Throw one at me. (Annabel Crabb, “Phone throw earns Crowe victim $14m”, Sun-Herald/Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 14). More: Mike at Crime and Federalism (Aug. 14). Update Aug. 28: sources tell the New York Daily News the settlement was in the low six figures, far below the sum quoted in earlier reports.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
L.A. Times on “lawsuit urban legends”, cont’d
A few further thoughts on the absurdly one-sided Los Angeles Times piece that Ted nails below:
To me, the most outrageous moment in the piece comes early, when GWU lawprof Jonathan Turley is quoted saying of stories like the bogus “Winnebago cruise control” tale: “The people that created these stories did so with remarkable skill,” that skill being aimed at “influencing policy”. Turley thus clearly implies that the silly Winnebago story, or the list of supposed “Stella Awards”, or both, were purposely fabricated by sinister if unknown persons in order to influence policy debates, as opposed to, say, originally being someone’s idea of satire and then being passed along by people who wrongly believed them genuine. LAT reporter Myron Levin permits this very serious charge of deliberate fabrication to hang in the air unexamined and unanswered, which does much to set the tone of his piece.
Yet Prof. Turley, a figure much quoted in the press and frequently on camera, offers precisely zero evidence to back up his serious charge that someone deliberately made up the Winnebago/Stella stories and passed them off as real in hopes of influencing policy. Okay, Prof. Turley, either document that charge, or retract it — or else face a very reasonable suspicion that you yourself are willing to fabricate serious charges for which you lack any evidence.
The Association of Trial Lawyers of America for months has been pushing the theme that the L.A. Times ran with today and it, too, offers not the slightest evidence for its claim that someone purposely fabricated the Winnebago/Stella stories to influence policy debates. ATLA’s floating of that theme (“Updated
February 2005”) can be found here (claiming stories are “designed [emphasis added] to perpetuate the myth that there is a ‘lawsuit crisis’ in America … clearly are part of a massive disinformation campaign designed to undermine Americans’ confidence in our legal system,” etc., etc.) Curiously, for an article that raises concerns about supposed attempts by well-organized groups to influence press coverage, the LAT story never mentions ATLA at all, merely alluding vaguely to trial lawyers in a place or two.
Much of this is of course old news to readers of Overlawyered, which four years ago printed an extensive debunking of the bogus stories that the L.A. Times says legal reformers are eager to circulate. We know through referrer traffic that large numbers of web users continue to land on our entry by searching on strings such as “winnebago + cruise control + lawsuit” (& welcome Patterico, Gail Heriot, Southern California Law Blog readers).
“Legal Urban Legends Hold Sway”?
The Los Angeles Times begins a series on “tall tales of outrageous jury awards.” The Times mentions in particular the “Winnebago cruise control lawsuit” urban legend, and suggests the tort reform movement is based on false tales like that one. One problem with their theory: Google the Winnebago lawsuit, and you’ll find that the only people vast majority of the leading sites* mentioning that entertaining (but false) story are… people pointing out that it is an urban legend. Jonathan Turley has done more to spread the story through his USA Today article insulting the tort-reform movement than anyone else. There are thousands of true tales of lawsuits on Overlawyered.com equally ludicrous, without the need to resort to the Winnebago story. It’s the litigation lobby that has made the most out of the Winnebago story, because by focusing on the occasional made-up tale, they can avoid addressing the real stories of abuse.
But you wouldn’t know it from the appallingly one-sided Los Angeles Times story. The reporter interviews Jonathan Turley, Joanne Doroshow of the trial-lawyer-friendly Center for Justice & Democracy, and tort reform opponent Theodore Eisenberg of Cornell, before giving Victor Schwartz a sentence at the end. The newspaper even cites the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit as a legitimate result by uncritically repeating the standard ATLA characterization of the litigation. “‘The irony about the McDonald’s case is that it actually, in my view, was a meaningful and worthy lawsuit,’ George Washington University’s Turley said. Yet advocates and pundits have ‘made it synonymous with court abuse.'” (Perhaps because it is court abuse. At least fourteen out of fifteen courts who have heard identical coffee-spill cases have disagreed with Turley.) (Myron Levin, Aug. 14).
[Aug. 17 update: Since I posted this, Google reshuffled its rankings, so now we have the self-referential problem that many of the leading Winnebago lawsuit sites are now referring to this page or the LA Times article. In addition, a couple of pages uncritically repeating the glurge have snuck their way into the top thirty, so it’s more accurate to say that anyone looking up the story on the Internet, where the lawsuit story is supposedly “pervasive,” can’t help but discover that it’s false. Furthermore, the point remains that (1) no serious tort-reform organization is pushing this story (except to refute it, as Overlawyered did four years ago); (2) the Winnebago story is not “widely accepted,” because one has to search through thousands of articles and opinion pieces to find a handful of columnists who made a quickly-retracted claim; (3) the LA Times ignores far more pervasive urban legends that are used to argue against tort reform; and (4) the LA Times is guilty of spreading a one-sided and misleading account of the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit. Other discussion: Aug. 14, Aug. 15, Aug. 16.]
McDonald’s coffee revisited, August 2005 edition
One of the great urban legends perpetuated by the trial bar is that the ludicrous McDonald’s coffee case (Dec. 10, 2003; Aug. 3, 2004; Aug. 4, 2004, etc.) was somehow worthwhile because McDonald’s “lowered the temperature of its coffee” after it lost the case over Stella Liebeck’s burns. This claim is repeated by hundreds and perhaps thousands of web pages, and at least one tort-law casebook used in law schools.
Not so. Restaurants, much to the relief of consumers, continue to serve coffee hotter than the 140 degrees Stella Liebeck’s attorney thought should be the maximum limit. And, one time in several million, a customer is burnt by the coffee, and some fraction of those result in lawsuits. Latest examples: Rachel Wehrenberg of Florida is suing William F. Ganshirt and McDonald’s for second-degree burns suffered by her daughter when Ganshirt spilled his coffee on six-year-old Victoria’s back after the two collided; and Russian Olga Kuznetsova is suing McDonald’s for second-degree burns she suffered when she spilled coffee on herself while trying to exit the restaurant. The Naples News uncritically repeats attorney Debi Chalik’s false assertion that “industry standard” is “140 degrees.” The Russian lawsuit is over whether the restaurant’s door caused the spill; there does not appear to be a claim that the coffee was unreasonably hot just because it caused burns. Interestingly, there appear to be delays in the Russian case because the expert witness was found to have had contact with the plaintiff’s attorney, a common practice here that is an apparent nyet-nyet in Russia. (Kristen Zambo, “Mother sues McDonald’s claiming coffee burned daughter”, Bonita Daily News, Aug. 6; “Russian woman claims million for a cup of McDonald’s coffee”, Pravda (English), Aug. 9; Andrey Kolesnikov, “Not Fraud, Just Clumsiness”, Kommersant, Jul. 28).
“Five orphaned siblings suing home makeover show”
Five orphaned siblings who received gifts and a new dream home on the hit ABC television show “Extreme Makeover, Home Edition” are suing the network, the company that built the house and the couple who took them in after their parents died.
The lawsuit is rooted in a falling out between the children -– who range in age from 15 to 22 -– and the couple, Phil and Loki Leomiti. The children ultimately moved out of the Leomitis’ home in Santa Fe Springs, a small city southeast of Los Angeles, and are living separately with friends, said Charles Higgins II, the eldest sibling….
Their lawsuit alleges that the Leomitis engaged in “an orchestrated campaign” to drive them away by insulting them and treating them poorly.
“We were promised a home,” said Charles Higgins II. “They broke that promise.”
[Patrick] Mesisca, the attorney [for the children], acknowledged Wednesday that the siblings were never promised a house in writing. But the network’s statements and actions could legally be considered a promise, he said.
(AP/San Diego Union-Tribune, Aug. 11). Jeff at Southern California Law Blog comments (Aug. 10): “Seems to me that ABC has no responsibility to manage the relationship between the kids and their adoptive family. But hey, that’s just me.”
Unisex pricing reaches Ontario
A ban on the charging of different prices for men’s and women’s services, a bad idea already enacted in California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Miami and New York City, may soon be the law in Ontario if pending legislation is approved. One supporter thinks it’s unfair for hairdressers to charge more for women’s cuts than men’s, and it’s apparently beside the point that most women’s cuts are more complicated and take longer to perform. Ditto with women’s clothes at dry cleaners, which are less standardized and more likely to require individualized handling. Of course many discounts run in favor of women purchasers, most notably auto insurance for younger drivers; no word on whether Ontario legislators are hoping to defy actuarial realities on that front. (Christl Dabu, “For Canadian women, that haircut may soon get cheaper”, Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 10 — note the headline, whose counter-version about haircuts for men getting more expensive probably never stood a chance of running). For reports on legal action aimed at bar’s “Ladies’ Night” promotions, see Aug. 4, 2003 and Jun. 10, 2004.
“Fair housing” law vs. Craigslist
Roommate preferences, improper mention that a listed property is near churches or synagogues, hints about age or family status: it’s easy to step on a legal land mine when listing your apartment rental. “The Internet is like the Wild, Wild West. People just speak their minds,” tut-tuts D.C. civil rights attorney John Relman (Sarah Lesher, “Online housing ads spur concern over bias”, Washington Times, Aug. 9)(via David Bernstein, who comments). Update: Feb. 9, 2006 (suit filed).
Blawg Review #18
This week’s roundup of legal blogs (“blawgs”) is hosted by Monica Bay at The Common Scold and is baseball-themed. We’re listed under “New York City” and come in for some kind words (“always-entertaining… guaranteed to be provocative”).
Update: Sony pays $1.5 million to settle ghost-blurber suit
Another triumph of our class-action system: Sony Pictures has agreed to pay out $1.5 million to settle a class action on behalf of filmgoers allegedly persuaded to attend the films “Vertical Limit,” “A Knight’s Tale,” “The Animal,” “Hollow Man” and “The Patriot” by Sony’s use of a nonexistent reviewer, “David Manning”, to say nice things about the films in blurbs. “Manning” was listed in the blurbs as working for the Ridgefield Press, a genuine newspaper in Connecticut which however has never employed any such reviewer (Jun. 12, 2001, Mar. 13, 2004).
Class lawyer Norman Blumenthal said moviegoers would be able to collect $5 rebates by affirming that they attended the original runs of the movies; remaining moneys will go to charity. The AP’s coverage does not discuss how if at all the attendance claims are to be verified, nor the question of how much the lawyers are going to get in fees. When the California courts agreed to let the suit go forward as a class action, a dissenting judge called it a “farce” and “the most frivolous case with which I have ever had to deal”, saying: “We should be occupying ourselves with resolving legitimate disputes instead of laughable cases designed not to gain anything for the plaintiffs, but rather to generate fees for the only true beneficiaries of this disgrace, the attorneys.” (Alex Veiga, “Sony to Pay $1.5M Over Fake Movie Critic”, AP/Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News, Aug. 3).
Detroy Marshall v. Burger King
From the Deep Pocket Files, sometimes I don’t have to add a thing:
Pamela Fritz accidentally backed her car into a lamppost while attempting to exit her parking space. Shifting forward and accelerating quickly to escape the lamppost menace, she lost control of her car and it went airborne, flying through the window and striking Marshall. It’s a whopper of a tale, but it’s all true. And Marshall’s estate sued the restaurant for wrongful death.
See, as the complaint alleges, defendants
“Improperly designed the Burger King restaurant building, by designing the building to be bricked up only a few feet from the ground, when the Defendant[s] knew or should have known, that permitting the building to be bricked up only a few feet from the ground may allow a vehicle from the parking lot to drive into the building, and crash through the glass on top of the brick.”
I’ll now quote from the Illinois appellate court decision:
Burger King and Davekiz filed a joint motion to dismiss, claiming they had no duty under the law to protect their patrons from the threat of runaway cars crashing into the restaurant. The trial court granted the motion and dismissed the allegations against Burger King and Davekiz with prejudice. The trial court reasoned:
“[T]he likelihood of this scenario is so minor that to guard against it in the manner suggested would require fortifying every building within striking distance of any crazed or incredibly inept driver, and the result would be to require foregoing any hope of aesthetically pleasing or business-enticing buildings. Obviously these two factors are less important that [sic] the safety of invitees, but the Court is required to do a balancing test and in doing so, I find that the duty stated by the plaintiffs is too high in this instance.”
Yet, amazingly, the appellate court reversed. Burger King has appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court. The always-looking-out-for-our-interests Illinois Trial Lawyers Association has filed a brief asking for affirmance. (Brian Mackey, “Car Smashing Store ‘Foreseeable’: Advocates”, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Aug. 2 ($) (via ICJL); Anthony Marshall, “Parking lots can create unexpected dangers if not inspected”, Hotel & Motel Management, Jun. 20). (The Anthony Marshall columns, which assume matter-of-factly that defendants will and should get sued for everything, have recommended that hotels ban water slides, chewing gum sales, bathtubs, and birthday candles. They’re valuable reading to explain why small businessmen hate lawyers.)