$61 million to family of driver who fell asleep at the wheel

Driver falls asleep at wheel.

SUV can't drive itself.

SUV runs off the road and rolls over.

Driver dies.

No one else injured, so this should be the end of the story, right?

Wrong. Enter the lawyers. Sue the SUV maker. After all, it's Ford's fault he fell asleep, right?

Apparently a Miami jury thought so - $61 million.

Ford ordered to pay 61 mln usd to crash victim family

Free speech of libel suit prepackaged

The libel industry ambulance chasers are salivating over www.ratemyprofessors.com "where the students do the grading". As the owner of Cyberdads puts it:

The site "Rate My Professors" is now so hot that lawyers are circling seeing who gets to sue for libel first. See it before it goes...

California Food Police

First you couldn't eat a french fry on the D.C. subway (an unwise policy D.C. quickly retracted). Now, California's attorney general is suing french fry and potato chip makers...

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer sued nine fast-food giants yesterday, saying the law requires them to tell the public their potato chips and French fries contain a toxic chemical.

The "toxic chemical" in question, acrylamide, occurs naturally in all starchy foods when they are cooked at high heat.

Lawsuit filed over labeling potato chips and French fries

How lawyers behave when the clients aren't watching

A new "tell all" novel written by a young City of London lawyer, Fish Sunday Thinking by Alex Gilmore.

young women are ranked by the size of their breasts rather than their legal acumen...sex is a commodity designed to advance careers...a large proportion of workaholic young lawyers blow their pay packets on alcohol.

Fish Sunday Thinking by Alex Gilmore

They couldn't do it without the jurors

Texas jurors awarded $253 million in the first ever verdict against Merck & Co. in a trial involving a death linked to its painkiller, Vioxx. Aside from the outrageous size of the verdict generally, things get even screwier. The jury awarded $24 million in actual damages. The largest component of actual damages is usually lost income- right or wrong, that's the way our legal system is supposed to work. The poor fellow that died was a 59 year old produce manager at Wal-Mart. Let's be generous and say that his ticker would have lasted 30 years without the Vioxx and that he would have worked 20 of those 30 years (to age 79). Now let's assume Wal-Mart pays way more than it does, say $100,000 a year and a discount rate equal to today's federal funds rate which is historically low. (A higher rate would make future wages worth less). The lost wage portion of actual damages would be $831,660.33 with those generous assumptions.

Needless to say, Merck will appeal.

(You can use this Net Present Value calculator to check the results.)

Pentagon lawyers

More information on how lawyers prevented intelligence sharing during the Clinton administration that could have stopped 9/11 cold in its tracks:

Shaffer said Able Danger identified Atta and three other Sept. 11 hijackers in 2000, but that military lawyers stopped the unit from sharing the information with the FBI out of concerns about the legality of gathering and sharing information on people in the U.S.

“The lawyers’ view was to leave them alone, they had the same basic rights as a U.S. citizen, a U.S. person and therefore the data was kind of left alone,” Shaffer said.

Shaffer said he and a Navy officer disagreed with that and tried to set up meetings with the FBI, but each time the idea was rejected by lawyers from the Special Operations command.

I think he may even be suing me

William Rodriguez has filed the sort of lawsuit that you normally expect to see from a pro se litigant, the sort that under normal circumstance even a lawyer wouldn't want to associate his name with. But Mr. Rodriguez managed to find representation for his RICO complaint against, well, pretty much everybody for planning, conspiring, covering up and lying about about the 9/11 attacks. The list of plaintiffs even includes such noteables as Kevin Smith, who as far as I know is a movie director and comic book writer.

32. Against the criminals who have hijacked not just four airplanes but the government of the United States, and who have virtually unlimited financial and other resources at their disposal, stands a solitary American hero — whose valor shone brightly on that day, as defendants were flown hither and yon, and skulked in “undisclosed secure locations.” Plaintiff has continued to shine in his selfless, unpaid efforts to relieve the suffering of the victims, as the defendants have launched wars and inflicted measureless suffering, to benefit themselves and their cronies. Plaintiff, in the utmost good faith, alleges that there is much evidence that this happened, or at the very least was allowed to happen, to further the defendants’ imperial aspirations and their monetary greed, and (as no one in government has done their duty to investigate, expose and prosecute these crimes) this lawsuit may be the only peaceable means to reveal the truth.

Well, not totally alone. This "hero" does have his lawyer to help him "reveal the truth".

Lawyers claim molested girl was to blame

Apparently lawyers have less moral compass than child molesters.

In a lawsuit by a 4th grade girl molested by her teacher, the school district's lawyers claimed "contributory negligence" on the part of the victim.

At his sentencing hearing, the molester said "Nothing that happened is her fault. It's all my fault." Tell that to the sharks.

Judge impedes our security

A federal judge has blocked new rules at the Department of Homeland Security designed to allow flexibility in hiring, firing and deploying employees. The rules were intended to provide the agency with authority to make decisions based on the security needs of the nation rather than civil service or union rules. The judge has decided that the right of union employees to a fat paycheck is more important than our right to life.

The Department of Homeland Security, after more than two years of work on new workplace rules, may have to scrap the plan after a federal judge questioned whether it protects union and employee rights.

The rules were scheduled to begin today but were blocked by U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer in a ruling released Friday night.

Is this really a good idea?

Is it really a good idea to have the International Atomic Energy Agency headed up by a lawschool classmate of Saddam Hussein?

In 1961, [Hussein] entered Cairo University School of Law, but did not finish his studies there.

[Dr. Mohamed] ElBaradei earned a Bachelor's degree in Law from the University of Cairo in 1962.

ElBaradei is the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Why was this never mentioned by the media when ElBaradei was in charge of the Iraq weapons inspections? Is Cairo University law department the Middle East Skull and Bones?

Did lawyers allow 9/11?

According to news reports, a military special operation identified 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and 3 other members of an al Qaeda cell in 2000, but

government lawyers advised the military's Special Operations Command, which oversaw "Able Danger," not to forward the information apparently because the four were in the United States legally on visas and should not be subject to a military operation.

Class action lawlessness

Zenophobia links to an article on the latest class action abuse.

In 2000 or 2001, Sony Pictures created the fictitious movie critic "David Manning" to push their movies to potential moviegoers. Quotes from "Manning" were included in advertising for several movies. So, some lawyers decided to get themselves a plaintiff and sue on behalf of anyone who went to one of those movies. They made themselves "$500,000 in attorneys fees". And what did they get for the moviegoers?

Under terms of the agreement, moviegoers who bought tickets to any of the four films between Aug. 3, 2000, and Oct. 31, 2001, could file a claim that could return them as much as $5 for each ticket purchased. Unclaimed portions of the settlement fund are to be earmarked for charity.

Whoohoo!!!! $5. I wonder if you have to be able to produce your 4 year old ticket stub or if this is on the honor system?

Saddam's Lawyers

Saddam Hussein's lawyers are threatening to boycott court proceedings until the tribunal apologizes for not preventing an alleged attack on Hussein.

lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi, who attended the court appearance, insisted the allegation was true and demanded the government acknowledges it. He also insisted the Iraqi special tribunal apologise for the incident, guarantee the safety of Saddam and other former regime figures during future appearances, and punish the alleged attacker. Mr Dulaimi said Saddam's lawyers would stop attending any further proceedings "until our demands are met".

So, are they abusing the process to delay the start of the trial or are they leaving their client without representation as the court proceeds regardless of their "boycott." If it's the first and the strategy works will we see defense attorneys all over the world "boycotting" court proceedings to buy their clients more time?

Criminal mischief?

In a good case of self-policing, the lawyers at Volokh Conspiracy point out an out of control prosecutor wasting taxpayer money on behalf of jilted women. It was bad enough when hell had not fury, but now women scorned have criminal prosecution as a tool.

Authorities said Brian Jackson, 31, dated two women by pretending to be Pittsburgh Steelers quarterbacks Ben Roethlisberger and Brian St. Pierre.

Jackson, arrested Friday, was charged with harassment for allegedly continuing to contact both women after they learned of the ruses. He was also charged with criminal mischief for allegedly ruining a Steelers jersey owned by one of the women's neighbors when he signed his worthless rendition of Roethlisberger's autograph on it. The jersey was worth $75 before it was signed, police said.

As the newspaper, the Volokhians and the commenters all pointed out, a Steeler's fan ought to recognize the actual wearer of the jersey. One commenter noted that the appropriate legal principle here is caveat cheapskate.

The Fraternity: Lawyers and Judges in Collusion

Superior Court Judge John Fitzgerald Molloy is breaking the fraternity's code of silence and speaking out on how the legal system in the United States has been so corrupted for the enrichment of attorneys and the absolute power of judges. His solution - separating the bar from the bench - is less extreme than the original Dick's, but his book, The Fraternity: Lawyers And Judges In Collusion , is a must read for exposing the corruption that has eaten the heart out of the American system of government.

As lawyer and judge for half a century, John Fitzgerald Molloy has both profited from our legal system and seen how it has been altered in favor of lawyers, to the detriment of society. The book starts with the evolution of the Fraternity, with the author using vivid descriptions of particular cases in which he was involved. He shows that the legal profession has continuously re-shaped the law, in subtle but significant ways, to make legal services ever more necessary—and more lucrative for the Fraternity.

Lawyers are a pain in the rear

The Best Defense brings this story. A Florida attorney was suspended from practicing law for 90 days when "after being appointed guardian ad litem for a mentally retarded woman, he stole her money and took sexual liberties with her."

The defense that his fellow lawyers bought? The bloody a-hole defense. No, he didn't admit to being a bloody a-hole....

He said he had hemorrhoids."

"So?"

"He said that the medication he was taking affected his ability to reason."

(Post was emailed to me by Mr. Hutchison of Arkanssouri blxg.)

Something worse than lawyers?

LawFirmHelp, a blog helping attorneys with marketing points out that there is something better for frustrating and angering everybody than attorneys. Specifically, those "If you want so-and-so press 1..." answering systems.

My point, in a nutshell: if you wanted to invent a machine to frustrate and anger every single person who called your office, you could not do better than one of these answering systems.

Yeah, as if having to call a lawyer's office wasn't bad enough in itself.

Commenter from TraverseLegal solves the problem by training the firm's clients. "You called the right number. Good boy. Here's a treat."

The Second Thing We Do

We seize the judge's property:

Dear Mr. Meany,

I am proposing to build a hotel at 34 Cilley Hill Road in the Town of Weare. I would like to know the process your town has for allowing such a development.

Although this property is owned by an individual, David H. Souter, a recent Supreme Court decision, "Kelo vs. City of New London" clears the way for this land to be taken by the Government of Weare through eminent domain and given to my LLC for the purposes of building a hotel. The justification for such an eminent domain action is that our hotel will better serve the public interest as it will bring in economic development and higher tax revenue to Weare.

Lawyers even eat their own young

Anonymous Lawyer reveals the dirty secrets of his profession. In his profession, it has to be anonymous. Remember The Firm. Nobody wants to be whacked by Wilfred Brimley. In his latest post Anonymous reveals how lawyers eat their own young. They used to feed them to the dogs out back, but the dogs are gone now.

We know who we want to have succeed here and who we'd just as soon say goodbye to in a year and a half. We know whose names we eventually want on the letterhead (just a turn of phrase... we stopped putting partners' names on the letterhead a long time ago). And if they don't graduate with honors, then maybe we start to second-guess ourselves. Maybe we made the wrong choice. Or regular honors when we thought they'd do even better than that? Maybe they're slackers. Maybe a distinguished career in the law isn't as important to them as we thought. Maybe they're just like everyone else, and we should just burn them out as fast as we can and throw their carcass to the pile of dogs waiting out back (just a turn of phrase... we got rid of the dogs a long time ago).

Bank robber confesses to being lawyer

Or at least that's the way it ought to have happened...

A top German lawyer has handed himself into police and confessed to being responsible for a string of bank robberies that netted £250,000.

Via email from John at Arkanssouri Blog.

Class action madness

Clayton Lee (a law student, but we won't hold that against him - he hasn't fallen to the dark side yet.) reports on opening his AMEX bill to find :

...a credit of 41 cents. The description read: "CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT/BOEHR". Times like this that I'm so grateful we have trial lawyers in our country who are ever dedicated to the pursuit of justice.

This was settled for $8,200,000 of which, $3,000,000 for Attorneys’ Fees plus a proportional share of net interest on the Settlement Contribution. $10,000, to Plaintiff Mr. Boehr. "Proportional share of net interest"- I'm willing to bet that amounts to at least a few hundred thousand more. And all for the sake of a few cents per cardholder. How many dollars did this cost each cardholder in increased interest and fees that AMEX used to pad the bottom line against just such lawsuits?

Legal Spooks

CIA's OGC has been recognized
as one of
the greatest places to work
with a law degree.

Lawyers like working at the CIA. What's that tell you?

Hat tip to Orrin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy.

Goofy judges not limited to the US

Apparently judges (who are, after all, lawyers) are goofy the world over.

A russian court has ruled that an astrologer can sue NASA over plans to bombard a comet whose destruction would "disrupt the natural balance of the universe".

The grounds are almost as goofy as the opinion itself. The lower court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction over NASA, but the appellate court ruled that the presence of a US embassy gave Russian courts jurisdiction. One doesn't have to a be a lawyer to see the flaw in that - the embassy is specifically exempted from Russian law, under international law it is US territory. But then, if a court can't just throw out a suit for being utterly ridiculous, why should we expect the court's ruling to make sense?

Hat tip to The Club for Growth

Lawyer condemns jailing of Saddam

CNN reports that A lawyer for Saddam Hussein [need I say more?]

says it is "regrettable" that a British tabloid published pictures of the former
dictator living in captivity, but he is more concerned that U.S. and Iraqi
authorities are flouting the former Iraqi president's legal rights by keeping
him jailed without issuing an indictment.

On another note, Saddam himself holds not one, but two law degrees.

Education: University of Cairo, law degree 1962; Mustanseriya University in Baghdad, law degree 1971

Here's one we can do without

"John N. Greenwood for the plaintiff" is a lawyer we could do without.

In a rare miracle of judicial intelligence, his client's "lawsuit already has been thrown out by judges in Salem District Court and Essex Superior Court.The appeals court upheld those rulings...," but "Greenwood, said he is likely to appeal Monday's ruling to the state's highest court."

Fair enough that he wants to appeal, but here are the Facts:

Facts. The summary judgment record, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, Coveney v. President & Trustees of the College of the Holy Cross, 388 Mass. 16, 17 (1983), establishes the following facts. The plaintiff and the defendant were in a long-term committed relationship. Early in the morning of September 24, 1994, they were engaged in consensual sexual intercourse. The plaintiff was lying on his back while the defendant was on top of him. The defendant's body was secured in this position by the interlocking of her legs and the plaintiff's legs. At some point, the defendant unilaterally decided to unlock her legs and place her feet on either side of the plaintiff's abdomen for the purpose of increasing her stimulation. When the defendant changed her position, she did not think about the possibility of injury to the plaintiff. Shortly after taking this new position, the defendant landed awkwardly on the plaintiff, thereby causing him to suffer a penile fracture.

Piano Player

Little Andy was in kindergarten and one day the teacher asked all the children what their fathers did for a living.

"My dad's a piano player in a whorehouse!" Andy shouted proudly.

Appalled, the teacher called Andy's parents in for a meeting the next day and explained what Andy had said.

"I'm not really a piano player in a whorehouse," Andy's father replied. "I just told him that. After all, how do you tell a child his father is a lawyer?"

Thanks to John of Arkanssouri for emailing me the joke.

$45,000 for a cat

A woman in North Seattle was awarded over $45,000 when her neighbors dog killed her cat.

Judge Linde determined that Roemer should receive $30,000 in replacement value for the loss of her cat, $15,000 for emotional distress, $90 to recoup the cost of having Yofi cremated, $80 in medical expenses and $24.12 in interest.

Now, you're thinking $30,000 replacement value this must have been some purebred show cat. The cat of cats. A regular Giacomo of the cat racing world (Do cats race? Those have got to be some small jockeys.) Right? Wrong.

she rescued a scraggly kitten abandoned on a pathway while she was vacationing in Israel 13 years ago...a neighbor's dog mauled and killed that same beloved cat, Yofi, last year...

Damn. $30,000 is not a bad payoff on rescuing a cat even if it did take 13 years.

But that's not all. Apparently civil lawyers and judges weren't the only ones out of control. The dog's owner

had already served 21 days in jail and three months under house arrest for the animal-control violation. He wasn't living in the house with his dog at the time of the attack, he said, and the acquaintance who was taking care of his dog left town before the trial.

Apparently these folks haven't read about howMichigan considered handling cats that wander the neighborhood unchecked.

Hat tip to Overlawyered .

Ten Commandments in Court

The real reason we can't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse:

Posting "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Covet" and "Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me" in a building full of lawyers and judges just doesn't work.

Lawyers take the high road...sort of

Lynndie England's lawyers in her sentencing trial,

sought leniency for Pfc. Lynndie England at a hearing Tuesday to determine her punishment in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, with a psychologist testifying that the reservist was oxygen-deprived at birth, speech impaired and had trouble learning to read.

Interestingly they took the high road and didn't bother pointing out that this behavior,

England held a leash looped around the neck of a hooded, naked prisoner. Another showed her next to nude prisoners stacked in a pyramid, while a third depicted England pointing at a prisoner's genitals as a cigarette dangled from her lips.

was something some guys would pay a lot of money for.

Interesting twist on "Crooked lawyer gets murderer off"

How do you get off for murdering three generations of a family? Hire a crooked lawyer and then have your lawyer claim on appeal...that your first lawyer was crooked. A lawyer, crooked? That's news. If this appeal strategy catches on, is there really any chance that any murder conviction will ever stick?

A man serving life for the murders of three generations of a family had his convictions quashed yesterday after the appeal court ruled that he had not had a fair trial because of a conflict of interest involving his solicitor.

$60,000 bus ticket

Apparently you can go Greyhound and leave the driving to them. And with gas at $2/gallon, the tickets are actually damn cheap. But don't worry, as with all good things that need to be brought to an end, the lawyers are on the case. Apparently, they think a bus ticket should include a $60,000 city tax.

The city of Duluth may also take civil action to recoup about $40,000 to $60,000 from Wilbanks for costs incurred in her hometown's search for her, Police Chief Randy Belcher said at a Monday evening news briefing.

The city's attorneys have yet to actually say what their cause of action is. Apparently, these attorneys are just really anxious to get into court, tort or no tort.

Welcome

Not another blawg! No, in fact it isn't.

There are, of course, dozens of good blawgs (such as Volokh.com) covering court decisions, etc., several good sites (such as overlawyered.com) reporting on the abuses of the legal profession and hundreds of conspiracy theorists, pro se advocates, etc. Plenty out there.

Dick the Butcher will take a decidedly lighter view, or darker, perhaps, as the name might imply. In either case it will bring an irreverent and humorous focus to looking at the shenanigans of shysters. And occasionally a humorous and irreverent look at some of the goofiness put out by those who criticize the lawyers.

Lawyer or nonlawyer, if you are easily offended or have no sense of humor (and you weren't clued in by the title or the first post, quoting the original Dick the Butcher) this is probably not the place for you. Comments complaining about my bad taste, etc. will be ridiculed. Comments complaining about my lack of sense of humor will be ignored. Threats will, of course, be referred to my lawyer.

Dick the Butcher

Dick the Butcher and friends from Henry VI, William Shakespeare:

(Note: In spite of the moniker, no lawyers were harmed in the making of this blawg.)

CADE

Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows
reformation. There shall be in England seven
halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped
pot; shall have ten hoops and I will make it felony
to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in
common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to
grass: and when I am king, as king I will be,--

ALL

God save your majesty!

CADE

I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;
all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree
like brothers and worship me their lord.

DICK

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

CADE

Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable
thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should
be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled
o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:
but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal
once to a thing, and I was never mine own man
since. How now! who's there?