Allentown to Go On Trial Over Prosecution of Lawyer

In the 1990s, Anthony Bruneio worked as a lawyer in the Lehigh Valley [PA], mostly representing criminal defendants, when he became a criminal defendant himself.

Allentown police charged him with arson, accusing him of setting fire to the house where he lived. But in a trial, a jury cleared him of all charges.

Now it's Bruneio's turn. After four years of pretrial maneuvering, a federal trial is scheduled to start today in Bruneio's civil rights lawsuit against the city police and fire departments.

Bruneio has accused officials of maliciously prosecuting him and concealing or destroying evidence, devastating his professional and personal life.

He alleges that police targeted him and other criminal defense lawyers. And he alleges that the fire marshal did a shoddy investigation.

Relations between prosecuters and the criminal defense bar in Lehigh Valley sound just ducky. Details here from The Morning Call.

Federal Judge Finds Two Bodies in Home

CHICAGO (AP) -- A federal judge discovered two bodies in her home Monday night, and authorities were investigating the deaths, police said.

U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow found the bodies about 6 p.m., when she returned home from work, police spokesman Pat Camden said. The judge was uninjured.

Authorities did not identify the bodies and did not disclose the cause of death.

Chicago police were investigating, along with FBI agents and federal marshals.

I can't wait to find out more about this one. Details here from the AP via Wired News.

UPDATE: Judge's husband, mother found dead

UPDATE 2: Police Looking at White Supremacists After Judge's Husband, Mother Found Dead

Judge OKs 'Unprecedented' Settlement of DuPont Class Action

A judge on Monday approved the settlement of a class action lawsuit alleging a chemical used in making the nonstick substance Teflon contaminated water supplies near DuPont Co.'s Washington Works plant in West Virginia.

Wood County Circuit Judge George W. Hill called the settlement -- in which DuPont agreed to pay at least $107.6 million -- "a very shrewdly and competently organized proposal and it seems to be a very unprecedented action by a huge corporate defendant."

Hill noted that the settlement was finalized without any evidence that perfluorooctanoic acid, known as PFOA or C8, caused any disease.

Details here from the AP via Law.com.

Attorney Punished for False Promises

A former attorney in the Kane County [IL] Public Defender's Office was punished by a state disciplinary panel Friday for duping her co-workers into quitting their jobs and joining a big-money law firm that never existed.

Cynthia Sutherin promised high salaries, free cars and lucrative clients to lawyers who joined a law firm she planned to establish, according to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.

When the law firm turned out to be bogus and the cancer she claimed to have also proved a lie, the attorneys complained. And that resulted in the disciplinary arm of the state Supreme Court recommending a two-year suspension of her law license for being dishonest.

This is a very peculiar story. Details here from Chicago's Daily Herald. (hat tip to My Shingle.com)

Lawsuit Asks FDA to Regulate Salt Use

WASHINGTON (AP) - Concerned that Americans are consuming salt at twice the recommended levels, a consumer group asked a federal court Thursday to force the government to regulate it.

More than two decades after a similar lawsuit was dismissed, the Center for Science in the Public Interest is trying anew to get salt categorized as a food additive.

The change would give the Food and Drug Administration more authority to regulate salt in food, whether through warnings on packages and menus or mandatory or voluntary limits. Salt is "generally recognized as safe" by the FDA now, leaving it less regulated.

Bourbon and cigarettes aren't very good for you either. Nor are refined sugar or processed flour. But they, like salt, are legal. People can choose to consume them, or not. With all due respect the Center for Science in the Public Interest, I say "bite me." Details here from the AP via Findlaw.com.

N.C. Judge Throws Out All Malpractice Charges in Attorney Free-for-All

A federal judge in North Carolina has thrown out all attorney malpractice charges exchanged in a free-for-all battle in which a woman hired a new lawyer to sue her previous two sets of attorneys and those law firms accused the new attorney � and each other � of negligence.

In the process of sorting out and throwing out each claim, the judge addressed an issue of first impression under North Carolina law. He found that a client's previous counsel cannot sue the succeeding lawyer for negligence for failing to preserve the client's right to appeal.

I think this is what military people call a "goat fuck." Details here from Frank Reynolds of the Professional Liability Litigation Reporter via Findlaw.com.

How Did He Get In? Asst. DA Unwelcome at Defense-Oriented CLE Event

If there was any doubt about which segment of the criminal bar the four-day continuing legal education seminar was meant for, all anyone had to do was consider the title: "Capital Trial Advocacy -- The Defense. . . ."

But on Jan. 26, the first day of the event, numerous criminal defense attorneys attending that Plano, Texas, seminar were hopping mad when they discovered a prosecutor in their midst at the program put on by the Center for American and International Law.

The prosecutor, Stephen Tittle, a Hunt County, Texas, assistant district attorney, . . . gained entry by taking the spot of a defense attorney who was unable to attend the seminar, says Tittle's boss, Hunt County District Attorney Duncan Thomas. . . .

"[W]e have speakers that won't even show up if they know that there [are] prosecutors there," Wischkaemper says. "That's a real concern for us, because some people feel that they are giving out proprietary information that we [defense attorneys] don't want to give to prosecutors. . . ."

[L]ater on the first day of the seminar, several criminal defense attorneys recognized Tittle as a prosecutor, Thomas says.

On Jan. 27, seminar officials "took it upon themselves to unprofessionally and, I believe, wrongly throw him out of the seminar," Thomas says.

"There's nothing that said that any segment of the bar was to be excluded," Thomas says of the seminar materials. "And it seems to me that because this seminar is funded by the Court of Criminal Appeals, any licensed attorney should be able to attend."

Details are here from Texas Lawyer via Law.com.

U.S. Judge: No Yale Law Clerks

A federal judge in Alabama has announced that he will not consider Yale Law School students for federal clerkships because of the school's decision to deny military recruiters equal access to its campus. . . .

[I]n a recent letter to his alma mater, Senior Judge William M. Acker of the Northern District of Alabama in Birmingham told the school's dean that no Yale law students need apply for clerkships " ... unless and until YLS [Yale Law School] changes its mind or the Solomon Amendment is found by the Second Circuit or by the Supreme Court to be constitutional and enforceable against YLS," the judge wrote.

Detail here from The National Law Journal via Law.com.

Man Can Sue Woman For Sperm Theft Distress

CHICAGO (AP) A woman accused of using her lover's sperm to impregnate herself without his knowledge can be held liable for the unwitting father's emotional pain, the Illinois Appellate Court has ruled.

In the ruling released Wednesday, a three-judge panel reinstated part of a lawsuit against Sharon Irons, a doctor from Olympia Fields. The ruling sends the case back to Cook County Circuit Court.

Irons was sued by her former lover, Chicago family physician Richard O. Phillips, who accused her of a "calculated, profound personal betrayal" of him after a brief affair they had six years ago.

Phillips alleges that he and Irons, who practices internal medicine, never had intercourse during their four-month affair, although they did have oral sex three times.

His suit contends that Irons, without his knowledge, kept some of his semen and used it to impregnate herself.

Unbelievable. Details here from the AP via CBS 2 Chicago.

Sports Make IP Play

The professional sports industry has become entangled in an emerging web of intellectual property litigation over issues ranging from who owns player statistics in fantasy leagues to who possesses the view of a baseball park.

Legal experts say technology-specifically the Internet-is revolutionizing the way fans view and participate in sports while simultaneously creating a host of new legal headaches for the sports industry. In the last two years alone, more than a dozen copyright infringement and other IP-related suits have popped up in the sports world.

And the sports industry, attorneys note, is struggling to keep pace with technology, claiming that numerous copyright violations are occurring through new media they can't control.

The leagues have complained about Fantasy sports websites using player statistics; "real time" webcasting of games; and even TiVo. And get this:

"Player statistics are in the public domain. We've never disputed that," [Jim] Gallagher[, senior vice president, corporate communications for MLB Advance Media,] said. "But if you're going to use statistics in a game for profit, you need a license from us to do that. We own those statistics when they're used for commercial gain."

Actually, no, Jim. It's either in the public domain (for all purposes), or it ain't. Details here from The National Law Journal.

Four Against One: Prop 64 Is Retroactive

Today we have another published appellate decision holding that Proposition 64 applies retroactively to deny standing to plaintiffs in section 17200 cases: Lytwyn v. Fry's Electronics (4th App. Dist.).

That makes four published opinions in favor of retroactivity, and one against. (see my earlier posts here, here, and here.)

Little Relation Between Medical Malpractice Verdicts and Insurance Costs

President Bush, as he is wont to do, is trying to portray a "crisis" in medical malpractice insurance rates, blame it on trial lawyers, and push for reform. But:

[F]or all the worry over higher medical expenses, legal costs do not seem to be at the root of the recent increase in malpractice insurance premiums. Government and industry data show only a modest rise in malpractice claims over the last decade. And last year, the trend in payments for malpractice claims against doctors and other medical professionals turned sharply downward, falling 8.9 percent, to a nationwide total of $4.6 billion, according to data compiled by the Health and Human Services Department. . . .

[M]r. Weiss of Weiss Ratings and researchers at Dartmouth College, who separately studied data on premiums and payouts for medical mistakes in the 1990's and early 2000's, said they were unable to find a meaningful link between claims payments by insurers and the prices they charged doctors.

''We didn't see it,'' said Amitabh Chandra, an assistant professor of economics at Dartmouth. ''Surprisingly, there appears to be a fairly weak relationship.''

But none of this will stand in the way of the neocons in the Bush administration who will continue to tell us that the system is in "crisis" (just like Social Security) and that we desperately need "tort reform." Details here from The New York Times via LexisONE.com.

Silicosis Cases At Risk After Daubert Hearing

Asbestos Litigation Could Be Affected

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas -- The silicosis cases of thousands of plaintiffs in the federal silica multidistrict litigation may be on the verge of collapse after three days of Daubert hearings revealed what the presiding judge called "great red flags of fraud" in their diagnoses (In re: Silica Products Liability Litigation, No. 03md01553, S.D. Texas).

The outcome of the hearings, which wrapped up Feb. 18, could have major implications not just in silicosis litigation but also in asbestos and other mass tort proceedings.

Some people who were plaintiffs in both asbestos cases and now silica cases apparently received diagnoses of "signs of asbestosis but no silica exposure previously, evidence of silicosis but no asbestos presence now" -- in some cases from the same doctor. "Great red flags of fraud" indeed. Details here from Mealey Publications via LexisONE.com.

New Round of Speculation About Rehnquist's Farewell

From The New York Times:

When the Supreme Court resumes its term on Tuesday, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will again be absent from the bench because of his illness. Although he is not bedridden and has been regularly attending the justices' private conferences, his empty black leather chair will certainly set off a new round of speculation and chatter about his tenure on the court.

But for senior White House officials, as well as a handful of others who follow the court closely, a working assumption about what is going to happen has already taken shape. The strong expectation, senior administration officials and others said, is that Chief Justice Rehnquist is making his best effort to serve out the remainder of the term that ends in June before resigning. And the only question, they say, is whether the 80-year-old chief justice, who is suffering from thyroid cancer and the effects of his treatment, will be able to do so.

Details here from Neil A. Lewis and Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times.

We Were Somewhere Around Barstow . . . .

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like �I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .� And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us . . .

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, page 1.

Hunter S. Thompson shot himself in the head to fatal effect sometime today. Although I've often imagined him dying, I never guessed it would be both sudden and on purpose. He was a great contributor to our culture. I salute him.