June 10-11 — New Orleans cleanup continues. “It was bad enough that New Orleans personal injury attorney Curtis Coney Jr. was illegally paying ‘runners’ to solicit accident victims, paying them $500 for each ambulance-chasing referral. When his secretary was subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury, Coney compounded his problems by urging her to lie about the payments, even though she was the one who usually doled them out. … In a plea agreement unveiled in federal court Wednesday, Coney, 58, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of ‘structuring’ referral payments to hide them from the state and federal governments, one count of conspiracy and one count of obstruction of justice for pressuring [the secretary] to lie. As part of the deal, lead prosecutor Irene Gonzalez recommended a 33-month jail sentence for Coney.” The lawyer’s guilty plea is among the fruits of “a 4-year federal investigation of personal injury attorneys, a quietly unfolding case that has resulted in more than 20 convictions”. Targeted along with attorneys and “runners” are “medical providers who exaggerated or falsified injury claims in order to secure lucrative insurance settlements.” (Michael Perlstein, “Lawyer guilty in referral scheme”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 16). (DURABLE LINK)

June 10-11 — Bounty-hunting in New Jersey. The administration of Gov. Jim McGreevey has retained a flamboyant private plaintiff’s lawyer to pursue claims seeking to hold businesses legally liable for wastes left over from the state’s industrial past. Although Allen Kanner is initially donating his services for free, it is expected that he will take a contingency stake in some or many of the state’s financial recoveries. Also being hired is a politically well-connected law firm named Lynch Martin Kroll, associated with one of the state’s Democratic power brokers. Together, Kanner and the Lynch firm “are scouring state files for possible ‘natural resource damage’ claims. Such claims — little used in the state’s past — require polluters to go far beyond simple cleanups by making them pay the public for things such as lost fishing time, lost tap water, injured wildlife and soiled scenery.” (Alexander Lane, “State retains enviro-lawyer who gets polluters’ attention”, Newark Star-Ledger, May 11). More: PointOfLaw.com, Sept. 5, 2004. (DURABLE LINK)

June 10-11 — The Rule of Lawyers reviewed. In the June Commentary, Washington attorney and Findlaw columnist Barton Aronson contributes a very generous appraisal of our editor’s latest book. (DURABLE LINK)

June 9 — “Silver’s wreck”. Our editor has an op-ed piece in today’s New York Post on the impending demise of auto leasing in New York state, wrecked by the state’s archaic “vicarious liability” law whose chief defenders include the state trial lawyers’ association and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (Walter Olson, New York Post, Jun. 9). Our earlier coverage of the issue is here. More: Sept. 5, 2004. (DURABLE LINK)

June 9 — “Families of teens killed in crash after rave sue U.S. government”. “Family members of five teens who died when their car careened off a cliff after an all-night rave party have filed a suit against the U.S. government for issuing the event’s permit. ‘If you knowingly allow use of your land for a drug party and people get killed, we allege you are partially responsible,’ said Andrew Spielberger, a West Hollywood-based attorney representing the families.” (AP/Sacramento Bee, Jun. 1). (DURABLE LINK)

June 9 — The intimidation tactics of Madison County. Four business groups held a press event in Madison County, Ill., last week to unveil the latest report depicting the county’s courts as a paradise for plaintiff’s lawyers (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “The Rogue Courts of Madison County” (PDF)). What happened next? Local plaintiff’s attorney Bradley M. Lakin promptly slapped them with a subpoena demanding that their executives testify in a would-be class action case against Ford Motor on alleged paint defects. “Subpoenas are for witnesses who know something about the case,” said Victor E. Schwartz, general counsel of the American Tort Reform Association. “In this situation, ATRA knows nothing. It is clear the subpoena power is being used to squelch ATRA from speaking out about Madison County and its inequities as one of the leading ‘judicial hellholes’ in the United States.” Last year ATRA published a report entitled “Justice for Sale: The Judges of Madison County“. (“ATRA Says Subpoena Power Should Not Be Used To Squelch First Amendment Rights”, ATRA press release, Jun. 6; Illinois Civil Justice League, which was one of the subpoenaed groups along with ATRA and the national and Illinois Chambers of Commerce, has links). Updates Jul. 12: subpoenas dropped and Jul. 26: sanctions motions dropped.

And St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan turns the spotlight on a recent Madison County class action settlement involving Sears tires: “If you have a receipt showing you purchased an AccuBalance from a Sears auto center between 1989 and 1994 and are willing to take the time to request a claims form and fill it out and send it in, you could get $2.50 for each tire, up to a total of $10. Of course, who keeps receipts from 1989? You still might be eligible for $1.25 a tire, up to a total of $5. If Sears does not have a record of your purchase, you will be eligible only for a $3 Sears coupon. Of course, there will be forms to fill out under threat of perjury. Things are a little better for the lawyers who ‘represented’ you. The settlement says that their legal fees cannot exceed $2.45 million.” McClellan is bold to tackle this subject, since when he criticized lawyers from the same class-action firm in 1999 they came after him with a lawsuit, later dropped (see Nov. 4, 1999)(Bill McClellan, “Just like your tires, wheels of justice may be out of balance”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jun. 4). (DURABLE LINK)

June 6-8 — New legal ethics weblog. David Giacalone, formerly of PrairieLaw, has started a new weblog, ethicalEsq?, specializing in “client-centered legal ethics”. He’s already posted on several issues of interest, including Common Good’s early-offers proposal (May 30 and Jun. 3), the case for requiring lawyers to disclose more fully to clients the circumstances of their representation (Jun. 3), and (citing this website) the still-unfolding battle in a New York courtroom over whether Judge Charles Ramos has authority to review and correct outrageous tobacco fees (May 31; on tobacco fees, see Daniel Wise, “Judge’s Power to Review $625M Tobacco Fee Award Challenged”, New York Law Journal, May 28). (DURABLE LINK)

June 6-8 — Claims consciousness in Utah. To promote a contemplated April Fool’s Day festival, Mayor Gerald R. Sherratt of Cedar City, Utah, published in local papers a tall tale about how wandering Vikings had left precious ancient artifacts in a local cave. Most residents seem to have gotten the joke, but various readers in the nearby town of St. George stepped forward to lay claim to the supposed treasure found in the cave, several of them saying “their ancestors had been part of the settlement and had owned some of the artifacts. …When Sherratt explained the whole story was made up to promote the festival, the St. George residents accused him and other officials of a cover-up.” (Paul Rolly and JoAnn Jacobsen-Wells, “Ad Flap Is Stranger Than Fiction”, Salt Lake Tribune, May 26). (DURABLE LINK)

June 6-8 — Hiker cuts off use of his name. Equipped to Survive, a wilderness gear site, recommended a pocket-sized emergency beacon by referring to a recent survival story that received worldwide publicity: “Your survival should not require you to amputate your own arm, as Aron Ralston was recently forced to do in order to escape being trapped by an 800-lb. boulder.” Before long the site’s proprietor received this cease and desist letter (PDF format) dated June 5 from Ralston’s lawyer demanding that the reference be removed as in violation of the hiker’s “right of publicity” under state statutes. There followed this rude reply from the website proprietor, inviting the lawyer to “stick your ridiculous cease and desist demand where the sun don’t shine”. Now cut that out, boys, there’s no reason we can’t be polite. (DURABLE LINK)

June 4-5 — Blaming murder on flat tire. A 19-year-old woman, having stopped to change a flat tire at the side of the road, is taken away and murdered by a local man. According to a lawyer for her family, the Ford Motor Co. and tiremaker Bridgestone/Firestone should be made to pay for the murder. A court dismissed the case against the two companies on grounds that they could not have found harm of this sort foreseeable enough to trigger a legal duty of care, but the family’s lawyer, Richard Rensch, is appealing to the Nebraska Supreme Court. (AP/KETV, Jun. 3; “Murder victim’s parents say flat set off tragic events”, Fremont (Neb.) Tribune, Jun. 3). (DURABLE LINK)

June 4-5 — Fox News “The Big Story”. Our editor was interviewed on screen for a piece that Fox News’s “The Big Story” is preparing on the search for deep pockets in litigation. It’s tentatively scheduled to run Wednesday, but these things are always subject to change. Update: it did run Wednesday, Jun. 4. (DURABLE LINK)

June 4-5 — Malpractice: juggling the stats. In the course of an otherwise standard feature package on the medical malpractice crisis (Daniel Eisenberg and Maggie Sieger, “The Doctor is Out”, Time, Jun. 9, and sidebars) Time gives credence to a newly issued report asserting that doctors’ malpractice premiums are actually rising fastest in states without damage caps (Jyoti Thottam, “A Chastened Insurer”, Jun. 1). Very curiously, the new report (from Weiss Ratings, “an independent insurance-rating agency in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.”) is described as compiling figures for median premiums and payouts (the numbers compared with which half of the data points are higher and half lower) rather than averages, even though this is a field where the outliers (giant awards, unusually litigious specialties) drive the debate and the dollar figures. CalPundit (Jun. 2) spots this anomaly and opines: “this is so obviously the wrong statistic to use in this case that there must be some kind of axe to grind here” (via Jonathan Adler, NR Corner).

A table laying out the (very large) differences between malpractice premiums between Los Angeles (where doctors practice under California’s MICRA damages cap) and three litigious jurisdictions elsewhere in the country (Miami, Long Island, Detroit) indicates that MICRA confers its greatest benefit by far on the most litigation-prone specialties: for example, the average savings from MICRA for a neurosurgeon is $ 145,813 and for an ob/gyn $ 88,593, but it’s only $24,599 for an internist and $15,639 for a dermatologist (“2003 Malpractice Premium Comparison“, California Physician (California Medical Association)) (PDF format)(CMA’s MICRA Resource Center). For a more reliable reading of the crisis and its relation to damage caps and the insurance market, check out the report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this spring (“Addressing the New Health Care Crisis: Reforming the Medical Litigation System to Improve the Quality of Health Care”, Mar. 3; Senate testimony by Deputy Secretary Claude A. Allen, Mar. 13).

How big an impact do the “outlier” cases have, the small number of gigantic verdicts that almost vanish from the calculation when per-case outlays are calculated as a median? Among recent examples are the $78.5-million verdict against an Orlando hospital for failing to figure out that a woman visiting its emergency room was suffering from a bizarre undiagnosed tumor; thought to be the largest medical malpractice award in Florida history, it has “become the symbol of juries run amok” in the view of critics of the system. (William R. Levesque, “Tremors still felt from whopping jury award”, St. Petersburg Times, Jun. 2). And in a result vocally criticized by appeals judges even as they felt obliged to uphold it, a Manhattan jury’s $40 million malpractice award against one of the city’s premier hospitals, New York-Presbyterian, has been blown up to $140 million by a law mandating that annual interest of 4 percent be added to awards “even if the jury has already adjusted the annual amount for inflation. Critics say that means a double adjustment for inflation in some cases, like this one.” (Richard Perez-Pena, “New York Hospitals Fearing Malpractice Crisis”, New York Times, Jun. 3). (DURABLE LINK)

June 4-5 — “Rape defendant asks $20,000; found fly in mashed potatoes”. “If convicted later this year of raping a 16-year-old girl, [Kenneth] Williams could be sentenced to 112 years to life in prison. It would be his third, and last, trip to state prison, authorities say.” What has upset Williams recently, however, is the insect impurity he says he found in his prison dinner. He “is seeking $20,000 to ease the ‘mental stress and anguish’ he said finding the fly inflicted upon him. ‘It’s been almost a month since this occurred,’ Williams wrote last week in the claim, ‘and I still only pick at my food …. I’m losing weight and am unable to eat properly.'” The sum demanded was fair, according to his complaint, since public venting of the allegations “would cost the county ‘a great deal more both financially and in bad publicity.'” (J. Harry Jones, San Diego Union-Tribune, Jun. 3). (DURABLE LINK)

June 3 — An important litigation skill. From Gail Diane Cox’s “Voir Dire” column in the National Law Journal, Nov. 4, 2002 (scroll down to “Jargon Watch”): “Blamestorming: Variant of brainstorming. Sitting around in a group discussing a mistake and how to make someone responsible for it, preferably a deep-pocket defendant. Synonym: Litigation initiation.” Maybe a session of this sort was responsible for the naming of Shell Oil as a defendant in the Rhode Island nightclub fire (see May 30-Jun. 1). (DURABLE LINK)

June 3 — “Resumé spam saddles employers”. It’s common these days for employers to receive hundreds, thousands or even milllions of resumés via email from hopeful job-seekers. Federal regulations on the books since the 1970s, however, require most larger companies to preserve records of all job applications, the most important reason being to furnish evidence in case they are someday investigated for possible discrimination. Under the strictest interpretation of the rules, companies with more than fifteen employees must keep on file any resumé sent to them — even if “the applicant misspells the company’s name, applies for a job not listed or is simply not qualified.” The result: a large and ever-growing paperwork/compliance burden on American business. (Bill Atkinson, “Resume spam saddles employers”, Baltimore Sun, May 22; Michelle Martinez, “Who Really Is An Applicant When Recruiting Online?”, PeopleClick.com, undated). See Shirleen Holt, “Résumé spam is tiring those hiring”, Seattle Times, Jan. 19; Katherine Harding, “The new scourge: Résumé spam”, GlobeTechnology.com (Globe & Mail, Canada), Jan. 8 (“Companies that advertise jobs on-line are finding their e-mail boxes crammed with irrelevant responses”, some from applicants who blast out responses to every job listed on a posting board). (DURABLE LINK)

June 2 — Updates. Further developments in cases we’ve covered:

* Citing its recent jurisprudence bringing constitutional due process limits to bear on punitive damages, the U.S. Supreme Court has instructed lower courts to reduce a $290 million award against Ford Motor in the Romo case; the case arose from a Bronco rollover in central California, and we’ve had quite a bit to say about it over the four years since it went to trial (see Oct. 24, 2002 and links from there) (David Kravets, “High Court Reduces Damages in Car Crash”, AP/Yahoo, May 19; Bob Egelko, “Key ruling on punitive damages”, San Francisco Chronicle, May 19);

* The Los Angeles Zoo has transferred Ruby, its female African elephant, to a Tennessee zoo notwithstanding a pending lawsuit (see May 16-18) complaining that the move would disrupt Ruby’s bond with her elephant “best friend”; an attorney who had gone to court seeking a temporary restraining order against splitting the two elephants complained that zoo authorities had acted “like thieves in the middle of the night”. (Carla Hall, “Despite Protests, L.A. Zoo Sends Elephant to Tennessee”, Los Angeles Times, May 27) (via SoCalLaw, May 27);

* The Supreme Court of Hawaii has reversed a jury’s award of $2 million to an auto service manager fired over what his employer considered credible charges of sexual harassment (see Mar. 10-12, 2000) (Gonsalves v. Nissan Motor Corp. in Hawaii, Ltd., Supreme Court of Hawaii, Nov. 27, 2002; see Jeffrey Harris, “Law Watch: Preventing Harassment Trumps Keeping Promises”, Hawaii Business, Feb. 20);

* In a humiliating defeat for backers of anti-gun litigation, a federal “advisory” jury in Brooklyn has refused to hold manufacturers liable for inner-city gun crime in the much-publicized case brought by the NAACP before judge Jack Weinstein. “The panel of 12 jurors issued a finding of no liability for 45 of the defendants and was unable to reach a verdict for the remaining 23 manufacturers or gun dealers”. (Mark Hamblett, “Federal Advisory Jury Declines to Find Gun Industry Liable”, New York Law Journal, May 15; Katherine Mangu-Ward, “No Smoking Gun”, WeeklyStandard.com, May 8). Update Jul. 20: judge dismisses lawsuit entirely. (DURABLE LINK)

June 20-22 — Fast food: give me my million. From an interview aired in Australia with the plaintiff in the McDonald’s obesity lawsuit:

CAESAR BARBER: I’m saying that McDonald’s affected my health. Yes, I am saying that.

RICHARD CARLETON: So what do you want in return?

CAESAR BARBER: I want compensation for pain and suffering.

RICHARD CARLETON: But how much money do you want?

CAESAR BARBER: I don’t know … maybe $1 million. That’s not a lot of money now.

(Richard Carleton, “Food fight”, 60 Minutes (Australia), Sept. 25, 2002). Only three years ago the possibility of suits blaming food companies for obesity furnished The Onion with material for humor (Aug. 3, 2000). “The parody has become reality.” (James Glassman, “From parody to reality”, TechCentralStation, May 21; Michael I. Krauss, “Today’s Tort Suits Are Stranger Than Fiction”, Virginia Viewpoint (Virginia Institute), May). A House panel heard testimony yesterday on a bill that would stop such lawsuits in their tracks (Maggie Fox, “Is It Your Fault I’m Fat? Congress Hears Debate”, Reuters, Jun. 19; Bruce Horovitz, “Fast-food restaurants told to warn of addiction”, USA Today, Jun. 17). A CNBC poll, with 2000 votes as of midnight Friday morning, was running 92 to 8 percent against holding fast-food restaurants responsible for expanding waistlines. (DURABLE LINK)

June 20-22 — Investors’ Business Daily interviews our editor. Now at a stable URL, last Friday’s interview mostly concentrated on our editor’s new book The Rule of Lawyers (David Isaac (interviewer), “Frivolous Lawsuits Creating New Power Class — Lawyers”, Jun. 13, reprinted at Manhattan Institute site). (DURABLE LINK)

June 20-22 — Batch of reader letters. Special all-critical edition — nothing but letters taking issue with us. Topics include the MTV “Jack Ass” suit, Ann Arbor substitute teachers, the ADA, high verdicts as an inspiration to young lawyers, and medical malpractice. (DURABLE LINK)

June 18-19 — Keep playing in our conference or we’ll sue you. Five schools in the Big East football conference — Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Rutgers and Connecticut — have filed suit to stop Miami and Boston College from departing for the Atlantic Coast Conference. (Eddie Pells, “Big East accuses Miami, BC and ACC of conspiracy”, AP/Kansas City Star, Jun. 6; Sam Eifling, “Requiem for the Big East”, Slate, Jun. 12; Steve Wieberg, “Conference changes becoming more hostile than ever”, USA Today, Jun. 15). Politicians have gotten into the act in support of the suit, including (inevitably) Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal as well as the state’s Gov. John Rowland (Andy Katz, “ACC lawyer: Lawsuit will not distract from expansion”, ESPN, Jun. 12). Virginia AG Jerry Kilgore, too (“Virginia Tech, the Big East and the ACC”, Roanoke Times, Jun. 17; see S.W.Va. Law Blog, Jun. 17). S.M.Oliva comments (Initium, Jun. 6) (via Dan Lewis). (DURABLE LINK)

June 18-19 — A judge bans a book. “A tax protester may not sell his book that contends paying income tax is voluntary, a federal judge ruled Monday. U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George wrote in an order banning the book that Irwin Schiff is not protected by the First Amendment because he has encouraged people not to pay taxes. ‘There is no protection … for speech or advocacy that is directed toward producing imminent lawless action,’ George wrote in support of the preliminary injunction on the book, ‘The Federal Mafia: How It Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Income Taxes.'” (“Federal judge in Las Vegas bans anti-tax book”, Reno Gazette-Journal, Jun. 16). (DURABLE LINK)

June 18-19 — Texas’s giant legal reform. With the support of Gov. Rick Perry, the Texas legislature this month passed what looks to us to be the most serious and comprehensive package of litigation reforms achieved at one stroke anywhere in recent memory. Among other features, it: adopts an offer-of-settlement-driven variant of loser-pays; reforms class action certification and requires that lawyers’ fees be paid in coupon form to the extent that class relief is provided that way; tightens forum non conveniens safeguards against court-shopping; protects defendants from having to pay damages attributable to other responsible parties’ fault; establishes innocent-retailer and regulatory-compliance defenses in product liability law, along with a 15-year statute of repose; curbs artificially high interest on judgments; limits appeals bonds; restrains medical liability in a long list of ways including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages; and much more. (“Ten-gallon tort reform” (editorial), Wall Street Journal, Jun. 6, reprinted at Texans for Lawsuit Reform site; summary of legislation at same site; John Williams, “Proponents cheer tort reform”, Houston Chronicle, Jun. 11). (DURABLE LINK)

June 18-19 — Around the blogs. Virginia Postrel (Jun. 5) has some comments from civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate criticizing 18 U.S.C. sec. 1001, which the feds are using to go after Martha Stewart. This law makes it unlawful to lie to a federal agent — even if you’re not under oath, and even though the agents may be free to lie to you. See also the comment from reader James Ingram. Mickey Kaus (Jun. 16) echoes speculation by “some media lawyers” quoted in the Washington Post (James V. Grimaldi, “Blair Analogy Reaches Courtroom Far From N.Y.”, Jun. 16) that the New York Times may have forced out top executives Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd in part because if it hadn’t done so, defamation plaintiffs might have been able to use its forbearance “to devastating effect” in future litigation. And MedPundit catches up at some length (Jun. 3) on the controversy over thimerosal, the mercury-containing vaccine preservative which has given rise to bitter litigation and legislative battles. (DURABLE LINK)

June 16-17 — Probate’s misplaced trust. Washington Post investigation into guardianship in the D.C. courts finds that the D.C. Superior Court’s probate division, “mandated to care for more than 2,000 elderly, mentally ill and mentally retarded residents, has repeatedly allowed its charges to be forgotten and victimized …. Chaotic record-keeping, lax oversight and low expectations in this division of the court have created a culture in which guardians are rarely held accountable. They are often handed new work even when they have ignored their charges or let them languish in unsafe conditions.” The Post “found hundreds of cases where court-appointed protectors violated court requirements. Since 1995, one of five guardians has gone years without reporting to the court. Some have not visited their ailing charges. In more than two dozen cases, guardians or conservators have taken or mishandled money. Neglectful caretakers are rarely disciplined, D.C. bar records show. Even when they have been caught stealing or cheating clients, attorneys can go as long as nine years before they are punished.”

Why have the courts gone on giving new work to lawyers charged with misconduct or incompetence in earlier cases? “[Senior Judge Eugene] Hamilton said he would hesitate to ban lawyers from future appointments simply because they’ve been removed from a case. ‘You have to be careful about barring someone from cases, said Hamilton, who oversaw the probate division from 1991 until 1993. ‘It may be the person’s only source of practice.'” (Carol D. Leonnig, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Cohen, “Under Court, Vulnerable Became Victims”, Washington Post, Jun. 15) (via David Bernstein)(& see Ethical Esq.). More: Second part of article: Sarah Cohen, Carol D. Leonnig and April Witt, “Rights and Funds Can Evaporate Quickly”, Jun. 16). (DURABLE LINK)

June 16-17 — He’s gotta have it. A Manhattan judge has granted a temporary injunction sought by filmmaker Spike Lee against the launch of Spike TV, a cable channel aiming to provide television programming of interest to men. (Samuel Maull, “Spike Lee wins temporary injunction”, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, Jun. 12). However, “State Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub ordered Lee to post a $500,000 bond to cover Viacom’s losses in case the company wins.” (“Spike Lee outmans Spike TV”, Newsday, Jun. 13; Mark Perry, “Spike Lee Gains Upper Hand In Legal Battle With TNN”, Impact Wrestling, Jun. 13). At FindLaw, columnist Julie Hilden (“Spike Lee v. Spike TV”, Jun. 9) is nondismissive about Lee’s case, while conceding it raises questions about whether other well-known persons with the same nickname, such as director Spike Jonze, could also sue. Sentiment in the blog world, on the other hand, seems to be running heavily against Lee (né Shelton). Examples: Catbird.org, Idler Yet, Horrors of an Easily Distracted Mind, Doedermara.net, LedUntitled. (DURABLE LINK)

June 16-17 — A tangled Mississippi web. “A web of connections exists between the judges, lawyers, politicians and investigators involved in a Mississippi judicial-corruption probe, raising questions about the fairness and thoroughness of the investigation and about possible conflicts of interest.” Among prominent figures in the probe are “[plaintiff’s attorney Dickie] Scruggs as a cooperating witness and [state Attorney General Michael] Moore as a co-investigator of some sort. And their friendship has raised eyebrows, most recently after The Sun Herald witnessed Moore giving Scruggs a lift to the courthouse before Scruggs testified before the grand jury. … Scruggs has said he does not have an immunity agreement with prosecutors and that he doesn’t need one.” A federal grand jury is expected to reconvene next month to consider the allegations. (Margaret Baker, Tom Wilemon and Beth Musgrave, “Web of connections”, Biloxi (Miss.) Sun-Herald, Jun. 8)(see May 7 and links from there).

MORE ON INVESTIGATION: Thomas B. Edsall, “Mississippi Trial Lawyers Under Inquiry”, Washington Post, May 18; “FBI agent reassigned after questioning ties in judge-attorney probe”, AP/Grenada (Miss.) Star, May 29; Tom Wilemon, Margaret Baker and Beth Musgrave, “Lott, Moore deny influencing probe”, Biloxi Sun Herald/San Jose Mercury News, May 30; “Moore says he has no role in judges probe”, AP/Jackson Clarion Ledger, May 30; “Paper: Lott, judge probers talked”, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Jun. 3. (DURABLE LINK)

June 16-17 — “The rise of the fourth branch”. Our editor’s book The Rule of Lawyers is reviewed in Enter Stage Right by ESR editor Steven Martinovich (Jun. 9). And on Friday Investor’s Business Daily published correspondent David Isaac’s interview with our editor; when we get a stable URL, we’ll post it. (DURABLE LINK)

June 16-17 — “McDonald’s sues food critic”. “McDonald’s has sued one of Italy’s top food critics for raking its restaurants over the coals, but the critic says he has no intention of going back on saying its burgers taste of rubber and its fries of cardboard.” McDonald’s of Italy called the comments by Edoardo Raspelli, food critic of the newspaper La Stampa, “clearly defamatory and offensive”. (Reuters/CNN, Jun. 2; BBC, May 30; Guardian (UK), Jun. 4; “McDonald’s Turns to the Dark Side”, Center for Individual Freedom, Jun. 12). David Farrer at Freedom and Whisky suggests a better approach the company might take (“Shooting themselves in the foot”, May 31). (DURABLE LINK)

June 12-15 — Docs leaving their hometowns. As liability woes worsen, this genre of article is running in papers across the country. Philadelphia, of course: Michael Hinkelman, “Like older docs, young M.D.s fleeing Pa., too”, Philadelphia Daily News, May 28. An example from Corpus Christi, Tex.: Robert M. (Marty) Reynolds, “Why this doctor is leaving his hometown”, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Apr. 23, reprinted at Texans for Lawsuit Reform site. From Independence, Mo., best known as Harry Truman’s hometown: M. Steele Brown, “Malpractice ‘crisis’ drives docs from Missouri”, Kansas City Business Journal, May 2. And neurosurgery in Seattle faces a crisis as ten local surgeons lose their coverage, forcing hospitals to send patients elsewhere; the ten say they have good records but the chief operating officer of the Doctor’s Company, an insurance provider, “said about half of all neurosurgeons nationwide are sued each year”, which makes it plain enough that plenty of good ones get sued. (Carol M. Ostrom, “A neurosurgeon ‘crisis’: Insurer drops doctors’ group”, Seattle Times, Jun. 7). Meanwhile, the incoming head of the American Bar Association, North Carolinian Alfred P. Carlton Jr., a partner with Kilpatrick Stockton LLP, claims in an interview with The Hill — no fair laughing aloud, now — that “I don’t think there’s any credible evidence that connects anything going on in the justice system to the rise of malpractice insurance rates. My malpractice rates are going up. Everybody’s insurance rates are going up, for all kinds of insurance.” Now there’s a checkable proposition: have insurance rates for life, health, fire, storm, crop and marine risks jumped by 60 or 80 percent on renewal in the past couple of years, the way so many doctors’ liability rates have? (“‘There are abuses at the edges'” (interview), The Hill, Jun. 11). (DURABLE LINK)

June 12-15 — U.K. roundup. “George Blake, the KGB spy who fled to Moscow in 1966, has accused the Government of breaching his human rights by confiscating £90,000 he was expecting to make from his memoirs.” Blake, who escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison after serving five years of a 42-year sentence for highly damaging work as a Soviet double agent, has petitioned the European Court of Human Rights for the right to the money from the autobiography. (Joshua Rozenberg, “Spy Blake tries to sue Britain for his lost £90,000”, Daily Telegraph, May 16). “Meet Britain’s most prolific race discrimination litigant. Omorotu Francis Ayovuare, a Nigerian-born surveyor, may not have held a steady job for five years: he has, however, earned a certain celebrity in the world of industrial relations after launching 72 employment tribunal cases alleging racial discrimination.” (Adam Lusher and David Bamber, “Give me a job – or I’ll sue”, Daily Telegraph, Jun. 8). (Update Dec. 13: at request of attorney general, court restrains him from further filings). “The Scottish Parliament, fresh from outlawing hunting with dogs, is to force fish-lovers to buy pet licences for exotic species in their garden ponds and aquaria. … Anyone who owns exotic fish without a licence will face fines of up to £2,500.” (Rajeev Syal, “Have you got a licence for that exotic minnow?”, Daily Telegraph, Apr. 6). Enthusiasm about lawsuits to recoup costs of global warming has reached Britain, although as one Oxford physicist told the BBC, “Some of it might be down to things you’d have trouble suing — like the Sun”. (“Suing over climate change”, BBC, Apr. 3). (DURABLE LINK)

June 12-15 — To tame Madison County, pass the Class Action Fairness Act. By ensuring that large nationwide class actions are heard in federal court, the bill would curb the influence of “magic jurisdictions” in which “the judiciary is elected with verdict money”, as one big-league trial lawyer has put it. (Jim Copland, “The tort tax”, Wall Street Journal, Jun. 11; Mr. Copland is associated with the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Legal Policy, as is this site’s editor.). The Madison County, Ill. courthouse “is on pace to have another record year for class-action lawsuits”, reports a local newspaper. (Brian Brueggemann, “Number of lawsuits is 39 and climbing”, Belleville News-Democrat, May 26). Two plaintiff’s law firms, St. Louis-based Carr Korein Tillery and the Wood River, Ill.-based Lakin Law Firm, dominate the filing of class actions in the county (Andrew Harris, “At the head of the class actions”, National Law Journal, Jun. 9). And Madison County personal injury lawyer John Simmons, 35, of Edwardsville, whose law firm in March obtained a $250 million jury verdict for a retired steelworker in an asbestos case against U.S. Steel, “has announced his intention to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald”. (“Downstate lawyer to enter Democratic primary”, AP/Northwest Indiana Times, May 27). (DURABLE LINK)

June 24 — Next: Mercedes sues Merced, Calif. The Volo Antique Auto Museum and Mall in Volo, Ill. (population 200) exhibits and vintage and historic automobiles and runs a website Volocars.com. Now the Volvo division of Ford Motor has failed in a bid before the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva to take away the museum’s right to the volocars.com domain. (Dan Rozek, “Volo car museum nets a win in Volvo Web fight”, Chicago Sun-Times, Jun. 20; Declan McCullagh’s Politech, Jun. 11 and Jun. 10; TechDirt, Jun. 20). (DURABLE LINK)

June 24 — Engle: a $710-million loose end. Assuming the $145 billion punitive damages verdict in the Florida tobacco class action is not revived by the state’s supreme court, one major loose end remains, but it’s a really big one. Three tobacco companies agreed to fork over $710 million in exchange for class counsel’s agreeing “not to challenge a new state law, passed at the behest of the cigarette makers, capping appeals bonds at $100 million.” The enormous sum was placed in escrow for the class, but now the class does not exist since it’s been decertified. Does the class somehow get reconstituted for purposes of dividing the booty? Does it go back to the defendants? To some worthy cause? And how much of it, if any, are plaintiff’s lawyers Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt going to be allowed to grab for themselves? The agreement between the Rosenblatts and the three companies says nothing about decertification. (Matthew Haggman, “The $710 Million Question”, Miami Daily Business Review, Jun. 19). (DURABLE LINK)

June 23 — Lightning bolt in amusement park’s parking lot. Cincinnati attorney Drake Ebner admits cynics will think he’s suing the Kings Island amusement park — in whose parking lot his client was struck by lightning — just because it’s a deep pocket. “But they should hold the park accountable, for not telling his client and thousands of others about an impending lightning storm, Edner said Monday. ‘They could have told the people not to go to their cars, which are large metal objects that can attract lightning.'” (Kimball Perry, “Family sues Kings Island”, Cincinnati Post, Jun. 17). (DURABLE LINK)

June 23 — Misguided search for a sanitized jury. The “legal defense team for Lee Boyd Malvo, the young suspect in last fall’s Washington-area sniper attacks, is seeking a change of venue from Fairfax County. It contends that all potential jurors in the county were victims of the terror spread by the sniper attacks and that jurors contaminated by news coverage make a fair trial impossible. … But impartiality only means without bias. It does not mean without knowledge. The courts have long recognized that jurors can set aside what they might know about a case, and that it’s preferable to have jurors who are tuned into the world around them than ones who are hermits.” (Charles H. Whitebread, “Jurors Must Be Impartial. They Shouldn’t Be Clueless”, Washington Post, Jun. 22). (DURABLE LINK)

June 23 — Mold — to the highest bidder! “Did you hear the one about the guy with the Park Avenue apartment full of toxic mold? He couldn’t find anyone to buy the place for $15.5 million, so he jacked up the asking price last week to $18 million. … At 515 Park Avenue, real-estate developer Richard Kramer would have you believe that recently, his apartment went up in value by $2.5 million even as he and the condominium’s board of managers continue to fight multimillion-dollar lawsuits against the building’s developers and sponsors, in which they allege that the 43-story tower is plagued with a mold infestation and major construction deficiencies.” (Blair Golson, “Toxic-Mold Gold: Shoddy High Rises Sold With Flaws”, New York Observer, Jun. 23 (temporary URL — after it expires, try search function)) (DURABLE LINK)

Filed under: asbestos, ATRA, attorneys general, Australia, Baltimore, Bill McClellan, Cincinnati, climate change, Connecticut, deep pocket, Detroit, Europe, Ford Motor, global warming, Hawaii, hospitals, Houston, Illinois, Indiana, Italy, Jack Weinstein, libel slander and defamation, Long Island, Madison County, Manhattan Institute, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Rhode Island, San Diego, Seattle, Sheldon Silver, Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, Tennessee, tobacco, Utah, vaccines, Virginia Tech, West Virginia