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, [...]
When $35,000 An Hour In Attorneys’ Fees Is Justified In Shareholder Lawsuits
Back in October, I never got around to writing about the whopping $1.2 billion dollar award in the shareholder derivative action In re Southern Peru Copper Corporation Shareholder Derivative Litigation, C.A. No. 961-CS because so many substantive articles had been written about it already. Francis Pileggi summed it up, as did Kevin LaCroix, Alison Frankel, and Steven Davidoff, Business Law Prof, and some Gibson Dunn lawyers over at the Harvard Law School Forum. The merits have been covered from tip-to-tail, but some of the background is important to know in order to understand the latest development involving the plaintiffs' attorneys' ... Continue Reading
Third Party Litigation Funding CLE Hosted By The Pennsylvania Bar Institute
You know what’s cool? Apparently a billion dollars isn’t cool, according to Sean Parker, no matter what Justin Timberlake in The Social Network might have to say about it. But what is cool is third-party litigation financing. Don’t believe me? Binyamin Appelbaum at the NYTimes and the Center for Public Integrity did a whole series on it called “Betting on Justice,” (here’s the same piece at the CPI) with a Room for Debate piece on it called “Investing in Someone Else’s Lawsuit.” The American Bar Association, nudged by the series, has set up a working group to examine the issue. ... Continue Reading
Will AmLaw 100 Firms Finally Accept Their Limited Role In The Legal Services Market? Will Their Clients?
Huge corporate law firms with hundreds of lawyers do two things well: represent corporate clients in billion-dollar matters (like mass torts defense and mergers and acquisitions) and provide one-stop-shopping for corporations with ten or eleven figure annual bills for legal services. For example, if you're one of the largest oil companies in the world, and just polluted an area the size of France with millions of barrels of oil, you need help, and lots of it. If you're a Fortune 500 company and are about to acquire your chief competitor, then both companies will need dozens of lawyers working frantically ... Continue Reading
DiDonato vs. Ung, or Vice Versa? Civil Lawsuits After A Criminal Acquittal
[Update, January 12, 2012: Above the Law is reporting that DiDonato has filed a civil suit against Ung, the bar and restaurant that served Ung alcohol that night, and the bar and restaurant that served DiDonato's friends alcohol that night. I've amended the end of this post to include some thoughts about the lawsuit.] Yesterday a Philadelphia jury acquitted Gerald Ung, a Temple University Law School (“Beasley School of Law," that is) student of attempted murder, aggravated assault and possession of an instrument of crime in the shooting of Edward DiDonato Jr. Nobody doubted that Ung shot DiDonato, the question was if ... Continue Reading
E.D.Pa. Denies Class Certification for Nationwide Breach of the Implied Warranty of Merchantability Claims
I first blogged about the Lycoming Engines class action case back in April 2009, when the Third Circuit reversed Judge Savage’s order granting certification on plaintiffs’ unjust enrichment and implied warranty of merchantability claims. As I wrote then: A model of efficiency, class actions are not. I don't have an easy answer for how class actions should be prosecuted and evaluated. Judge Savage and the Appellate Judges (Ambro, Weis and Van Antwerpen) clearly did the best they could; fact is, class actions are complicated, time-consuming, expensive and just plain hard to litigate and to decide. It's not uncommon to ... Continue Reading
Pennsylvania Injury Lawyers: Don’t Let Insurance Companies Send Settlement Checks To Medicare, Medicaid or DPW!
[UPDATE: Complicating matters, on June 29th, 2011, a Third Circuit panel ruled in the Tristani v. Richman case (PDF) that Medicare / Medicaid has the right to assert liens, and that the default medical expenses apportionment scheme under 55 PA. CODE § 259.2 is appropriate. Expect more litigation and appeals to follow, likely beginning with a petition for en banc review. Despite the above, though, I don't believe the below analysis has changed — insurers still have no basis for refusing to pay plaintiffs. The lien is between the plaintiff and Pennsylvania's DPW.] This post is meant for all of my ... Continue Reading
Inevitable Consumer Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Nutella’s “Healthy” False Advertising
One of the great things about being a lawyer is that, like a sports fan watching a play unfold, you can foresee lawsuits before they're even filed. Nutella is delicious, creamy, and chocolaty, but one thing it is not: healthy. That didn't stop Ferrero, the makers of Nutella, from starting up a healthy-for-kids advertising campaign last year in Europe, as profiled by the nutrition researchers at Obesity Panacea: Although this may surprise some of our readers, I really like junk food. I eat far too much pizza, I love chicken wings, and Nutella, the original chocolate hazelnut spread, is one of ... Continue Reading
“They Stole My Idea” Doesn’t Always Amount To An Intellectual Property Lawsuit
The Limited Scope Of Inventors' and Creators' Rights Under Copyright, Trademark, and Patent Infringement Law The business lawsuits actually filed, and defamation lawsuit not filed, surrounding Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have inspired some of my more popular posts. But there is one litigious part of the Facebook story that I did not cover, and that was the lawsuit brought by the Winklevoss twins against Zuckerberg alleging that he stole the idea for Facebook from them. Here's why I avoided that part: without knowing the intricacies of the case (a case they're trying to reopen), there's not a lot for me ... Continue Reading
Philosophy Explains How Legal Ethics Turn Lawyers Into Liars
I am a fan of the American court system. There is no natural law requiring people to resolve their differences by asking third parties to represent them and advocate on their behalf in front of impartial decision-makers. The folks in classical Athens and Rome thought it was a good idea, the Europeans rediscovered the practice in the Middle Ages, and the adversarial system of law has been consistently practiced by England, and then America, ever since. Since the classical time, there have always been restrictions on lawyers intended to keep them honest. Most of those "restrictions" have amounted to nothing ... Continue Reading
Why Philadelphia Is The Worst Judicial Hellhole In The United States
The American Tort Reform Association's Annual Report on "Judicial Hellholes" is out again. Whoops, I mixed up my link — that's a link to reasonable commentary by the Center for Justice & Democracy. The actual misleading, faux-scientific report is here. My take is similar to The Pop Tort's ode to the judicial hellholes list: Your courageous “Judicial Hellholes” report at long last draws attention to the many injustices corporations have to face day in and day out. You have finally given a voice to the “mom and pop” tobacco companies, gasoline conglomerates, and insurance providers. Philadelphia apparently takes #1 on the ... Continue Reading
