There’s already a class action demanding medical monitoring. [Dionne Searcey, WSJ Law Blog]
Posts Tagged ‘BP Transocean oil spill’
“Lawyers line up to fight BP”
I’m quoted in the Times (UK) on lawyers’ binge of client-chasing in the Gulf, and the legacy of “home cooking” that can make it hard for outside defendants to be treated fairly in that part of the country [reprinted in The Australian]
July 12 roundup
- 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]
July 8 roundup
- Federal preemption of state law: compare and contrast illegal-immigration control with auto and drug design [Ted and Carter at PoL; upcoming (Jul. 21) Cato panel discussion in DC]
- Authorities in Scotland let Lockerbie bomber off on doctor’s note. How’d that work out? [Bainbridge]
- Pay for your rescue: “French tourists may be billed if high-risk trips go wrong” [Guardian]
- Must revoke honorific California-state-rock status of serpentine! It contains asbestos! [L.A. Times “Booster Shots” via Amy Alkon]
- “Zero tolerance for bullying” — nice slogan, but think before endorsing [Helene Guldberg, Daily Mail via Skenazy]
- “The New Black Panther Case: A Conservative Dissent” [Abigail Thernstrom, NRO; earlier]
- $113,800 in damages in pregnancy-bias suit against Lucasfilm, but demand for attorney’s fees could reach $1.2 million [SF Chronicle]
- Trial lawyers fear being cut out of BP TransOcean pie [WSJ Law Blog, Bainbridge, Calif. Civil Justice]
July 6 roundup
- “Kagan refused to identify anything the government couldn’t do under its Commerce Clause power” and “consciously left herself plenty of breathing room to cite foreign law inappropriately” [Ilya Shapiro, more]
- Multiple civil/criminal hats? “The odd responses of the attorney general to the oil spill” [WaPo editorial]
- Phillies Phanatic, “‘Most-Sued Mascot in the Majors’ Is Back in Court” [Lowering the Bar, which also hosts Blawg Review #271 this week]
- Federalist Society has a new blog;
- California will pay $20 million to woman abducted for nearly two decades [AP]
- Charges dropped against teen who tried to help lost kid in shopping mall [Lenore Skenazy, earlier]
- Two libertarians arrested after videotaping police in Greenfield, Mass. [Balko, earlier here and here]
- “‘Ambulance Chaser’ Lawsuits Hound Apple Over iPhone 4” [Atlantic Wire]
Federal judge who lifted Gulf drilling ban
First came the character assassination aimed at Judge Martin Feldman, then came the death threats [Jeff Crouere, BayouBuzz via Wood/PoL, earlier]
June 25 roundup
- Supreme Court limits scope of “honest services fraud” law [Mauro/NLJ, Ilya Shapiro and Tim Lynch, Cato, Bainbridge and more]
- No, defensive medicine isn’t a myth, ask your emergency room doc [AP/Columbus Dispatch] Eagerness to share horror stories [Sharon Begley, Newsweek] “Unusual for a Democrat, Obama readily acknowledges that defensive medicine is a problem.” [AP/WaPo] “VBAC rates are low, but are obstetricians to blame?” [Lin and Tuteur at KevinMD, Replogle/Fair Warning]
- Social life of a blawger, cont’d: I sat at David Lat’s table at CEI’s evening with Judge Kozinski [Above the Law] Judge Learned Hand, writing in an antitrust case, “was very knowledgeable about everything except how the world works.” [among the many funny things Judge K. said]
- For those keeping count, at least seven Roman Catholic dioceses in this country have filed for bankruptcy in abuse scandal [Hartley]
- Business Roundtable enumerates rapidly expanding roster of federal regulatory burdens [Ted at PoL, Amend the CPSIA, Tad DeHaven and Daniel Mitchell, Cato]
- Colleges fiddle numbers to comply with Title IX, but don’t you dare call it a quota law [LegalBlogWatch, Greenfield] New report on law’s ill effects on soccer [College Sports Council, Charlotte Allen/MtC] More: Allison Kasic, IWF. And back when, I wrote on Princeton wrestling and Title IX; CSC tells how that turned out.
- Former student of Prof. Robin West defends homeschooling [Sub Specie]
- Not too long ago: “My environmental advocacy organization would only fill the company cars at BP” [Stoll]
June 24 roundup
- “IP Lawyer Who Spotted Expired Patent on Solo Cup Lid Loses Quest for Trillions in Damages” [ABA Journal, earlier on “false markings” suits here, here, etc.]
- Like we’re surprised: Linda Greenhouse favors sentimental (“Poor Joshua!”) side in 1989 DeShaney case and hopes Elena Kagan does too [NYT Opinionator, my take a few years back]
- Why is Le Monde in financial trouble? For one thing, firing a printing plant employee costs €466,000 [Frédéric Filloux, Monday Note via MargRev]
- “Will these salt peddlers stop at nothing?” Michael Kinsley on NYT sodium-as-next-tobacco coverage [Atlantic Wire]
- “‘Victim’ Gets $4.17 Coupon, Lawyers Get $10 Million Cash”: Expedia class action settlement [John Frith, California Civil Justice Blog]
- Scruggs investigation finally over as feds drop probe of political operative P.L. Blake; several figures in Mississippi scandal are up for release soon from prison [Jackson Clarion Ledger]
- $20 billion Gulf spill fund: “Oil Gushes and Power Rushes” [Sullum, Althouse]
- “NYC Naked Cowboy to Naked Cowgirl: Stop copying me” [AP]
New oil spill panel director: plaintiffs only, please?
Georgetown law professor Richard Lazarus has been named executive director of the Obama administration’s new commission on the Gulf oil spill. In 2007 Prof. Lazarus was reported to be among participants in the rather grandly named “National Legal Scholars Law Firm“, which “provides its services solely for the benefit of plaintiffs’ lawyers,” though he is not longer named on its scholar list.
June 23 roundup
- Judge blocks sweeping Obama administration ban on new offshore drilling [Roger Pilon, Cato] Some reasons judge may have found ban irrational [Lowry, NRO, scroll to reader comment; Gus Lubin, Business Insider] More on Jones Act waivers in the Gulf [Bainbridge, earlier]
- Connecticut AG Blumenthal launches investigation of Google Street View [Rick Green, Courant]
- Florida judge tosses out $10 million libel verdict against St. Petersburg Times [St. P.T.]
- Lawyer in British Columbia suspends practice after bizarre jury tampering charges [CBC]
- “Disclosed to death”: why laws mandating disclosure are so overused and overbroad [Falkenberg, Forbes on work of Omri Ben-Shahar and Carl E. Schneider, via PoL]
- Judge dismisses controversial Pennsylvania case against Johnson & Johnson over Risperdal marketing, Gov. Rendell had hired major donor to run suit on contingency [LNL, McDonald/NJLRA, earlier]
- Rick Hills vs. Ilya Somin on federalism and constitutional enforcement of property rights [Prawfsblawg, Volokh]
- Beware proposed expansion of Federal Trade Commission powers [Wood, ShopFloor]