March 15th, 2012

I’m Speaking Tomorrow in Washington D.C.

I’ll be down in D.C tomorrow to speak at this seminar sponsored by the Trial Lawyers Association of Washington D.C. The subject will be blogging and social media.

And this will be my barometer of success:

If I can stop just one person from writing about local car accidents and self-linking every time they write SEO friendly keywords, I will be happy. (Self-linking causes hair on the palms.)

If I persuade just one person to write a blog that addresses important legal issues, such that judges and legislators take note of it, I will be ecstatic.

And if one person in that group writes a blog that displaces me from the ABAJournal Blawg 100, I will be deliriously ecstatic. And donate $500 to a suitable civil justice charity of his or her choice.

 

 

March 15th, 2012

Rakofsky Motion #12 – Allbritton and TBD.com move to dismiss

There is now another motion to dismiss in the Joseph Rakofsky defamation lawsuit. This one was filed Tuesday by defendants Allbritton and TBD.com. Allbritton owns seven broadcast television stations as well as TBD.com. TBD aggregates news stories. This was the post they were sued on, which linked to the original Washington Post article on the subject.

Defense counsel is Jake Goldstein from Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz.

The motion does not address the content of the material posted, but simply attacks the failure to properly serve the papers properly, that TBD.com is not an entity that can be sued, and the fact that Allbritton is not subject to jurisdiction in New York. (The company is based in Arlington, VA.) While the company owns broadcast television stations, none of them are in New York.

If you want to read their papers, this is the relevant document:Memo in Support of Motion to Dismiss

Update 6/25/12: Reply Memo of Law: Reply Memo

 

March 14th, 2012

New Facebook Decision – Novartis Loses Again

Three weeks ago I ran a story on a New York federal court decision that denied a defendant access to a plaintiff’s Facebook account. Then, two days ago, a Florida federal court decision came out on the same topic. I was about to do a simple update of my original post.

But. While this was a different case, the defendant was the same, Novartis Pharmaceuticals. And the subject dealt with the same medical drug, Zometa, and the same medical condition, osteonecrosis of the jaw. And the law firm is the same, Hollingsworth.

The result isn’t much different either. Novartis made broad claims about wanting unfettered access to the Facebook account of the plaintiff that took the drug, hoping no doubt for a no-holds barred fishing expedition through the plaintiff’s life.

The court however, stuck to this little thing called relevance, and shot down 99% of the defendant’s fishing attempt. Defendant’s broad demands were for the plaintiff to:

(1) produce the log-in information to his Facebook account and any other social networking websites he may belong to; and

(2) execute a waiver allowing Defendant to directly obtain these materials held in the corresponding databases;

or, in the alternative, directing Plaintiff to produce all photographs added to any social networking website that depict Plaintiff from the date of the development of his alleged injury, regardless of who posted the photograph.

In Childs v Novartis, Magistrate Judge Joel Toomey wrote that Novartis was clearly overreaching, and said that Hollingsworth’s demand was not “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence” and that this was “the proverbial fishing expedition.”

As an alternative to striking down the entire request, the plaintiff had suggested that if there were pictures of the plaintiff actually eating (and therefore using his jaw) that might be discoverable, and that is all that the court granted.

A pattern has emerged. And the question is, will Hollingsworth, having now lost twice (that I am aware of), continue to swing away with its wiffle ball bat?

 

 

 

March 14th, 2012

House GOP Again Attempts Federal Power-Grab On Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

House Republicans like to claim that they believe in shrinking the power of the federal government and making sure that states retain the rights they were given in the Bill of Rights under the Tenth Amendment.

But that, apparently, is only what they say, not what they do. As I sit at my keyboard, Republicans are once again hypocritically attempting to subvert the power of states to make their own laws when negligent conduct by doctors injures patients. In a vote set for next week, the House is to decide on a bill that would, in part, cut a rationing board that could force Medicare cuts without congressional approval.  This board is the infamous (and mis-named) “death panels” that Sarah Palin tried to conjure up the debate over health care.

Because this cut would increase federal expenditures, the GOP figures it would take the opportunity to jump on a long-favorite subject of theirs: Granting federal protections and immunities to the medical profession when their negligence causes injuries to patients, under the guise of calling these cuts in federal funding. This would override state tort laws. Their touted theory is that, if there are less concerns about lawsuits, there will be less “preventive medicine.”

They call this tort “reform,” but we call it what it really is, a payback to the massive insurance-healthcare conglomerate that supplies so much cash to the Republican party. There is no other explanation, since the act of seizing more federal power and subverting state laws runs directly contrary to conservative political theory. Even conservative theorists agree. But the House Republicans are elected officials, and political theory takes a back seat for many of them to something vastly more important: Money.

It’s also worth noting that cutting the rights of people who have been injured does not decrease Medicare expenditures. They tried this trick in Texas, and they found that costs escalated even faster than they went up elsewhere. See: The Failure of Medical Malpractice Caps (Healthcare Costs Rise in Texas).

Is this a good time for me to say, “I told you so?” Back in January 2011, when the Republicans took control of the House, their first order of business was to read the Constitution, and pledge to defend it. At that time, I wrote:

But will Republicans really follow the Constitution when it comes to tort “reform?” My bet is no, based on a history of Republicans trying to limit consumer access to the courts. One academic favored by the right wing, Richard Epstein, arrogantly refers to the constitutional right to a civil jury trial as a “procedural feature.”

So there you have it. The Republicans are once again trumpeting tort “reform” despite the fact that it violates their own political theory of smaller federal government, despite that it grants protections to those that injure others due to negligence instead of holding them accountable, and despite the fact that it doesn’t actually do what they want it to do.

See also: House Attack on ‘Death Panel’ Doubly Hypocritical (Jay Bookman @ Atlanta Journal Constitution)

 

March 9th, 2012

Mitt, My Dad and Witness Prep

Romney at Daytona 500, February, 2012 (Rainier Ehrhardt/AP)

When I was a puppy lawyer my father gave me this advice about witness preparation: Never tell a client what not to say. Our conversation went like this:

Dad: If you tell a witness what not to say, the witness will blurt it out.

Me: Huh?

Dad: If you tell the witness, “Under no circumstances should you ever say Rumpelstiltskin” then the deposition will go like this: What’s your name? Rumpelstiltskin.

As Mitt Romney can attest, my dad was waaaay ahead of his time. In an article by Liz Goodwin on Yahoo! News (Why Mitt Romney can’t shut up about his money) she finds Romney has the same problem that my dad focused on when it comes to talk of wealth. Romney’s obviously been told, again and again, not to discuss it. And out it comes, time and again:

Over the space of a few months, private equity millionaire Mitt Romney has cavalierly bet a Republican rival $10,000 during a debate, enthused about the joys of “being able to fire people who provide services to me,” told Detroit voters that his wife drives “a couple of Cadillacs,” and said at the Daytona 500 that while he is not an ardent fan of the sport, he does have “some great friends that are NASCAR team owners.”

Goodwin delves into similar cases, from literature to baseball, about individuals stridently trying to avoid saying/doing something, and the problems inherent on focusing the mind that way.

This matters, of course, in the context of litigation if a lawyer tries to over-prepare witnesses by telling them what to say or not say, as opposed to finding out what happened and dealing with that. The witness, in the uncomfortable spot of a court proceeding and directed to do something that might not come naturally, will sometimes blurt out what the lawyer tried ever-so-hard to stop them from saying.

Goodwin explains:

This is because our brain is always helpfully looking around for the very worst things we could do or say in any given situation, and then actively trying to suppress them with other, more appropriate thoughts and actions. The process has two parts–the unconscious, automatic monitoring of our forbidden thoughts, and the conscious, effortful way in which we distract ourselves from it. So when a person is trying not to think or talk about something–say, to pick an example at random, his personal wealth–he needs to both monitor the forbidden thought and distract his mind with other thoughts. This is called the “ironic process,” and it usually works, otherwise we would always be blurting out our secrets and insulting our loved ones.

Thus, today’s lesson in law: Beware the danger of trying to demanding a witness say or not say something, as opposed to finding out what happened. That, of course, is in addition to the ethical issues of having a witness fail to tell the truth.

There’s a lot more in the article, and it has strong relevance to the subject of witness preparation.