juries – Overlawyered

Liability roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 11:03:29 +0000

Class actions: “How to pick lead counsel, Judge Alsup-style” [Alison Frankel, Reuters]
Foiled by video: “N.J. man busted staging slip-and-fall for insurance money learns his sentence” [Noah Cohen, NJ Advance Media]
More on the “reptile theory” of jury persuasion [Drug and Device Law: Stephen McConnell, more from James Beck; earlier here, here, etc.]
Trial lawyer consultants are sticking with their story that Toyotas are subject to electronically induced sudden acceleration that cannot be overcome by the brakes, and the Fair Warning website is not the place to expect a skeptical reaction to that [Amy Martyn, Fair Warning, our coverage]
Arbitration-killing bill: so-called FAIR Act is trial bar top priority in Congress [Phil Goldberg, Washington Examiner]
“Can a new study solve Johnson & Johnson’s talc problem?” [Chuck Dinerstein, American Council on Science and Health]

Tags: arbitration, claims fraud, class actions, juries, sudden acceleration, Toyota

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

Crime and punishment roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 11:03:51 +0000

Three episodes of the Cato Daily Podcast, all with Caleb Brown: “A Survey of State-Level Criminal Justice Reform” with Robert Alt of the Buckeye Institute; “Reforming Parole and Probation” with Marc Levin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation; “Getting Honest on Bail Reform” with Josh Crawford of the Pegasus Institute;
In news of unconstitutional legislation, the lawmakers of Monroe County, N.Y. (Rochester) want to make it illegal to “annoy” a police officer [James Brown, WXXI, Eugene Volokh]
Jury unanimity is required in federal criminal trials, but does the Constitution also require it at the state court level? [Federalist Society SCOTUS Brief video with Jay Schweikert on Ramos v. Louisiana, argued at the Court Oct. 7]
In August New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law stripping state double jeopardy protections from Trump associates who may receive clemency in the future. It’s an improperly targeted enactment at best [Jacob Sullum, earlier]
Denison, Texas drunk with multiple priors, lying on gurney in hospital, kicks police officer and gets 99 year sentence for that [Stan Smith, KXII]
Lengthy profile of Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, including his feuds with the local U.S. Attorney and Pennsylvania’s Attornry General. One disturbing data point: “Homicides in the city are up six percent and shootings are up 10 percent this year.” [Steve Volk, Philadelphia Magazine]

Tags: Andrew Cuomo, bail bonds, crime and punishment, double jeopardy, juries, Philadelphia, probation

Crime and punishment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Liability roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 19 Jul 2019 09:58:53 +0000

Little kid gets into driver’s seat, depresses gas pedal, injures mother, lawsuit tries to blame this on Tesla [Linette Lopez, Business Insider via Ted Frank]
“New York court strikes down $7 million talc/asbestos verdict, says plaintiff’s evidence was lacking” [Daniel Fisher, Legal NewsLine]
“How a Jury Asked for 10 Million Dollars Came to Award $2,500” [Brunswick, Ga.; Katheryn Tucker, Fulton County Daily Report (reg)]
If Europe adopts American-style class action mechanisms, it should also look to the procedural safeguards we’ve had to develop to cut down on abuse [Kevin LaCroix, D&O Diary]
“Setting the Record Straight About the Benefits of Pre-Dispute Arbitration” [Victor Schwartz and Christopher Appel, Washington Legal Foundation]
Judge turns away Justice Department challenge to Dial soap class action settlement [Mark Hayward, New Hampshire Union Leader]

Tags: arbitration, class action settlements, class actions, juries, sudden acceleration

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

Unexpected moments in jury duty

Walter Olson — Thu, 23 May 2019 10:01:28 +0000

“It must be extremely rare… for a judge to be summoned for jury duty in a case over which he or she will be presiding. But that happened in the UK not long ago— and the judge then had trouble getting out of it.” [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar]

Tags: judges, juries

Unexpected moments in jury duty is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Crime and punishment roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 10:59:50 +0000

Sorry, Denver cops, but you can’t keep a journalist from photographing an arrest on the street by telling her she’s violating the health-privacy law HIPAA [Alex Burness, Colorado Independent on handcuffing of editor Susan Greene]
Conor Friedersdorf interviews Scott Greenfield, criminal defense blogger and longtime friend of this blog, at the Atlantic;
Claim in new article: “extremely broad criminal statutes, no less than vague and ambiguous criminal statutes, are constitutionally problematic for depriving ordinary people of ‘fair notice’ about how the legal system actually works” [Kiel Brennan-Marquez guest series at Volokh Conspiracy: first, second, third]
“We Cannot Avoid the Ugly Tradeoffs of Bail Reform” [Alex Tabarrok; Scott Greenfield] New York should learn from Maryland on risks of unintended consequences [New York Post, and thanks for mention] And a Cato Daily Podcast on bail reform with Daniel Dew of the Buckeye Institute and Caleb Brown;
In Little Rock and elsewhere, police use of criminal informants creates disturbing incentives that can challenge both probity and accountability [Jonathan Blanks, Cato on Radley Balko account of Roderick Talley raid episode]
Call to scrap juries in UK rape trials (because they acquit too often) is met with criticism [Matthew Scott, Spectator]

Tags: Arkansas, bail bonds, crime and punishment, HIPAA, juries, police

Crime and punishment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Constitutional law as it shoulda been

Walter Olson — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 10:05:07 +0000

In learning to reason impartially about constitutional law, a valuable exercise is to come up with a list of instances in which the best reading of the Constitution cuts *against* your own view of good policy. Ilya Somin goes first, with examples that include near-total Congressional control over foreign trade; too much use of juries; the extreme difficulty of removing a seriously bad President; the near-indelible status of state lines; and an amendment process that is too hard to use.

Tags: Article V, constitutional law, juries

Constitutional law as it shoulda been is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Emotional support, therapy and companion dogs in court

Walter Olson — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 04:05:51 +0000

“As dogs and other animals are increasingly used in courts to comfort and calm prosecution witnesses, a few voices are calling for keeping the practice on a short leash, saying they could bias juries.” [AP/WTOP]

Tags: juries, service animals

Emotional support, therapy and companion dogs in court is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 09:51:07 +0000

After malpractice caps, doctors ordered fewer invasive tests to diagnose heart attacks [Elizabeth Cooney, Stat]
Product liability defense lawyer manages to survive peremptory challenge and make it onto a jury for a med-mal case, and here are his observations [Stephen McConnell, Drug & Device Law]
“How Big Government Backed Bad Science and Made Americans Fat” [Reason interview with Nina Teicholz]
Suits against blood thinner Xarelto have done poorly. Can plaintiff’s lawyers keep plugging away till they get wins? [John O’Brien, Legal NewsLine]
“Pharmacy Benefit Managers Are Not the Cause of High Prescription Drug Prices” [Ike Brannon]
Advice for physicians: “5 ways to live through medical malpractice lawsuits” [Stacia Dearmin, KevinMD]

Tags: defensive medicine, juries, medical malpractice, obesity, pharmaceuticals

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

December 6 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 06 Dec 2017 11:01:12 +0000

Torts class hypotheticals come to life: tipsy axe-throwing, discussed in this space last June, is coming to D.C. [Jessica Sidman, Washingtonian] One guess why Japanese “slippery stairs” game show might not translate easily to Land O’ Lawyers [Dan McLaughlin on Twitter]
“California lawyer pleads guilty in $50M visa scam” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal]
Claim: longstanding practice in Louisiana and Oregon of not requiring jury unanimity for felony convictions reflects states’ racial past [Angela A. Allen-Bell, Washington Post]
“Judge Halts Copyright Troll’s Lawsuit Against A Now-Deceased Elderly Man With Dementia And An IP Address” [Timothy Geigner]
David Henderson reviews Richard Rothstein book on history of federal encouragement of housing segregation, The Color of Law [Cato Regulation magazine]
Class action: sellers of cold-pressed juice should have disclosed that it was high-pressure-processed [Elaine Watson, Food Navigator USA]

Tags: assumption of risk, copyright, housing discrimination, juries, Louisiana, Oregon

December 6 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Jurors and social media

Walter Olson — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 04:15:28 +0000

A New York advisory (@jordanzakarin on Twitter).

Solid overall life advice, too pic.twitter.com/UByBgiRdFN

— Jordan Zakarin (@jordanzakarin) August 1, 2016

Tags: Facebook, juries, social media, Twitter

Jurors and social media is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system