Legal Newsline Editorial: New York’s Laws Clogging Courts

John O’Brien writes: “New York’s laws encourage frivolous lawsuits, the executive director of a legal reform group wrote in a recent editorial. Thomas Stebbins of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York wrote Tuesday in The Palladium-Times of Oswego that court administrators facing budget cuts are scaling back court services. Lawsuits, Stebbins says, are choking New York’s [...]

The Palladium Times: Suing is Often Frivolous in NY

Read our Executive Director, Tom Stebbins’, letter to the editor - Suing is Often Frivolous in NY- in The Palladium Times: “To the editor: Court administrators were recently in Albany to discuss how recent budget cuts have forced them to scale back court services. This should serve as a timely reminder to all that New York needs [...]

Legislative Alert:Trial Lawyer Lobby Seeks to Overturn Highest Court and Ban Interviews of Later Treating Physicians

Consider for a moment that you are a doctor who has been accused of medical malpractice (and since many members of the medical community read the LRANY blog, maybe you are).  The patient who is accusing you of malpractice was seen by another nearby doctor after the alleged incident, and you know that later-treating doctor [...]

High Court Unanimously Rejects Broad Expansion of the Scaffold Law

By: Scott Hobson A recent decision by the New York Court of Appeals in Dahar v. Holland Ladder & Mfgr., unanimously rejected an argument which would have dramatically expanded the Scaffold Law. The case involved a factory worker, Dahar, who was cleaning a manufactured wall module in preparation for shipment to a customer when the ladder on which [...]

Philadelphia Judge Puts an End to Plaintiff Friendly Practices

By: Scott Hobson Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas Administrative Judge John W. Herron recently signed a general court regulation to curb the widespread “litigation tourism” and plaintiff-friendly procedures like case consolidation which have given Philadelphia’s Complex Litigation Center (CLC) the ranking of #1 Judicial Hellhole in America by the American Tort Reform Foundation in 2011 [...]

Money Talks for Trial Lawyers

Earlier this month, the Times Union’s Capitol Confidential  reported on a recent study conducted by NYPRIG which covered political contributions for 2011.  The study found that the top 127 donors gave a whopping $16.8 million to state elections.  Not surprisingly,  number 3 on the list was Law PAC of New York a.k.a. the trial lawyer lobby.  This [...]

Bloomberg News: When Merger Suits Enrich Only Lawyers

An article in Bloomberg News highlights a growing issue with merger lawsuits in Delaware fattening the pockets of  plaintiffs’ attorneys while leaving their clients empty handed. “A shareholder lawyer told a Delaware judge at a midsummer court hearing two years ago that his team deserved $700,000 for work on a lawsuit in which his clients received nothing”. [...]

Long Island Business News: Fight Looms Over Scaffold Law

The Long Island Business News ran an article this week written by Bernadette Starzee, highlighting the major issues with the only-in-New-York Scaffold Law.  In it, LRANY Executive Director, Tom Stebbins, shared the agenda of the Scaffold Law Reform coalition: “‘We’re looking to repeal the scaffold law as part of a larger effort to seek relief from mandates that [...]

Cybex Reaches $19.5m Settlement in Product Liability Case

By: Tom Stebbins, Executive Director Last week, premium exercise equipment manufacturer Cybex International agreed to pay $19.5m to a Cheektowaga woman, who was injured by a piece of Cybex equipment when she improperly used a leg machine to stretch her shoulder in October 2004. The settlement was reduced from the $66m originally awarded in the [...]

Free Up Our Courts By Stemming Frivolous Lawsuits

By: Tom Stebbins Court administrators were recently in Albany to discuss how recent budget cuts have forced them to scale back court services.  This should serve as a timely reminder to all that New York needs to pass reforms to stop the flow of frivolous, and sometimes ridiculous, lawsuits that are choking our legal system.  [...]