Posts Tagged ‘damages’

September 7 roundup

Demand for $38 quadrillion, cont’d

Kevin at Lowering the Bar points out that the suit we reported on yesterday doesn’t actually carry the highest damages demand ever; it is topped by one man’s suit last year against Bank of America for 1.7 septillion dollars. In third place — maybe — is “a claim for three quadrillion and change filed by someone against the federal government after Hurricane Katrina.”

Meanwhile, the story of the $38 quadrillion lawsuit moves Adam Freedman at Ricochet to consider some perhaps drastic legal reform remedies.

August 19 roundup

  • Judge bans $1.35 billion sugar beet crop for lack of environmental impact statement [NY Times]
  • Brennan Center, Justice at Stake attracting attention with new report on money in state court judicial races [report in PDF, Kang/ConcurOp]
  • Obama signs “libel tourism” bill into law [Levy, CL&P]
  • “Zach Scruggs claims new evidence clears him” [Patsy Brumfield, NE Mississippi Daily Journal via YallPolitics]
  • Second Circuit panel blasts 1980s abuse-accusation panic in ruling on Friedman case [opinion via NYT and Bernstein/Volokh]
  • Famed Cincinnati lawyer Stanley Chesley may face disciplinary action before Kentucky bar over role in fen-phen scandal [Courier-Journal via Dan Fisher and PoL]
  • Sexual harassment verdict against California casino “amounts to 2/3 of the company’s net worth” [Fox, Jottings]
  • Every White House needs to hire some partisan brawlers. But with “ethics czar” duties? [Matt Welch, Reason]

July 2 roundup

  • Report: European sunscreens use superior ingredients US regulators haven’t gotten around to approving [NYT]
  • Some in Pakistan want Zuckerberg executed for hosting “draw Mohammed” [Freethinker, UK]
  • GM fought Clean Air Act? “Sen. Franken’s bad environmental history” [Adler/Volokh]
  • Scary McChesneyite plans for federal intervention in media: FTC seems to be listening [Thierer, City Journal] FCC relations with Free Press on the skids? [Mike Riggs, Daily Caller]
  • In 1978 Canada Supreme Court judicially imposed cap on noneconomic damages, world doesn’t seem to have ended for Canadian litigants [Wood, PoL]
  • “Landlord victorious in Peeps trial” [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
  • Who’ll wind up paying in Chinese drywall litigation? [Risk and Insurance]
  • How not to get out of jury duty [Abnormal Use]

June 10 roundup

  • 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.

January 30 roundup

  • Attention journalists: a trademark opposition and a trademark lawsuit are two different things [Legal Satyricon]
  • I explain (slightly rudely) why I think the Citizens United decision will probably help the Dems this cycle [National Journal blogger poll] Plus: no big effect on campaigns? [Ann Althouse] And it’s not as if Chuck Schumer has made up his mind or anything: he’s titled his hearing on Citizens United next week “Corporate America vs. the Voter” [PoL, yet more here and here]
  • Olson and Boies should realize these are not the days of the Warren Court [Dale Carpenter, Independent Gay Forum]
  • Motorists beware Tenaha, Texas: the legal sequel [WSJ Law Blog, earlier here, etc.]
  • “Detroit Lawyer Fined For Chasing Buffalo Air Crash Victims” [Turkewitz]
  • Symbolic venue? Administration chooses to unveil new press-lenders-to-serve-minorities campaign at Jesse Jackson event [N.Y.Times]
  • Remembering pinball prohibition [Popular Mechanics back in August, Radley Balko]
  • Judge cuts “shocking”, “monstrous” $2 million award to $54,000 in Jammie Thomas-Rasset music-download suit [AmLaw Litigation Daily, earlier] Naughty librarians: “Offline Book ‘Lending’ Costs US Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion” [Eric Hellman]

“Lawyer: Man who slipped on cruise ship deserves every penny of $9.5 million”

“I strongly disagree that this case is a classic example of the legal system run amok; in truth, it is a classic example of justice being served,” said David Brill, Florida-based attorney for plaintiff Danny Simpson, a fitness instructor on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Crown who slipped on a wet floor area. [Gene Sloan, USA Today “Cruise Log” blog]