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Archive for the ‘Courts’ Category

Arbitration Unfairness

Posted in Consumer, Consumer Law, Courts, tagged , , on February 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Check out a recent piece published in The Nation by Kia Franklin, the author of the Tort Deform blog and a strong voice in support of our civil justice system, who has also been kind enough in the past to cross-post an article on that blog from Yours Truly.
Kia focuses the spotlight on the continuing [...]

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Lawyer Wins 10-Year Fight for Disability Benefits, and Gets Attorney’s Fees

Posted in Consumer Law, Courts, Insurance Law, tagged , , , , , on January 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

We plaintiff lawyers see it all the time. Disability insurers commonly send injured people to their stable of doctors who say the person is able to work, often in contrast to the opinion of treating physicians, and then the insurance company denies the claim on that basis.  
In a way, it’s kind of like the equivalent of [...]

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Tort Reform is not the Answer

Posted in Consumer, Courts, Government, Insurance, Medical Malpractice, Miscellaneous, Politics, Tort, tagged , on January 19, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Here is a good op-ed from Leonard Sloane about how tort reform, if enacted, will lift the floodgates on corporate fraud and wrongdoing.
“Tort reform” doesn’t work. Texas is the national model for so called “tort reform,” but medical-malpractice insurance premiums there only went down by 1.2 percent… “Tort reform” leads to unsafe health care. What [...]

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Billion-Dollar Verdicts on the Decline

Posted in Consumer Law, Courts, Insurance Law, Media, Miscellaneous, Politics, Tort, Trial lawyer, tagged , , , , on January 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Bloomberg. com reports that billion dollar verdicts are vanishing from U.S. courtrooms. In 2008 no such verdict was rendered by a jury, and there was only one in 2007. But in the previous 14 years, there were a total of 26 billion-dollar verdicts.
One reason for this is that the Supreme Court and lower appeals courts have limited [...]

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New Laws Enacted for 2009

Posted in Consumer, Consumer Law, Courts, Employment Discrimination, Government, Health Care, Insurance Law, Labor and Employment, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , on January 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Long Island Business News recently published an article concerning new laws that are going into effect this year that will affect business and consumers. Here they are in capsule summary form, but you can also check out the article for more detail:

Repeal of the no-prejudice rule that allowed insurers to deny coverage if the insured failed [...]

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The American Rule, Can This Be Sacrificed to Insurance Company Profits?

Posted in Constitution, Courts, Miscellaneous, Trial lawyer, tagged , , , , on December 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

TortsProfBlog has a link to a WSJ article by Dan Slater about whether the U.S. should keep to the “American” rule in litigation mandating that each side pays its own costs or if we should switch to a loser-pays rule such as exists in the U.K.
The reaction of the plaintiffs’ bar is that adopting the “English” rule [...]

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Music Industry to Stop Suing Individuals for Downloading Music

Posted in Consumer, Courts, Media, Miscellaneous, tagged , , on December 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

The WSJ reports that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is set to drop its strategy of filing lawsuits against individuals who allegedly illegally download music from the internet. Instead it plans to work with internet service providers to discourage people from making illegal downloads, including slowing down their internet service.
This plan is a [...]

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The Actual Chamber of Commerce Ad

Posted in Consumer, Courts, Politics, Tort, Trial lawyer, tagged , , , on December 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

This is the advertisement by the Chamber of Commerce that I made reference to in a recent post. Hmm… after further reflection, I think the word propaganda better describes it than does advertisement.
The piece obviously seeks to have a psychological effect on viewers seeing that it plays gripping music while a voiceover claims that lawsuits [...]

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Chamber of Commerce Is At It Again

Posted in Consumer, Consumer Law, Courts, Miscellaneous, Politics, Tort, Trial lawyer, tagged , , , , on December 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

The Chamber of Commerce has begun a campaign highlighting what it claims are the abundance of frivolous lawsuits filed in the courts that are supposedly plaguing small businesses.
Whenever a politician or interest group for business tries to limit the rights of ordinary citizens to bring a lawsuit, it’s commonly done in the name of small business. [...]

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Judge Ralph Gants to be Appointed to the SJC

Posted in Courts, Politics, tagged , , , , on December 2, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Rumor on the street — the streets of Massachusetts, that is — is that Superior Court Judge Ralph Gants is going to be appointed to the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) by Governor Deval Patrick. Although my office is in NYC, I started off practicing law in Massachusetts and keep my license active there, not to [...]

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