Katrina – Overlawyered https://www.overlawyered.com/ Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Mon, 06 Mar 2017 00:44:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Liability roundup https://www.overlawyered.com/2017/03/liability-roundup-26/ Tue, 07 Mar 2017 11:06:29 +0000 https://www.overlawyered.com/?p=63318 Uphill battle in Congress for bill to “prohibit federal courts from issuing awards that consider the victim’s race or gender, among other demographic variables” [Kim Soffen, Washington Post on “Fair Calculations Act”] Normalizing champerty, the Ann Arbor way: University of Michigan endowment to take stake in litigation finance fund [Janet Lorin, Bloomberg News] Lawsuit Abuse […]

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  • Uphill battle in Congress for bill to “prohibit federal courts from issuing awards that consider the victim’s race or gender, among other demographic variables” [Kim Soffen, Washington Post on “Fair Calculations Act”]
  • Normalizing champerty, the Ann Arbor way: University of Michigan endowment to take stake in litigation finance fund [Janet Lorin, Bloomberg News]
  • Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act (LARA), restoring sanctions for groundless litigation, cleared House committee vote last month [@HouseJudiciary]
  • “Lynch’s Doubling of False Claims Act Fines Could Be Bonanza for Trial Lawyers” [Joe Schoffstall, Washington Free Beacon]
  • “Katrina victims shocked by small payments in levee failure case they ‘won’ – $118 each, on average” [David Hammer, WWL-TV]
  • Advisory Committee on Civil Rules considers revising Rule 23 on class actions [Washington Legal Foundation comments]
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    Liability roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>         Liability roundup https://www.overlawyered.com/2014/12/liability-roundup-5/ https://www.overlawyered.com/2014/12/liability-roundup-5/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:05:20 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=49644 Illinois legislature rams through trial lawyer bills before new governor takes office [Chamber-backed Madison Record: retroactive lifting of statute of limitations on asbestos suits, reduction of jury size from 12 to 6] “The NFL Concussion Settlement: Class Action Exploitation” [Howard Erichson] Thanks to plaintiff-friendly California law, suits over “Made in USA” labels proliferate [WSJ] Fraud […]

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  • Illinois legislature rams through trial lawyer bills before new governor takes office [Chamber-backed Madison Record: retroactive lifting of statute of limitations on asbestos suits, reduction of jury size from 12 to 6]
  • “The NFL Concussion Settlement: Class Action Exploitation” [Howard Erichson]
  • Thanks to plaintiff-friendly California law, suits over “Made in USA” labels proliferate [WSJ]
  • Fraud complaints related to Hurricane Katrina above 30,000 and more continue to come in [Insurance Journal]
  • Pennsylvania Supreme Court addresses products liability in case of Tincher v. Omega Flex, Inc., but falls short of coherence or clarity [Deborah La Fetra, Pacific Legal Foundation; Max Kennerly with a plaintiff’s-side view].
  • “Fraud on a Federal Court Allows Vacation of Remand Orders” [Fourth Circuit asbestos suit against Colgate-Palmolive; Beck, Drug & Device Law]
  • New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act now menaces unwary businesses nationwide [Joanna Shepherd, more]
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    Liability roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>     https://www.overlawyered.com/2014/12/liability-roundup-5/feed/ 2     Environmental roundup https://www.overlawyered.com/2014/01/environmental-roundup-8/ Wed, 08 Jan 2014 04:05:05 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=43310 “A Milestone to Celebrate: I Have Closed All My Businesses in Ventura County, California” [Coyote, earlier] “Louisiana Judge Ends Katrina Flooding Lawsuits Against Feds” [AP/Insurance Journal] “Some shoppers who reuse plastic bags to dispose of animal waste will miss them” [L.A. Times via Alkon] Alameda County, Calif. conscripts out-of-state drugmakers into product disposal program: public […]

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  • “A Milestone to Celebrate: I Have Closed All My Businesses in Ventura County, California” [Coyote, earlier]
  • “Louisiana Judge Ends Katrina Flooding Lawsuits Against Feds” [AP/Insurance Journal]
  • “Some shoppers who reuse plastic bags to dispose of animal waste will miss them” [L.A. Times via Alkon]
  • Alameda County, Calif. conscripts out-of-state drugmakers into product disposal program: public choice problem, constitutionality problem or both? [Glenn Lammi, WLF]
  • “Connecticut, Drunk on Power, Uses Bottle Bill to Steal Money” [Ilya Shapiro]
  • “If successful, the New York lawsuits would extend the scope of the [habeas corpus] writ to an undefined array of nonhuman creatures.” [Jim Huffman, Daily Caller]
  • Clean Water Act citizen suits never intended to be race to courthouse between officialdom, bounty hunters [Lammi, WLF on Eleventh Circuit ruling]
  • Let’s stop measuring congestion, it just makes our environmental plans look bad [Randal O’Toole, David Henderson on California policy]
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    Environmental roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>         October 8 roundup https://www.overlawyered.com/2012/10/october-11-roundup-3/ https://www.overlawyered.com/2012/10/october-11-roundup-3/#comments Mon, 08 Oct 2012 04:05:48 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=33290 Karma in Carmichael: serial Sacramento-area filer of ADA suits Scott Johnson, often chronicled in this space, hit by sex-harass suit by four former female employees, with avert-your-eyes details [Sac Bee; News10, autoplays] One of Johnson’s suits, over a counter that was too high, recently helped close Ford’s Real Hamburgers, a 50-year-old establishment. [KTXL/The Blaze] Fifth […]

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  • Karma in Carmichael: serial Sacramento-area filer of ADA suits Scott Johnson, often chronicled in this space, hit by sex-harass suit by four former female employees, with avert-your-eyes details [Sac Bee; News10, autoplays] One of Johnson’s suits, over a counter that was too high, recently helped close Ford’s Real Hamburgers, a 50-year-old establishment. [KTXL/The Blaze]
  • Fifth Circuit reverses decision holding Feds liable for Katrina flood damages [Reuters]
  • “Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril”: SCOTUS takes up first-sale doctrine in copyright law [Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch on Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons]
  • Rubber room redux: “New York Teacher Live-Streams $75,000 Do-Nothing Job” [Lachlan Markay, Heritage] Teacher charged with hiring hitman to kill colleague should have been fired decade ago [Mike Riggs]
  • “George Zimmerman sues NBC for editing 911 audio to make him sound racist” [Jim Treacher, Daily Caller]
  • Prof. Mark J. Perry has moved his indispensable Carpe Diem economics/policy blog in-house to AEI;
  • New York will require newly licensed lawyers to do pro bono [WSJ, Scott Greenfield, Legal Ethics Forum]
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    October 8 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>     https://www.overlawyered.com/2012/10/october-11-roundup-3/feed/ 4     September 12 roundup https://www.overlawyered.com/2011/09/september-12-roundup/ https://www.overlawyered.com/2011/09/september-12-roundup/#comments Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:37:28 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=24482 Ninth Circuit: Holland America cruise line not responsible for customer’s swimming mishap at Mexican beach [Metropolitan News-Enterprise] “President Perry would mean high noon for trial lawyers” [Kurt Schlichter, Washington Examiner; Politico; Prof. Bainbridge (“If the trial lawyers hate Rick Perry, maybe I should reconsider him”)] Christie praises Perry’s “laudable” record on liability reform [PolitickerNJ] “Perry’s […]

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

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  • Ninth Circuit: Holland America cruise line not responsible for customer’s swimming mishap at Mexican beach [Metropolitan News-Enterprise]
  • “President Perry would mean high noon for trial lawyers” [Kurt Schlichter, Washington Examiner; Politico; Prof. Bainbridge (“If the trial lawyers hate Rick Perry, maybe I should reconsider him”)] Christie praises Perry’s “laudable” record on liability reform [PolitickerNJ] “Perry’s ‘loser pays’ is an economic winner” [Patrick Gleason and Jason Russell, Washington Times; Mass Tort Prof; background] Missing the point on the Texas med-mal experience [Coyote, earlier here, here, etc.] A bad sign: Gov. Perry reaches out to Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio [NRO, background] Another: courting social conservative vote, he pledges interference in state marriage law [Houston Chronicle]
  • Alan Lange and Tom Dawson discuss their Dickie Scruggs book [Above the Law, background]
  • Hospital pays $25M to settle lawsuit charging lack of Katrina preparedness [White Coat]
  • Democratic majority on CPSC plans to ram through burdensome CPSIA testing and certification rule next month [Commissioner Nancy Nord, more]
  • For matching willing buyers with sellers through Canadian pharmacy ads, Google agrees to pay fine of $500 million, a forfeiture geared to the revenue the pharmacies (not it) took in from the ads [Atlantic Wire, Chris Fountain]
  • “Woman Won’t Have to Pay for Her Own Cavity Search” [Lowering the Bar]
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    ]]>     https://www.overlawyered.com/2011/09/september-12-roundup/feed/ 3     Get that anti-Scruggs blogger! Get him! https://www.overlawyered.com/2010/07/get-that-anti-scruggs-blogger-get-him/ https://www.overlawyered.com/2010/07/get-that-anti-scruggs-blogger-get-him/#comments Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:58:31 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=18288 During the long series of scandals that brought down former tort potentate Richard (“Dickie”) Scruggs, of tobacco-asbestos-Katrina-mass tort fame, no blogger achieved the status of “must” reading more consistently than David Rossmiller of Insurance Coverage Blog. Now Alan Lange of Mississippi site YallPolitics (and co-author of Kings of Tort, a book on the scandal) has […]

    Get that anti-Scruggs blogger! Get him! is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>     During the long series of scandals that brought down former tort potentate Richard (“Dickie”) Scruggs, of tobacco-asbestos-Katrina-mass tort fame, no blogger achieved the status of “must” reading more consistently than David Rossmiller of Insurance Coverage Blog. Now Alan Lange of Mississippi site YallPolitics (and co-author of Kings of Tort, a book on the scandal) has posted a massive document dump of emails between the Scruggs camp and its public relations agency, as made public in later litigation (see also). It shows the principals:

    * boasting of their success in manipulating major media outlets to inflict bad publicity on the targets of Scruggs’s suits;

    * plotting ways of striking back against critics — in particular, Rossmiller — with tactics including going after him with legal process, as well as creating fake commenters and whole blogs to sow doubt about his reporting;

    * wondering who they might pay to secure “Whistleblower of the Year” awards, or something similar, for their clients;

    * apparently oblivious, just days before the fact, as to how the ceiling was going to cave in on them because of Judge Henry Lackey’s willingness to go to law enforcement to report a bribe attempt from the Scruggs camp.

    The whole set of documents, along with Rossmiller’s summary and reaction, really must be seen to be believed. It will easily provide hours of eye-opening reading, both for those who followed the Scruggs affair in particular, and for everyone interested in how ambitious lawyers manipulate press coverage to their advantage — and how they can seek to use the law against their blogger critics. (& welcome readers from Forbes.com and Victoria Pynchon’s “On the Docket” column there).

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    ]]>     https://www.overlawyered.com/2010/07/get-that-anti-scruggs-blogger-get-him/feed/ 4     January 14 roundup https://www.overlawyered.com/2010/01/january-14-roundup-3/ Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:09:51 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=15558 Anti-vaccine activist files defamation suit over much-discussed Wired article against Dr. Paul Offit, author Amy Wallace and Conde Nast [Orac and many followup posts] “Kid Suspended for Bringing Peppermint Oil to School” [Free-Range Kids] Eric Turkewitz names his favorite Blawg Reviews of the year and has kind words for ours; “New Guide to FTC Disclosure […]

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  • Anti-vaccine activist files defamation suit over much-discussed Wired article against Dr. Paul Offit, author Amy Wallace and Conde Nast [Orac and many followup posts]
  • “Kid Suspended for Bringing Peppermint Oil to School” [Free-Range Kids]
  • Eric Turkewitz names his favorite Blawg Reviews of the year and has kind words for ours;
  • “New Guide to FTC Disclosure Requirements for Product Endorsements” from Citizen Media Law;
  • U.K. safety panel: press misreported our views, we do want businesses to grit icy public paths [update to earlier post]
  • Another kid trespassing on the railroad tracks, another case headed to court [Oregonian]
  • “Katrina negligence lawsuit has implications for all hospitals” [USA Today, earlier]
  • “Judicial Misconduct: The Mice Guard The Cheese” [WSJ Law Blog on this Houston Chronicle piece]
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    January 14 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>         Hospital emergency preparedness suits https://www.overlawyered.com/2010/01/hospital-emergency-preparedness-suits/ https://www.overlawyered.com/2010/01/hospital-emergency-preparedness-suits/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:27:48 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=15390 Hurricane Katrina legal aftermath, cont’d: “About 200 lawsuits have been filed in Louisiana alleging that these institutions [hospitals and nursing homes] are liable for the deaths and for the suffering of other patients who survived because corporate failure to plan adequately for flooding and implement evacuation constituted negligence or medical malpractice.” [New York Times] (& […]

    Hospital emergency preparedness suits is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>     Hurricane Katrina legal aftermath, cont’d: “About 200 lawsuits have been filed in Louisiana alleging that these institutions [hospitals and nursing homes] are liable for the deaths and for the suffering of other patients who survived because corporate failure to plan adequately for flooding and implement evacuation constituted negligence or medical malpractice.” [New York Times] (& welcome Above the Law, On the Record readers)

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    Hospital emergency preparedness suits is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>     https://www.overlawyered.com/2010/01/hospital-emergency-preparedness-suits/feed/ 3     “Lawsuits put global warming on more dockets” https://www.overlawyered.com/2009/12/lawsuits-put-global-warming-on-more-dockets/ Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:33:39 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=14950 USA Today on the Fifth Circuit’s recent ruling on a Katrina case, Comer v. Murphy Oil. More on the case at Point of Law here, here, and here. Tags: climate change, Fifth Circuit, global warming, Katrina

    “Lawsuits put global warming on more dockets” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>     USA Today on the Fifth Circuit’s recent ruling on a Katrina case, Comer v. Murphy Oil. More on the case at Point of Law here, here, and here.

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    “Lawsuits put global warming on more dockets” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

    ]]>         November 20 roundup https://www.overlawyered.com/2009/11/november-20-roundup-2/ https://www.overlawyered.com/2009/11/november-20-roundup-2/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:05:51 +0000 http://overlawyered.com/?p=14823 Judge finds Army Corps of Engineers negligent in Katrina levees suit [WSJ Law Blog, Krauss/PoL] Feds raid the Gibson guitar factory in Nashville on an exotic-woods rap [The Tennessean] Eric Scheie has a few things to say about what turns out to be a remarkably comprehensive federal regulatory scheme on trade in wood enacted with […]

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  • Judge finds Army Corps of Engineers negligent in Katrina levees suit [WSJ Law Blog, Krauss/PoL]
  • Feds raid the Gibson guitar factory in Nashville on an exotic-woods rap [The Tennessean] Eric Scheie has a few things to say about what turns out to be a remarkably comprehensive federal regulatory scheme on trade in wood enacted with little public discussion as part of the 2008 farm bill [Classical Values]
  • In the mail: Amy Bach’s new book Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court, very favorably reviewed by Scott Greenfield not long ago (AmLaw Daily interview with author);
  • Pension tension: link roundup on CALPERS mess [Reynolds]
  • Maine passes very sweeping law banning marketers from collecting or using wide array of information about minors, but state acknowledges that much of the law probably wouldn’t pass constitutional muster and won’t be enforced [Valetk/Law.com, Qualters/NLJ]
  • StationStops, which provides a mobile app for NYC commuter schedules, seems to have survived its legal tussle with New York’s MTA and thanks those who helped call attention to the story, with generous words for a certain “great blog”;
  • Lawsuits cost Chicago taxpayers $136 million last year [Fran Spielman, Sun-Times]
  • Blawg Review #238 is from Joel Rosenberg and bears the title, “Celebrating the International Day of Tolerance … and the NRA’s Birthday” [WindyPundit]
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