Overlawyered

U.K.: “The widow who refused to sue”

Walter Olson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:04:14 +0000

73-year-old Gillian Chapman has made headlines by saying “she does not want compensation from the NHS [National Health Service] over the death of her husband, a GP who contracted cancer after working in a hospital that was built using asbestos.” Notes Telegraph columnist Jemima Lewis: “The cult of compensation has had no obvious improvement on [NHS] services.”

Tags: asbestos, hospitals, United Kingdom

Finger-in-the-chili lady out of jail

Ted Frank — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:13:33 +0000

Speaking of national media hoaxes, today’s San Jose Mercury News profiles the post-incarceration life of Anna Ayala. The digital pioneer is divorced from co-conspirator Jaime Plascencia, who is still in prison. Ayala’s greatest trauma from her four years in prison (out of her nine-year sentence) seems to be that everyone called her the Finger Lady. She’s permanently banned from Wendy’s, so she’ll miss out on the Baconator.

Tags: finger in the chili, Wendy's

Law firm TV ads, cont’d

Walter Olson — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:28:55 +0000

This one has rap and animation.

Tags: chasing clients

“I am not afraid of my Toyota Prius”

Ted Frank — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:00:43 +0000

I expand on my earlier post in today’s Washington Examiner, including my skepticism of the conventional reporting on the James Sikes incident.

Michael Fumento is also on the case on his blog and in the LA Times; see also Richard Schmidt in the New York Times on the last generation of sudden acceleration.

Tags: autos, product liability, sudden acceleration, Ted Frank, Toyota

Apple multitouch lawsuit

Walter Olson — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:44:03 +0000

Farhad Manjoo at Slate thinks the tech firm’s suits against competitors illustrate why “the patent system is in desperate need of reform”. And the New York Times “Bits” ran a chart last week showing the spaghetti-like tangle lawsuits among various mobile phone makers. More: Ryan Kim, San Francisco Chronicle.

Tags: Apple, cellphones, patent litigation

“Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers”

Walter Olson — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:40:07 +0000

An appellate court in New York has ordered parties to “proceed to an immediate trial” in the case of Lance International v. First National City Bank, which has been pending in court since 1966 [John Eligon, NYT "City Room" via Jack Chin, PrawfsBlawg; reference]

Tags: Jarndyce redux, New York

Deep pockets files: 1956 edition

Ted Frank — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:22:39 +0000

Decedent, Lloyd A. Wiseman, a vice president of a San Francisco bank, died of asphyxiation and burns in a hotel room in New York City. He was in that city on bank business, and his traveling expenses, including his hotel bills, were paid by the bank. A woman, not his wife but registered as such, was found unconscious in his room and died shortly thereafter. There was evidence that they had been drinking. Sometime between 4 and 5 in the morning of his death, Wiseman telephoned the hotel manager for help because of a fire in his room. After calling the fire department, the manager went to the room but was unable to open the door with his passkey. Firemen arrived shortly thereafter and broke into the room but were too late to save the occupants. It was the opinion of the assistant fire marshal that the fire was caused by careless smoking by either one or both of the occupants.

The California Supreme Court went on to hold that Wiseman’s widow and children were entitled to death benefits from his employer because his death “was proximately caused by the employment”—a remarkable definition of proximate cause. The Court reasoned that Wiseman might have died while entertaining a legitimate guest in the hotel room (at 4 in the morning?), so the fact that the death occurred in the course of nookie was irrelevant. That seems to me to prove too much: Wiseman might have died smoking in his bed at home, too, and he just happened to be in a hotel when his bad habits killed him. But this was part of Judge Traynor’s successful remaking of tort law in the 1950’s, and the death of proximate cause is a large part why we have the mess we have today. Wiseman v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1956) 46 Cal. 2d 570.

(You can tell that this is still over fifty years ago, though, because the widow didn’t sue the hotel or cigarette company.)

Tags: California, deep pocket, fire, hotels, proximate cause

Toyota acceleration: why I’m skeptical

Ted Frank — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:42:13 +0000

Dating back to 1992 models, LA Times reporters found 56 deaths reported to NHTSA over the course of 19 model-years. If Toyota is suffering from electronic problems, these electronic problems should affect all drivers equally. If Toyota sudden acceleration is caused by driver pedal misapplication, then we should expect to see a disproportionate number of elderly and short drivers. Unfortunately, we don’t have driver heights, and in only 24 of the 56 cases, did the Times list the age of the driver.

The ages: 18, 21, 22*, 32, 34, 44, 45, 47, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71**, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89.
*Passenger victim was 22 and “friend” of driver.
**Passenger victim was 71 and married to husband-driver for 46 years.

The median age is 60.5; the majority of drivers are 60 or older; a third are older than 70. And I left out the case of a driver who was the son of a 94-year-old victim rather than guesstimate his age to be 65. That looks suspiciously like the makeup of Audi sudden acceleration cases, and a lot like driver error to me. Color me skeptical. Very very skeptical.

Tags: autos, sudden acceleration, Toyota

“Gripe site prevails in domain cybersquatting case”

Walter Olson — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:27:30 +0000

“A gripe site that incorporates a company’s entire trademark into its domain is still protected under the First Amendment, a US District Judge has ruled.” The site was posted by a disgruntled customer of the Career Agents Network. [Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica]

Tags: online speech, trademarks

Claim: furniture makers responsible for firefighters’ anguish

Walter Olson — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:56:33 +0000

Nine firefighters died in a blaze at a Charleston, S.C., furniture store in 2007. Now four other firefighters who were on the scene that night, along with two of their wives, have filed a lawsuit claiming emotional distress and depression. They have chosen to sue “the Sofa Super Store, its owners and several furniture manufacturers,” the latter on the theory that their wares should have been made of less combustible materials. [Charleston City Paper, with links to complaints, via Sheila Scheuerman, TortsProf] On the erosion of the old “firefighters’ rule” which prevented rescuers from suing over injuries sustained in the course of their rescues, see our tag on the subject. On the development of lawsuits attributing liability after fires to whole groups of makers of furniture and other furnishings on the ground that they furnished fuel for the conflagration, see this retrospective (scroll) on the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire of 1977, and, relatedly, ourposts on the “Great White” Rhode Island concert fire.

Tags: emotional distress, firefighters rule, fires, South Carolina

Overlawyered

U.K.: “The widow who refused to sue”

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