Posts Tagged ‘Arkansas’

Scary Banzhaf

Our least favorite member of the George Washington University faculty is seeking to lay out the legal backing for a proposal being floated by Arkansas Gov. Huckabee to ban smoking by women who are pregnant. Huckabee recently signed a bill to ban smoking in cars when children are present. (Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”, Jun. 15). More on tobacco and tyranny here.

AG candidates and their lawsuits: Dustin McDaniel

First in a series.

In 1998, two boys, Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, stole guns from a locked cabinet and engaged in a school shooting at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, that killed five people. The boys were eventually convicted of capital murder. 2006 Democratic nominee for Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, representing the families of the victims, sued the gun manufacturers. (Kenneth Heard, “Public defenders agency to pay for Jonesboro shooters civil case”, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 27, 1999). A judge threw out the suit, but the defendants had to spend money to defend themselves, part of a trial attorney campaign against gun manufacturers. (Kenneth Heard, “Gun maker, grandfather dropped from school shooting suit”, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 10, 2000). The suit was further controversial because a judge ordered taxpayers to pick up the cost of defending the civil lawsuit against the two shooters.

(Know of other trial lawyers, Republican or Democrat, with appalling suits running for office this November? E-mail me.)

Banning smoking in cars

Two years ago (see Apr. 30, 2004) the California Assembly narrowly defeated a bill that would have banned smoking in cars when kids were present, but now Arkansas has enacted such a bill, applying to cars in which younger (age 7 and below) children are present (Virginia Vickery, “Some in Siloam Springs worry about statewide smoking ban”, Benton County Daily Record, Apr. 30). The bill provides for “primary enforcement” of the ban, meaning that police officers can pull over a car in which they observe the offense, rather than just write it up after pulling a car over for other reasons. (Jake Bleed and Michael R. Wickline, “Lighting up with young kids in vehicle banned under bill”, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Apr. 8). Michael Siegel, whose fascinating weblog on tobacco policy for some reason had escaped my notice up to now, has a discussion (Apr. 26) (via Sullum). In a separate post (May 1), Siegel notes that some anti-smoking activists in the Pacific Northwest are pursuing an “informal, unorganized and quiet movement toward making it a criminal act to smoke around kids” under any circumstances, including in parents’ own homes, which would be categorized as child abuse (Dan Tilkin and staff, “Doctor pushes to make smoking an act of child abuse”, KATU, Apr. 27). More: Jacob Sullum comments at Reason “Hit and Run” (May 2).

Also at Point of Law

Along with a great deal of other discussion of the John Roberts nomination (for which see the site’s special Supreme Court nominations page), Point of Law has kicked off a featured discussion of the confirmation saga by two distinguished contributors, U. of Chicago lawprof Richard Epstein and Northwestern lawprof Stephen Presser (more).

Some other recent highlights at the site: Jim Copland and Jonathan Wilson on the Texas Merck trial, Wilson on Georgia’s new rule regarding “offers of judgment”, and posts from me on an expansion of ADA coverage, school finance suits, the retention by Oklahoma’s attorney general of private tort lawyers to sue chicken farmers in nearby Arkansas, an appeals court approves RICO suits against employers of illegal aliens, health care qui tam actions, the “cab-rank” principle in legal ethics (observed more in Britain than here), and Astroturf in the liability wars.

Obese Arkansas Schoolkids

You probably heard a couple of months ago that the state of Arkansas decided to start providing the parents of school children with “report cards” on their kids’ weight. School children will have their “Body Mass Index” (BMI) measured at school, and the results sent home. What I just learned today, from this MSNBC story, is where the funding originated for the obesity report cards: “The BMI test came into existence as a result of a cash windfall to the state from a tobacco lawsuit settlement tagged to fund public health programs.”

It’s particularly ironic because decreased smoking, apparently, is one of the major factors promoting the American obesity epidemic.

Great moments in economic regulation

With soaring gasoline prices beginning to cause economic hardship, Minnesota’s Commerce Department is cracking down on gas stations for charging prices that are too low. “The state adopted a law in 2001 that bars gas stations from selling gas without taking a minimum profit. These days, stations must charge at least eight cents per gallon more than they paid. The Commerce Department is now issuing its first fines for breaking the law. It fined Arkansas-based Murphy Oil $70,000 for breaking the law at its ten state stations, which are based at Wal-Mart stores,” and also fined one Kwik Trip station. (“Commerce Department Cracks Down on Under Priced Gas”, KARE11.com (Minneapolis-St. Paul), May 29)(via Truck and Barter). Another example, from Maryland: May 21, 2005.

More medical privacy madness

More presumably unintended consequences (see Oct. 23, Nov. 9) of HIPAA, the new federal law menacing institutions with $10,000 fines for releasing too much information about patients:

* “When Arkansas announced three flu deaths among its 2.8 million residents on Dec. 5 … it wouldn’t say whether the victims were young [despite intense public interest in whether this year’s flu was killing otherwise healthy children]. After consultation with its lawyers, it added only that the deaths involved adults in any of a dozen or so high-risk groups. In Iowa, state doctors wouldn’t list the hometown of a 1-year-old who died of the flu and wouldn’t say how long the child was ill, when it died or whether it had had a flu shot. It also wouldn’t say whether the child was boy or a girl.” (“Ark. Limits Info Regarding Flu Deaths”, AP/ABCNews.com, Dec. 30).

* Volunteer groups bringing holiday toys, teddy bears, and brownies to Quad Cities hospital wards are sometimes being told to leave the items with hospital staffs rather than visit the wards, and Santa Claus can make an appearance only if a separate guardian’s consent is obtained for each hospitalized child, according to the Moline Dispatch (Kurt Allemeier and Tory Brecht, “Privacy concerns limit Santa?s hospital visits”, Dec. 25; also see Martha Irvine, “How gifts can overwhelm children’s hospitals”, AP/Boston Globe, Dec. 25).

* And after Joynal Abedin became a victim of a fatal hit-and-run in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Adelphi, Md., his family did not learn of his fate for two weeks until it received a $17,000 bill from Washington Hospital Center in the mail; the hospital’s fear of medical privacy breaches was one factor contributing to the delay. (Yolanda Woodlee, “Hospital Bill Is Family’s Only Clue”, Washington Post, Jan. 20)

Well, that didn’t take long

A law firm “announced today that it has filed a class action lawsuit in the Court of Common Pleas in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on behalf of all persons and entities residing in the United States who lost electrical power during the massive energy blackout that began on August 14, 2003.” (PR Newswire/Yahoo, Aug. 18). “The Great Blackout of 2003 is sure to generate countless lawsuits aimed at holding someone liable for the massive economic losses it caused – but experts said yesterday the only ones cashing in may be the lawyers.” (William Neuman, “Only Lawyers To Get a $$ Surge From Big Losses”, New York Post, Aug. 16; Adam Liptak, “Plaintiffs Face Hurdles Proving Liability”, New York Times, Aug. 15)(more on law firm Cauley Geller: Stephen Taub, “The Suing Game”, CFO.com, Jun. 15, 2001; Wesley Brown, “Predatory Law Firms Hover as Company Woes Are Made Public”, Northwest Arkansas Morning News, Dec. 23, 2001 (PDF first, second pages)).