August 7th, 2007

New York Judge Removed For Anti-Semitic Slur

A New York Town Court justice was removed yesterday from his position for an anti-Semitic remark and making a travesty of a land dispute for being biased against one of the sides, who was related to him.

In a decision dated July 24, but released yesterday, the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct removed Jerome Ellis, a Justice of the Leon Town Court, Cattaraugus County, for his comments during a dispute involving a property dispute. According to the findings of the court referee, Ellis stated that one of the parties should “stop jewing other landlords.” Ellis — who has been a justice since 1990 but is not an attorney — testified in the Commission proceeding that the term “jewing” is “a slang word to me for swindling or cheating people out of money or not paying your bill, just out and out stealing.”

My only editorial comment: Goodbye and good riddance.

August 7th, 2007

Mayor Bloomberg Sitting Jury Duty

It wasn’t always this way. Automatic exemptions from jury duty in New York went to many different professions , including attorneys, doctors, and cops. Until it changed in 1995. Mayor Rudy Giuliani famously sat jury duty in 1999 (and was picked for a civil case). Chief Judge Kaye was not-so-famously called the same year (and was not picked). I was called (and picked in a criminal case), in 1997. Celebrity jurors are routine.

Now it is Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s turn, as the New York Times reports. He showed up yesterday, in the same historic Manhattan Court that I tried my first case and a few others. He showed up in room 452. He waited. He was dismissed at the end of the day, unchosen. Today, he is there again.

According to the Daily News:

“I’d be one voice out of six, but I have a strong personality,” Bloomberg said. “You’d have to ask the other jurors what they’d think.”

And the question every trial attorney asks: Would you keep Hizzoner or bounce him?

Update: Mayor Bloomberg was dismissed today after serving two days. He was not selected.

August 7th, 2007

Wrong Site Brain Surgery — Three Times in Six Years at RI Hospital

Does Rhode Island Hospital have a problem? For the third time in six years (and the second time this year) a surgeon has operated on the wrong part of the brain, the Insurance Journal reports.

The latest act of medical malpractice occurred on an 86 year-old man who was bleeding between the brain and skull, but the surgeon operated on the wrong side. (It was not the same surgeon as the other patients.)

As a result, the state’s Health Department has required the hospital to hire an independent consultant to review its neurosurgery practices and to have a second physician double-check surgery plans.

According to Dr. Peter Angood of the Joint Commission on Accreditation, wrong site surgery is “a persistent problem in American healthcare,” despite years of efforts to combat it. “No patient wants to have the wrong procedure, and we need to do whatever we can to prevent that.”

Rhode Island Hospital, by the way, is the larges in the state and affiliated with prestigious Brown University. One would think a place like that would have some pretty well-oiled procedures to make sure such mistakes do not occur.

So why, then, does it continue to occur?

See also: Wrong-site surgery case leads to probe (Boston Globe)

August 6th, 2007

Former Client Running Ads Against Hogan and Hartson

This has nothing to do with New York personal injury law, but I like mysteries. And one legal mystery may have been solved.

Some folks had heard radio ads calling for clients disgruntled with Hogan and Hartson to call a number to complain (See Above the Law and Overlawyered), particularly if clients felt that a junior associate had handled a case where a partner had been retained.

Now, according to New York Lawyer (free sub.), Hogan’s chairman, J. Warren Gorrell Jr., has stated:

“This is a fee dispute with a former client. They’re causing an unusual level of harassment to make their case. But if there were much of a case, I think they would have gone a different route.”

The name of the unhappy mystery client, that apparently thinks he was over billed, remains unknown to the public.

August 3rd, 2007

Personal Injury Law Round-Up #23

The New York Personal Injury Law Blog brings you the week that was:

Before starting, however, thanks to Tom Mighell at Inter Alia for making my tiny corner of the web the Blawg of the Day on Monday. That was a nice way to start the week.

Now on to some pre-litigation issues:

Starting with tort “reform” we get this heads-up from Perlmutter & Schuelke on a not-yet-published study from Baylor Law School surveying Texas judges, and their thoughts on whether juries were too liberal with awards. Here’s a hint at what the article will show: Well over 80% of the judges did not think there needed to be additional “reform” to address frivolous lawsuits;

An anesthesiologist has blown the whistle in Florida on unnecessary surgeries on Medicare patients. More at the Labovick firm’s Whistleblower Law Blog;

At Dorf on Law, Michael Dorf returns to the issue of contingent fee relationships between government and private counsel, specifically responding to a Walter Olsen piece printed in the Wall Street Journal; (and a subject I addressed in May, in a less academic fashion, at Bush Prohibits Contingency Fees for Gov’t Attorneys, with many links by Beck/Herrmann here);

Dora the Explorer and other Fisher-Price toys face a recall for lead paint, just six weeks after Thomas the Train underwent the same fate (Round-Up #17). In recent weeks we’ve also seen tainted food products, toothpaste and pet food. Want to guess what country they were all imported from? (More at ConsumerReports and The Peon).

In North Carolina a man gets the crap beat out of him (that’s a technical term) by the local police for desecrating the American flag by flying it upside down with a picture of President Bush and anti-war slogans. The police, it seems, were trying to protect the flag and all that it stands for by shredding the First Amendment. QuizLaw has the gory details. It’s not a lawsuit. Yet.

And John Day discusses the liability issues of the Minneapolis bridge collapse and the immunity issues that exist if such an event happened in his state;

And now on to litigation, including a few that didn’t make it too far…

A federal judge in New York barred a punitive damage claim in a smoker’s suit against Philip Morris, based on New York’s participation in a 1998 settlement with 46 states. Previously, a Florida judge had reached an opposite conclusion. The court also rejected a design-defect claim that had been the source of a $20M state court verdict in another case (New York Law Journal via Law.com);

John Day discusses a case being dismissed because the plaintiff had filed for bankruptcy and had failed to disclose that when filing the bankruptcy claim. Since the personal injury claim would belong to the trustee, the injured person was not a proper party. Only the trustee could assert the claim. And since many personal injury victims fall into hard times as a result of the accident, every personal injury attorney should make question, “Have you ever filed for bankruptcy?” part of every intake questionnaire;

The family of St. Louis pitcher Josh Hancock, who came under withering scorn for having brought a wrongful death lawsuit after he was killed when he crashed into a stopped tow truck, while drunk and talking on his cell phone (Round-Up #14), has voluntarily discontinued the case. The explanation is furnished by Sheila Scheuerman at TortsProf;

Roy “Pants” Pearson has now lost more than his $54M trousers. He’s lost his job (Washington Post). Let me be the first to predict he will bring a lawsuit as a result;

Suit has been filed in a Florida federal court regarding the July 17th plane crash on a Brazilian runway that killed 199 people (ABAJournal);

The WSJ Law Blog has more on the $101M wrongful conviction bench-trial verdict out of Boston, with an interview with plaintiff’s counsel, Juliane Balliro;

Every trial lawyer wonders what the jury is thinking. This juror was doodling during trial. Anne Reed at Deliberations tells us what happened as a result;

In the Uncategorized category, some bloggers aren’t happy with each other: Ogan Gurel of Life Sciences Daily lets go with his opinions on the nasty ad hominum attacks that permutate the DrugWonks blog, by using a statistical analysis (via TortsProf). Personally, I find the DrugWonks style so off-putting I often don’t get past the openings, as the attacks cloud the issues. Perhaps they have some good material in there, but it takes work to find it; And Scott Greenfield lets rip against William McGeveran at Concurring Opinions for wasting so much time in the fantasy world instead of the real one, with: Harry Potter and Legal Scholarship. Give Me A Break!

As you head home for the weekend, you might find the round-ups of others of some interest:

David Williams hosted Grand Rounds, a round-up of medical blogs at Health Business Blog (that includes a post from me);
David Lat at Above the Law hosted Blawg Review (that includes a different post from me);
Jason Shafrin at The Healthcare Economist hosted Cavalcade of Risk, a round-up of insurance related issues (that includes yet two other post from me);
And Howard Zimmerle of Quad Cities Injury Lawyers points us to The Law of the Simpsons (that, thankfully, does not include anything from me).

Enjoy the weekend.

(Eric Turkewitz is a personal injury attorney in New York.)