If you ever receive email from lawyers — or from anyone who works at a law firm or in-house legal department — you’ll probably recognize some of the boilerplate formulas that Ernie the Attorney has fun with here (May 9). And: a follow-up from Ernie (May 10).
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Clarence Stowers
Should we name him this site’s Man of the Year? Last week, after finding the freshly cut fingertip of an employee in his frozen custard at a Wilmington, N.C. dessert stand, Mr. Stowers “refus[ed] to return the evidence so it could be reattached. And now it’s too late for doctors to do anything for 23-year-old Brandon Fizer.”
Soon after Stowers found the finger in a mouthful of chocolate soft-serve he bought Sunday at Kohl’s Frozen Custard in Wilmington, he put it in his freezer at home, taking it out only occasionally to show to television cameras.
He refused to give it to the shop’s owner, and refused to give it to a doctor who was treating Fizer, who accidentally stuck his hand in a mixing machine and had his right index finger lopped off at the first knuckle.
Medical experts say an attempt to reattach a severed finger can generally be made within six hours.
But according to the shop’s management, Stowers wouldn’t give it back when he was in the store 30 minutes after the accident.
“The general manager attempted to retrieve it and rush it to the hospital,” reads a statement posted Thursday on Kohl’s Web site. “Unfortunately, the customer refused to give it to her and declared that he would be calling the TV stations and an attorney as he exited the store.”
What attorney decided to represent Mr. Stowers? Glad you asked; it’s Lee Andrews of Greensboro, N.C., who
wouldn’t say if a lawsuit against Kohl’s is planned, saying he needed “to get some more facts.”
But Andrews said his client is concerned about possible disease in the fingertip and kept it because he wanted someone to test it for “all the diseases that are out here now.”
“He’s upset to the point that he’s been debilitated to some degree,” Andrews said. “Emotionally, it’s been very upsetting to him.”
(“Fight over finger found in custard”, AP/CNN, May 6).
The killer cookie
“I fully realize that there are dangers and risks to which I may be exposed by participating in Cookie Decorating” begins the waiver and release required by the University of Pittsburgh for a particular extracurricular activity. (Tip of the Overlawyered hat to J.M.)
Perhaps this explains the real motivation behind the evisceration of the raison d’être of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster; Jonah Goldberg explores the new political correctness.
Harvard profs vs. kid art studio
“What does a high-powered Harvard Law School professor do when he gets in a dispute with a neighbor? He sues, of course — even if that neighbor takes care of his young son after school every day.” The lawprof, for those who don’t want to follow the link, is executive-compensation-scourge Lucian Bebchuk, who’s joined with a few other Harvard-affiliated property owners to fight their neighbor, the nonprofit Agassiz Neighborhood Council, which would like to install a children’s art studio on its property. (Steve Bailey, “Sue thy neighbor”, Boston Globe, May 6).
Church and state
Emotional-assistance service dog
Another Seattle case in which a merchant got in trouble for not admitting a dog which was accompanying its owner for purposes of psychological assistance (as distinct from the service provided by seeing-eye and hearing dogs for the physically disabled). This time the Wicker Basket grocery store in Ballard was fined $21,000 after owner Hojoon Park wouldn’t let the dog into the shop. (“Merchant fined $21,000 for barring service dog”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 3). For earlier cases, see Feb. 28 of this year; Oct. 25 and Dec. 2, 2004; and Jul. 9, 1999, from Seattle.
Update: Judge dismisses “happy hour” antitrust case
Last year, after taverns in Madison, Wisconsin bowed to pressure from official programs discouraging youth drinking and agreed to end “happy hour” discounts in the university town, a law firm from Minneapolis swooped down to file an antitrust suit demanding millions for the offense of having colluded to charge higher prices (see Mar. 29, 2004). Now, however, Circuit Judge Angela B. Bartell has dismissed the suit on summary judgment, finding that the bar owners had acted against their will under regulatory constraint. An alderman who represents the downtown area where most of the bars are located “said bar owners had racked up more than $250,000 in legal fees defending themselves”; given our lack of a loser-pays rule, they have no expectation that either attorney Steven Uhr or the three students on whose behalf he filed the action will chip in to defray any of those outlays. (Ryan J. Foley, “Judge: Bars didn’t fix price of drinks”, AP/Capital Times, Apr. 8; Megan Costello, “Judge dismisses drink special suit”, Badger Herald, Apr. 8).
Belated Arbor Day special: Matthew Davis
If you see fewer trees in your California city, it’s because attorney Matthew Davis is making a practice out of suing landowners or public agencies when people are injured by falling tree limbs in highly populated areas. Cities may well find that cutting down trees is cheaper than maintaining them to a standard that avoids lawsuits, or taxpayers may find themselves footing the bill for insuring the public when the bough breaks. (Justin Scheck, “Lawyer’s Accidental Specialty in Tree Lawsuits Bears Fruit”, The Recorder, May 2).
Accolades
It’s time to round up and thank some of those who’ve said or done kind things on our behalf recently. That would include Denise Howell, one of the earliest and best-known lawyer-bloggers (Bag and Baggage), who’s recently helped launch a new group blog at Corante on technology, culture and the law called Between Lawyers, featuring Ernest Svenson and others; in the comments section she calls Overlawyered “an excellent blog I recommend highly” (Mar. 28, comment section). Kevin O’Brien at Aero-News.net calls us “always-interesting” (Apr. 21) and while glad to return that nice compliment we note that it lacks intensity compared with what Donna Baver Rovito, dynamo of Pennsylvania physician activism, wrote recently (Mar. 17):
…just for the record, I would walk on broken glass for Walter Olson and Ted Frank in gratitude for the unbelievable research offered up on their websites Overlawyered.com and PointofLaw.com.
Wow. Evan Schaeffer probably wouldn’t go along completely with that sentiment but has lately extended congratulations to one of us and coffee mugs to both. We’ve also been recommended recently by Frazzle.com (Apr. 23), by Australia’s WogBlog (Apr. 27, calling us “terrific”), and, in Portuguese, Lado Negro da Web (Apr. 24). And the new legal blog aggregator Juris Novus, which fills the same general niche left by the late and lamented DailyWhirl, gives prominent placement to this site among its offerings. More: Precision Blogging (Apr. 29) calls us the “perfect antidote for a beautiful Spring day,” but seems to mean that in a complimentary way.
Antiquities trade
Various nationalist governments and well-intended archaeologists are trying to shut down the worldwide trade in antiquities, but it’s far from clear that declaring governments to be the sole rightful owners of historical relics leads to better conservation or better public understanding of them. As the U.S. government increasingly shows itself willing to enforce foreign states’ claims of ownership in artifacts, collectors in this country are tangled in legal uncertainties and faced with demands that they affirmatively document long-ago provenances, an often impossible task. And some of the “cultural patrimony” subject to demands for repatriation is of distinctly recent vintage: China seeks title to “calligraphy and paintings dating from as recently as 1912”. (Steven Vincent, “Ancient Treasures for Sale”, Reason, Apr.). Inasmuch as governments such as those of China, Cambodia and Afghanistan have themselves been pre-eminent destroyers of their own store of cultural antiquities — the damage done during China’s Cultural Revolution period is incalculable — the dispersal of an ancient culture’s artworks around the world may turn out to be an important safeguard in making sure that in future such episodes at least a portion of the treasure survives the wreck.