Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

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Reparations: the British must pay

Three new reparations campaigns are aimed at perfidious Albion; if they succeed, we propose going after them for their burning of American towns during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812:

* In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Carlos Traboulsi, who is president of the local Christian Democrats, has filed a $67 billion (U.S.) claim against Britain in a local court, citing the unlawful occupation/exploitation of the Falklands/Malvinas islands since 1833 as well as “the theft of the River Plate Viceroy treasury in 1806”. What, didn’t any lawyers advise him to file in a U.S. court? (“67 billion dollars claim for ‘Malvinas usurpation'”, MercoPress, Mar. 10.)

* Ten plaintiffs are suing Lloyd’s of London in New York, demanding that it pay reparations for having written insurance on slave ships hundreds of years ago (“Slave descendants to sue Lloyd’s”, BBC, Mar. 29). Some in the British press are taking at face value the image attorney Edward Fagan would like to present of himself as the “feared New York lawyer who extracted huge Nazi gold settlements from German and Swiss companies” (“Slave descendants sue Lloyd’s for billions”, The Observer, Mar. 28); they should have read our Jun. 24-25, 2002 report (see also Aug. 8, 2003; Jan. 17-19, 2003; Nov. 17-19, 2001).

* “A half forgotten colonial expedition to subjugate a querulous African kingdom more than a century ago could bankrupt Britain if a Ugandan king succeeds in bringing a ?3.7 trillion suit against the Crown.” During a five-year war in the 1890s the British deposed King Kabalega II of the Bunyoro kingdom, and his descendant, named King Solomon, has now retained lawyers in both Uganda and London and plans a legal action in the latter city. “But the king’s compensation claims do not appear to enjoy much support from his subjects. ‘This is very wrong,’ said Aisha Kungozo, 24, a teacher who runs a tiny school for 16 children in the village of Mparo outside Bunyoro’s capital, Hoima, where the royal palace is situated. ‘The British built schools and houses for us. They gave us medicine. They did more to help us than any omukama [king] ever did.'” (Adrian Blomfield, “African king aims to bankrupt Britain”, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 13).

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Inmates’ fraudulent liens

Across the country, reports Court TV, prison inmates are harassing lawyers and court personnel by filing liens against them for supposed violations of the inmates’ copyright in their own names. The copyright-in-one’s-name premise may be supremely absurd — an egregious example of the homespun legal reasoning I once described, in the context of tax protests, as “folk law” — but it works surprisingly well as a means of harassment: the target’s credit standing may be frozen until he manages to get the lien on his house removed, which can be an expensive and time-consuming undertaking (Emanuella Grinberg, “What’s in a name? A fortune, some inmates say”, Court TV, Mar. 17). Curmudgeonly Clerk (Mar. 30) cites several federal cases that have arisen from this abuse (complete with an opinion by Judge Easterbrook) and points out that despite the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the system clearly has a way to go in curbing unfounded inmate litigation.

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Pooh heirs v. Disney: now we are dismissed

“The Walt Disney Company prevailed on Monday in a 13-year legal dispute over royalties related to its Winnie the Pooh franchise when a judge dismissed the case, contending the plaintiff altered confidential memorandums and covered up the theft of documents obtained by a private investigator who sifted through the company’s trash. Judge Charles W. McCoy of Los Angeles Superior Court wrote in his decision that the misconduct of the Slesinger family, which sued Disney in 1991 after contending the company cheated it out of royalty fees, was ‘so egregious that no remedy short of terminating sanctions’ would adequately protect Disney and the justice system from further abuse.” The family is vowing to appeal (Laura Holson, “After 13 Years, Judge Dismisses Case on Pooh Bear Royalties”, New York Times, Mar. 30). Earlier in the case, Disney had drawn sanctions “for deliberately destroying 40 boxes of documents that could have been relevant to the case, including a file marked ‘Winnie the Pooh-legal problems'”; see “The Document-Shredding Facility at Pooh Corner”, Aug. 24-26, 2001. For more on the propensity of some investigators retained in litigation to rifle adversaries’ garbage and commit other invasions of privacy, see Nov. 11, 2003 (FBI probe of Hollywood lawyers); Jul. 28-30, 2000 (Terry Lenzner, Oracle). More: Southern California Law Blog has followed the case.

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Campus taverns: sued if they do…

Pressured by University of Wisconsin officials and by a federal campaign against underage and binge drinking, 24 taverns near the university’s Madison campus agreed voluntarily a year and a half ago to stop cheap-drink promotions on weekends. Can you guess the sequel? A Minneapolis law firm has now swooped down with a class-action antitrust suit filed on behalf of three named UW-Madison students. The suit accuses the taverns of unlawful restraint of trade and demands what it says could be tens of millions of dollars in treble damages on behalf of “the victims of price fixing — basically anyone who patronized the downtown taverns on Friday or Saturday nights and paid full price”. It also names the university and the Madison-Dane County Tavern League. Not being sued, apparently, is the federal government, even though the bars’ agreement to limit weekend drink specials came about “as part of the federally funded PACE project. PACE, which stands for Policy, Alternatives, Community and Education, is in the seventh year of a comprehensive campus-community partnership designed to reduce the negative consequences of high-risk drinking.” (Mike Ivey and Aaron Nathans, “Students sue 24 campus bars”, Capital Times (Madison), Mar. 24). In other campus-drinking-related news, the Milwaukee paper reported last month that Seattle’s Hagens Berman and other law firms who are gearing up big courtroom campaigns against brewers and distillers (see Feb. 16, Dec. 1) were likely to try a demonization campaign against Budweiser’s talking frog and similar marketing devices akin to the successful campaign to demonize R.J. Reynolds’s Joe Camel mascot (Tom Daykin, “Beer may suffer the Joe Camel effect”, Feb. 21). Plus: Vice Squad has more (Mar. 29)(& welcome Reason “Hit & Run” readers). Update May 2, 2005: judge dismisses Madison tavern case after defendants spend $250,000.

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Mark Maughan sues Google over search engine results

CPA Mark Maughan is upset that a 2003 Google search for his name leads to a web page that, he says, accuses him incorrectly of wrongdoing. So he’s suing Google, AOL, Time Warner, and Yahoo–and guaranteeing that a search engine result for his name will now reveal him to be litigious. (Mark Maughan appears to be complaining about this page from the California Board of Accountancy that lists disciplinary actions, and claims that Maughan admitted the allegations against him. The Board defends the accuracy of its site.) Amusingly unclear on the concept: “Since AOL-Time Warner are one company, both are named as defendants, said plaintiffs attorney John A. Girardi.” (“Accountant ‘Googles’ Himself, Sues for Libel”, NBC4-TV, Mar. 19; Seth Fineberg, “Calif. CPA Sues Google, Others for Libel”, CPANews, Mar. 24; Slashdot thread) (via Bashman).

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Lawsuit: school failed to supervise gang initiation

On March 28, 2002, 14-year-old Francisco Belman asked to join the “Latin Mafia” gang at H.E. McCracken Middle School in Bluffton, South Carolina, an initiation that required him to be punched several times in the chest. Midway through the school bathroom ceremony, however, he collapsed and went into convulsions; the gang members tried for a few minutes to revive him with “sink water and paper towels.” School officials were eventually summoned, and gave Francisco CPR while waiting for paramedics; paramedics defibrillated, but Belman’s heart stopped again on the way to the hospital; Belman went into a vegetative state and died ten weeks later. So the parents have sued “the South Carolina Board of Education, Beaufort County Board of Education, town of Bluffton, Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office and the parents of the two boys who pleaded guilty this month to involuntary manslaughter in Francisco’s death.” Especially appalling is the newspaper’s editorial defending the lawsuit against peripheral players as an appropriate mechanism for the parents’ grief, but lapses into self-parody:

Clearly, the Belman family wants and deserves an apology. But from whom? The two boys who were trying to initiate Francisco into their club that fateful day have expressed remorse, and how could they not? They are teenagers; they didn’t know their machismo would ultimately kill Francisco.

(Stephanie Ingersoll, “Lawsuit filed in boy’s beating death”, Carolina Morning News, Mar. 26; “Editorial: Don’t judge Belman family for filing lawsuit”, Carolina Morning News, Mar. 26; “Chronology of a tragic day”, Carolina Morning News, Mar. 26; Noah Haglund, “Trial to begin in McCracken student’s death”, Hilton Head Island Packet, Mar. 14).

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$1.3 M for not explaining lottery rules

John Struna says he spent $125,000 a year on Ohio Lottery tickets for years without ever reading the rules printed on each ticket and on the state’s web site, and was upset to learn that his October 25, 2001 jackpot paid only $981,000 rather than the $5.2 million he expected. His lawsuit against the lottery was dismissed, but a jury held Harry Singh, the owner of the Convenient Food Mart on East 200th Street in Cleveland, responsible for $1.3 million in damages. Struna’s lawyer, Andrew “Kabat said Thursday that he hopes the civil judgment inspires the state lottery to be more aggressive about informing players of the rules.” I’m sure that makes Singh feel better to know that he’s been potentially bankrupted for such a noble cause. (Mark Naymik, “Lottery player wins again, this time in court”, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Mar. 25; AP, Mar. 25).

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Bubbles cost Duluth $125,000

Sometime between 5 and 6 in the Saturday morning of July 7, 2001, a prankster put gallons of Joy dish soap into Duluth’s Fountain of Wind, turning it into an eight-foot-high mass of bubbles. 57-year-old Kathy Kelly was attracted by the bubbles and decided to walk into it. And fell and cut her leg. As a diabetic, Kelly suffered from what first-year law students call Vosburg v. Putney syndrome, and incurred $43,000 of medical expenses from the cut, which turned gangrenous. So a St. Louis County jury awarded her $125,000 when it decided that Duluth taxpayers should compensate her for 70% of her injury because the city didn’t clean up the fountain quickly enough (on an early Saturday morning) or do enough to warn people not to walk into an eight-foot high mass of soap bubbles where they couldn’t see where they were walking. “People shouldn’t have to be on their guard when they are taking a step,” explained one juror, who dissented from the final decision because he wanted to hold taxpayers 90% responsible. The jury found Kelly 30% responsible, and apparently didn’t seek to apportion blame to the unknown prankster. But I suppose we can be thankful that no one sued the soap manufacturer. (Mark Stodghill, “Woman gets $125,000 in Duluth ‘bubble trial'”, Duluth News Tribune, Mar. 23; Mark Stodghill, “Woman sues city over soapy fall”, Duluth News Tribune, Mar. 12) (via Obscure Store).

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Shhhh! He’s got a lawyer!

In 1996 Frank Sulloway had a publishing hit with Born To Rebel, a book arguing that birth order is an important influence on individuals’ destinies (supposedly, first-born children grow up conservative, later-borns want to rock the boat). There were doubters, however, and a critique has now appeared claiming that Sulloway’s data does not back up his conclusions. According to a summary of the situation by Alex Tabarrok (Mar. 20), the appearance of this critique in print was drastically delayed by Sulloway’s threats to sue the journal’s publisher and editor over defamation and other alleged wrongs. The journal’s publisher declined to publish even a debate on the book unless assured that it would not be sued, with the result that editor Gary Johnson and his association wound up publishing it independently, after nearly five years of delay. Tabarrok has much more detail about the story, which he finds “shocking” and “disturbing”.

Lawyers for author John Gray (Men are From Mars…) threatened a libel suit after a weblog said rude things about his on-first-glance-impressive educational credentials. That ensured more attention to the embarrassment, as Instapundit (Mar. 22) points out in a post with many links. (Plus: J.B. Howard Jr. has more on the case, Mar. 25). And the Michigan Court of Appeals has “dismissed a lawsuit in which the Michigan Education Association claimed the Mackinac Center, a free market think tank that has been at odds with the union on issues such as charter schools and education vouchers, had violated the privacy of MEA President Luigi Battaglieri by quoting him in a fund-raising letter. The court concluded that the letter ‘falls squarely within the protection of the First Amendment for discourse on matters of public interest.'” (Jacob Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”, Mar. 22)(Mackinac Center, Mar. 19) More: John E. Kramer, “Calling the Bully’s Bluff”, Liberty and Law (Institute for Justice), Jun. (more on media and free speech suits)

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Irvine Federalist speech Wednesday

This Wed., March 24 (6:00 reception, 6:30 program) I’ll be in Southern California, speaking to the Orange County chapter of the Federalist Society. The event will be held at the offices of Knobbe Martens Olson (no relation) & Bear in Irvine. Details and RSVP here. Plus: for those who will be in the Boulder, Colo. area Apr. 5-9, the Conference on World Affairs has now posted the schedule of panels I’ll be on.

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