Highlighting cases such as the ‘220 Pound Teacher Sues Over Assault by 1st Grader‘ and ‘Porky Prisoner Suing for $1 Million, Claims Unfit Apparel is Need for Shrink‘,  the news story shows how these cases are adding to the hundreds of millions the city spend on lawsuits annually.  See video below.

Business travelers round the world are wearing black armbands today thanks to a ruling by an Australian court. No more frequent flyer miles? No free drinks in flight? No more hotel discounts? No, actually, no more employer supported sex.

In 2007 an Australian government worker was sent on an overnight trip that included being booked into a hotel room by her employer. As part of her post work relaxation period, she brought a friend back to her room and they proceeded to engage in some very athletic lovemaking. At some point during this interlude, a light fixture was torn from the ceiling and hit our hard working government employee in the face. While we’re not sure what happened to her partner, the incident landed her in the hospital with injuries to her mouth and nose. She also suffered psychological wounds, she said, that forced her to quit her job (it was later diagnosed as acute embarrassment).

She applied for workman’s compensation and was initially awarded said compensation. But when the source of her injury came out, the award was pulled. She sued, arguing that as she was on an employer-sanctioned trip in an employer booked hotel, she should be covered.

Her employer argued that her workout routine was out of the normal routine for a government employee on state business and thus, should not be covered. Obviously a post-work workout means different things to different people. In any case, her attorney suggested she was being unfairly targeted for having sex as opposed to using a treadmill or playing cards, both equally legitimate relaxation methods after work hours.

After the dust cleared, the court ruled that it was not reasonable to expect an employer to be responsible for the actions of an employee 24/7 when on business. Had she simply slipped and fallen in the shower, that might have been fine (had she been alone in the shower at the time) but having athletic sex was out of the bounds of what an employer should be expected to have to cover. Thankfully she didn’t engage in car racing, bungie jumping or poisonous snake wrestling. That could have been truly messy.

Businesses and government agencies breathed a collective sigh of relief at this ruling and frequent business travelers shed a tear or two before looking into special travel insurance policies that would cover future athletic endeavors. Hotels, meanwhile, were said to be looking into reinforcing light fixtures.

An excerpt:

“Recent news that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is facing a lawsuit (“Lawsuit: Silver breached ‘contract,’” Oct. 15) that his office deems “frivolous” is ironic, given that it has been reported for years that Speaker Silver has opposed reforms that would reduce the amount of frivolous lawsuits in New York.

Our state is one of the most litigious states in the most litigious country in the world due in large part to our outdated state laws. The most glaring example is the Scaffold Law, an absolute liability standard that exists only in New York and a favorite of the powerful trial lawyer lobby.”

Read Full Letter

Everyone has seen the classic movie comedy scene. Waitress/waiter trips and drops a precariously balanced tray of dishes (usually with a lot of tomato sauce involved) onto a hapless diner. Apologies ensue, tears, a few laughs, and the guy gets the girl or vice versa and all is well. Unfortunately for an unnamed waitress at a Missouri P.F. Chang’s, one of her customers never caught that movie.

On September 11, 2009, Chenise Schaefer claims that a waitress, who is only identified as Jane Doe, dropped a tray full of dishes on her.  On September 25 of this year (four years later), Schaefer brought suit against the waitress and the restaurant seeking $25,000.  “As a direct and proximate result of the negligence and carelessness of the defendant Jane Doe, the plaintiff suffered injuries to her back, neck, spine, and fibromyalgia affecting her entire body as a whole,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff has been caused to suffer great pain and mental anguish, and all of plaintiff’s injuries are permanent and progressive.”

Definitely no laugh track on this one. Though it is hard to imagine how a plate of Kung Pao chicken could have caused so many permanent injuries.  And while there is no crying over spilled milk, apparently there is grave “mental anguish” over a tray of spilled Chinese food – something to consider next time you order dim sum.

As is the case in many similar suits, one needs to ask whether or not such a suit would have been filed had the restaurant in question been a small local eatery as opposed to a large national chain with deep pockets. To bolster her case, Ms. Schaefer claims that the waitress was not given proper assistance, not properly trained and did not implement “sufficient safety policies regarding tray weight.” So her handy dandy tray scale was not available?

Chain restaurants such as this are busy places that place a great deal of emphasis on fast, efficient service. When staff members are moving quickly though a crowded dining room, mistakes will occur. No one is perfect, and in an ideal world that would be an accepted truth and we could all move through our workdays doing our best and knowing that’s what counted.

Unfortunately for waitress Doe, what counts is what sort of fodder a trial lawyer can make out of an honest mistake.

We want your ideas! (And you may win a tote bag for them!)

We will be creating a tote bag with warning labels, ridiculous warning labels that show how crazy our lawsuit culture has become.

Some of our ideas: ‘Warning: Not to be used as a parachute’ – ‘Warning: Not to be used to fend off bears’.

The best submission will win a FREE LRANY tote bag with your idea right on the bag!

visit www.Facebook.com/LawsuitReformNY to share your idea!

Some months ago we wrote about a New Jersey couple that was suing the town of Harvey Cedars over their use of eminent domain to construct a 22-foot high sand dune on a portion of the couple’s property. The dune later saved the home from being severely damaged or destroyed by Superstorm Sandy, but in the aftermath the suit was not withdrawn.

Well, the suit between Harvey and Phyllis Karan and the town has now been settled for $1 (and $24,000 in litigation costs being paid to the couple). The thing about this suit is that it never should have been filed in the first place. It came about after the town asked the couple for an easement to build a protective dune between the house and the ocean. The couple, suggesting such a dune would lower their property value, refused. Eventually, Harvey Cedars used its power of eminent domain to get the easement and build the dune and the rest, as they say, is history.

It’s not clear whether public embarrassment, common sense, decency, or something else altogether finally took hold, but the couple agreed to settle and everyone appears happy with the outcome. The state is happy because the ruling in the case will likely prevent future suits of this type from being filed. “This settlement represents an important outcome for the citizens of New Jersey, for our precious natural resources along the coast, and for the rebuilding of our Jersey Shore communities,” said Acting Attorney General John Hoffman in a statement.

If you’re worried about the payment for legal fees setting a bad precedent and enticing legal bottom feeders to jump into the fray, don’t be. “The reimbursement for litigation costs was appropriate in this situation because the Karans’ original complaint long predated the recent change in law by the Supreme Court,” according to the attorney general’s office. “No post-Sandy cases going forward will be treated similarly in this regard.” Problem solved.

It’s nice to see restraint and intelligence win out in a case such as this. Having your view of the ocean obstructed by a dune is an issue if you have a certain value assessed, or in your mind, based on the view. But at the same time, you have to figure the value of the house will be a lot lower if, after a super storm, it’s found in several different zip codes or floating a mile off shore.

In the future, the state should now be able to build more protective dunes up and down the shoreline with far fewer legal complications. Heck, if common sense truly prevails, those houses with protective dunes should actually go up in value.

On October 30, 2011, Manhattan real estate broker, Marion Hedges, was the victim of shopping cart assault. She was standing in front of a Costco located at the East River Plaza in Manhattan. The cart was thrown by two youths from a walkway that was four stories above. The cart belonged to a Target store that was part of the plaza and the boys had been ejected from a Bob’s Discount Furniture store in the plaza for being unruly.

In true New York fashion, Hedges and her attorney, Carmine Rubino, sued Costco, Bob’s, Target and the plaza. They claim Bob’s should have done something after ejecting the boys, Costco should have been more diligent since there had been past complaints about things being thrown from the walkway, and the plaza should have done more (what, exactly, is unclear). And of course, Target was named for not keeping better track of their carts.

If this suit isn’t absurd enough so far, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lucy Billings has ruled that the suit can move ahead as there are too many questions that she feels are not being answered by the various defendants. “The business proprietor’s duty to provide a safe environment for members of the public whom the business invites into its stores extends to customers’ means of egress and ingress,” she said.

As for the two young miscreants, they were caught, tried in family court, and sentenced to 6 months in a juvenile residential facility. According to the judge, “at minimum, the complaint raises a question whether it was reasonably foreseeable to Bob’s Discount Furniture that expelling the troublesome boys from the store to cause disruption outside the store, without any further action to address their misbehavior, would result in injury to persons or property outside,” she said. So what, they should have held their hands and walked them home (and potentially subjected themselves to unlawful imprisonment and harassment charges)?

It seems in this case, the judge is overstepping to an extraordinary degree. The fact that Hedges and her attorney have gone after every deep pocket involved,  but have not filed suit against the assailants or their families, speaks volumes. This lawsuit and the many others like it in New York are an indictment of our state’s imbalanced civil justice system. In this case, it is important to remember that New York is one of only two states in the nation where property owners face liability for all entrants to their property, event flagrant trespassers.

As long as we keep laws on the books that incentivize litigation, we will all be paying for it. New York taxpayers currently pay on average over $1 billion each year for lawsuits against local governments, plus over $100 million annually to subsidize insurance for medical lawsuits. And businesses respond by avoiding New York like the plague, taking jobs and tax dollars with them. Is it any wonder New York ranks highest in the nation for liability risk, and worst in the nation for business climate? It seems the only industry doing well these days is the lawsuit business.

A Buffalo, NY lawyer is suing several food manufacturers claiming that corn syrup causes diabetes:

http://hudsonvalley.ynn.com/content/top_stories/670200/buffalo-lawyer-files-lawsuit-against-makers-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup/

It is the beginning of a suspected wave of litigation surrounding food:

http://sustainability.thomsonreuters.com/2013/06/14/food-companies-confront-spike-in-consumer-fraud-lawsuits

Some of these cases actually win in court, including one case last year against Nutella, a hazelnut chocolate spread.  The plaintiffs alleged that Nutella, which has nutrition information right on the jar, was not as healthy as advertised:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57423319-10391704/nutella-health-claims-net-$3.05-million-settlement-in-class-action-lawsuit/

Did you ever think that Nutella was healthy?  I certainly didn’t.

Many of these claims are empowered by legislation.  We have seen legislations curbing salts, soda, trans fats, etc.  Sadly, legislation does not need a basis in fact, and often is intended to capitalize on public paranoia about products.  The legislation then gives credence to non-scientific claims – a problem that extends from food, to chemicals, to vaccines.

Tom Stebbins, Executive Director for the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, will be available for interview to discuss these issues in the coming weeks.

Please contact Tom directly if you are interested in an interview via phone:518.512.5265 or email Tstebbins@lrany.org.

The Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York (LRANY) is a broad based coalition of hardworking New York business leaders, farmers, health care providers and consumers who are committed to changing New York’s burdensome and expensive legal system to help create more jobs and energize our State’s economy.