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Couple of interesting things I saw over the last couple of days...

The Tort Reform movement continues. Last week Sen. Lindsey Graham(R-S.C) introduced legislation in the United States Senate where the losing party in a federal court case would be faced with the possibility of paying the other side's fees. Of course the good senator referenced lawsuits that are designed to "shake someone down" for a settlement. That argument completely ignores those situations where there is a legitimate dispute with compelling arguments on both sides. In that situation, it isn't fair to burden the loser with fees. Stripped down to its bare essentials, this is just a way to further deny ordinary people access to a courthouse.

Now from the Why People Hate Lawyers Dept...A blog entitled Overlawyered proclaims its job as "Chronicling the high cost of our legal system". One of the cases it reported last week came out of Mercer County, New Jersey. In this particular case, one Jennifer Besler alleged that her high school basketball coach's request to lose ten pounds caused her to develop an eating disorder that lasted 8 years. I know what you are thinking - this is fiction(exactly my reaction). The article noted that the jury awarded $3 million(yes I said million) and held the school district responsible for just under half of the award, not quite $1.5 million dollars. Have to admit I was stunned when I saw the result. An eight year eating disorder because her coach yelled at her? Wow. Aren't coaches supposed to yell? Isn't that in the job description?[See Knight, Bobby and Ditka, Mike]. The only coach I can think of that will refrain from yelling would be Stuart Smalley("you're good enough, you're smart enough and darn it, people like me).

And out of Madison Wisconsin... Buckling from University pressure, 24 campus bars near the University of Wisconsin agreed to stop cheap-drink promotions on the weekends. So guess what? A Minnesota firm files an antitrust suit accusing the bars of "unlawful restraint of trade" and "price fixing". Are you kidding? Is their position really going to be that the University of Wisconsin students couldn't get enough alcohol? Have they ever been to Madison? Or anywhere in the state? If so they would have figured out that no fancy "price-fixin'" would ever prevent any self-respecting University of Wisconsin student from getting sufficiently intoxicated. Those kids have traditions to uphold by God! My guess is that lawyers in Minnesota simply don't have enough to do.