The absurdly hypocritical claims were made to weasel out of a British tax on potato crisps and other potato-based foods. London Justice Nicholas Warren ruled that Pringles were made, not of potatoes, but out of good 'ole fashioned American chemicals.

Potato chips "give a sharply crunchy sensation under the tooth and have to be broken down into jagged pieces when chewed," the Cincinnati-based company's lawyers argued. "It is totally different with a Pringle, indeed a Pringle is designed to melt down on the tongue."

Warren agreed. Pringles aren't "made from the potato" for the purposes of the tax office's exemption, he said. He didn't say what Pringles are, other than that they're tax-exempt.

What's that old adage about a duck?

Pringles are not potato chips, judge says in British tax case [L.A. Times]

Third-party collectors, who buy old debts for pennies on the dollar and are the largest source of complaints to the FTC, are also the companies most likely to sue. The courtroom approach works in their favor: defendants often don't have lawyers, and a new law passed last year in Illinois and "pushed by creditors' lawyers" took away a judge's power to limit the amount that could be garnished from wages. It's at least partly why the third party debt collection industry raked in around $15.5 billion in 2006.

Consumer groups say the high number of default judgments can mask flaws with the lawsuits. Credit agreements and payment histories are often not included when suits are filed. Instead, debt collectors file an affidavit attesting to the validity of the debt, and it's not unusual for that affidavit to be erroneous, said Bob Hobbs, deputy director of the National Consumer Law Center.

Andersen acknowledged that there is ambiguity about the minimum evidence needed to verify a debt. In New York, an Urban Justice Center study in 2006 found that in 99 percent of a sampling of default judgments that the evidence used to obtain the judgment did not meet the state's legal standards.

"Debt collectors pushing to get their day in court" [Chicago Tribune]
(Photo: Getty)

U-Haul will appeal, of course, and announced that "the damages awarded are particularly outrageous given the circumstances of this case... The final verdict is another example of abuse of the legal system against corporate citizens in America."

What they failed to mention in their statement was that Waldrip's pelvis was crushed in the accident, "leaving him unable to walk and with no bowel control," and that "six previous renters had similar problems with the truck."

"Jury says U-Haul must pay $84 million to injured man" [Los Angeles Times] (Thanks to Peter!)
(Photo: Roland)

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

T-Mobile customers Kathleen Lowden and John Mahowald sued T-Mobile in King County Superior Court in 2005, alleging that the wireless carrier wrongly charged them for roaming, long distance, night-time and other fees that should have been free. They said T-Mobile also levied other charges, such as "a universal service fund fee," that weren't advertised.

T-Mobile removed the case to federal district court and tried to compel mandatory arbitration, noting that the consumers had signed a contract agreeing to resolve their disputes in this manner.

T-Mobile customers can sue, court rules [Seattle P-I]
Opinion by Judge Gould (PDF)
(Photo:swruler9284)

The 375 pounds of seized illegal cheese included panela, queso fresco and queso oxaca varieties, the [California Department of Food and Agriculture] says. It was a significant find, the department says.

"Illegally produced is cheese is serious threat to public health," says CDFA Secretary A.G. Kawamura.

Arrests drain bathtub cheese sellers [Central Valley Business Times via BarfBlog]
(Photo: jthorvath)

A businessman from St. Tammany Parish and his partner agreed to pay a settlement to Jamie Land, the company that bought the Atwood's home at auction and was preventing them from selling the house or borrowing against it to repair damage caused by hurricane Katrina. The Atwoods have been living in a FEMA trailer on their property since the hurricane.

From the Times-Picayune:

The settlement was signed Tuesday at 11:30 a.m., Duplechain said, and paperwork was to be filed at the parish courthouse in Covington later Tuesday and today to clear the title to the property to the Atwoods.

Duplechain said the businessman, who wants to remain anonymous for now, stepped forward Monday after reading a story in The Times-Picayune about the couple's plight. The attorney said he could not disclose the settlement amount.

Jamie Land Co. President James Lindsay II said the agreement calls for the amount of the settlement to remain undisclosed.

"But it wasn't a lot of money," he said. "We've been willing to settle this thing all along."

Tax lien nightmare ends in Slidell [Times-Picayune] (Thanks, Christopher!)

PREVIOUSLY: Elderly Couple Could Lose Home Over $1.63 Tax Bill
(Photo:Scott Threkeld)

The Atwoods' nightmare began when they learned in 2000 that their four-bedroom, two-bath home had been sold in 1997 through a tax sale for the $1.63 in unpaid taxes, plus 10 cents interest and $125 in costs associated with the sale.

"We found out about it seven days after the three-year redemption period ended," during which delinquent taxpayers can reclaim their property, Atwood said. She then complained to the sheriff's and assessor's offices that she never received the bill and knew nothing about it.

The house, which the couple has owned mortgage-free since 1968, previously was totally state homestead exempt, meaning there was no tax bill, Atwood said. The couple's mailing address during that time changed from a rural route and mailbox number to 4122 Dauphine St. because of the implementation of the parish's 911 emergency phone system. The tax bill mailed to the rural route address was returned as undeliverable to the Sheriff's Office which, after advertisements of delinquent taxes in the parish's legal journal, put the property on the auction block.

"The Sheriff's Office could have easily found us," Atwood said. "We're in the phone book. We didn't go anywhere ... And we never thought about telling the assessor's office about our address change because we've never had to pay property taxes before."

It gets worse. When hurricane Katrina hit, it toppled trees into the Atwood's home. Since they don't have a clear title on their house, they couldn't qualify for a mortgage to fix the damage. They don't have insurance. The Atwoods now live in a FEMA trailer while they battle it out in court. What terrible luck.

Elderly couple's lives in limbo over unpaid $1.63 tax bill [Times Picayune]
(Photo:Scott Threkeld)

A new Cornell study shows that, on appeal, Plaintiffs are far more likely to lose than Defendants, including in areas like product liability, malpractice, real estate, and more. Overall, "[D]efendants were far more likely than plaintiffs (41.5% versus 21.5%) to successfully reverse an adverse trial outcome. Indeed, from the perspective of a plaintiff victorious at trial, the appeals process offered a chance to retain victory not far from what a coin-flip would predict." (Emphasis added.)

Here's the full breakdown:

Now, think back to all those "outrageous" jury verdicts you've heard of. Chances are, the appellate court tossed them on appeal. This is probably good news if you support tort reform. (Maybe now you can rest easy for a job well done.) But it isn't very good news for wronged consumers seeking redress in the courts. Plaintiffs beware. — SAM GLOVER

[via Tortdeform]

A tort, by the way, is a wrong for which the law provides a civil remedy. If you punch someone, for example, you have committed the tort of battery. Of course, the tort reform movement is more concerned with consumer issues like products liability, medical malpractice, and personal injury. So why should you care? Because as a consumer, tort reform doesn't help you, and probably hurts you.

On the one hand, say the tort reformers, ridiculous jury verdicts are driving the cost of doing business sky-high. On the other hand, trial lawyers parade a host of sympathetic plaintiffs past the media circus. Which are right?

Good cases and bad cases settle. This is more or less a given. If a doctor left a sponge in a patient's chest, chances are good that doctor's malpractice carrier will settle the related lawsuit rather than risk the bad publicity and financial risk of a trial. The same goes for cases where the plaintiff's claim is weak. If a driver probably should have avoided the accident he ended up in, she will probably settle for a small amount of money rather than risk a jury verdict of zero.

In the middle are all those cases that cost all that time and money and rack up big jury verdicts. Or not, if the plaintiff loses. Those are the cases the tort reformers are worried about. They want to do things like put roadblocks in front of medical malpractice plaintiffs so that they cannot bring their claim unless it is approved by a "health court" first. Of course, once again, bad cases will be weeded out for a minimal cost, good cases will go forward, and cases where there is a real question will probably fall somewhere in the middle. And in the end, it looks a lot like arbitration, which is advantageous to frequent users, not consumers.

But courts are built to handle close cases. It is what they do best, and what they were created to do. Juries are well-suited to determine how much pain and suffering, emotional distress, or financial loss a person has suffered. Jurors are not experts, but they usually have expert help in arriving at their verdicts. Someone has to decide these cases, and tort reformers want it to be a "panel of experts," which sounds all well and good until you realize who that panel's repeat customers will be—the same people repeatedly accused of leaving sponges in patients' chests. Who will they tend to side with? I'm guessing the ones who pay their bills.

Tort reformers also love to throw around damage caps. In other words, capping the amount of money a plaintiff can receive for his or her injury. The idea is that this will allow insurers to better predict their costs of insurance, and that insurance rates will go down as a result. However, whether or not this actually happens is dubious, and states that have tried it have not experienced the expected drop in insurance rates. Nor have doctors flocked to states with tort reform measures in place.

Plus, there is the emotional response: how can you limit the recovery of a consumer scarred for life by an accident, a Ford Pinto
, or a doctor's error? Should they have to suffer financially as well as physically for the rest of their life?

When you get right down to it, tort reform is the legal system's equivalent to an automated customer service system. The choices you have are limited, and the help you can get is chosen for ahead of time—and rarely appropriate.

If you want to read more about tort reform, read the stormy Wikipedia article, the neutrality and accuracy of which is hotly debated at present.

Small print: In the interest of full disclosure, I am a plaintiffs' consumer lawyer, so I am definitely, admittedly, and unashamedly biased. — SAM GLOVER

(Photo: Maulleigh)