October 29th, 2013

Death by Red Bull, An $85M Lawsuit, And The Money Shot

The story comes over the transom like so many others do — with a big fat headline screaming about a lawsuit with a multi-million dollar claim. This one claims that the energy drink Red Bull caused death. And the gist of the claim seems to be — based on this newspaper article as well as the Complaint that I obtained from plaintiff’s counsel — a failure to warn that Red Bull is actually more dangerous than what Red Bull lets on.

The result is that 33-year-old Cory Terry — who was a regular consumer of the product — is dead after downing one of the drinks during a basketball game.

The Complaint itself cites a litany of medical problems allegedly caused by Red Bull that spans many years and many countries, and cites to a number of studies of over-caffinated drinks that have appeared in the medical literature. It then goes on to state causes of action based on strict liability for a failure to design the product properly, a failure to warn of the dangers, breach of warranty and fraud.

For the purposes of my posting, let’s assume that it’s accurate that Red Bull failed to properly warn about the drink’s contents and committed fraud. If true, it could be an interesting lawsuit. Whether it caused this particular death is another issue.

I’ll assume it’s all true because I have an altogether different bone to pick with Ilya Novofastovsky — he being the lawyer that brought this suit.

And that bone is with the claim for $85M for this unmarried construction worker who left behind a 13-year-old son. Now it’s not $85M in compensatory damages as the NY Daily News story would have you believe. It is $5M each for seven different causes of action plus $50M in punitive damages.

But here’s the problem: In New York, you aren’t allowed to put an ad damnum clause in a lawsuit. That’s the fancy pants Latin phrase for the monetary demand. New York outlawed this practice — a practice I’ve always despised — for medical malpractice cases in the 80s and for all personal injury cases in 2003. Ten. Years. Ago.

At that time Walter Olson, the founder and editor of Overlawyered, celebrated the demise of the ad damnum clause, as did his oft-times foils the lawyers themselves. As Olson noted back then:

New York thus becomes the latest state to adopt a measure that is relatively rare among litigation reforms in eliciting widespread support from among both defense interests (example: American Medical Association model legislation, PDF) and the plaintiffs’ bar…The state bar association urged Pataki to sign the bill, saying it “will reduce pretrial publicity about how much money is sought from particular defendants, and deals with the common misunderstanding by the general public that the amount sued for is the amount actually obtained by plaintiffs.”

And yet, some lawyers still put that clause in. Why? There are only two possible reasons, as I explained last year when a lawyer sued for $30M over a dog bite: Either the lawyer is ignorant of the law or the lawyer is deliberately violating it in the hunt for headlines. It’s your call as to which is worse, ignorance or a potential ethics issue.

And so Ilya Novofastovsky becomes the latest lawyer to embarrass the rest of us, as we face down potential jurors who appear in the courthouse. It’s headlines like this that poison the well of potential jurors. He may not have caused embarrasement deliberately, but that’s the effect.

Every time I pick a jury I am forced to deal with unusual claims that appear in press headlines, distracting me from the job I was hired to do. The biases are there, planted firmly in their brains by lawyers that make monster claims that bury the reason they actually took on the suit. The fact that these claims are outliers is of no significance, because these are the ones that jurors see in the paper. These are the cases, and the lawyers, that help to poison public opinion.

And lest you think I am overstating the case, you are free to read the acerbic comments that accompanied that Daily News article. This is a sampling, and think for a moment how the comments would be different if the story headline dealt not with money, but with the product being mislabeled and focusing on the fraud, which is the actual crux of the complaint:

Wow. This has “looking for an easy buck” written all over it.

Ka-ching!

He chose to drink it. Now shut the hell up about suing the company for 85 million. You just want some easy money.

The family is simply looking for some cash.

Welcome to America. There are no consequences for filing frevious law suit. $85million? That’s what he would have made in his lifetime of robbing and stealing perhaps.

Opportunists looking for a quick payout.

And so the headlines — those things that affect jurors — aren’t about fraud and product problems. They are about the money; the money is always in the headline.

A quick story on the subject: A bunch of years ago a TV reporter was doing a story on New York’s broken sidewalks and wanted to interview me regarding one of my cases, that being an elderly woman who’d tripped and busted her arm. It was a plain vanilla case, so to speak, but a good example of what happens when you don’t fix busted sidewalks. They are dangerous, and that’s what the story should be about (and what the reporter told me it would be about).

With the camera rolling, the reporter then asked how much we were suing for. This was the money shot, so to speak. Being prepared for that inevitable question I responded in three to four very unquotable sentences about how difficult it was to predict the future, and the potential surgeries, but that I didn’t think the case would exceed x.

That’s great, she said, now can you give me the answer again, but shorter, with just the money? And with the camera rolling again I slowly gave her the same three to four unquotable sentences.

I wasn’t giving her the money shot. While money may be what we are forced to sue for, since I can’t get my client’s health back, this was a story about safety.

Lesson: Don’t give the press the money shot. If you do, the story is no longer about safety, injury prevention and personal responsibility for those that are negligent (or worse). Now it’s all about the money.

Eventually, a lawyer will need to turn to the money when in front of a jury. But then it can be presented on its own terms, unfiltered by the distortions of the press.

Update (11/1/13): Max Kennerly discusses the substance of the case.

June 7th, 2012

The $30M Dog Bite (and Rosemarie Arnold)

I was pissed when I saw the article in the paper: A doctor walked her dog in a school playground where it wasn’t supposed to be and attacked a child, biting off part of his earlobe. The kid (through his parents) sued the doc. For $30,000,000.

Yeah, I was mad. But not at the doctor and not at the dog. I was mad at the lawyer, Rosemarie Arnold, who belches on one of her websites that she is the “Queen of Torts.”

Really? The Queen? Well, let’s see about that, shall we?

Wouldn’t the “Queen of Torts” have the fundamental knowledge that, when starting a personal injury lawsuit in New York, you are not allowed to put in an ad damnum clause? That’s the part where you state an actual amount of money. The Legislature killed that idiotic provision back in 2003. As Walter Olson noted at the time on Overlawyered, the measure enjoyed “widespread support from among both defense interests … and the plaintiffs’ bar, which is perennially embarrassed by news items…”

That law was amended because it is, most often, impossible to know the extent of an actual injury soon after it occurs, because the injury has not stabilized and it is too difficult to predict the future at that early point in time. Will the person need one surgery or five? Will the pain resolve itself in six months or not?

As a result of this problem, some lawyers would put crazy numbers in the complaint “just in case,” so that they would not be precluded later if the client’s health went downhill. At the same time, it was grossly unfair to the defendant, as newspapers loved to put this stupidity in headlines. This was particularly true in medical malpractice cases.

So the old law was, thankfully, changed by the Legislature.

Which brings us back to Rosemarie Arnold and her claim on behalf of the child that he suffered a $30M injury to his ear. There are only two reasons for Ms. Arnold to do this:

1. The Queen of Torts is actually ignorant of the law; or

2. Rosmarie Arnold willfully elected to ignore the law, in the hunt for headlines, thereby raising ethical issues about her willfully ignoring the law.

Neither of these scenarios is good for her, as one goes to the issue of ignorance and the other to the issue of ethics. Pick your poison.

Back in 2007, during my virgin year as a blogger, I first wrote about this issue. It’s time to expand on it, thanks to Rosmarie Arnold.

When I go in to pick juries, I am constantly faced with the deep cynicism that is fed by insurance companies and newspapers that thrive on outlier suits for spurious claims or that claim enormous damages. To the jurors, fed by such media attention, every lawsuit represents greed and lottery-like jackpots, while to the litigants, the suit is simply at attempt to measure what is fair and reasonable under the circumstances and receive just compensation.

Rosemarie Arnold, in bleating a $30M claim to the press, just made my job more difficult, as well as the jobs of all the other personal injury attorneys in the state. And she has added one more straw to the camel’s back in damaging the rights of litigants trying to pursue justice in the courts.

Perhaps the publicity she got from the suit was good for Ms. Arnold, but it was detrimental to the cause of civil justice. As is often the case, the bad conduct of a few people in a group taints the rest in the eyes of the public. There isn’t any group that wants to see its own misbehaving and damaging the reputation of the rest.

And on the cause of civil justice, since I’m on the topic, it’s worth noting that the self-proclaimed Queen of Torts isn’t even a member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, the premier bar association in the state that fights in Albany to protect the civil justice system from those who seek to damage it. Some Queen.

Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing this taken up by a judge or ethics committee.

I emailed Ms. Arnold using the form on her website two days ago, seeking comment, and no one got back to me.

June 29th, 2010

A Dead Child In Central Park (6 Legal Issues)

It is rare for me to discuss a local accident. But I do so today regarding the tree limb that fell over the weekend killing a 6 month old girl in Central Park that also critically injured her mother. She was holding the baby and posing for a picture being taken by the father on a clear summer’s day. It is, essentially, a trauma that could have happened to anyone.

And I write because WABC-TV called me to discuss the liability issues on the air, and it raised a number of concepts that local television isn’t really equipped to handle in soundbite format. And the last two of those issues are things that the Legislature should address:

First — A Duty to Inspect: The tree was inside the Central Park Zoo, run by the Wildlife Conservation Society that also runs the Bronx Zoo. But the limb was overhanging an area just outside the zoo where it came down. Who’s responsible? The answer is that the owner of the tree has a duty to inspect and maintain that tree. And the landowner over which that limb hangs, and under which its patrons walk, also has that duty. And given that this is not an obscure part of the woods but one of the most heavily trafficked spots in Central Park, that duty is rather substantial.

Second — Contractual Obligations: Based on news reports, the Central Park Conservancy has a contract with the Parks Department to do inspections. This would be a contractual obligation that could likewise make them a defendant if a suit were brought.

Third — Notice of a Troubled Tree Limb: The issue of notice is critical, meaning that the zoo/park would be responsible only if they knew, or should have known, that there was a problem with the tree limb. This is similar in concept to the banana peel on the supermarket floor. Just because someone slips on it doesn’t make the store responsible. The store needs to have known it was there (an employee saw it or customer told them) or it was so blackened and old that it is clear the store should have known about it with reasonable care. Those same concepts apply to the tree limb, and much will be made in the investigations about the adequacy and reasonableness of the inspections that took place (if they took place).

Fourth — The Rush To Find a Lawyer: This veers off now away from responsibility to the sad fall-out of tort “reform.” If a municipality is going to be sued, then local laws require people to file a Notice of Claim within 90 days of an incident so that the municipality can investigate. That means that while the husband/father is grieving and trying to help his stricken wife, he has to go looking for lawyers and meeting them. That is terribly unfortunate, but the sad result of attempts by our Legislature to limit actions by forcing excessively tight limitations periods on those that have been injured.

Fifth — The Demand for Damages: Not only must the father find a lawyer fast (and without a clear head he runs the risk of making a mistake in who he hires) but that lawyer must then make a demand for damages in that Notice of Claim. In other words, without even knowing what the future holds for his wife, there must be some number stuck in the Notice. This is a practice that has been mostly legislated out of existence, except for this one place in the Notice of Claim. But that number will bear no relation to reality. Since the extent of the injuries won’t be known at such an early stage, the lawyer must cover all contingencies and assume a worst case scenario. But this unrealistic number will then be broadcast in headlines far and wide by the media as if it actually has meaning. The Legislature should get rid of this provision, as it serves no useful purpose whatsoever other than for headline writers.

Sixth – Valuing the Life of a Child: In New York, unlike the vast majority of other states, a parent cannot sue for grief over the lost child. An action can only be brought for the pain and suffering of the child, or a wrongful death action for the financial loss. So if a child was knocked out at the time of a car accident, for example, and doesn’t physically suffer and dies afterward, the law deems the child’s life to have little value since there was little financial loss to be expected. The family is thus unable to hold accountable those that did the true damage. While some may feel odd about financial recoveries under such circumstances, it is really up to the people who suffered the loss to decide if they wish to donate money to charities, fund education, or embark on any other type of expense that they believe appropriate. The Legislature should bring our archaic wrongful death law into the modern era, and rid us of this insult to grieving families.

May 12th, 2008

Jet Blue Hit With Toilet Lawsuit (Updated)

Another day, another idiot. I see the headline, “NY man sues airline over flight spent in toilet,” with a demand for two million bucks, and all I can think is, Did the tort ‘reformers’ pay them to do that?

It isn’t even Christmas yet. Not even close. And yet there seems to be this compulsion to hand gifts to corporate protectionists trying to slam the courthouse doors closed.

The basic facts of the story are that the plaintiff was allowed to board a packed Jet Blue flight, but was then told he had to sit in the toilet for the second half because a flight attendant needed his seat. While the facts seem ludicrous, I’ll give the guy the benefit of the doubt for the moment that someone effed up by putting one too many people on board, and that he deserves compensation of some kind (and that the FAA should investigate). If everything he says about the facts were true, as reported in the newspaper, a free ticket or two would certainly be in order. That’s why we have Small Claims Court.

My beef is with the idiotic demand for millions for “extreme humiliation” in New York’s Supreme Court.

Where do I start? How about here: The lawyers who brought this suit don’t do personal injury law for a living. How do I know this? Easy. They sued for $2,000,000 for personal injuries. Except that every personal injury attorney in New York, or at least every one that does this on any kind of regular basis, knows that New York banned the practice of monetary demands in personal injury suits years ago. (See: New York Cleans Up Claims Act)

So after getting the big tip off that this firm didn’t practice personal injury law, I logged on the court’s computers to double check. The suit was brought by a firm called Akin & Smith. And if you check their web site you will see that they practice in the field of employment and discrimination suits. I see nothing about personal injury. [See Update 1 below]

Hey guys, thanks a lot for helping to smear those of us that actually practice in this arena. Really, we appreciate it. I have three cases coming up for trial for people whose lives have been profoundly altered by negligence, and now I have to hear jurors talk about crap like this?

If this guy sues JetBlue for extreme humiliation for what they did to him, can attorneys who actually know what they are doing sue him for what he has done to us?

Update 1 — 5/15/08: It seems I missed the mark on whether this firm does personal injury work. I recieved this email about the firm from Louis J. Schepp:

You talk about the plaintiff’s attorneys, Akin & Smith as not doing personal injury work. During my days (29 years) at Liberty Mutual, I had dealings, in the last few years, with this firm in cases involving personal injury in both State and Federal Court. They do a sufficient amount of personal injury work, that they should know the rules about ad damnums, but may have wanted to get the press that large ad damnums bring.

On the other hand they may have wanted to start the clock on removal as soon as possible. Putting the ad damnum in the complaint is good strategy, (the statute does not provide any real penalty for putting it in) as it starts the time running on Federal court removal. I had a number of cases that I removed to Federal court, that I would not have been able to do so, if the ad damnum had been in the complaint, since the 30 day time limit is unforgiving.

Update 2: JetBlueLoo Follow-Up: What Really Happened? (5/15/08)
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Link is via TinyURL redirect, so their website doesn’t benefit from any Pagerank as a result of this post.

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Photo credit: From Wikimedia Commons

April 15th, 2008

Judge Suing City for $1M Makes Headlines. Why?

I don’t really get the newspaper biz sometimes. I saw the front page headline in the Daily News as I passed through the train station yesterday, and read the story online here. New York Supreme Court Justice Jack Battaglia slips and falls on a floor in his courtroom because it was left wet and soapy by a janitor. Water on the floor is hard to see. He busts up his knee. It seems, in all respects, to be a run-of-the-mill lawsuit.

He then sues for a million dollars. Well, not really, but that is an archaic quirk in New York law. Litigants have actually been prohibited since 2003 from putting a number in the Complaint, as I’ve discussed previously. But because this is an action against the City of New York, a litigant is required to file a Notice of Claim within 90 days and is required to put a number in the claim. Dumb rule. How many people know how bad a knee injury will be within 90 days? Will they need surgery or will conservative treatment work? Three surgeries? Will there be pain and a limp forevermore? The answers are generally unknowable at the time a claim must be filed.

But you are required by law to put a number in the Notice. And so any lawyer with functioning neurons knows you are forced to assume, by law, a worst case scenario. Because if you state that fair and reasonable compensation would be $100,000, and it turns out much worse, then you might be, as we say in legalese, shit out of luck.

Last year the New York legislature took another step in abolishing this rule with regard to suits in the Court of Claims, where suits against the state are brought. (See: New York Cleans Up Claims Act). The ad damnum thus went to the scrap heap for cases against the State, as they had for everything else.

It’s time the legislature took the next step and dumped the rule for Notices of Claim against the City of New York. It serves no useful purpose. If the city wants to know what a litigant feels is the fair value of a matter, they can easily pick up the phone and call, or ask for it in writing, but requiring it by law is dumb, dumb, dumb.

As to the Daily News article, the writer calls it “the mother of all slip-and-fall cases.” Well, no, pretty routine actually. They call the judge “politically connected.” Do you know any that aren’t?

[Update: No suit has been brought, just a Notice of Claim filed. The purpose of which is to give the city prompt notice allow it to investigate the matter. So no, the janitor has not been sued, but has been partially identified. Which allows the city to investigate the claim. Which is kinda the whole idea.]

Should he not sit on city cases? Good question. Since there are plenty of judges in the courthouse, avoiding the appearance of impropriety is probably a good thing here.

But a much better question is: Why hasn’t there been any similar question about Wacthell Lipton representing the judiciary in the judge’s lawsuit for pay raises, and the ramifications of them appearing in front of judges whose interests they represent? Now that is a front page story. Yet I seem to be the only one to have covered it.