- Math curriculum wars in Seattle school district head for court [Seattle Times]
- Stuart Taylor, Jr. reviews new Abigail Thernstrom book on the Voting Rights Act [New Republic]
- Gail Wilensky: Dems could’ve gotten GOP votes for health care reform if they’d compromised on medical liability [The Hill]
- Erin Brockovich swoops down on Florida cancer cluster [Fumento/CEI, more, also on Florida case]
- Barry Goldwater was right: right-leaning bloggers favor lifting military gay ban by 62-37 margin in National Journal bloggers poll;
- Jim Copland vs. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter [Point of Law, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, more]
- Why is there no iPod or iPhone equivalent for automobiles? Regulation might have something to do with it [Ryan Avent and more via Sullivan; McArdle and more (commenter: “Motorcycles would never, EVER be approved by NHTSA if they were invented today.”)]
- So reassuring: for now FTC says it’s “unlikely to actually investigate individual bloggers” [Lewis, NYLJ] More from late last year on commission’s semi-retreat on blogger freebies [Publisher’s Weekly, GalleySmith, GalleyCat, Reason “Hit and Run”, William S. Galkin] Icons to make disclosure easy [Louis Gray]
Posts Tagged ‘military’
Tobacco prohibition in the military?
June 5 roundup
- See you in court, ma: “Man awarded $115K after suing mom for lost pinky finger” [Obscure Store, Bergen County (N.J.) Record]
- Please reassure us Canada’s not going to follow U.S. down abusive road of asset seizure in law enforcement [Moin Yahya and Janet Neilson, Western Standard]
- What sorts of intellectual property norms prevail in the world of stand-up comedy? [ConcurOp]
- “Marc Dreier’s Son Sues College Roommate for $1M” [ABA Journal]
- Intersection of state divorce law with peripatetic military life can lead to harsh results [Bader, CEI]
- Grape-Nuts contain neither grapes nor nuts! Cap’n Crunch isn’t a real captain! It’s not fair! [comments on our popular “Crunchberries” item]
- “Lawyer’s ‘Contentious’ Claims Against Landlord Are Rejected” [NYLJ]
- “Adult” won’t cut it any more, we need a new legal category, more responsible, of “grownup” [Ken at Popehat]
Medical negligence in the military
Litigation’s not the only way to respond to the issue of compensation, as I argue this morning at Point of Law.
“PTSD Damages For A Non-Event”
We briefly mentioned the other day the remarkable litigation over a laptop theft which (it seemed at the time) might have led to a data breach imperiling the personal information of military veterans. The feared breach resulted in an emergency request to Congress for $160 million to provide credit counseling to veterans, and, more recently, a $20 million settlement of class-action claims brought against the Veterans Administration, based at least in part on allegations of emotional distress associated with the (unfounded, as it turned out) fear of identity theft. If you’re wondering who the biggest winner will be from all this, Bank Lawyer’s Blog is pleased to provide the answer.
January 8 roundup
- “You’ve got to be alive to be inconvenienced”: some thoughts on the withdrawal of an emergency battlefield therapy [GruntDoc]
- Yes, let’s all have a nice scare over “third-hand” tobacco smoke, or actually let’s not [Sullum, Siegel, Greenfield] And you knew they were coming: “smokeasies” [Tuccille, Examiner]
- “We are fully cooperating with the government in its investigations” (Hey, I never said “we” included my client) [WSJ Law Blog on Madoff case]
- Speech so precious it must be rationed: Yale Law Journal author proposes “Tort Liability on Websites for Cyber-Harassment” [via TortsProf]
- Rick Hills on Richardson probe: federally criminalizing state-level pay-to-play is a bad idea [Prawfs]
- Paul Alan Levy: Martin Luther King Jr. estate, much criticized for its aggressive trademark assertions in the past, deserves due credit for its handling of a case where free speech was implicated [CL&P]
- Lawyers on Craigslist: “If you practice as well as you spell, we’re golden” [Nicole Black, Legal Antics]
- Yes, I’m overhauling Overlawyered’s look and feel with the aid of Thesis, a powerful “theme” (way of changing presentation) for WordPress. Expect my tinkering to go on for a while.
Shot in Kosovo, collects £2.4m from British defense ministry
“A Kosovan man shot in the jaw by a British soldier has been awarded £2.4 million compensation after suing the Ministry of Defence. The sum is more than eight times the maximum damages available to UK troops seriously injured abroad, and has been criticised by the relatives of disabled veterans.” Muhamet Bici had been “in a car with other men who were firing weapons into the air to celebrate a national holiday” in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo; a Military Police probe cleared British soldiers who shot at the car of charges of wrongdoing, saying they reasonably if erroneously believed themselves in danger. (Matthew Moore, “MoD pays out £2.4m to Kosovan shot in the jaw”, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 6).
$55 million in Marine helicopter crash
Curt Cutting at California Punitive Damages takes note of a jury’s very large verdict against San Diego Gas and Electric last month, including $40 million in punitive damages, after a helicopter fatally collided with a 130-foot utility tower located on the base at Camp Pendleton. “The plaintiffs claimed that SDG&E was negligent for not installing safety lights on the tower. SDG&E says the tower had been on the base for 25 years and they would have installed lights if the Marine Corps had asked. They contend the crash was the result of errors by the crew and they plan to appeal.” (Sept. 3; Tony Perry, “$55.6 million awarded in fatal Marine helicopter crash”, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 4). Bruce Nye at Cal Biz Lit calls the verdict a “stunner” (Sept. 8).