Ernie the Attorney has more (May 11) on boilerplate legal disclaimers, including the gem quoted above, which calls to mind for him the country song lyric, “if the phone don’t ring you’ll know it’s me”. (via Blawg Review #6)(see May 9).
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Hospital infections, a real crime
How is Britain’s new Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, addressing public alarm about “superbug” infections in hospitals? In part by floating the idea of criminally prosecuting hospital personnel after infections break out. And of course prosecutors will never for a moment consider bringing such charges without strong evidence of culpable mens rea on the part of the hospital personnel. Right? (Andrew Sparrow, “Warning to hospitals over MRSA”, Daily Telegraph, May 16). Hat tip and thanks for the link: Michelle Malkin, May 16.
Wendy’s case: the digital evidence
San Jose police say the finger that Anna Ayala says she found in a bowl of Wendy’s chili (Apr. 27, Apr. 22, etc.) has now been identified; it belonged to a co-worker of her husband, James Plascencia, who lost it in the tailgate of a truck in an on-the-job accident. Authorities believe it then fell into the possession of Mr. Plascencia. (Dan Reed, Linda Goldston and Chuck Carroll, “The jig is up”, San Jose Mercury News, May 14; “Worker: Finger found in chili severed in tailgate”, AP/CNN, May 15).
Claim: beer label a hate crime
The Lost Coast Brewery in Humboldt, Calif. says it will take off the shelves its Indica India Pale Ale, whose label currently depicts the Indian elephant-god Ganesh “holding a beer in one of his four hands, and another in his trunk”. Although brewery co-owner Barbara Groom said her Hindu friends don’t mind the label, a California man named Brij Dhir sued the brewery, along with other defendants such as the Safeway supermarket chain, claiming that it is offensive and intimidates Hindus from practicing their religion. “Dhir seeks at least $25,000 and his lawsuit mentions that $1 billion would be appropriate to compensate Hindus around the world.” “It’s a hate crime”, Dhir told the Contra Costa Times. (“Brewery pulls label showing Hindu god”, RealBeer.com, May 9). (& welcome visitors from Blog Mela, the periodic tour of India-related blogs, hosted this time by Shanti Mangala, and from Sepia Mutiny). And: reader Rich B. from Baltimore is reminded of the recent post (Mar. 17) on the theme of how we’re lucky we don’t have blasphemy laws the way Europe does, and asks: why make a law when you can just sue about it?
“An army of busybodies”
“History may record that what offended them [American voters in 1994, when Congress changed hands] wasn’t liberalism but busybodyism — the endless, frenetic search by elected officials for ever-new ways to make the country more fabulous. Bush and his Republicans are close to proving that busybodyism can become a creature of the right as well as the left.” (Andrew Ferguson, “Operation Overreach”, Weekly Standard, May 16)(via Sullivan).
Legal hazards of rating air safety
From a Forbes article on safety problems in charter aviation:
Businesses pay [Joseph Moeggenberg’s] company, Aviation Research Group/U.S., or “Argus” in the trade, as much as $20,000 per month for full access to ratings reports on 848 charters, or $249 for a single report. Argus provides specifics about a flight, the jet’s history, the owner, whether the plane is double-booked from another charter, the pilot’s record and so on. It assigns a red, yellow or green light on safety (36% receive reds or yellows).
One charter outfit got a prescient “Does Not Qualify” rating from Argus: Aviation Charter of Eden Prairie, Minn., which flew U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota in a Beechcraft King Air A100 as he campaigned for reelection in October 2002. When a newspaper later reported that Aviation Charter got a bad rating, the company sued Argus for defamation but lost the case on summary judgment; the case is pending on appeal. The flight crashed at the Eveleth, Minn. airport in October 2002, killing all eight people aboard, including the senator, his wife and their adult daughter. Says Argus attorney Eric Heiberg of Minneapolis: “I can’t imagine we’re going to lose.”
(Seth Lubove, “Flight of Fear”, Forbes, May 9). An online summary of the case (Aug. 2004, courtesy Cousineau McGuire & Anderson; scroll to “Federal Courts — Defamation”) indicates that the court agreed that the rating contained inaccuracies which harmed Aviation Charter’s reputation, but found no proof that Argus had acted with malice or reckless disregard for the truth. Update Mar. 15, 2006: Eighth Circuit (in summer 2005) dismissed suit, ruling ratings subjective.
Federalism and consistency
Ramesh Ponnuru at NRO “The Corner” punctures a weak op-ed on the subject, and incidentally points to an interesting and new-to-us paper by Michael Greve on Justice Brandeis and the “laboratories of policy experimentation” trope.
Winn-Dixie, up North
According to UCLA lawprof Lynn LoPucki, about 60 percent of recent big corporate bankruptcies have been filed in courts away from the companies’ hometowns. Although not all motives for selecting a distant bankruptcy venue are improper, forum-shopping can assist incumbent managers in finding a court that will cede them broad control during a reorganization (including the payment of large “retention” bonuses), while lawyers and other professionals may seek to steer filings into courts that are indulgent about approving fee requests. Among the losers: many creditors, which in some cases may include the companies’ workers. An opponent dismisses the charges as “baseless and offensive”, but some judges agree that the indictment holds merit. The Southern supermarket chain Winn-Dixie filed in New York City, then after a furor agreed to move the proceedings to its home state of Florida. (Pamela A. MacLean, “Forum Shopping Alleged in Chapter 11 Cases”, National Law Journal, May 3). See, among other posts, Mar. 8, 2004. More: Larry Ribstein (Jun. 22) has some thoughts on the market for jurisdiction-shopping.
Two more thoughts on the $45,000 cat
There’s an unspoken implication of a decision valuing a housepet at $45,000. If one is driving a vehicle of average value in Washington state, and sees a pet dart out in front of the car, the state would apparently prefer that you total your car to avoid hitting the animal. Just make sure that the tree or wall or parked car you hit instead doesn’t also have non-economic sentimental value.
And why isn’t it contributory negligence to leave a housecat outside? The press coverage doesn’t say if this was raised in the litigation.
Woman awarded $45,000 after dog kills cat
Seattle: “A woman who sued a neighbor after his dog mauled her cat to death has been awarded more than $45,000. Retired teacher Paula Roemer’s 12-year-old cat, Yofi, was attacked in her back yard in February 2004 by a chow belonging to her neighbor, Wallace Gray. The dog had repeatedly escaped in the past, according to the lawsuit.” (“Woman Gets $45K for Cat Killed by Dog”, AP/Las Vegas Sun, May 9). The award included $30,000 for the personal value of the cat — tying a record for a pet, according to her lawyer — plus $15,000 for emotional distress; Ms. Roemer “was so traumatized that she began having sleep disturbances and panic attacks, sank into depression and began smoking heavily, she wrote in a sworn declaration.” (Jessica Blanchard, “Woman awarded $45,000 in cat death”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 9). More coverage: Seattle Times, KOMO-TV. Meanwhile, a timely op-ed spells out why damage awards reflecting pets’ sentimental value, by scaring away veterinarians and other caretakers, could lead to needless animal deaths. (Emily Laird, “See Spot Sue”, New York Times, May 8). A similar case has been made many times in this space: see Mar. 15 (letter to the editor) and links from there.