Tort Deform is the effort of trial lawyers to undo successful civil justice reforms, even naming a blog after the concept. ATRA has a new report out, “Defrocking Tort Deform,” listing some of the pending state legislation on the issue. Related: my April Liability Outlook on revivers and retroactive lawsuits.
Posts Tagged ‘politics’
“Pelosi betrays her own House for a slew of trial lawyers”
We’ve previously covered the Senate’s boon to trial lawyers at the expense of consumers and shareholders, the Consumer Product Safety Commission Act, S. 2663: Feb. 20; Feb. 25; Mar. 5. (The bill was amended somewhat since we complained but Democrats, on a party line vote, tabled critical amendments to prohibit the use of contingent-fee attorneys and permit prevailing parties to recover attorneys’ fees.) The House passed a somewhat more sensible version of the bill unanimously, but Pelosi, for some reason, is trying to bypass her chamber’s proponents in constructing the “conference committee” that will work out the differences between the bills in favor of those of trial lawyers. Today’s Washington Examiner has the unholy details.
Nearer, my Capitol, to thee
Education expert Jay Greene, a colleague of mine at the Manhattan Institute, has just launched his own blog, which is likely to be of wide interest. He gets off to a good start (Apr. 19) with a post based on a simple but clever idea for measuring influence:
If you stand on the steps of a state capitol building and throw a rock (with a really strong arm), the first building you can hit has a good chance of being the headquarters of the state teacher union. For interest groups, proximity to the capitol is a way of displaying power and influence. The teacher union, more than any other interest group, strives to be the closest. They want to remind everyone that among powerful interest groups, they are the most powerful – a prince among princes.
To see who has the most powerful digs, Jonathan Butcher and I actually bothered to measure just how close interest group offices are to state capitol buildings. We started with a list of the 25 most influential interest groups, as compiled by Fortune magazine. We then used Google Maps to plot the location of the state offices of those 25 interest groups and measured the distance to the capitol building.
The results are illuminating. Of the 25 most influential interest groups, the teacher union is the closest in 14 of the 50 states. The labor union, AFL-CIO, is the closest in 7 states. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and National Federation of Independent Business are the closest in 5 states, each. The trial lawyers lobby, the American Association for Justice, is the closest in 4 states.
The teacher union is among the four closest interest groups in 27 states. The trial lawyers are in the top four in 22 states, followed by the AARP in 20 states and the AFL-CIO in 19 states. …
If we gave four points for being closest, three for being the second closest, two for being third closest, and one for being the fourth closest, teacher unions would have a total of 85 points. No other group would have more than 60 points. Only four of the 25 groups would have above 40 points, with the trial lawyers, AARP, and AFL-CIO joining the teacher union in this elite group.
As Greene notes, the point of capitol proximity may be less a practical one (shaving a minute or two off the time needed to drop by to do some influencing) as that of making “a visible display of their power and influence”, like having the most sought-after seats at a sporting event. He’s followed with a state-by-state rundown of proximity here.
New at Point of Law
Carter Wood has been doing great things lately with the National Association of Manufacturers’ Shop Floor blog, which often treats legal reform topics. Since Monday he’s also been posting up a storm guestblogging at Point of Law. Topics include: ATLA/AAJ’s juvenile pre-nose-thumbing at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2008 Lawsuit Climate Report (which, like similar studies from ATRA and Pacific Research Institute, tries to pick best and worst state legal environments); the employment-litigation-expanding Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (more); some thoughts on journalistic shield laws; and sundry reports from the Geoffrey Fieger trial, Florida politics, and Texas Supreme Court-watching.
Ohio AG office harassment scandal
Do as we say, not as we do?
Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann is leading a group of 18 state Attorneys General seeking a ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court that employees can not be retaliated against by their bosses for filing a sexual harassment complaint.
The case comes at an ironic moment for Dann, as his office is investigating claims by two 26-year-old women who work at the Attorney General’s office that they were sexually harassed on and off the job by their boss, Anthony Gutierrez, a close friend of Dann’s who shared a Columbus condominium with him.
(“Dann Defends Woman Amid Own Office’s Sexual Harassment Flap”, Fox8 Cleveland, Apr. 16; Mark Rollenhagen and Reginald Fields, “Employee in Ohio attorney general’s office files police report”, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Apr. 19). Amid talk of a cover-up, Dann has also denied a request from the Columbus Dispatch under the state’s public records law “to review three months’ worth of e-mail messages between him and his then-scheduler, Jessica Utovich,” both of whose names turn up as possible witnesses in colorful text messages offered as evidence in the claims. “Dann in the past has said e-mails are public records and also has sought troves of messages from public offices when he was a state senator and the Democratic candidate for Ohio’s top legal office.” (James Nash, “Dann won’t release e-mails”, DispatchPolitics (Columbus Dispatch), Apr. 13; Julie Carr Smyth, “Sexual complaint probe at top cop’s office intensifies”, AP/Akron Beacon Journal, Apr. 18; Mark Naymik, “Dann has habit of hiring his friends; some have proved to be embarrassments”, Openers (Cleveland Plain Dealer blog), Apr. 12; Reginald Fields, “Dann employee files complaint with police”, Openers, Apr. 18).
After initial resistance, Dann did release some information that raised reportorial eyebrows:
In a surprising reversal, Attorney General Marc Dann’s office released 12 pages of notes that detail allegations of repeated sexual harassment and possibly an attempt to destroy text messages that may document the incidents. …
Dann’s Equal Employment Opportunity officer, Angela Smedlund, interviewed Cindy Stankoski and Vanessa Stout on March 31 about problems they had had with their boss, Anthony Gutierrez, who is Dann’s friend and former roommate.
Smedlund’s notes reveal the following:
Stankoski agreed to go out for drinks with Gutierrez last Sept. 10, but said she soon “felt tipsy and trapped.” She agreed to go to an apartment Gutierrez shared with Dann and Communications Director Leo Jennings III. She called and text-messaged friends that night.
In the margin, Smedlund wrote: “Leo & Tony destroyed texts Tony admitted to Charlie.” The notes do not identify Charlie’s last name.
Jennings and Gutierrez are now both on paid administrative leave.
(Laura A. Bischoff, “Dann’s office unveils documents detailing harassment report”, Lebanon, Oh. Western-Star, Apr. 16; Rollenhagen/Fields, “Reports show Dann was aware of Gutierrez’s history of troubles”, Cleveland Plain Dealer/Youngstown Vindicator, Apr. 18; Bertram de Souza, “Will Dann survive the crisis?”, StirFry (Youngstown Vindicator), Apr. 17). Perhaps unfortunately in retrospect, the noisily anti-business Dann had been lionized in the New York Times after his election as a possible “next Eliot Spitzer“.
More: Above the Law, John Phillips (“Other key words are pajamas, condo, inappropriate text messages, Hawaiian pizza, booze, passing out in a bedroom, unbuttoned pants upon waking up, and nothing on but his underwear.”), Law and More. Update: Dann’s emails with scheduler released (Dispatch via Genova)
Judicial elections blog
A new must-read for those interested in reform, Dan Pero is blogging at “American Courthouse” about judicial elections.
James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2007
Speaking of Ground Zero dust lawsuits, I will be testifying Tuesday morning about H.R. 3543‘s proposal to reopen the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund to potentially hundreds of thousands of new claimants.
(Bumped Tuesday with SSRN link to testimony.)
Hillary’s Michigan do-over angels
The ten big donors who bootlessly pledged up to $12 million include some familiar names, such as John Eddie Williams and Peter Angelos, as well as a new one, Calvin C. Fayard, Jr., of the firm Fayard & Honeycutt, A.P.C., who boasts connections with former Louisiana AG Charles Foti (Folo, Mar. 20; “Michigan Missives”, The Caucus (NY Times), Mar. 19).
McCain, thimerosal and autism
The Republican candidate sticks his foot in it in a major way on a topic extensively covered here over the years (as well as at my other site). Writes Mark Kleiman: “the thimerosal-autism theory is as dead as phlogiston in respectable company. I’m not surprised that ‘respectable company’ excludes a few ambulance-chasing lawyers looking for deep pockets and a some emotionally devastated parents looking for someone to blame. But it’s distressing — to use no stronger term — that the presumptive Republican nominee for President, rather than looking at the evidence, has chosen to side with the panic-spreaders and pander to the emotions of the panic victims.” More: Orac.
Obama, lawyers, and taxes
I have a guest post at Above the Law analyzing Obama’s tax plan and showing that it will dramatically raise taxes for young lawyers. Whether that is a bug or a feature is in the eye of the beholder.