banana pesticide litigation fraud – Overlawyered

Fraud week IV: lawyers who should know better

Walter Olson — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 10:37:08 +0000

Where there is highly organized claims fraud, there are often found clusters of lawyers, doctors and their associates.

In Las Vegas’s Medical Mafia case, “physicians who played ball are said to have been assured protection from malpractice suits from many feared attorneys, while those not in on the scheme appear in some cases to have been at extra peril.”

Disloyal insurance company employees or counsel are sometimes in on the game too. California’s 1980s “Alliance” scandal, “a covert joint venture between plaintiffs’ and defense lawyers to manufacture and prolong legal claims for which the insurers would be obliged to employ legal counsel, bilked large insurance companies out of hundreds of millions of dollars in the 1980s.”

We could multiply examples many times over from mass tort fields like asbestos (with its creative witness-coaching and memory-massaging approaches to the issue of product identification) but for a good single episode, check out the banana pesticide litigation against Central American producers. Like many litigation campaigns, it generated a not-so-indie “documentary” (financed by plaintiff’s lawyers) billed around the film festival circuit as exposing multinational corporations’ guilt. That was before a federal judge described the litigation before her as a “pervasive conspiracy to defraud” its target, Dole.

Fraud week IV: lawyers who should know better is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Business Week: judges blowing whistle on more corrupt litigation

Walter Olson — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:39:32 +0000

Only three days after Judge Kaplan’s spectacular ruling in the Chevron/Ecuador case, notes Paul Barrett at Business Week, “a state appellate court in California upheld a trial judge’s finding that what had been billed as a watershed liability verdict against Dole Food over pesticide use in Nicaragua was actually the product of a corrupt conspiracy by plaintiffs’ lawyers.”

The case at issue in the March 7 ruling, known as Tellez, went to trial in 2008 and produced a multimillion-dollar verdict for workers. That verdict was thrown out when Dole’s attorneys proved that many of the plaintiffs never worked for the company and weren’t, in fact, sterile. Witnesses and investigators were intimidated in Nicaragua, and plaintiffs were coached to concoct false stories.

Barrett has related pieces here and here. He notes the string of high-profile plaintiff’s lawyers tripped up by unethical conduct — Dickie Scruggs, Bill Lerach, Mel Weiss, Stan Chesley — and observes that the jackpots obtained by the mass tort bar in the 1990s incentivized, when they were not themselves the result of, ethical problems that have taken years to play themselves out. I’ve been on these themes since (and before) my book The Rule of Lawyers, and began tracking the banana pesticide litigation five years ago.

Tags: banana pesticide litigation fraud, ethics, mass tort fraud

Business Week: judges blowing whistle on more corrupt litigation is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 14 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 05:24:11 +0000

Pre-terror-attack antibiotic availability? HHS doesn’t think you’re sophisticated enough to handle that freedom [Stewart Baker]
Uh-oh: some New York lawmakers want “a more refined First Amendment” [Slashdot, Lucy Steigerwald]
Wal-Mart v. Dukes decision could curb certification of some wage and hour class actions [Fox]
“Miss. Supreme Court Removes Judge from $322M Asbestos Case Because of Dad’s Lawsuits” [ABA Journal]
Mass. town wants to seize family motel under forfeiture law, IJ objects [Jacob Sullum, Mark Perry]
Will FDA use its new tobacco-regulatory power to stub out cigars? [DC]
“Dole settles pesticide litigation” [WSJ Law Blog, background]

Tags: banana pesticide litigation fraud, FDA, First Amendment, forfeiture, recusals, terrorism, tobacco, Wal-Mart v. Dukes

October 14 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Indie documentaries,” or lawsuit Astroturf?

Walter Olson — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:11:51 +0000

Glenn Garvin at the Miami Herald has spotted a trend on the film festival circuit. Among the questions he raises: why was the New York Times so oddly unskeptical about the Chevron-bashing opus Crude? And why was such widespread credulity accorded to the showcasing of Jamie Leigh Jones’s lawsuit in Susan Saladoff’s Hot Coffee? More: Jim Dedman, Abnormal Use.

Tags: banana pesticide litigation fraud, Chevron, litigation lobby

“Indie documentaries,” or lawsuit Astroturf? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 14 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:14:04 +0000

“Sources: Trial lawyers expect tax break from Treasury Department” [Legal NewsLine, PoL, earlier; measure would reportedly replicate contents of bill that didn’t pass Congress]
No doubt totally unrelated: eight Dem Senate candidates journey to Vancouver for AAJ fundraiser [The Hill, David Freddoso, ShopFloor, more]
Report: elderly man jailed after making “bomb” joke about carry-on at airport [NBCNewYork]
New York debt collection law firm files 80,000 actions a year, critics say errors and lack of documentation inevitable [NYT]
Kimberly-Clark: quit letting asbestos plaintiffs forum-shop against us [SE Texas Record] How a new asbestos defendant can get “passed around” among claimants [Global Tort, scroll] Prosperity of one Cleveland asbestos law firm I’d never heard of [Briefcase]
North Carolina court of appeals: employee rushing to bathroom after getting off work not acting within scope of employment [Matthews v. Food Lion, PDF]
“Curse of the greedy copyright holders” [Woodlief, WSJ, via de Rugy, NRO; TechDirt]
Update: “Ninth Circuit suspends Walter Lack, reprimands Thomas Girardi” [famed California lawyers tripped up in Dole suit; Legal Ethics Forum, PoL, earlier]

Tags: AAJ, asbestos, banana pesticide litigation fraud, copyright, debtor-creditor law, forum shopping, Harry Reid, taxes, terrorism, Thomas Girardi

July 14 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 12 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:24:47 +0000

Kagan to senators: please don’t confuse my views with Mark Tushnet’s or Harold Koh’s [Constitutional Law Prof]
Too much like a Star Wars lightsaber? Lucasfilm sends a cease-and-desist to a laser pointer maker [Mystal, AtL]
Ottawa, Canada: family files complaint “against trendy wine bar that turned away dinner party because it included 3mo baby” [Drew Halfnight, National Post]
“House left Class Action Fairness Act alone in SPILL Act” [Wood/PoL, earlier]
Not so indie? Filmmaker doing anti-Dole documentary on Nicaraguan banana workers says he took cash from big plaintiff’s law firm Provost Umphrey [AP/WaPo, WSJLawBlog, Erik Gardner/THREsq., new plaintiffs’ charges against Dole]
Will liability ruling result in closure of popular Connecticut recreational area? [Rick Green, Hartford Courant; earlier]
Class action lawyer Sean Coffey, running for New York attorney general, has many generous supporters [NYDN, more, WNYC (Sen. Al Franken headlines closed fundraiser at Yale Club)]
“Judge Reduces Damages Award by 90% in Boston Music Downloading Trial” [NLJ, earlier on Tenenbaum case]

Tags: age discrimination, Al Franken, attorneys general, banana pesticide litigation fraud, BP Transocean oil spill, Canada, Connecticut, Elena Kagan, New York, politics, Provost Umphrey, recreation, restaurants, RIAA and file sharing

July 12 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 9 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:51:53 +0000

Many interesting reader comments on post about jury award against manufacturer over injury on bicycle motorized post-sale;
Reimbursed for money never paid: “Calif. Trial Lawyers Welcome Latest Ruling on Recovery of Medical Expenses” [The Recorder]
Update: Defamation suit against travel blogger Chris Elliott resolved successfully [Citizen Media Law, earlier]
Podcast: Northwestern lawprof Steven Calabresi on McDonald (Second Amendment incorporation) case [Federalist Society]
“Provost Umphrey claims banana picker reps siphoned clients, money” [SE Texas Record]
Lawprofs in a NYT flutter about deductibility of punitive damages [Walk, Drug & Device Law] On the merits, Carter at ShopFloor: “Changing Tax Laws to Punish Businesses — Unless They Settle”
Troubled Pacific Law Center to close in San Diego [ABA Journal, earlier]
New York high court rules Atlanta exec cannot invoke New York’s pro-plaintiff state or city laws to contest firing [NYLJ]

Tags: Atlanta, banana pesticide litigation fraud, bloggers and the law, California, forum shopping, guns, New York, punitive damages, taxes

July 9 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

June 10 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:12:39 +0000

Compensation awards to soldiers in the UK: £161,000 for losing leg and arm, but £186,896 for sex harassment? [Telegraph]
Judge in banana pesticide fraud case says threats have been made against her and against witnesses [AP, L.A. Times]
Teacher plans to sue religious school that fired her for having premarital sex [Orlando Sentinel]
Now sprung from hoosegow, class-actioneer Lerach on progressive lecture circuit and “living in luxury” [Stoll, Carter Wood at PoL and ShopFloor (Campaign for America’s Future conference), San Diego Reader via Pero]
Connecticut law banning “racial ridicule” has palpable constitutional problems, you’d think, but has resulted in many prosecutions and some convictions [Volokh, Gideon]
Gone with the readers: newsmagazines, metro newspapers facing fewer libel suits [NY Observer] More: Lyrissa Lidsky, Prawfs.
Having Connecticut press comfortably in his pocket helped Blumenthal turn the tables against NY Times [Stein/HuffPo] Must not extend to the New Britain Herald News, though;
Interview with editor Brian Anderson of City Journal [Friedersdorf, Atlantic] I well remember being there as part of the first issue twenty years ago.

Tags: banana pesticide litigation fraud, Bill Lerach, Connecticut, damages, discrimination law, hate speech, libel slander and defamation, Richard Blumenthal, United Kingdom

June 10 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

February 3 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:24:43 +0000

Many of our readers liked the ruling, but someone didn’t: “Judge censured for ordering class-action lawyer to take pay in $125,000 worth of gift-cards” [BoingBoing, ABA Journal, Leonard/L.A. Times, Lowering the Bar]
“NFL Concedes In Who Dat Battle” [Lowering the Bar, more, earlier; here’s a protest t-shirt, and more on those]
Some plaintiff’s lawyers give their side of the story, disputing fraud allegations in Dole banana-worker pesticide cases [Bronstad, NLJ, earlier]
“Google Blog Bundle — 42 criminal defense blogs” [Mark Bennett] And while you’re at it, why not take a moment right now to put Overlawyered in your RSS blog reader?
Massachusetts hardball: state lawmaker says private law schools might be breaking antitrust laws in working to oppose state school proposed in his district [ABA Journal via Above the Law; public law school plan OK’d]
Making the rounds: why medieval trial by ordeal may not have been so crazy after all [Peter Leeson, Boston Globe and full paper (PDF) via Volokh]
“Rothstein E-Mails Reveal Role of Former Plaintiffs’ Lawyer” [Brian Baxter, AmLaw Litigation Daily]
Obama: I tried to reach across aisle on medical liability reform but GOP wasn’t nibbling. Fact check please [Wood, PoL]

Tags: antitrust, banana pesticide litigation fraud, Barack Obama, class action settlements, coupon settlements, football, law schools, Massachusetts, medical malpractice, Scott Rothstein, Super Bowl

February 3 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

November 16 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:04:20 +0000

German law firm demands that Wikipedia remove true information about now-paroled murderers [EFF] More: Eugene Volokh.
“Class Actions: Some Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Fed Up, Too?” [California Civil Justice]
Drop that Irish coffee and back away: “F.D.A. Says It May Ban Alcoholic Drinks With Caffeine” [NYT]
Profile of L.A. tort lawyers Walter Lack and Thomas Girardi, now in hot water following Nicaraguan banana-pesticide scandal [The Recorder; my earlier outing on “Erin Brockovich” case]
Federalist Society panel on federalism and preemption [BLT]
Confidence in the courts? PriceWaterhouseCoopers would rather face Satyam securities fraud lawsuits in India than in U.S. [Hartley]
Allegation: Scruggs continuing to wheel and deal behind bars [Freeland]
Not much that will be new to longtime readers here: “Ten ridiculous lawsuits against Big Business” [Biz Insider] P.S.: Legal Blog Watch had more lists back in June.

Tags: alcohol, banana pesticide litigation fraud, Dickie Scruggs, Erin Brockovich, FDA, federalism, Federalist Society, Germany, India, preemption, Thomas Girardi, Wikipedia

November 16 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system