I’m a trial lawyer for injured people and businesses at The Beasley Firm. Founded in 1958, we have recovered over $2 billion for our clients through hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We’re listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, U.S. News’s Top Lawyers, [...]
The Lawlessness of “Law And Economics”
I admire Judge Posner, one of the flag bearers for the law and economics movement. He is thoughtful, prolific, and has not succumbed to the extraordinary pressure judges feel to guard their actual thoughts and feelings. He is in every sense of the word an open book, and we should be grateful for that. It also makes him the logical target for critics of any of the ideas he champions. Such is the case for my remarks below. I rather enjoyed Posner's latest article, How I Became A Keynesian, which does as good a job as any at summarizing Keynes' core ... Continue Reading
Supreme Court To Decide If Second Amendment Bars State Handgun Laws
The must-read SCOTUSBlog alerts us to the following petition for certorari being granted by the United States Supreme Court: Docket: 08-1521 Title: McDonald, et al. v. City of Chicago Issue: Whether the Second Amendment is incorporated into the Due Process Clause or the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment so as to be applicable to the States, thereby invalidating ordinances prohibiting possession of handguns in the home. Opinion below (7th Circuit) Petition for certiorari (08-1521) Brief in opposition Petitioner’s reply (08-1521) Brief amicus curiae of Arms Keepers Brief amici curiae of Texas, et al Brief amicus curiae of ... Continue Reading
“The Case of the Plummeting Supreme Court Docket” Isn’t Necessarily A Bad Thing
Adam Liptak at the New York Times writes: In the early 1980s, the Supreme Court decided more than 150 cases a year. These days, it decides about half that many. A couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court advocacy clinic at Yale Law School held a conference to explore the mystery of the court’s shrinking docket. Law professors presented data, theories and speculation. Expensive lawyers told rueful stories about can’t-miss cases that somehow did not make the cut. Some participants blamed the newer justices, others their clerks. Some blamed Congress, saying it is not cranking out enough confusing legislation. And ... Continue Reading
The Downside of Folding Medical Malpractice Into The Federal Tort Claims Act
Walter Olson at Point of Law refers us to a proposal by a Democratic legislator in Maryland: Primary-care providers who practice at federally qualified health centers do not need to purchase medical malpractice insurance. Why? The government promises to cover any claims against them under the Federal Tort Claims Act. If a patient has a successful malpractice case against the health center provider, the government becomes the insurer and agrees to pay the claim. The national health reform debate should include a proposal to expand Federal Tort Claims Act coverage to all primary care providers, regardless of where they practice, ... Continue Reading
Issues and Briefs in the Major Business Cases in the Supreme Court’s 2009-2010 Term
Business Week points us to the major cases. As Litigation & Trial is a legal, rather than a business, blog, I'm going to take their list of cases but replace their description of each with the actual legal issue at stake, along with links to SCOTUSWiki, which hosts all of the relevant briefs for your reading pleasure: Bilski v. Kappos: Whether a “process” must be tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or transform a particular article into a different state or thing (”machine-or-transformation” test), to be eligible for patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and whether the “machine-or-transformation” test for ... Continue Reading
Probable Cause For Racial Discrimination Found Against Valley Swim Club of Huntingdon Valley
As you may already know (Google News already lists 300+ articles on it): A state investigation found that a Montgomery County swim club racially discriminated in June when it revoked an agreement to allow a Northeast Philadelphia day camp to use its pool after 56 African American and Hispanic children made their first visit. "The racial animus . . . and the racially coded comments" by club members at the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley were the reasons the club revoked Creative Steps Inc.'s contract, according to a 33-page report by the Human Relations Commission that was released last night ... Continue Reading
Bank of America / Merrill Lynch Saga Continues: Can Attorney-Client Privilege Be Both A Sword And A Shield?
As you may have heard, Judge Rakoff did not like the proposed SEC settlement with Bank of America (neither did I) in part because it blamed the bank's lawyers while refusing to waive attorney-client privilege and explain what, exactly, went wrong. A week ago, he rejected it entirely: In a 13-page order available here at the New York Times's DealBook blog, Rakoff variously calls the settlement "trivial," "absurd," and "neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate." His primary objection seems to be that shareholders would indirectly pay for the alleged failure to disclose the bonuses, since the bank, not the individual executives who struck ... Continue Reading
Joe Satriani Settles Copyright Suit Against Coldplay, and A Word On Settlement Technicalities
The AmLaw Daily reports: When news broke Wednesday that guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani's copyright suit against the band Coldplay had been settled, the Litigation Daily raced to Pacer to download the documents. After all, it's not every day that a copyright dispute between an aging guitar god and one of the biggest rock bands on the planet settles. (Granted, it's a bit of a stretch to call Coldplay a "rock" band.) But it turns out that the settlement is as opaque as a Coldplay lyrics sheet. Satriani filed suit in December 2008, alleging that Coldplay's monster hit of 2008, "Viva ... Continue Reading
Pennsylvania Right-To-Know Lawsuits Piling Up; Is It Time For Fee-Shifting?
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: Since the beginning of the year, a new Pennsylvania law on public records has been sending tremors through state and local governments. Unprecedented numbers of citizens, civic groups, reporters and businesses have filed thousands of requests for government documents and data. Now come the aftershocks: Dozens of public-record lawsuits are piling up in courthouses around the state, waiting for judges to spit out rulings on what the law really means. ... The new law is more detailed than the old one in specifying which government records are open to the public and which are not. It ... Continue Reading
Conservative Judicial Activists On The Federal Court of Appeals for D.C. Dismiss Abu Ghraib Lawsuit
In a stunning display of judicial activism, two conservative judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia re-wrote several recent Department of Defense regulations, a sixty-year-old Act of Congress, a basic principle of federalism upheld by dozens of Supreme Court opinions, and millenia of common law to dismiss the Saleh v. Titan Corporation and Ibrahim v. Titan Corporation lawsuits brought by more than a dozen Iraqis who "were beaten, electrocuted, raped, subjected to attacks by dogs, and otherwise abused by private contractors working as interpreters and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison." Dissent op., p.1. The ... Continue Reading
