- Following public outrage, Spanish businessman drops plans to sue parents of boy he killed in road crash [UK Independent; earlier]
- Scruggs to take Fifth in State Farm case against Hood [Clarion-Ledger] And how much “home cooking” was the Mississippi titan dished out in the Medicaid-tobacco case that made his fortune? [Folo]
- More critics assail ABC “Eli Stone” vaccine-autism fiction, with American Academy of Pediatrics calling for episode’s cancellation [AAP press release; Stier, NY Post; earlier]
- Special ethics counsel recommends disbarment of Edward Fagan, lawyer of Swiss-bank-suit fame whose ethical missteps have been chronicled on this site over the years [Star-Ledger]. As recently as fourteen months ago the L.A. Times was still according Fagan good publicity;
- In past bail-bond scandals, private bond agencies have been caught colluding “with lawyers, the police, jail officials and even judges to make sure that bail is high and that attractive clients are funneled to them.” [Liptak, NYT]
- Archbishop of Canterbury calls for new laws to punish “thoughtless or cruel” comments on religion [Times Online, Volokh]
- Another disturbing case from Massachusetts of a citizen getting charged with privacy violation for recording police activity [also Volokh]
- Abuse of open-records law? Convicted arsonist files numerous requests for pictures and personal information of public employees who sent him to prison; they charge intimidation [AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
- It resembles a news program on Connecticut public-access cable, but look more closely: it’s law firm marketing [Ambrogi]
- Judge says Alfred Rava’s suit can proceed charging sex bias over Oakland A’s stadium distribution of Mother’s Day hats [Metropolitan News-Enterprise; earlier on Angels in Anaheim]
- Crack down on docs with multiple med-mal payouts? Well, there go lots of your neurosurgeons [three years ago on Overlawyered]
Posts Tagged ‘Seattle’
January 24 roundup
- Longtime Overlawyered favorite Judy Cates, of columnist-suing fame, is using large sums of her own money to outspend incumbent James Wexstten in hard-fought race for Illinois state judgeship; Democratic primary is Feb. 5 [Belleville News-Democrat, Southern Illinoisan]
- City council told: we’ll cancel your liability coverage if you throw all meetings and city records open to public [Seattle Times]
- Attorney member of Canadian Senate in spot of bother after revelation that she billed client for 30 hours in one day [Vancouver Province, edit]
- A public wiki just for Scruggsiana? After Keker’s minions swoop in to do their edits, the Mississippi attorney may wind up portrayed as the next Mother Teresa, and not the Hitchens version either [WikiScruggs]
- Same general category of point, my Wikipedia entry now suddenly describes me as “controversial”, when but a month ago I wasn’t;
- $28 to $52 million in 18 months for serving as a DoJ “corporate monitor” sounds like nice work if you can get it, and former AG Ashcroft got it without competitive bidding [Lattman, St. Pete Times edit, PolitickerNJ, NJLJ]
- The Amiable Nancy (1818), admiralty case that could prove crucial precedent in Exxon Valdez punitive appeal, has nothing to do with The Charming Betsey (1804), key precedent on international law [Anchorage Daily News; Tom Goldstein/Legal Times]
- “First do no harm… to your attorney’s case” [Cole/Dallas Morning News via KevinMD]
- Probers haven’t come up with evidence of more than middling tiger-taunting, and attorney Geragos says he’ll sue zoo’s p.r. firm for defaming his clients [KCBS; SF Chronicle; AP/USA Today]
- UK’s latest “metric martyr” is Janet Devens, facing charges for selling vegetables in pounds and ounces at London’s Ridley Road market [WSJ; earlier]
- Lawyer can maintain defamation suit over being called “ambulance chaser” interested only in “slam dunk” cases, rules Second Circuit panel [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
“Son seeks estate of mother he killed”
After Joshua Hoge stabbed his mother and brother to death with a butcher knife, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to Washington’s Western State Hospital. His mother’s estate then sued King County and won $800,000 “when it was determined that a public-health clinic had failed to give Hoge his medication and was partially responsible for the slayings.” Now Hoge is suing to obtain part of his mother’s estate, which would allow him to capture some of the lawsuit winnings. A Washington statute restricts killers from profiting by their crimes, but by its terms applies to “willful” killings. Besides, says Jean O’Laughlin, Hoge’s attorney, her client isn’t covered because he was found not guilty. A Seattle University associate professor of Law, John Strait, agrees: “For all intents and purposes, there is no crime. We don’t punish people for being really sick. We don’t impose criminal culpability on people who are mentally ill,” he said. “It’s nutty logic.” (Natalie Singer, Seattle Times, Jan. 3). I wrote a couple of years ago about Washington state’s unusually broad assignment of liability to public agencies for crime and other private misconduct.
January 4 roundup
- Housekeeping service in Florida proclaims, “We Speak English”. So will they get sued? [Smerconish/Phila. Daily News]
- Update: Dad who long ago walked out on his family won’t get chunk of estranged son’s $2.9 million 9/11 fund benefit [NY Post (link fixed now); earlier]
- Did Illinois state’s attorneys advise Marine sergeant complaining of car vandalism that there wasn’t much point trying to recover from the suspected offender since he was a lawyer? [Blackfive via Zincavage and many readers; Kass/Tribune] And what kind of trouble might the lawyer be in if he suggested slipping the repair costs along to an insurer? [Patterico commenters, Goldberg/NRO Corner correspondent] More: Bainbridge.
- Not long after American Lawyer pronounces the demise of securities class actions, we learn they may be back on a cyclical upswing [August TAL; new Stanford Clearinghouse]
- If rising tide of outrage leads to abolition of peremptory challenges, many lawyers won’t have anyone to blame but themselves [Reed]
- Brooklyn judge’s presenting of box of candy to plaintiff among grounds for reversal of $14 million brain-damaged infant verdict [NYLJ]
- Yet more health privacy madness: “HIPAA is adversely affecting our ability to conduct biomedical research” [Reuters on JAMA study via Kevin MD; relatedly, Karvounis/HealthBeat]
- People kept tearing down no-swimming signs at much-used park in Bellingham, Wash., and you know what’s going to happen next without our having to tell you [AP/Seattle Times]
- Two Illinois judges in drunk-driving accident that broke other driver’s leg draw mere reprimand with “no consequences other than public embarrassment” [Post-Dispatch]
- Suit against Avvo lawyer-rating suit dismissed on First Amendment grounds [Seattle Times, Post-Intelligencer; earlier]
- Saves her friend’s life, then sues her [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
Great moments in client-chasing
Injury law firms in St. Louis and Seattle run promotional blogs for which they’ve been generating content as follows: a post summarizes (presumably from police or news reports) a recent local road fatality or injury naming the victim and other persons involved, towns, roads and other identifying information. Then it adds a bit of discussion of the accident, and advises that the law firm can assist the victims in filing claims. Often the killed, maimed or comatose person’s name appears prominently in the post title, which aids in search engine visibility to reach families searching for their own names or the names of witnesses or other parties involved in the accident. The law firms have had no previous involvement whatsoever in most of the incidents, nor have they been invited onto the scene by any of the persons they name or their survivors.
Isn’t legal marketing wonderful? In years to come when you go online in quest of remembrances of your loved ones, paging through their school reunion pages, club involvements and professional achievements, you can look forward to confronting the equivalents of giant if outdated lawyer billboards along the way. Kevin O’Keefe at Real Lawyers Have Blogs blasts the practice as “a cheap stunt” and “the stuff that gives plaintiff’s lawyers a bad name” (Dec. 11), “unseemly” and “wrong” (Dec. 14), “shameless” and “sleazy” (Dec. 15). Eric Turkewitz adds his voice in condemnation (Dec. 13). Peter Lattman’s link at the WSJ law blog (Dec. 14) draws out numerous posters who appear to approve of the idea, though.
December 7 roundup
- Speaking of privacy, consider what happens when lawyers get a hold of your email. (When will we see law professors eager to create new causes of action consider the privacy-destroying implications of ediscovery?) [Fulton County Daily Report/law.com; Toronto Globe & Mail; Point of Law] Earlier: Jan. 9 and links therein.
- Speaking of privacy and reputation, Mary Roberts goes to trial, but Above the Law doesn’t mention our coverage (June 2004; Sep. 2005; Feb. 6; Mar. 19; May 17), and misses the juicy details.
- Oy: “Woman who ‘lost count after drinking 14 vodkas’ awarded £7,000 over New Year fall from bridge.” News from the compensation culture not entirely bad: damages were reasonable, and the court did hold the woman 80% responsible, the exact opposite of the McDonald’s coffee case. [Scotsman.com]
- No good deed goes unpunished: Sperm donor liable for child support, judge rules. [Newsday/Seattle Times]
- Bad attorney gets fired, sues DLA Piper for discrimination, represents herself pro se, demonstrates firsthand why she got fired: law firm wins on summary judgment. [ABA Journal; update: also New York Law Journal]
- Romney on tort reform; McCain on medmal. [Torts Prof Blog; Torts Prof Blog]
- Another day, another Borat lawsuit. I’m still waiting for the consumer fraud lawsuit from moviegoers upset that it was not actually a Kazakh documentary. [Reuters; earlier]
November 28 roundup
All-medical edition:
- Shocker for New York docs: possible assessment of $50K apiece to make up losses at nonprofit med-mal insurer [White Plains Journal-News Chamber reprint]
- Dr. Ray Harron, a central figure in furor over mass asbestos and silicosis screenings, seems rather hard to locate at the moment, though he does have a lawyer speaking on his behalf [NY Times, WV Record]
- Another push to raise the threshold of liability for emergency room care in Arizona [AZ Business Gazette]
- End run around Roe? Some state legislatures attaching sweeping new tort liabilities to the provision of abortions [Childs]
- Three nominees for worst-founded medical lawsuit, lamentably unsourced [Medical Justice]
- Spokane psychiatrist shouldn’t have engaged in romantic (though not sexually consummated) dalliance with forty-ish patient; that much is clear. But should she now get cash? [AP/Seattle Times]
- “Baby falls to floor during home delivery, mom sues hospital for too-early discharge” [SE Texas Record]
- A sensitive subject: malpractice and doctors’ suicides [KevinMD, a while back]
- “If the ‘loser pays’ system is so bad, why do most other countries keep it around instead of switching over to an ‘Americanized’ system of tort law?” [WhiteCoat Rants]
- Hospital, ambulance service among those sued after fatal crash of NFL’s Derrick Thomas [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
Federici v. U-Haul update: jury awards $15 million
Following up on the story Jason Barney wrote about Oct. 25: a Seattle jury has awarded $15 million to the woman gravely injured when an improperly secured entertainment center fell off a rented U-Haul trailer and through her windshield. “U-Haul was ordered to pay 67 percent of the total amount and the balance is to be paid by James Hefley, the man who rented the U-Haul trailer. Jurors did not find the company that rented the trailer to Hefley or Federici liable. … Federici’s attorneys argued that U-Haul knowingly rented a poorly designed trailer that in which loads could not be secured. They said that the trailer could have been made safer with a cargo net or higher tailgates and that U-Haul knew there had a been a number of similar incidents.” (Christine Clarridge, “Woman hit by unsecured load awarded $15 million”, Seattle Times, Nov. 9).
“No liability for doctor who revived newborn”
The Washington Supreme Court has ruled that doctors in Vancouver, Wash. can’t be held liable for resuscitating a baby after he was born without a heartbeat. The parents said the medics had wrongly failed to ask their permission before saving the child’s life. The infant survived but with severe disabilities. (AP/Seattle Times, Nov. 8; “State high court: No liability for doctor who revived newborn”, AP/KOMO, Nov. 8; opinion with first and second concurrences, all PDF).
Guestblogger thanks
Thanks to Jason Barney, from the Seattle area, for filling in while I met a deadline. Remember, if you’re interested in guestblogging, that it’s fine to approach us well in advance; we’ll probably need some help before and during the holidays, for example.