- Foolish use of social media: Dan Schwartz feels like a broken record (= “corrupted music file”) warning about it [Connecticut Employment Law Blog] #
- “Hundreds face charges for having nude photo that girl circulated” [Obscure Store, Michigan; Radley Balko at Reason “Hit and Run” has a separate Ohio case] #
- “I Am the Beast Six Six Six vs. Michigan State Police”: crazy case names [Lowering the Bar via Legal Antics] #
- Potential uses for lawyers of those new Google late-night “Email Goggles” [Lowering the Bar] #
- Freddie Mac paid lobbyists $2 million in 2005 in stealth effort to undermine GOP-backed reform measure [AP; and N.B. Public Citizen still going out on a limb for Fannie & Fred] #
- John Steele Gordon on mortgages, banks, bubbles and irresponsible politicians through U.S. history [Commentary] #
- Can’t type “publ int” as shorthand for public interest without Word autocorrecting it to “pub lint”. #
Posts Tagged ‘Ohio’
September 11 roundup
- It’s still not over: Judge Roy Pearson of lost-pants fame returns to court with appeal against Custom Cleaners owners, the Chung family [WJLA]
- Columbus cops’ class action: dept. shouldn’t have asked us what our ailments were when we took sick leave [Dispatch]
- Culture Warrior Jeff Bell hopes Palin will reverse trends that have “legitimated a contraceptive ethic” [Weekly Standard] Better not count on it [York, NRO “Corner”]
- RIAA has now filed 30,000 lawsuits against file-sharing music fans [Wired “Threat Level”, Ambrogi]
- Recently at Point of Law: Ohio’s Supreme Court in the balance this November; Biden vs. legal reform; guestblogging by Peggy Little and Jane Genova; Lilly Ledbetter at Democratic convention; big Peter Angelos cellphone-cancer case strikes out; call for Australian no-fault cerebral palsy fund; and more;
- Massachusetts high court ruling that docs can be sued over their patients’ medication-impaired behavior is predictably leading to new suits [Globe, Brockton hospital crash; earlier]
- What Alinsky-style “community organizers” do [York, NRO via Bookworm Room] “Organizers break laws if they have to.” [Thomas Geoghegan @ Slate — and he’s being admiring]
- California trial lawyers successfully gut original Schwarzenegger plan to reform award of punitive damages [four years ago on Overlawyered]
August 19 roundup
- Two topics of recent interest on the site — cremation and service monkeys — together in one post [The Urn Garden]
- Please don’t tell us an aggressive stance by music copyright holders is going to kill Pandora radio, one of the bright stars of the Internet [WaPo, more]
- “Citizens in Chains: The High Cost of Prisoner Lawsuits to California Taxpayers” [CALA, PDF]
- Navajo plaintiffs: spraying artificial snow on our sacred mountain is spiritually injurious [Volokh]
- Remember those anti-poverty non-profit groups that were going to represent the culmination of John Edwards’ life work, aside from running for you-know-what? Him neither [Silverstein, Harper’s via Folo]
- Toxic tort class action in Saudi Arabia proves unsuccessful [Arab News]
- Fending off patent trolls has been expensive for high-tech Massachusetts firm Cognex [NLJ]
- Arizona law professor’s creative denials in paternity suit have furnished faculty-lounge chuckles for years [Caron/TaxProf, Jack J. Rappeport]
- New at Point of Law: big ruckus over proposal to compel accounting projections of lawsuit exposure; guestblogger Peggy Little on Connecticut vs. Countrywide, the ABA in judicial selection and more; cy pres litigation slush funds assailed as constitutionally dubious; Trial Lawyers Inc. series tackles the state of Ohio; MBIA mulls suing hedge fund that’s sniped at its stock; more on med-mal “loss of a chance”; and much more.
June 16 roundup
- Educator acquitted on charges of roughness toward special ed student sues Teacher Smackdown website over anonymous comments criticizing her [NW Arkansas Morning News, Citizen Media Law Project, House of Eratosthenes]
- Lorain County, Ohio judge who struck down state’s death penalty has Che Guevara poster in his office, though Guevara wasn’t exactly an opponent of killing [USA Today]
- Privatization of U.S. Senate food service is a parable for wider issues [Tabarrok]
- Low-end strategies for acquiring criminal-law clients include trolling the attorney visiting area at the federal lockup, paying the hot dog guy in front of the courthouse [Greenfield]
- A Canadian Senator on why his country’s medical malpractice law works better than you-know-whose [Val Jones MD leads to audio]
- U.K.: convicted rapist sexually assaults and murders teenage girl after housing authority is told evicting him would breach his human rights [Telegraph]
- No word of legal action (yet, at least) in Salina, Kansas car crash that driver blames on “brain freeze” from Sonic restaurant frozen drink [AP/K.C. Star]
- In Michigan, some mysterious entity is trying to drop an electoral anvil on two of our favorite jurists [PoL]
Ohio Senate’s clever solution to ancient clergy abuse claims
Problem #1: children abused by clergy decades ago are demanding recognition from the civil justice system; it’s not about the money they say, but justice.
Problem #2: simply reviving 35-year-old tort claims that are otherwise barred by the statute of limitations, aside from the basic unfairness and loss of legal certainty to others, encourages fraud on and error by the judicial system.
Solution, in Ohio S.B. 17, passed in May 2006:
Judges to doctors’ rescue?
Well, at least some doctors are hoping to discern such a trend on the strength of two data points: the case Ted has covered in which the Ohio Supreme Court struck down a $30 million verdict because of the shenanigans of attorney Geoffrey Fieger, and a Michigan case from March in which an appeals court overturned a $500,000 verdict against a Flint doctor and ordered a new trial. In the latter case the appeals court “noted the trial judge ‘valiantly and repeatedly attempted’ to restrain Konheim [Southfield, Mich., plaintiff attorney Joseph Konheim]. ‘There is a point, however, when an attorney’s deliberate misbehavior becomes so repetitive and egregious that it necessarily impacts the jury, notwithstanding the judge’s efforts. That point was reached here,’ the unanimous opinion states. It also says that Konheim belittled witnesses on the stand and made ‘irrelevant’ and ‘disparaging’ statements that diverted the jury’s attention from the case’s merits. Konheim is asking the court to reconsider.” (Amy Lynn Sorrel, “Lawyers’ misconduct triggers new liability trials”, AMedNews (AMA), May 5).
“Innovative” city suits against foreclosing lenders
City governments, sometimes in league with private counsel working on contingency fee, “have started suing banks and mortgage companies to recoup their costs” on such services as “fire departments, police, code enforcement or even demolition” in blighted neighborhoods. “The lawsuits were filed in recent months under different theories, in state and federal court. Cleveland and Buffalo filed suits under public nuisance laws. Minneapolis’ suit was brought on consumer fraud grounds, while Baltimore took the unusual approach of filing suit in federal court under alleged Fair Housing Act violations.” Bank of New York says it was included in Buffalo’s suit against 39 lenders even though it neither originated nor purchased loans, but merely acted as trustee. (Julie Kay, “Empty Homes Spur Cities’ Suits”, National Law Journal, May 9).
May 12 roundup
- Canada free speech: Islamic group files complaint against Halifax newspaper over cartoon of burka-wearing terror fan; two more libel suits aimed at online conservative voices; growing furor over complaint against Steyn/Macleans [National Post]
- More than 5,000 students committed crimes last year in Philadelphia schools, but none were expelled — consent decrees tying system’s hands are one reason [Inquirer]
- U.K.: Man threatened with legal action for flying pirate flag as part of daughter’s birthday party [Guardian]
- Bankruptcy judge doesn’t plan to accept at face value Countrywide’s claim that it generated false escrow documents by mistake in foreclosure [WSJ, WSJ law blog]
- Amid bipartisan calls to step down, Ohio AG Marc Dann [Apr. 19, May 6] hires an opposition researcher [Adler @ Volokh] on top of Washington lobbyist [Legal NewsLine], after being rebuked by judge for political suit [Dispatch]. And where’s that ethics form on the Chesley flight? [Dayton Daily News]
- Missouri med-mal claims fall sharply after legislated damages curb [Springfield News-Leader]
- More on Dartmouth prof Priya Venkatesan, the one who wants to sue her students — as suspected, she’s a devotee of deconstructionist Science Studies [Allen/MtC; earlier]
- Covert plan to sabotage Chinese economy? [Wilson Center event]
- What, never? Well, hardly ever: Docs continue to assail notion that various complications such as patient delirium, clostridium difficile infection, iatrogenic pneumothorax, etc. — not to mention falls — are “never events” [KevinMD various posts; earlier]
- Mich. high court agrees anti-gay-marriage amendment bars municipal health benefits for domestic partners, just what key proponents had claimed it wouldn’t do [Rauch @ IGF, Carpenter @ Volokh, earlier]
- Private service rates the safety of charter air providers — but can it afford the cost of being sued after giving a bad rating? [Three years ago on Overlawyered]
May 6 roundup
- Raelyn Campbell briefly captured national spotlight (“Today” show, MSNBC) with $54 million suit against Best Buy for losing laptop, but it’s now been dismissed [Shop Floor; earlier]
- Charmed life of Florida litigators Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt continues as Miami judge awards them $218 million for class action lawsuit they lost [Daily Business Report, Krauss @ PoL; earlier here, here, and here]
- Lerach said kickbacks were “industry practice” and “everybody was paying plaintiffs”. True? Top House GOPer Boehner wants hearings to find out [NAM “Shop Floor”, WSJ law blog]
- It’s Dannimal House! An “office rife with booze, profanity, inappropriate sexual activity, misuse of state vehicles and on-the-job threats involving the Mafia” — must be Ohio AG Marc Dann, of NYT “next Eliot Spitzer” fame [AP/NOLA, Adler @ Volokh, Above the Law, Wood @ PoL; earlier]
- Sorry, Caplin & Drysdale, but you can’t charge full hourly rates for time spent traveling but not working on that asbestos bankruptcy [NLJ] More: Elefant.
- Fire employee after rudely asking if she’s had a face-lift? Not unless you’ve got $1.7 million to spare [Chicago Tribune]
- Daniel Schwartz has more analysis of that Stamford, Ct. disabled-firefighter case (May 1); if you want a fire captain to be able to read quickly at emergency scene, better spell that out explicitly in the job description [Ct Emp Law Blog]
- As expected, star Milberg expert John Torkelsen pleads guilty to perjury arising from lies he told to conceal his contingent compensation arrangements [NLJ; earlier]
- Case of deconstructionist prof who plans to sue her Dartmouth students makes the WSJ [Joseph Rago, op-ed page, Mindles H. Dreck @ TigerHawk; earlier]
- How’d I do, mom? No violation of fair trial for judge’s mother to be one of the jurors [ABA Journal]
- First sell the company’s stock short, then sue it and watch its share price drop. You mean there’s some ethical problem with that? [three years ago on Overlawyered]
Response re Terry v. Lindell
In June 2004, we wrote:
In the complicated surgery to correct scoliosis, screws and rods are inserted and bone added into the spine. The risk of nerve damage or paralysis is such that there is something called the Stagnara wake up test, whereby the patient is woken during surgery to ensure she can move her feet. In 1999, however, Joshua Terry was one of the unfortunate 0.1% who was paralyzed during surgery. And, according to the newspaper account, his lawyer, Jay Kelley, found four surgeons to testify against defendant Dr. Ernest Lindell that “paralysis was not a potential complication” from surgery on the spine to correct scoliosis. A Lucas County, Ohio jury awarded $8.4 million to Mr. Terry and another million to his parents. And Dr. Lindell will no longer perform spinal surgery. (“Paralyzed area man wins $10M judgment”, Toledo Blade, Jun. 16; P. Stagnara, et al., “Functional monitoring of spinal cord activity during spinal surgery”, Clin. Orthop., 1973; 93: 173-78).
Perhaps there was malpractice in this case; paralysis is relatively rare, and one can’t tell the merits one way or the other from cursory press coverage. (Terry claims that Lindell “lost control” of an instrument during surgery, and it’s unclear whether that claim is the result of concrete evidence or a wishful inference.)
If the press account is correct, the plaintiffs’ attorney put a finger on the scale through expert testimony claiming that paralysis doesn’t happen except through negligence. Even a relatively well-educated lay jury isn’t well situated to resolve which expert is telling the truth. It’s another example of why the current litigation system is poorly situated to resolve disputes of this sort.
Jay Kelley writes us: