Jere Beasley, Alabama’s infamous class-action impresario and would-be Dickie Scruggs, has headed for the border. Alleging that his own law firm’s “independent” testing indicates that Taco Bell’s beef tacos include only 35% beef, Beasley is suing the fast-food chain in – you guessed it – California, the nation’s best place to have a meritless consumer class-action certified and taken seriously by a kooky judge
Judicial HellholesIt’s precisely the type of lawsuit that gave California a reputation for consumer lawsuit abuse. Lawyers sued the lock manufacturer, Kwikset for deceptive advertising because products, labeled as “Made in the U.S.A.,” included components, such as screws, produced overseas. In a dissent Justice Ming W. Chin, joined by Justice Carol A. Corrigan, recognized that “[t]his cannot be what the electorate intended” in voting for a measure intended to reduce frivolous lawsuits.
Judicial HellholesAs doctors and businesses, fearing meritless lawsuits, continue to leave the hellholish environs of New York state, Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City (aka “Sue York”), is urging members of the state bar association to please, please, please support reasonable tort reform measures, according to the New York Law Journal
Judicial HellholesOhio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has filed a $150,000 lawsuit against the cafeteria in the U.S. House of Representatives, claiming an unpitted olive in a sandwich wrap caused “serious and permanent dental and oral injuries,” even though C-SPAN video shows him five days later looking and talking normal
Judicial HellholesTaking aim at lawsuit loan industry lobbyists and investors now pushing to have their pernicious and parasitic racket legalized in several states, which, in some cases, are home to Judicial Hellholes, ATRA scored a hit with a letter to the editor published in the New York Times
Judicial HellholesAt least one Los Angeles-area personal injury lawyer will be held accountable for abusing the civil justice system and contributing to California’s well-deserved reputation among the nation’s worst Judicial Hellholes
Judicial HellholesAs many of the ambulance-chasers driving this latest wave of phony-injury insurance scams submit bills for 26-hour days, meetings with the dead, or meetings that otherwise never took place, regulators say “the filing of [such] lawsuits is out of control”
Judicial HellholesWith “Drug Shortages: A Deadly Problem with No End in Sight,“ online news source Daily Finance reports that Teva, the drug maker unjustly targeted by a half-billion dollar Judicial Hellholes verdict last summer in Clark County, Nevada, has ceased production of its safe and effective sedative propofol
Judicial HellholesThe shameless class-action coupon settlement approved by a plaintiff-friendly St. Louis judge last year and cited among Dishonorable Mentions in the latest Judicial Hellholes report is being appealed. Crusading lawyer Ted Frank, of the Center for Class Action Fairness, has filed
Judicial HellholesRobert Eglet, the personal injury lawyer who, with plenty of help from notoriously plaintiff-friendly Clark County District Court Judge Jesse Walsh, engineered what is arguably the most egregiously senseless civil verdict in Nevada’s history, has, believe it or not, been named by Lawyers USA as one of its “Lawyers of the Year 2010.”
Judicial HellholesIf you were too busy shoveling out from the Mid-Atlantic’s big post-Christmas blizzard, you may have missed Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s outburst, calling the NFL “wimps” when the decision was made to postpone a Philadelphia Eagles game due to the storm. “We’re becoming a nation of wussies,” Rendell blustered. But had the NFL and Eagles decided to go ahead with the game, where would the governor have stood on the lawsuits that almost certainly would have resulted?
Judicial HellholesThe Nevada Supreme Court denied a motion for rehearing of case in which it had upheld imposition of the “civil death penalty” against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., eliminating all of its defenses and resulting in a $30 million judgment against the company.
Judicial HellholesThe Sacramento Bee reports the latest small business closure resulting from yet another abusive disability access lawsuit. The San Francisco small bookstore owner who was forced out of business said of the wheelchair-bound professional plaintiff, he ” is picking off small business owners like grapes on a vine.”
Judicial Hellholes“Seven businesses that constantly defend asbestos suits in Madison County have urged Circuit Judge Barbara Crowder to curtail the county’s
Judicial HellholesA Washington-based interest group bent on limiting food choices has chosen California as the place to bring its latest lawsuit, which attacks McDonald’s for “the most powerful, unfair, and deceptive practices – tempting kids with toys to get them to nag their parents to buy Happy Meals.”
Judicial HellholesThe December edition of The Louisiana Jury Verdict Reporter further illustrates why this year’s Judicial Hellholes® report, for the first
Judicial HellholesWhile moving its Judicial Hellholes® program to an online format that will feature year-round reporting on significant civil justice developments, the American
Judicial Hellholes, Points of Light