California isn’t a judicial hellhole. Yet.
The American Tort Reform Foundation in Washington D.C. has put Orange County on its Watch List as part of the 7th annual 2008-2009 Judicial Hellholes publication of the nation’s “most unfair civil court 
jurisdictions.”
If such things are contagious, watch out: O.C. has a neighbor that is fully infected. Los Angeles County is one of seven official Hellholes, “in part, for allowing ’shakedown’ lawsuits brought primarily against small businesses under the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
Orange County made the Watch List because it, too, has had some of these cases in which a shop or restaurant is threatened with a lawsuit for not providing adequate access for disabled customers.
Click here to read a Gordon Dillow column about the issue. Click here for a story about problems in San Clemente.
Some experts think we’re in for more ADA lawsuits in 2009. Click here to read my recent post about it.
But more troubling about Orange County, ATRF spokesman Darren McKinney said, is the lawsuit that Botox users have filed against Allergan. Click here to read Colin Stewart’s explanation.
The Judicial Hellholes report says:
“…trial lawyers have decided that Orange County is a good place to try out a fresh new mass tort.
“The first-of-its-kind lawsuit claims that the popular wrinkle-reducing treatment Botox is unsafe. Filed by more than a dozen Botox users and their relatives, the suit challenges a treatment approved by the FDA nearly 20 years ago.
Register photo by Leonard Ortiz
“Experts contend that the treatment has a remarkable safety record with 18 million vials sold and more than 15 million treatments preformed worldwide. Despite this widespread use and the rarity of reported serious adverse events associated with treatment, Orange County is serving as experimental jurisdiction into which this new mass tort has been injected.”
The report also singles out Orange County as a Hellhole-in-waiting because of the case in which Judge Kelly MacEachern was thrown off the bench for falsifying travel records to obtain reimbursement and then lying about it under oath. (Shouldn’t that be in O.C.’s favor?)
“We have more dirt on Orange County, but we were trying to keep it short and sweet,” McKinney said.
“Why the Botox suit is potentially disturbing more broadly is because it is mass tort, a grouping of many plaintiffs with different circumstances into one suit, making it virtually impossible to dig into the veracity of each case and defend against,” he added.
Other top Hellholes are:
- West Virginia
- South Florida
- Cook County, Ill.
- Atlantic County, NJ
- Montgomery and Macon counties in Georgia
- Clark County, Nev.
Click here to read the entire report.
Other business stories…
- Entrepreneurs sacrifice homes to save business
- Jobs decline despite small-business gain
- August sales of O.C. businesses plummet
- Tip of the Day: Why small businesses avoid 401(k)s
- 55% of SoCal home sales were foreclosures
- O.C. home price hits 66-month low at $400,000
- Daily tip: Home business for the newly unemployed
- inXile buys ‘Fantastic Contraption’ puzzle, plans iPhone game
- What do you mean wine and gift cards are lousy holiday gifts?
- Carm’s Coneys in Costa Mesa closes over burger flap
- What the Fed’s ‘drastic’ moves mean
- Yamaha Motor Corp. U.S.A. seeks voluntary early retirements
- Newport man indicted in stock kickback scheme
- SoCal inflation drops to 10-year low
Yeah, but we have good weather
When the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) was initiated in the early 90s, the acronym soon became “Attorney’s Dreams Achieved”
It looks like it came true.
Anyone seen the contract for the massive State Appeals Court construction project in Santa Ana?
Here we have a huge state deficit and yet in response to courts which are failing the judicial system, we have a multi million dollar new building being constructed so that second rate lawyers can try botched cases in front of the appeals court.
Exactly how many cases end up in the appeals process?
Well, I guess it is so many that they have to build a brand new set of courtrooms, appoint a bunch of lifetime judges, and then ask the tax payers to foot the bill AGAIN.
Makes you want to vomit doesn’t it?
Just out of curiosity…who decides what “reform” means?
And how come Tort reform doesn’t address those causing the injury, only those who address issues that are supposedly legally in their favor?
What’s the biggest injury from our current war? Brain injuries. So think twice before you start knocking the disabled. And try to remember businesses had *YEARS* to come into compliance.
Check out this OC shakedown. StateGoneCrazy.com. I thought Orange County used to be a great place to live.
This is the kind of thing that needs to be rooted out from these agencies including HUD, and those guilty should be prosecuted. Start by removing leadership including HUD’s Kim Kendrick. Can you believe she is still there and perpetuating things like what Daniel Bader has gone through. Still doing it today. Here is an example of this type of agency leadership:
“HUD Officials Caught Bullying State Employees Members of the Bush Administration have once again been caught strong-arming government officials into abiding by their policies. In an email exchange, two top political appointees at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) discussed ways to make the life of Philadelphia’s housing director Carl R. Greene miserable after he refused a request to transfer a $2 million piece of city property to a business friend of the HUD Secretary.
“Would you like me to make his life less happy? If so, how?” Orlando J. Cabrera, then-assistant secretary at HUD wrote about Philadelphia housing director Carl R. Greene.
“Take away all of his Federal dollars? : D” responded Kim Kendrick, an assistant secretary who oversaw accessible housing.
The California Supreme Court denied Kelly MacEacherns’ appellate petition for review of the CJPs’ removal decision on Dec. 10th. More information can be viewed here:
http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/dockets.cfm?dist=0&doc_id=559626&doc_no=S166837
[...] here to read about San Clemente’s issue. Click here to read my previous post about the abusive lawsuits watch [...]
One group that is a great resourse to answer some of your questions on “tort reform” is the Orange County chapter of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse. They hold very entertaining/interesting events from time to time.