Today, news media carried stories of a lawsuit for millions of dollars against a family dry cleaning business, making all kinds of claims of emotional distress and the like. On ABC's The View short-timer (not exactly lame duck) Rosey O'Donnell came out for tort reform and the British system of "loser pays" to curb nuisance "whining" lawsuits. John Stossel has suggested this before on "Give Me a Break" on 20/20. Electronic Frontier Foundation has discussed SLAPP lawsuits against speakers, along the same lines.
The "disturbia" of this case is that the suit is being filed by an administrative law judge in the District of Columbia, and the complaint amount of $65 million comes from a literal calculation from DC's consumer protection law, $1500 per violation per day per employee, over 1200 "days" (for 12 "violations" -- the incident occurred in May 2005). What is the point of this?
Here are a couple of references:
News story-blog in The Washington Post blogs, by Emil Steiner "Real Strange News: D.C. Judge Wants $65 Million for Lost Pants; Panel Considers Reappointing Judge Roy L. Pearson, Jr.", here.
The AP story appeared in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune on May 3, 2007, at this link.
Brian J. Taylor: "Loser Pays is winning at the state level" Oct. 1995, Reason, here.
Point of Law website.
Center for Justice and Democracy "mythbuster!" (which opposes many of these tort reforms)
Cato Institute posting by David E. Bernstein
Institute for Legal Reform (has ad in Examiner).
Anti-SLAPP Resource Center (California)
Update: June 25, 2007
A DC Superior Court judge ruled against the administrative law judge plaintiff suing the dry cleaner, and the plaintiff will have to pay court costs and maybe later (after another hearing) even attorneys fees for defendants. It's not clear if the law requires this in the case of a frivolous claim. NBC4 news story is here.
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