Owned and operated by personal injury lawyers, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon yesterday vetoed two bipartisan tort reform bills that could have helped make civil litigation a little more fair in his notorious Judicial Hellhole
Judicial HellholesJoining several state trial and appellate courts in doing so, a unanimous Florida appeals court yesterday embraced a more exacting standard for expert testimony which, believe it or not, may yet be struck down by the Sunshine State’s notoriously plaintiff-friendly Supreme Court
Judicial Hellholes, Points of LightSt. Louis juries have twice levied hefty multi-million dollar damage awards against Johnson & Johnson since February on behalf of out of state ovarian cancer victims. Questions remain as to whether the scientific evidence supported such large verdicts. Johnson & Johnson is appealing both verdicts.
Judicial HellholesThe Florida Supreme Court’s plaintiff-friendly 5-2 majority has once again shown its willingness to substitute its own public policy views for those of the legislature with a late-April decision invalidating a statutory schedule for lawyers’ fees in workers’ compensation cases
Judicial HellholesPlaintiff-favoring and highly prejudicial evidentiary rulings by a federal judge in Texas led last week to a nearly half-billion dollar jury verdict against Johnson & Johnson subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics in the second bellwether case in multidistrict litigation over allegedly defective hip prosthetics
Judicial HellholesThose who tend to be put off by personal injury lawyers might find much to dislike about New Orleans-based auto-accident specialist Greg DiLeo, but no one can fault him for a lack of candor when it comes to the “forum shopping” made easy by Louisiana’s lax venue laws
Judicial HellholesA prosecution document unsealed last Friday purports to show that convicted former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had two extramarital affairs that further corrupted state government, one with a lobbyist who frequently represented clients interested in pending legislation and another with a woman who was hired at a succession of state jobs for which critics say she was under qualified
Judicial HellholesAn ATRA ally, the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York (LRANY), this week unveiled the latest of its annual “Power of Attorney” reports, analyzing the considerable spending of New York trial lawyers on lobbying and political campaigns
Judicial HellholesTwice last month the plaintiff-friendly Florida Supreme Court gave personal injury lawyers new incentives to keep the state’s tobacco litigation chain smokin’
Judicial HellholesCalifornia employers have taken a kick to the keister once again and will now be forced to let employees sit on theirs. (And some economists wonder why productivity growth has stalled.)
Judicial HellholesLong since deposed from his powerful position as speaker of the New York State Assembly, convicted felon Sheldon Silver was finally disbarred this week by a state appeals court
Judicial HellholesWith an apparent desire to ensure in perpetuity Florida’s status as a perennial Judicial Hellhole, three locally based class action law firms have donated $1 million to the University of Miami School of Law to fund an annual forum on complex mass torts and multidistrict litigation
Judicial HellholesThe U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week overruled a lower court’s perfectly sound dismissal with prejudice of a food labeling class action against Chobani yogurt
Judicial HellholesA Florida judge who had been charged with ethics violations for repeatedly seeking Major League Baseball tickets from a plaintiffs’ law firm is “Out!”
Judicial Hellholes, Points of LightSeemingly determined to keep California atop the Judicial Hellholes rankings, an appeals court there last week ignored precedent requiring trial judges to function as “gatekeepers” when it comes to the scientific validity of expert testimony and instead upheld a decision to let jurors play that critical role in their acceptance of a discredited theory of asbestos exposure
Judicial HellholesA California McDonald’s franchisee last month successfully beat back a fraudulent Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) case after a security camera caught the plaintiff’s lawyer visiting the premises and collecting evidence instead of his client
Judicial HellholesFlorida lawyer Jose Manuel Camacho is facing 14 counts of forgery for allegedly signing the names of seven different judges on more than 100 structured settlement documents
Judicial Hellholes, Points of LightAnother outlier verdict in the “Show Me Your Lawsuits State” this week serves to further Missouri’s growing reputation among the nation’s worst Judicial Hellholes
Judicial HellholesNew Jersey’s sorest loser, who asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit for an en banc rehearing of his proposed class action over high-priced Super Bowl tickets, was finally sacked and put out of the game this week
Judicial HellholesA federal judge’s choice this week to toss out of court a lawyer’s plainly fraudulent and frivolous False Claims Act case without also ordering punishing monetary sanctions stands as the latest “poster child” for enactment of the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act, which is now pending in Congress and would mandate sanctions for those who promulgate frivolous litigation
Judicial Hellholes, Points of LightThe American Tort Reform Association today criticized elements of the New York State Assembly for pursuing legislation that, at the behest of the politically powerful plaintiffs’ bar, would make fair, quick and relatively inexpensive dispute arbitration more costly and less accessible for consumers and businesses, contrary to federal law
Judicial Hellholes