lawyering vs. privacy – Overlawyered

Pharmaceutical roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 11:02:25 +0000

“A federal judge has ordered the nation’s leading pharmacy chains to turn over billions of nationwide prescription records going back 14 years – even as the American Civil Liberties Union and some states attack similar requests by the government as overbroad and an invasion of privacy.” [Daniel Fisher, Legal NewsLine] “Without evidence and unable to make public nuisance argument, Delaware’s opioid claims against Walgreens fail” [same] “Oklahoma Opioid Ruling: Another Instance of Improper Judicial Governance Through Public Nuisance Litigation” [Eric Lasker and Jessica Lu, Washington Legal Foundation, earlier]
“Merck v. HHS tests the limits of the federal government’s ability to control and compel commercial speech” [Ilya Shapiro and Dennis Garcia on Cato amicus brief in D.C. Circuit raising First Amendment issues]
Let’s try correcting the New York Times on drug pricing. Where to begin? [Molly Ratty, Popehat]
“Court Strikes Down NECC Convictions [New England Compounding Center] for Vagueness” [Stephen McConnell, Drug & Device Law]
Defense perspective: the ten worst and best prescription drug and medical device decisions of 2019 [Jim Beck, Drug & Device Law]
“If there are people out there with no options and they have terrible diseases, we are going to get those drugs to them as fast as feasible.” FDA approving potential breakthrough drugs more speedily [Michelle Fay Cortez and Cristin Flanagan, Bloomberg/MSN; related, Alex Tabarrok]

Tags: advertising, Delaware, FDA, lawyering vs. privacy, opioids, pharmaceuticals, public nuisance

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

She secretly taped her co-workers. Can’t she keep that under the rug?

Walter Olson — Sun, 25 Aug 2019 16:01:54 +0000

Discrimination plaintiff finds “that offers of employment have been rescinded after Google searches of her name revealed the events of this case, namely her surreptitious recordings of her co-workers.” So she asks the court to seal the case record. Nope: “strong presumption in favor of public access” not overcome [Eugene Volokh on Gilliard v. McWilliams, federal court in D.C.]

Tags: Google, lawyering vs. privacy, workplace

She secretly taped her co-workers. Can’t she keep that under the rug? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Lawyers shouldn’t secretly record medical exams

Walter Olson — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 10:02:36 +0000

“Marquette, Mich. railway trackman sues his employer, alleging an on-the-job injury. Employer schedules an independent medical exam to assess his injuries. Trackman refuses to fill out medical questionnaire and refuses to answer examiner’s questions. Also, his lawyer tags along to the exam, which is … uncommon. And the lawyer secretly records the exam on his cell phone. District court: Given the ‘flagrant and repeated misconduct exhibited by Plaintiff and his attorney,’ the entire case is dismissed. Sixth Circuit: Affirmed. Although we’re generally reluctant to dismiss a plaintiff’s suit merely to sanction the plaintiff’s lawyer, both the trackman and his lawyer behaved badly here. Judge Sutton, concurring: Also, we shouldn’t be at all reluctant to hold parties accountable for their lawyers’ misdeeds, even if the parties themselves are not at fault.” [John K. Ross, Institute for Justice “Short Circuit” on Mager v. Wisconsin Central, Sixth Circuit]

Tags: ethics, lawyering vs. privacy, railroads

Lawyers shouldn’t secretly record medical exams is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Digital advances in ambulance chasing

Walter Olson — Tue, 29 May 2018 04:05:38 +0000

“Patients sitting in emergency rooms, at chiropractors’ offices and at pain clinics in the Philadelphia area may start noticing on their phones the kind of messages typically seen along highway billboards and public transit: personal injury law firms looking for business by casting mobile online ads at patients. The potentially creepy part? They’re only getting fed the ad because somebody knows they are in an emergency room.” [Bobby Allyn, NPR]

Tags: chasing clients, emergency medicine, hospitals, lawyering vs. privacy

Digital advances in ambulance chasing is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“No, Your Medical Records Are Not Private”

Walter Olson — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 10:21:01 +0000

HIPAA or no HIPAA, a variety of government agencies might get a look at your personal medical records. “HIPAA allows federal bureaucrats to get patient records merely by issuing administrative subpoenas, or civil investigative demands.” The records may also find their way into the hands of private lawyers, such as those representing qui tam relators under the False Claims Act. “‘Everybody’s got horror stories for what happens when the relators get into their stuff,’ said Jonathan Diesenhaus, a former DOJ senior trial lawyer who now represents health care companies as a partner with the Hogan Lovells law firm, to TheDCNF. ‘It becomes an avenue for abuse.'” [Kathryn Watson, Daily Caller]

Tags: HIPAA, lawyering vs. privacy, qui tam, whistleblowers

“No, Your Medical Records Are Not Private” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

LinkedIn class action settlement

Walter Olson — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 04:15:19 +0000

On Oct. 2 “millions of LinkedIn users received an email titled ‘LEGAL NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT OF CLASS ACTION.’ The email told recipients about a proposed class action settlement in Perkins v. LinkedIn, involving ‘LinkedIn’s alleged improper use of a service called “Add Connections” to grow its member base.’ …Communicating with a large class of millions of victims is never easy, but this particular notification was handled particularly poorly. Let me highlight six problems with the notification….If the sender’s goal is to reduce the number of people who open the email, late Friday afternoon is a fine choice.” [Eric Goldman/Forbes] More: Coyote (“You Want to Know Why the Legal System is Broken?”)

Tags: class action settlements, lawyering vs. privacy, privacy

LinkedIn class action settlement is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The press and the prosecutors

Walter Olson — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 10:10:42 +0000

Did federal prosecutors manipulate Los Angeles Times reporting to help win a case? Even if editors don’t care, readers might [Ken White, Popehat]. Read the whole thing, but here’s one choice quote:

The problem illuminated here isn’t just one of possible government misconduct. It’s the too-cozy too-credulous relationship between law enforcement and the press, and the very questionable decisions the press makes about what is a story. I’ve been writing about this for some time. The press thinks that a picture of a guy being perp-walked is a story, but the willingness of the cops to stage that picture to humiliate the defendant is not a story. The press thinks that juicy evidence against a defendant is a story but law enforcement’s motive in leaking that evidence isn’t. When the people sworn to uphold the law, who are prosecuting someone for violating the law, break the law to damage a defendant, the press thinks that the leaked information is the story, not the lawbreaking by law enforcers. The press does not, as far as I can tell, assess when it is being used as a tool by law enforcement. How could it, if it wants to preserve its source of tasty leaks?

Tags: lawyering vs. privacy, Los Angeles, media bias, prosecution, prosecutorial abuse

The press and the prosecutors is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“What happens if you take the Fifth in a civil case?”

Walter Olson — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 04:15:00 +0000

Eugene Volokh has an analysis of an issue that comes up fairly often, and adds an important sidebar as to California law, which departs from the general rule by prohibiting the drawing of an adverse inference against the party that declines to testify.

Tags: California, constitutional law, lawyering vs. privacy, procedure

“What happens if you take the Fifth in a civil case?” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“HP Asks For Heavily-Redacted Documents To Be Sealed…”

Walter Olson — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 13:07:54 +0000

“…Judge Responds With Heavily-Redacted Refusal” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]

Tags: humor, judges, lawyering vs. privacy

“HP Asks For Heavily-Redacted Documents To Be Sealed…” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“As a university employee, my personal experience with Title IX…”

Walter Olson — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 09:47:49 +0000

“As a university employee, my personal experience with Title IX has been discouraging, frustrating, alienating. I have been recruited to join complaints against male colleagues, most recently against someone with whom I was friends outside of our workplace. I have, when I refused to be a complainant, been interviewed as a witness. I have, when interviewed as a witness, been grilled over a multitude of conversations and social interactions that took place away from campus, in the company of adults, that I never expected that I would one day have to explain in a formal setting. …

“Title IX doesn’t make me feel safer. It makes me feel paranoid. I can hardly imagine how much more paranoid it makes my male colleagues.” [Tamara Tabo, Above the Law]

Tags: harassment law, lawyering vs. privacy, sexual assault, Title IX

“As a university employee, my personal experience with Title IX…” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system