February 4, 2010

California: "judicially sanctioned extortion" ruling reversed

"A California appeals court has ruled that Waters & Kraus, one of the nation's leading asbestos litigation firms, did not engage in 'judicially sanctioned extortion,' as a Los Angeles trial judge contended last year." The trial judge had been highly critical of the "asbestos two-step" practice of filing in Texas in order to take advantage of favorable discovery rules, dismissing the case, and refiling in California. [Amanda Bronstad, NLJ; earlier here, here, and here]

January 22, 2010

Eighth Circuit goes on joinder bender

James Beck thinks the court erred in failing to order separation of an unpersuasively clumped set of Prempro mass tort cases.

January 4, 2010

Forum-shopping in New York courts, cont'd

On Dec. 21 and Dec. 22 New York courts declined to hear two lawsuits -- on an Austrian train wreck and Pfizer's Lipitor -- that should more properly have been filed elsewhere. The decisions stand in contrast to the recent ruling of another New York court inviting mass claims about the drug Oxycontin to be brought to Staten Island for handling. James Beck and Russell Jackson have details.

December 21, 2009

A Staten Island magnet court for Oxycontin?

Russell Jackson doesn't think New York's interests, or those of justice itself, are well served by using a state court in Staten Island to resolve the claims of more than 1,000 out-of-state plaintiffs against a Connecticut drug manufacturer.

December 16, 2009

Around the web, December 16

• Someone leaked SEIU's Employee Free Choice Act "cheat sheet" [Big Government via @Eric_B_Meyer]
• "Shameful" prosecutorial misconduct, lack of evidence: judge tosses charges against last two defendants in Broadcom backdating case [AP, Ribstein]
• "Date set for 'apartheid' class action" [Daily Dispatch, South Africa]
• Chicago class action firm KamberEdelson has filed secondhand smoke suits against Wynn, Caesar's Palace casinos in Nevada [Las Vegas Sun]
• "Qui Tam Suit Against University Nets $78.5 Million Settlement" [University of Phoenix; The Recorder]
• A trend? Federal Circuit issues a third mandamus order removing patent case from E.D. Tex. [Alison Frankel, AmLaw] Update: et plus encore.
• "UMass Trustees Approve Plan for Public Law School" [Above the Law, earlier]
• Don't hesitate to donate food generously at this time of year, Congress and most states have enacted Good Samaritan liability immunities that should stand up [Matti Neustadt Storie, Food Liability Law]
  

November 6, 2009

"Why Drug Companies Should Beware Of Doing Business In West Virginia"

Beck and Herrmann explain why the Mountain State's inroads on the learned intermediary doctrine are a serious matter, especially since forum-shopping could lead to the application of the state's liberal rule to drug injuries alleged to have occurred in other states.

November 5, 2009

N.J.: Gov.-elect Christie on liability reform

New Jersey Lawsuit Reform Alliance reports that incoming chief executive Chris Christie has given encouraging pledges on forum-shopping, class actions, and expert witness standards.

October 27, 2009

The Toshiba settlement, 10 years later

The Chamber-backed Southeast Texas Record takes a look back at one of the biggest economic-harm class action settlements in history, though it barely scratches the surface of the reasons to be outraged at the case.

October 19, 2009

Around the web, October 19

• Arthur Levitt calls for panel to probe pension pay-to-play [Bloomberg] Similar from Utah Republican Sen. Bob Bennett [NY Daily News]
• Federal med-mal demonstration projects? Two pieces of advice [Robert Charrow, WaPo]
• "'Civil Gideon' pilot program starts in California" [Legal Ethics Forum; earlier coverage]
• "Removal roundup" [Beck & Herrmann]
  
• Video of Federalist Society Supreme Court term preview now online [Kerr]
• Cellphone and power line health fears revisited at Skeptical Inquirer magazine [ShopFloor]
  

September 25, 2009

New Jerseyite sued for "insulting Brazil" on his blog

The ABA Journal has a brief report on a nightmare about to afflict Joe Sharkey, a New Jersey journalist who was a survivor of a horrific mid-air collision between a Brazilian 737 and an American business jet carrying him and six others. All 154 aboard the 737 died when it reportedly nosedived after making an evasive maneuver. Those on the damaged business jet survived after the pilots eventually spotted a runway on a military base deep in the jungle and made a successful emergency landing.

Now Sharkey has been sued--in Brazil--by the widow of a man who died in the accident. She contends that Sharkey's reporting on the plane crash--in the United States--dishonored Brazil, which is apparently a tort in that country. [Shark defended the American pilots of the business jet, who had been accused in Brazil of criminal negligence, and criticized that country's air-traffic control system.] Last week, Sharkey was served in his home state of New Jersey with a copy of the lawsuit. A New York law firm has been retained to enforce stateside a Brazilian judgment against him.

This is exactly what happened to New Yorker Rachel Ehrenfeld, who exposed the terrorist ties of a Saudi who then made Ehrenfeld's life miserable by suing her in England, where libel laws are incredibly plaintiff-friendly. New York passed a law banning enforcement of such foreign impediments to American free speech, but New Jersey has no such law. [Ehrenfeld had better not set foot in England.] The Free Speech Protection Act of 2009, meanwhile, has not made progress federally.