June 22, 2009

Alberta court upholds soft-injury payout limits

Provincial lawmakers imposed limits on payouts of non-economic damages in cases of strain, sprain and whiplash; as Colby Cosh notes at Canada's National Post, a trial judge proceeded to pluck the rule in question "from its setting of incentives and other regulations, and found that, considered in isolation, it tended to discriminate against the Charter-protected class of soft-tissue injury sufferers. The Court of Appeal was unimpressed by this method of analysis" and reinstated the limit, noting that it was part of a larger scheme of regulation that included advantages for injury victims.

June 6, 2009

Some reasons health insurance doesn't work well

John Steele Gordon vs. Paul Krugman.

June 5, 2009

Around the web, June 5

• Return of the rickety "medical crises cause most consumer bankruptcies" meme [McArdle, more; earlier here, here, etc.]
• Texas: bill advances that would make it easier for injured contract workers to sue property owners [San Antonio Express-News]
• Minnesota county officials denounce "one-way loser-pays" insurance proposal in legislature [Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal]
• Plenty on the docket for lead as legal issue [Law and More/Cordrey, Mealey's]
  
• Imagine a legislative "compromise" on union organizing that in practice resulted in unions winning most organizational elections. Actually, that describes the current system [ShopFloor]
• When it comes to dubious Alien Tort Statute cases, bogus banana-worker claims are just the start [IBD editorial, related]
  

May 27, 2009

Sotomayor and insurance coverage cases

A surprise? Randy Maniloff at White and Williams finds that she's ruled mostly for insurers against policyholders (PDF) in coverage disputes -- not usually seen as the more "liberal" or empathy-driven way of doing things.

May 22, 2009

Scruggs' good press

We've often had occasion to marvel on the adoring press coverage the now-imprisoned tort potentate used to get, on Katrina-insurance suits and other matters. As a Mississippi lawsuit now reveals, million-dollar outlays for the services of PR firms were part of the formula.

May 14, 2009

Around the web, May 14

• Columnist Michael Kinsley warns Congress against legislative folly of repealing medical device preemption [Washington Times, WSJ Health Blog, testimony, PDF; ShopFloor]
• CBS "60 Minutes" enlists on the plaintiff's side in Chevron/Ecuador battle [Washington Times, CEI OpenMarket, Business & Media Institute, ShopFloor; earlier posts]
• Both GOP candidates for New Jersey governor, Chris Christie and Steve Lonegan, include litigation/court reform in their platforms [NJLRA]
• Not easy to get Judge Weinstein to exclude scientific testimony on a Daubert motion, but he did it in a Zyprexa case [Beck & Herrmann]
• More on economic effects of unionization [Goldberg/NRO]
• Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Vermont best, and Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York worst: the 50 states ranked according to the freedom of their property/casualty insurance markets [CEI/Heartland]

May 12, 2009

Mississippi: don't you go peeking under the Hood

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has filed arguments as to why the settlement agreement in State Farm v. Hood shouldn't be unsealed. Alan Lange and Tom Freeland comment.

Speaking of Freeland, a recent announcement of his provides what we must take as a case of "attorney/blogger makes good"; after years as a much-read observer of the Scruggs affair (at Folo and more recently Northern Mississippi Commentor), he's now been retained to represent one of the most mysterious and much-speculated-about principals in that affair, P.L. Blake.

April 23, 2009

A peek under the Hood?

Mississippi blogger Alan Lange (YallPolitics) has filed to unseal court records in the politically explosive case of State Farm Insurance vs. Attorney General Jim Hood.

The more regulation, the less litigation?

And vice versa? One does hear that line an awful lot, but a new study by Eric Helland and Jonathan Klick (The Relation Between Regulation and Class Actions: Evidence from the Insurance Industry) suggests it might not be so (via Lahav, Mass Tort Prof).

April 20, 2009

Around the web, April 20

• Advice for lawyers: "Dealing with the Difficult Adversary" (and in particular the "Bully"). [Day on Torts]
• "Judicial Council of California Report on Class Action Trends Released" [Karlsgodt]
• Cessna wins ruling that plane crash in Italy should be sued there [Legal Times]
• Consumerists who bash insurers don't seem to have very clear idea what they want from the industry [Martin Grace, RiskProf, first and second posts]
  
• Case against actual Brooklyn gangster could help set boundaries on civil RICO as weapon against legitimate businesses [Forbes]
• Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle at forefront of efforts to undo state's liability limits [Carter @ ShopFloor]