Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘roundups’

January 14 roundup

These roundups aren’t so hard to do once you get the hang of them:

  • Boutrous on suit against “recovered-memory” doubter Loftus [W$J]. Earlier: here, here.

  • Yet another expose of the “scrumptiousness epidemic” [Beato/Reason]

  • OK to challenge jurors based on occupation, Calif. appeals court rules [Egelko/SF Chronicle]

  • UK: “Murderer and his fraudster wife are given £20,000 legal aid to fight for an IVF baby” [Daily Mail]

  • Truce, seemingly, between class-actioneers Bernstein Litowitz and Milberg Weiss [Koppel/WSJ Law Blog]

  • Behind one of the biggest med-mal awards in Canadian history, a question of whether risk of bearing twins was warned of [KevinMD]

  • Judge Patel grants class-action status to Costco gender-bias suit [Lattman/WSJ law blog]

Filed under: , ,

January 13 roundup

About to fly away for the Martin Luther King Day weekend; Walter will approve comments, but there may be delays. I leave you with:

  • Judge Senter channels Hugo Chavez: $2.5M in punitive damages in Mississippi for noting that an uncovered storm surge was responsible for the destruction of a $225k house. [Point of Law; Insurance Coverage Blog; Chicago Trib]

  • Public Citizen calls medical malpractice crisis a “hoax.” Are they right? [Point of Law]

  • Mass torts and multiple misjoinders. [Point of Law; Drug and Device Law Blog]

  • Sasha Baron Cohen isn’t exactly sympathetic to the Borat litigation plaintiffs. [LA Times]

  • “High-profile trial looms large for controversial class-action leader” [DC Examiner]

  • Still more on warning labels. [Mass Tort Litigation Blog]

  • New Jersey Dem wants voting rights for idiots. No, really. [CNN/Reuters]

  • I found this tale of a Supreme Court argument poignant [WSJ Law Blog]

  • Harris County courthouse “rocket docket”: delay people with lengthy metal-detector lines, then throw them in jail when they’re late for court. [Kirkendall]

  • Different kind of rocket PSA: Don’t explode fireworks in your hand. [GruntDoc; Unbounded Medicine (gory)]

Filed under: , , , ,

January 11 roundup

  • What assumption of the risk? $10.5 million jury verdict against airport in death of pilot for failure to rescue him in time after he crashed experimental plane. [Daily Herald]

  • Dontdatehimgirl lawsuit (Jul. 6) update. [Bashman]

  • The effectiveness of public defenders. [NYT; Expresso; Talk Left]

  • And see also the new blog of an HLS-educated public defender in the Kafkaesque New Orleans criminal justice system. [Do Not Pass Geaux]

  • Epstein on pharma, again. [Mass Tort Litigation Blog]

  • “Your transactional lawyer just increased your lifespan. Aren’t corporate lawyers great?” [ATL]

  • Perhaps the best MSM look at the effects of a minimum wage increase I’ve seen. [WaPo]

  • Speaking of public policy, a nice view of Canada’s single-payer healthcare. [Frum]

  • Did the New Deal prolong the Great Depression? [Marginal Revolution]

Filed under:

January 9 roundup

  • Get in car with drunk driver, sue manufacturer and win $18.6M when you get hurt; lawyers fight over lottery-victory fees. [Andrews; Journal Star]
  • LA Times decides that maybe preventing prison race riots isn’t so bad after all. [Patterico]

  • Why LA jail cells are revolving doors. [LA Times]
  • Popular coffee stand shut down because of government-mandated preferences for blind. [NYT]

  • The special interests behind the call for additional hedge fund regulation. [Cafe Hayek]
  • The ethical practice of legal scholarship. [Prawfsblawg]
  • The Wag-Time/Stephanie Mencimer arrest scandal keeps getting weirder and weirder. [Murray Waas @ HuffPo; Circumlocutor]

Filed under:

January 7 roundup

Filed under: ,

January 4 roundup

Usually it’s Ted who posts these, but I don’t see why he should have all the fun:

  • Latest ADA test-accommodation suit: law school hopeful with attention deficit disorder demands extra time on LSAT [Legal Intelligencer]

  • John Stossel on Fairfax County (Va.) regulations against donating home-cooked food to the homeless, and on the controversy over Arizona’s Heart Attack Grill

  • More odd consequences of HIPAA, the federal medical privacy law [Marin Independent Journal via Kevin MD; more here, here]

  • UK paternalism watch: new ad rules officially label cheese as junk food; breast milk would be, too, if it were covered [Telegraph; Birmingham Post]; schoolgirl arrested on racial charges after asking to study with English speakers [Daily Mail via Boortz]; brothers charged with animal cruelty for letting their dog get too fat [Nobody’s Business]

  • Stanford’s Securities Class Action Clearinghouse reports impressive 38 percent drop in investor lawsuit filings between 2005 and 2006, with backdating options suits not a tidal wave after all [The Recorder/Lattman]

  • Ohio televangelist/faith healer sued by family after allegedly advising her cancer-stricken brother to rely on prayer [FoxNews]

  • Legislators in Alberta, Canada, pass law enabling disabled girl to sue her mom for prenatal injuries; it’s to tap an insurance policy, so it must be okay [The Star]

  • California toughens its law requiring managers to undergo anti-harassment training, trial lawyers could benefit [NLJ]

  • Family land dispute in Sardinia drags on for 46 years in Italian courts; “nothing exceptional” about that, says one lawyer [Telegraph]

  • “For me, conservatism was about realism and reason.” [Heather Mac Donald interviewed about being a secularist]

Filed under: , , , , , , , ,

December 20 roundup

  • The part of the Zyprexa story the New York Times didn’t tell you. [Point of Law; relatedly, Childs]
  • 10-2 DC City Council vote: DC businesses who don’t want to hire a “rehabilitated” convicted sex offender to work with children (or DC residents who don’t want to rent a room to one) can now be sued for punitive damages. WaPo doesn’t think this worth mentioning in the newspaper. Thanks, Marion Barry, for making my Arlington condo worth more money! [Open Market blog]
  • Of course, not all convicted sex offenders are equal, as the case of a 17-year-old who had consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old shows. That ten-year prison conviction (without parole) would have been a misdemeanor if he had just had intercourse and gotten her pregnant. [Bashman roundup; Volokh; Berman]
  • Tradeoffs and scarcity: why medical safety isn’t as easy as it seems. [Point of Law; Kevin MD]
  • Jury’s lack of smoking break not reason to undo death penalty. [AP/law.com]
  • I know I stocked up on Sudafed when they changed the law. It’s worse for allergy sufferers with kids below 18. [WQAD; Fisher @ WaPo]
  • Murnane on the judicial hellholes report. [Illinois Justice]
  • Remember when those left-wing groups tell you about how profitable insurance companies are, and thus need more regulation? They somehow forget the most highly regulated category, Florida homeowners’ insurance. Which, not coincidentally, is high-priced, loses money, and increasingly taxpayer subsidized as private industry flees. [Risk Prof]
  • “We’re trying to figure out what changes we can make, short of putting up signs saying, ‘Don’t put your baby through the X-ray machine.'” [LA Times]
  • Blogger doc: $4M/breast is too high, even in Florida [Docsurg]
  • No, a semicolon in your middle name doesn’t grant you magical legal properties. [Above the Law]
  • Word limits and law school exams. [Above the Law]
  • Milton Friedman and General Pinochet. [Reason]
  • “This is the painful part,” he said. “Sometimes you do everything right in neurosurgery and the patient doesn’t do well.” No lawsuits in this story, just interesting medicine. [NYT]
  • With only 17 “fascinating”s in 3.5 years, Overlawyered is more selective than Volokh or Prawfsblawg. [Still Angry]
  • Overlawyered and Walter get a shout-out in an article about the top ten insurance cases of the year. [Mealey’s]

    • Filed under: ,

December 15 roundup

  • Pro se suit against baking soda manufacturer for failing to warn that baking crack is illegal. [Lat]
  • Plaintiffs’ expert: when you asked for the documents I reviewed, I thought you meant the documents I viewed twice. Judge doesn’t buy it. [Lattman; Des Moines Register]
  • Judges stymie popular will in California death penalty cases. [The Recorder; Will @ WaPo]
  • And coincidental update of breaking news: California federal judge strikes down all lethal injections in state. [Bashman roundup]
  • Via Hans Bader, but not on-line or covered in the mainstream press: DC City Council considering amendment to Human Rights Act barring employment discrimination against ex-convicts. Ex-convict Marion Barry is the sponsor; business community strangely silent. [Legal Times ($)]
  • Virginia plaintiff’s attempt at milk regulation through litigation blocked. Lawyers shamelessly promise to forum-shop. [WaPo]
  • UK insult to injury: adulterer has right to prevent cuckolded husband from writing about affair. [Bashman roundup]
  • Florida Supreme Court stumbles onto a correct answer: no litigation tourism for “snowbirds.” [AP; State Farm v. Roach]
  • Has the Federal Circuit emasculated the “obviousness” rule? An argument that it has. [The American]
  • Wonder how those “bad toy” lists get generated? [Point of Law]
  • More on the “Coercive Abortion Bills” in Michigan, which passed the House, and threaten to criminalize men who end relationships with pregnant women. [Fox News]
  • Lawsuit: please bar publication of yearbook unless it includes photo of my son wearing chain-mail and a sword. [Krauss @ POL]
  • Should we be afraid of hedge funds? [Marginal Revolution]
  • Peter Huber on the emphasis of glue over learning in school. [Forbes]
  • Judge Posner to “furry”: “Your tail is great.” [NWN blog; Eminent Domain blog via Bashman]
  • A commenter here suggested that certain little-read websites are attacking us just to generate traffic. I’m beginning to believe it what with three different writers posting in the last 36 hours attacking me and sometimes Walter, with insults and arguments in varying combinations of baseless, sloppy, and thoughtless. So, while I’m happy to engage thoughtful analysis, no link or response here, since doing so just seems to create perverse incentives, not to mention takes away time from meaningful writing.
  • As contrast: Peter Nordberg critiques posts by me and Walter on the rollover suit and cigarette polonium, as well as interesting posts by Bill Childs and Derek Lowe on the torcetrapib withdrawal. [Blog 702]

Filed under: , , ,

December 14 roundup

  • Ford wins an Explorer rollover lawsuit brought by family of unseatbelted accident victim, but press coverage is skimpy. [Detroit News]
  • Milberg Weiss’s claims for $12 million in fees viewed skeptically, cut in half. [Lattman; WSJ]
  • Dog food prank plaintiff Tennie Pierce is “the O.J. of the Fire Department.” Contrary to what one may think, this is apparently meant as a compliment, suggesting a racial divide that can’t be entirely attributable to whites. [LA Times]
  • SDNY Clinton appointee Judge Scheindlin thinks she’s smarter than Judge Easterbrook, throws pension law into mess again. See POL Nov. 12 and Aug. 8 for background. [Business Insurance; Cooper v. IBM]
  • Nifong gets around to releasing DNA results that appear to exonerate indicted Duke lacrosse players. Earlier: Oct. 12, etc. [AP/ABC News]
  • Judge won’t censor Borat DVD, but frat-boy lawsuit goes forward. [Reuters]
  • Criminal speeds away from DC police, hits innocent motorist, DC taxpayers liable for $1M. [WaPo]
  • Similarly: negligent driver veers across three lanes of highway traffic into oncoming vehicle, killing 18-year old; taxpayers liable for $2M because SUV was able to smash through the median. [AP/King County Journal]
  • Today’s Ninth Circuit Follies edition: lawless reopening of final sentences. [Kerr @ Volokh; Bashman; Carrington v. US; Lat]
  • Robert Ramsey files two more lawsuits claiming simultaneous asbestosis and silicosis in Madison County against several dozen defendants. [Madison County Record]
  • UK: 100-pound fine for misfiling trash. [Market Center Blog via Overcriminalized]
  • Inhofe’s take on global warming. [Senate]
  • Trial lawyer puts money where his mouth is. Check back in ten years to see whether it’s lawyers or insurers who are really at fault for medmal insurance crisis. [Point of Law]
  • I blame the fact I joined Friendster for this. [PrawfsBlawg]

Filed under: , , , , , , , ,

December 8 roundup

  • Can reformers declare victory? [Point of Law; American Lawyer]
  • Mississippi Supreme Court reaffirms: no litigation tourism for asbestos plaintiffs. [AP/Commercial Dispatch (h/t SB); Coleman v. A-Bex; Albert v. Allied Glove]
  • More asbestos frauds in the Wall Street Journal. [Point of Law]
  • LA judge will decide whether to censor Borat DVD. Earlier: Nov. 9. [Reuters]
  • Guacamole dip fallout: “Is the goal here to get guac with more avocados or to create more work for the abogados?” Earlier: Dec. 6. [LA Times via Bashman]
  • Quelle surprise: the tobacco settlement money is being treated by Missouri like general revenue, i.e., a tax. [Mass Tort Litigation Blog]
  • Quelle surprise: Stephanie Mencimer caught exaggerating case for plaintiffs’ lawyers. [Point of Law]
  • Epstein: What’s good for pharma is good for America. [Boston Globe]
  • Heather Mac Donald: No, the cops didn’t murder Sean Bell. [City Journal]
  • Well, suing several major Ontario Jewish organizations and releasing a press release that they’re all part of the Israel lobby is one way to convince people that you’re not a bigot, right? [Bernstein @ Volokh]
  • The case against (and for) Jeff Skilling helps explain why CEOs are paid so much. [Point of Law; Kirkendall]
  • Lame-duck Republican Congress wasting final hours with committee hearing on contract dispute, but one of the parties is famous, so it’s okay, right? [Kirkendall]
  • Environmental group on the web speaks out against Dihydrogen Monoxide. [DHMO.org]
  • The problem of Institutional Review Boards. [Carpenter @ Volokh; Point of Law]
  • Will Danny DeVito play Gretchen Morgenson in the movie? NY Times and Sen. Grassley get snookered by unsuccessful trial lawyer. [Ideoblog; WSJ]
  • New York Times web commenters are unimpressed with the fact that Nintendo needs to warn Wii users not to throw their remote. [The Lede]
  • “The conventional wisdom is that we would be better off if politically powerful leaders were less mediocre. Instead, my view is that we would be better off if mediocre political leaders were less powerful.” [Kling @ TCS Daily via Kirkendall]
  • “If Democrats allow lower prices here, they may even have to tolerate Wal-Mart.” [WSJ letter @ Cafe Hayek]
  • Lindsay Lohan wants to enlist Al Gore in a lawsuit against her former assistant. [Defamer; Access Hollywood]
  • Hey, we’ve slightly tweaked our right-hand sidebar. What do you think?

Filed under: , , , , ,