December 9, 2005

Frequent plaintiffs' expert witness Dr. David Egilman of Brown University lost his harassing lawsuit against a lawyer and law firm that had exposed his violation of a court order (Jul. 29). Egilman says he won't appeal because he's already spent $150,000 of his own money on the case; there's no indication that the innocent parties he sued will be able to recover the six digits they must've spent defending themselves. Egilman, as reserved as always, compared his loss to "courts [that] said it was legal for blacks to be slaves or ruled it legal to deny women the vote." (Pamela A. MacLean, "Law Firms Not Liable in Alleged Web Hacking Case", National Law Journal, Dec. 9).