Among things you’ve missed if you haven’t been keeping up with our sister site: law firm tells silicosis clients that “unfortunately” they’ve checked out healthy and don’t have the disease after all; American Express pays $3 million, and class action objectors go away; Harvard’s Larry Tribe apologizes to the widow of the late Prof. Bernard Siegan; French consumerist vows not to replicate U.S. folly on class actions; Madison County, Ill. courts due for upgrade to heckhole status?; Hillary bashes Obama for supporting class action reform; Deborah La Fetra concludes her week of guestblogging on premises liability, negligent security and other matters; and much, much more.
Posts Tagged ‘Madison County’
Climbed electric tower on dare
On a $5 dare from friends, 13-year-old Justin Porter climbed 35 feet up an electric transmission tower. Who was to know such an adventure might prove dangerous? 19,700 volts later, his mother, Anna Thebeau, is suing the electric utility, Ameren, saying it should have fenced off the tower against trespassers, should have posted a big warning sign on it, should have designed it so that it could not be climbed up, and should have insulated the wires far overhead. (Jim Suhr, “Ameren asks judge to toss lawsuit over boy who fell from tower”, AP/Bloomington, Ill., Pantagraph, Jun. 12; Steve Gonzalez, “Boy was negligent in climbing power pole, Ameren argues”, Madison County Record, Jun. 11; Brian Noggle (“Because teenagers heed all signs and obey all posted rules”), May 13, 2005). More zapped pylon-climbers here and here (& welcome Michelle Malkin readers).
Sebok on the Pearson pants suit
Anthony Sebok’s Findlaw column on the Pearson pants suit cites Overlawyered and repeats two points regular readers of Overlawyered and Point of Law have seen before:
- Meritless cases often settle for nuisance value, thus making them profitable to bring;
- Rule 11, as currently constituted, “has proven to be a very toothless weapon against abusive plaintiffs” and “does not effectively protect defendants from frivolous, or even, in some cases, fraudulent suits.”
Yet Sebok concludes that there is no epidemic of fraudulent litigation. I suppose it depends on one’s definition of “epidemic” and “fraudulent”; as we’ve noted before, Bill Lerach successfully swiped several billion dollars in nuisance settlements bringing meritless Enron litigation, helped by an erroneous district-court class certification. (Such erroneous class certifications helped make Madison County a judicial hellhole.) Sebok acknowledges that “lawyer-driven” cases where plaintiffs act as their own attorneys might merit loser-pays rules to deter meritless lawsuits that would be cheaper to settle than fight, but what makes most class-action litigation any less “lawyer-driven” such that they should be subject to different rules? (Cross-posted from Point of Law.)
By the way, Pearson has announced that he will appeal the trial court’s decision against him.
Pizza Hut door-swing case, cont’d
The police officer sued in the now-celebrated Madison County, Ill. case (Mar. 13, May 21) submits affidavits in his defense, pointing up some interesting angles that didn’t emerge in earlier rounds of coverage:
A Troy police officer who was ordered to pay Edwardsville attorney Amanda Verett $311,700 for a shoulder injury claims he never even came into physical contact with her during an incident Feb. 12 at the Troy Pizza Hut.
Sworn affidavits and other court documents filed by Troy officials this week, including the police chief and assistant city administrator, claim the reason officer Clarence Jackson was at the Pizza Hut in the first place was because Verett and her male law partner were causing a disturbance. Jackson was responding to a 911 call.
Verett, a family attorney in Edwardsville, filed suit against Pizza Hut and Jackson alleging she was injured when walking out the door of the restaurant while holding open the door to allow herself and Jackson to exit.
Last month a judge issued a default judgment against Jackson, who now argues his actions were on behalf of the city of Troy and should be shielded by sovereign immunity. (Steve Gonzalez, “Police officer claims he never came in contact with Verett”, Madison County Record, Jun. 21).
Object to a class action settlement, face a RICO suit
Perhaps we shouldn’t rush to conclusions about this filing by plaintiffs’ counsel in Madison County, Ill., who are aiming a complaint under the federal RICO racketeering law against two lawyers and a Florida resident who had sought to block a $63.8 million class action settlement over the drug Paxil. After all, not all class action settlements are a bad deal for class members, some objections to such settlements are unmeritorious, and there are even some bad objectors out there who are more concerned with being paid to go away than with saving class members from a bad deal. Still, it may not take many treble-damage RICO suits before both types of objector, the helpful and the unhelpful alike, begin to reconsider showing up in court, will it? (Steve Gonzalez, “Plaintiffs in $63 million Paxil case claim ‘objectors’ violated RICO in new class action”, Madison County Record, Jun. 9). Update Oct. 7: suit dismissed without prejudice.
June 14 roundup
- Encouraging kids’ adoption is a great thing to do, but there are right and wrong ways of going about it [U.K. Daily Mail]
- Defensive medical testing: “Every day I work as a doctor, I must choose between committing malpractice and committing insurance fraud.” [Dr. Paula Hartzell in Medical Economics]
- After serving 2+ years for consensual sex with fellow teen, Genarlow Wilson (Feb. 8, Mar. 6) may walk free, or maybe not [CNN; views of some Andrew Sullivan readers]
- “We need to eliminate nuisance lawsuits through ‘loser-pays’ provisions.” [candidate Giuliani @ NRO]
- Boston Herald (May 11, etc.) pays $3.4 million to local judge to settle libel verdict [Globe]
- Blind squirrel finds acorn dept.: American Prospect weblog promotes a good idea, abolishing peremptory challenges [Tapped; more]
- Disciplinary hearing begins against Duke DA Nifong [ABCNews.com]; you’d think lacrosse player’s out-of-town alibi might have raised a red flag [K. C. Johnson via Cernovich]
- Another flap, this time from Oklahoma, about a doc who vows to turn away malpractice-suit advocates as patients [Enid News & Eagle via KevinMD]
- No shock, Sherlock: mud-slinging, money-flinging found to be big problems in state high court races [AP]
- In that curious saga of Madison County, Ill.’s oft-suing Peach family (earlier posts here and here) Armettia Peach has settled her leaky-roof case against Granite City [M. C. Record]
- New York “plastic surgery addict” loses case claiming doctor should have counseled her against going under the knife so often [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Update: Pizza Hut door victim awarded $311K
Following up on our Mar. 13 and Apr. 25 coverage: “Madison County Circuit Judge Nicholas Byron awarded Amanda Verett a $311,700 default judgment for injuries she allegedly received while holding a Pizza Hut door open for a Troy police officer.” Verett obtained the default judgment against defendant Clarence Jackson; co-defendant Pizza Hut filed a defense, so it will presumably be entitled to face a trial separately. Verett says her shoulder was jarred when Jackson suddenly moved the door or allowed it to move. According to testimony from her husband, she also slipped and fell on ice and snow on her driveway four days later; the couple appear to blame her injuries from that fall on her earlier bad experience with the Pizza Hut door. It’s a small world, lawsuit-wise, in the far-famed Illinois county: the chiropractor who’s been treating Verett, Mark Eavenson of Granite City, “is best-known as the most prolific filer of class action lawsuits in Madison County”. (Steve Gonzalez, “Byron awards $311,700 to Pizza Hut door victim”, Madison County Record, May 16).
Penny for your thoughts
A common complaint about abusive class action litigation is that the lawyers rake in the big bucks while the class members walk away with pennies. Still, Overlawyered repeat offender Lakin Law Firm (many entries) may be taking it to a whole new level. The Madison Record reports:
Mark Brown of the Lakin Law Firm bargained a class action lawsuit down to a penny at a hearing before Madison County Circuit Judge Dave Hylla.
The suit alleges that in 1999, Old Kent Mortgage charged three borrowers $100 for a credit report, paid less than that for the report, and improperly retained the difference.
The problem with this theory at the hearing was that apparently Lakin didn’t have any idea how much the bank paid for the reports, couldn’t identify any fraudulent statements made by the bank, and couldn’t produce a contract that was breached. Other than that, the lawsuit seems fine, and I’m sure that each class member will be happy with his penny.
In all seriousness, given that just to bring the suit Lakin had to dig up as its client — the Stevens family — someone who had taken out a mortgage four years earlier (the mortgage was taken out in 1999, and Lakin did not bring the suit until 2003), I suspect that there won’t be a whole lot of other class members making claims anyway. What’s a little odd is that this suit was reportedly filed four years ago and apparently nothing has happened on the case yet.
Incidentally, the Stevens family seems to have very bad luck with banks and mortgages; they and the Lakin Law Firm filed another class action lawsuit against the bank over mortgage closing costs in 2004.
April 25 roundup
- More on that Edwardsville, Ill. Pizza Hut door-swing case and its attorney-complainant [Madison County Record; earlier]
- Workers at U.K. health and safety agency told not to move chairs in the office, they might hurt themselves [Daily Mail via Nobody’s Business]
- Lawyer who hoped for $25 million will appeal arbitrator’s ruling awarding him only a solitary buck ($1.00) for “redundant and unnecessary” work on San Diego pension crisis [Lattman]
- New at Point of Law: Ted on Sen. Fred Thompson, Oklahoma enacts liability reform, RFK Jr. as mass-tort tout, birthing balls, and much more;
- Title IX from outer space: now it’s Virginia’s James Madison U. axeing teams [USA Today; more]
- Westchester County, N.Y. dominatrix sues police dept., saying media frenzy dashed her hopes of Wall Street career [Journal-News; more on attorney Ravi Batra]
- Parodists, retire now: ex-N.J. governor McGreevey, disgraced after hiring unqualified paramour for key safety post, appointed to teach course on ethics [Orac]
- “School choice, but only for the most irritating parents” [Coyote on Supreme Court’s pending special-ed case; more]
- Will tainted-pet-food episode give lawyers their long-sought breakthrough on loss-of-companionship, other intangible damages for animal injury? [NLJ; earlier]
- Disgruntled former partner withdraws charge of impropriety over Oz breast implant fees [The Australian; Aust. Prof. Liab. Blog; earlier]
- Dr. who delivered Illinois Gov. Blagojevich’s daughter throws in the towel [three years ago on Overlawyered]
Update: Maag drops defamation suit
Watch what you say about judges dept.: former Illinois judge Gordon Maag has dropped the $110 million defamation lawsuit he had filed against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other defendants over campaign flyers he claimed were false and unfair. An appeals court in November upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the suit, and the Illinois Supreme Court declined to revive it. (Ann Knef, “Gordon Maag drops $110 million defamation suit”, Madison County Record, Apr. 12). Earlier: Dec. 23, 2004; Feb. 6 and Nov. 6, 2006.