Asbestos defendant John Crane Inc. this week filed motions in federal district court seeking to intervene in the Garlock Sealing Technologies-led fraud litigation against two plaintiffs’ law firms, Dallas-based Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett and the Shein Law Center of Philadelphia
Judicial HellholesIn an effort to appeal to “green” car buyers and radical environmentalists within regulatory agencies, Honda switched from wrapping some of its cars’ wiring in slow-to-degrade plastics to a soy-based casing. That’s right, Honda had begun to wrap its wires in tofu
Judicial Hellholes, UncategorizedIn litigation first reported here two years ago, defendant Goya Foods is fighting back against a serial plaintiff and her bogus, no-injury claim that seeks to exploit California’s Prop 65 labeling requirements
Judicial HellholesCalifornia continues to earn its ranking as the nation’s #1 Judicial Hellhole as Los Angele County’s litigation expenses ballooned 24% in FY 2014-2015
Judicial HellholesA three-judge appellate panel in New Jersey yesterday laudably overturned a $2 million auto accident verdict in Middlesex County that defied common sense and should raise suspicions among state insurance authorities
Judicial HellholesThe Florida Supreme Court late last week unanimously disbarred three Tampa attorneys found by a lower court to have conspired to gain an advantage in a multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit by ensnaring opposing counsel in a DUI honeypot trap
Judicial HellholesThe American Tort Reform Association today criticized Missouri State Senator Eric Schmitt’s continuing opposition to reform legislation aimed at reasonably limiting civil liability and thereby reducing the volume of meritless litigation that is costly to consumers and taxpayers and otherwise contributes to the state’s growing reputation as a “judicial hellhole”
Judicial HellholesDefendants’ hopes that a new judge installed last year to head New York City Asbestos Litigation (NYCAL) would reject the brazenly plaintiff-favoring bias of his predecessor have suddenly faded with a denial earlier this week of their motion to quash a plaintiffs’ subpoena aimed at shredding the First Amendment and distracting from inconvenient empirical data
Judicial HellholesIn an encouraging close to 2015, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann sanctioned two Pennsylvania plaintiffs’ lawyers for their stubborn pursuit of largely meritless, “see-what-sticks” litigation
Judicial HellholesKathleen Kane, Pennsylvania’s attorney general and a politician national Democrats had hoped might someday win a U.S. Senate seat, continued this month her embarrassing and desperate descent toward likely disbarment and a self-imposed political death sentence
Judicial HellholesTort Reform Group Recommends Constructive Reforms WASHINGTON, D.C., July 15, 2015 – In making a rare midyear adjustment to its
Judicial HellholesWith former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver facing federal corruption charges in connection with questionable asbestos litigation, the American Tort Reform Association today urged Albany lawmakers to “promptly kill an insurance litigation bill that would open yet another lucrative line of business for personal injury lawyers at the expense of New York consumers and jobseekers.”
Judicial HellholesApparently taking cues from the Supreme Court of Missouri, currently the sixth-ranked Judicial Hellhole, a Jackson County court this month rendered what is perhaps the most absurd plaintiff’s verdict thus far in 2015
Judicial HellholesThe formerly well-regarded Indiana Supreme Court this month opted to expand significantly the “vicarious” liability of employers when employees disobey in-house policies or relevant law in pursuit of their personal interests that do not further their employers’ interests
Judicial HellholesContinuing a troubling trend toward increasingly excessive punitive damages awards in Big Sky Country, Montana’s Supreme Court has upheld a $5 million punitive damages award in connection with an already absurdly inflated compensatory damages award of $1 million
Judicial HellholesAmong many others, the Wall Street Journal today heralded Alabama lawmakers’ slap-down earlier this week of recent state supreme court decisions that embraced the both ridiculous and dangerous legal theory peddled by the plaintiffs’ bar as “innovator liability”
Judicial Hellholes, Points of LightOn the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, a civil justice watchdog group in Illinois has released its latest “Litigation Imbalance” study, the findings of which surely have the 16th president and Great Emancipator spinning in his grave
Judicial HellholesIn denying an asbestos defendant’s motion for summary judgment, notoriously plaintiff-friendly NYCAL Judge Sherry Klein Heitler succumbed to some March madness of her own, calling the motion a “drastic remedy” and relying on testimony from a witness in an unrelated case from Maryland 14 years earlier to do so. Talk about going out of your way to please the plaintiffs’ bar
Judicial Hellholes, UncategorizedATRA’s allies at Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch report that, “Despite fierce criticism from lawmakers and legal reform groups in recent years,” state Attorney General James “Buddy” Caldwell has revived his infamous “Buddy System,” continuing “his questionable practice of hiring outside attorneys to pursue litigation on behalf of the state” and giving much of this potentially lucrative business to “law firms and lawyers that have donated tens of thousands of dollars to his political campaign[s]”
Judicial HellholesOn February 17th and 19th, Judge Staci M. Yandle for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois granted seven motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction for defendants involved in a large multi-defendant asbestos case. In each claim, the plaintiff, a former Navy worker, fell far short of alleging sufficient contacts by the defendants to the state of Illinois to satisfy constitutional due process requirements.
Judicial Hellholes, Points of LightAs reported by the Pennsylvania Record, mass tort filings jumped 150 percent last year in Philadelphia’s Complex Litigation Center (CLC), America’s #1 Judicial Hellhole in 2010 and 2011
Judicial Hellholes