.S.S. Cole while it was attempting to refuel in Yemen; 17 American sailors died and 39 more were injured. The United States may not have retaliated militarily at the time, but in a federal court in Norfolk, Virginia, the families of the victims are now suing… the government of Sudan, for $105 million. Sudan, claiming immunity, has refused to take part in the litigation; this likely means that the plaintiffs will prevail, because they have produced some evidence linking Sudan to the attacks:
“Sudan basically gave [al-Qaida] the breath of life it needed,” terrorism consultant and former journalist Douglas Farah testified in a videorecorded deposition. Sudan’s secretive Islamic banking system made it easy for al-Qaida to launder its money, Farah said. After U.N. sanctions squeezed Sudan in early 1992, he said, al-Qaida bought gold and conflict diamonds in Sierra Leone.
Sudan allowed al-Qaida to operate training camps where recruits from other nations were assembled, trained and returned to their own countries as sleeper cells, Vidino said. One such cell — a group of Yemenis trained in Sudan — carried out the Cole attack, he said.
After international pressure forced bin Laden to leave Sudan for Afghanistan in 1996, al-Qaida remained in Sudan — and remains today, Farah said. He said the explosives used to blow a hole in the Cole probably were transported by boat from Port Sudan to Aden across the Gulf of Aden, unexamined by customs officials. He said he could think of no other source for them.
In a videorecorded deposition, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey said Sudan’s involvement in the Cole bombing was “more likely than not” — the legal standard of proof in the civil lawsuit. Vidino and Farah said they did not believe al-Qaida could have attacked the Cole without Sudan’s help.
Now, to say the least, I certainly have no sympathy for the Sudanese government, let alone Al Qaeda. And the connection between Sudan and Al Qaeda is much closer than, for instance, the terrorism-related lawsuits against banks (covered on Overlawyered on Jan. 2006, Feb. 2006, and Oct. 2006.) And if the Sudanese government is to blame for an attack on a U.S. military vessel, I have no problem with seizing that country’s assets and retaliating militarily. But it seems that those ought to be political decisions, not legal ones. Shouldn’t our foreign policy be conducted by the president, the State Department and/or the military, not by a federal judge and some members of ATLA?
(By the way, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer (you guessed it): “[M]oney has never really been the issue.” But you can’t blame activist lawyers or courts for this one; Congress has explicitly authorized these suits, by creating a “terrorist exception” to the standard rule of foreign government immunity from such lawsuits.)
Incidentally, the lawyer for the plaintiffs seems to specialize in cases such as these; he previously represented American hostages in a successful lawsuit against Iraq and American prisoners in a lawsuit against Libya.
“The Henry Ford of Evictions”
The Los Angeles Times profiles a lawyer who specializes in representing Los Angeles landlords:
In a DVD he gives to landlords, Block describes himself this way: “A man who has evicted more tenants than any other human being on the planet Earth.”
[…]
That’s where Block comes in. He has dedicated his considerable creativity and intelligence to helping landlords evict tenants from rent-stabilized buildings. He boasts that his firm has filed more than 130,000 cases since 1980, a year after rent stabilization went into effect. He helps landlords identify minor violations — a pet fish in an aquarium, a brightly painted bathroom, an extra occupant — to toss out long-term tenants who are paying below market for their homes.
Because L.A.’s rent stabilization laws prohibit landlords from raising rents anywhere near market value until a tenant vacates the apartment, and the only way to force a tenant to vacate is to evict them based on “good cause,” Dennis Block can make a living filing 5,000 eviction cases a year. Rent control as full employment for lawyers.
Don’t let the lawyers bite
An Arkansas woman staying at a hotel claims she was bitten by bed bugs. Certainly grounds to demand a refund, if true. Or, you could claim to be traumatized by the experience, and file a lawsuit. Mental anguish, embarrassment and humiliation? Is that it? Couldn’t they pile on any more claims from a few bug bites?
Suing everyone on the masthead
Careful, you might wind up suing the cat (Alex Wade, “It wasn’t me, guv – I’m just the office cat”, Times Online, Mar. 9).
Scheduled to be on CNN
I’m not saying anything that any regular blog-reader doesn’t already know, and I could well be bumped if Britney Spears goes shopping, but I taped an interview about the U.S. Attorney firings scheduled to be on CNN’s 7pm (Eastern) news if you have a morbid curiosity what I look and sound like on tv when I have a cold and only four hours of sleep.
Update: Ended up on the cutting room floor, apparently. Hope no one sat through an hour of Wolf Blitzer on my account.
“Business has not trounced the trial lawyers”
My latest column in the Times Online explains why Business Week and some other media outlets are being at best premature (and that’s putting it diplomatically) in declaring the American plaintiff’s bar down for the count. Opening excerpt:
America’s litigation fever is cooling off, or so one hears. Merck & Co is doing reasonably well defending suits over its painkiller Vioxx, while actions blaming foodmakers for obesity have sputtered. Doctors’ malpractice-suit payouts are said to be flat (at what by other countries’ standards are still unthinkably high levels). Last month, the Supreme Court ruled on a punitive damage case in favor of tobacco giant Philip Morris, which has become a Wall Street favorite after wrestling down its perceived legal risks. Nearly every American politician claims to be on board with reform, even the nation’s most famous plaintiff’s-lawyer-made-good: “We do have too many lawsuits”, said John Edwards during the 2004 Presidential debates. A recent Business Week cover sums it up: “How Business Trounced the Trial Lawyers”.
And yet one wonders whether a contest is being called prematurely. … To call a high-water mark is going to require more evidence than we’ve seen so far.
P.S. Other reactions to the Business Week cover story came from Bizzyblog (“Year’s Most Unintentionally Comical”), Roger Parloff (article itself was better than headline), and me at Point of Law (see also this WSJ column).