In a departure from the usual at Abnormal Use, we offer this Abnormal Public Service Announcement.

A study by Johns Hopkins University found that among more than 100 occupations studied, lawyers were three times more likely to suffer from depression than any other profession.  Ted David, Can Lawyers Learn to Be Happy?, 57 No. 4 Prac. Law 29 (2011).  According to this piece,  “a quality-of-life survey conducted by the North Carolina Bar Association in 1991 reported that almost 26 percent of the bar’s members exhibited symptoms of clinical depression. Almost 12 percent of them said they contemplated suicide at least once each month.”  See Michael J. Sweeney, The Devastation of Depression.  The North Carolina study was prompted in part by the suicides of eight Mecklenburg County, North Carolina lawyers in a seven-year period.  Several years ago, in a period of just 18 months, six lawyers died by suicide in South Carolina.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among attorneys, after cancer and heart disease.  Thus, the rate of death by suicide for lawyers is nearly six times the suicide rate for the general population.  Suicide can be prevented.  While some suicides occur without any outward warning, most do not.  We can prevent suicide among lawyers by learning to recognize the signs of someone at risk, taking those signs seriously, and knowing how to respond to them.

The National Institute on Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse estimates that 10 percent of the U.S. population is alcoholic or chemically dependent.  In the legal profession, the abuse may be as high as 20 percent.  David, supra.  According to this piece, “[a]lcoholism is a factor in 30 percent of all completed suicides.”  Reports from lawyer assistance programs indicate that 50 percent of lawyer discipline cases involve chemical dependency.

Whether you are the husband, wife, employee, judge, law student, law partner, law firm associate, friend, or colleague of a person challenged by depression or substance abuse, your understanding of the nature of the problem can play a vital part in helping that individual to achieve and maintain recovery.  Please remember that there is hope, and there is help.  You are not alone.

In South Carolina, call the Lawyers Helping Lawyers toll-free helpline at 866-545-9590.  Check with your State’s bar for a lawyer assistance program or click this link for the ABA directory of lawyer assistance programs.

(See also here for a recent similar article by Stuart Mauney in the January 2012 issue of the South Carolina Lawyer).

Last year, a federal class action lawsuit was filed against Caesars Entertainment Corporation alleging that the casino corporation failed to safeguard its employees from secondhand smoke. The named plaintiff in the case, Denise Bevrotte, alleged that her son died of cancer from inhaling secondhand smoke at work. Bevrotte’s son was employed as a dealer at Caesars’ Harrah’s New Orleans Hotel and Casino for over 15 years. Bevrotte brought the suit on behalf of all non-smoking employees of Harrah’s New Orleans Casino. The case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana is captioned Bevrotte v. Caesars Entertainment Corp. d/b/a Harrah’s New Orleans Hotel and Casino, No. 2:11-cv-00543-SSV (E.D.La. 2011). The class claims were dismissed in October for failure to allege a common issue. Last week, Bevrotte’s remaining wrongful death claim was dismissed for failure to allege facts sufficient to demonstrate that she was her son’s statutory beneficiary. While these dismissals were a clear win for Caesars, they offer little fodder for legal bloggers on the validity of secondhand smoke claims. Undeterred, we now offer our thoughts.

As frequent casino visitors, we here at Abnormal Use empathize with the concern over secondhand smoke. When we discard our money, we could do without that pleasant aroma of Virginia Slims. On the other hand, we understand why casinos allow smoking. Casinos are big business. If people want to smoke while pouring their money into slot machines, casinos are glad to accommodate. For those who don’t enjoy smoke, casinos offer many other vices.

Even though we ourselves disdain smoke, we would never sue a casino because of it. First, we have never knowingly been injured as a result of casino smoke. Sure, any secondhand smoke has undoubtedly blackened our lungs beyond repair, but so too has the smoke from every other bar and restaurant into which we have ventured over the course of our wearisome lives. How do we single out the casino?

We recognize that Bevrotte’s son served as a Harrah’s employee for over 15 years. As a result, his smoke exposure at the casino is far more significant than that on our casual weekend vacation. Even if Harrah’s is a more identifiable tortfeasor for Bevrotte, we share one thing in common. We each made a choice. While our reasons for entering the casino may have been different, nobody forced us to go. By entering the casino, we know we will be exposed to secondhand smoke, yet we continue to go. While we continue to learn about the impact of smoke inhalation, the dangers of secondhand smoke are not a new discovery. We assume the risk and shouldn’t sue others for our own perilous decisions.

We here at Abnormal Use have been doing this blogging thing for about two years now, and we still love it.  One thing we love in particular are comments from our dear readers.  Without you, we would not enjoy this enterprise nearly as much (and, without you, of course, there would be no reason to do it).  We also enjoy good-natured debates with those with whom we disagree.  One of our fondest memories from our college days is getting together with intelligent people with differing views and backgrounds and debating the issues of the day, whether they be political, legal, or social.  You can learn something when you engage in constructive debate with someone who disagrees with you.

Certainly, one of our frequent topics of discussion is the infamous and controversial Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee case.  Our posts on that topic have generated much debate.  Our review of Plaintiff’s attorney Susan Saladoff’s Hot Coffee documentary earned 30 comments, while our initial preview of the film and highlighting of Ms. Saladoff’s background as a trial lawyer received 25 comments.  Our objective FAQ file, which we assembled using the original pleadings, motions, and contemporary news coverage of the case, drew seven comments.  Even the post we authored calling for Ms. Liebeck’s attorney Reed Morgan produce the trial transcript of the case merited 11 comments.

And there’s more.  Even though some of these posts are months old, or even a year old, they continue to receive comments to this day.  Even our post commenting upon Ms. Saladoff’s appearance on “The Colbert Report” still gets a comment or two months later.  One such comment to that post, submitted by a Houston lawyer in late January, is as follows:

I’m amazed at the extent to which your law firm, years later, continues to cheer for a team that lost at the expense of public faith in a justice system that worked — whether you agree that it worked, or whether it serves you in particular, or not. There are salient facts on both sides of this issue. Yes, the coffee was very hot. Yes, she sat in it for 90 seconds. Yes, people should know coffee is hot. And yet, McDonald’s knew its coffee was dangerously hot and callously treated the risk to Ms. Liebeck as a mere cost of business. All of this evidence was heard by the factfinders, the jury. What matters now is that the factfinders heard the evidence — from both sides — and made a decision based on the evidence and the law it was charged to apply. As a member of the bar who has taken the same oath that (I presume) the attorneys in your firm have also taken, I think your continued biased commentary is irresponsible. I’m not saying that you don’t have a constitutional right to say it (questions regarding attorney ethics rules notwithstanding); you probably do. But I think you’re doing more harm than good to our legal system by doing so, and it’s ethically and morally irresponsible to continue to cry about how this jury was wrong and our system is broken simply because they dared to conclude differently than you would have them conclude. I would expect your biased editorialism from a college newspaper, not accomplished members of the bar.

Gee whiz.  For one, if every jury verdict is sacrosanct and immune from criticism of any kind, that’s going to put a lot of appellate lawyers out of business. Sure, we expect criticism and disagreement; that’s part of putting ourselves out there in the legal blogosphere. But our analysis and commentary on an infamous jury verdict is “irresponsible”?   Possibly unethical? Really? Can we no longer analyze and have some fun re-litigating a case which appears to have been misrepresented in the media by those from varying backgrounds, and before our acquisition of the pleadings and motions, discussed for years without reference to the original underlying documents? It’s harmful to our legal system to look back at reevaluate some of the decisions made by the lawyers, the trial court, and the jurors and gauge whether they were right or wrong? Must we consider those jurors infallible?

Sigh. I guess that’s what we get for engaging in this blogging thing. (And by the way, “biased editorialism”? Is there any other kind?)

Or, maybe we just hit a nerve and our making some points that those who have a vested financial interest in the jackpot justice system would prefer that we not make.

Nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker recently asked whether civility can be saved.  Parker noted that Americans have always been “a bunch of rowdies and rascals,” citing as a “perennial favorite,” the “caning administered by South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks upon the person of Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner over a disagreement about slavery and a question of honor.”  Parker defined civility as “courtesy in behavior and speech, otherwise known as manners.  In the context of the public square, civility is manners for democracy.”  Parker then argued that our manners have deteriorated, particularly in recent years.  “Manners have become quaint, while behaviors once associated with rougher segments of society have become mainstream.”

How did Parker suggest we fix the civility problem?  She said that change “has to come from within, each according to his own conscience.”  The media must strive to be “honest, accurate and fair, and reward the coarsest among us with scant attention.”  Parker claimed that the greatest threat to civility is not the random outburst but “the elevation of nonsense, and the distribution of false information.”  She concluded by reminding us that the Golden Rule works well.  “Best taught in the home, it could use some burnishing.”

Parker’s column was published in my local newspaper, The Greenville News, on February 19.  Just two days later, that same newspaper published a column by another nationally syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas, titled “Learning a Civility Lesson.”  Thomas recently spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, and in his own words, “failed to live up to one of my highest principles.”  The story of the day was the Obama administration’s recent move to require faith-based institutions to provide contraception as a part of health care coverage.  A video clip was played from Rachel Maddow’s program on MSNBC in which she commented on the subject.  After the clip was played, Thomas told the audience, “I think she’s the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception, and all the rest of the crowd at MSNBC, too, for that matter.”  In his column, Thomas admitted that he spoke before thinking: “I am not supposed to behave like that.”  The morning after the speech, Thomas called Maddow to apologize.  Maddow graciously accepted the apology and commented on her show that she believed Thomas’ apology.

Thomas concluded his column by reminding his readers that he has had many liberal friends over the years.  “They became my friends because I stopped seeing them as labels and began seeing them as persons with innate worth.  That is what I failed to do in my first response to Maddow.”  Parker referred to “the food-fight formula that attracts viewers to cable TV” and would surely be pleased with Thomas’ apology.

Our friends at Legal Blog Watch noticed that the Fourth Circuit recently called out the U.S. Attorney’s Office for uncivil language in an appellate brief.  The court felt “compelled to note that advocates, including government lawyers, do themselves a disservice when their briefs contain disrespectful or uncivil language directed against the district court, the reviewing court, opposing counsel, parties, or witnesses.”

In South Carolina, lawyers are required to sign an oath, pledging “fairness, integrity and civility, not only in court, but also in all written and oral communications” to opposing parties and their counsel.  In striving to remain faithful to this oath, lawyers would do well to remember Parker’s reference to George Washington’s writings on this subject: “Let your Conversation be without Malice or Envy, for ‘tis a Sign of a Tractable and Commendable Nature: And in all Causes of Passion admit Reason to Govern.”  Finally, we would also do well to remember Thomas’ civility lesson, including the willingness to admit we are wrong and apologize for our behavior.

Behold, the cover of The Batman & Robin Adventures #6, published not so long ago in the halcyon days of 1996. But at that time, things were not going so well for the Boy Wonder.  The cover depicts a copy of a newspaper, The National Insider, the headline of which exclaims, “Batman Fires Robin.”  We wonder if Robin sought any advice from an employment lawyer following this report.  For one, who told the newspaper that Robin was fired? Surely not Batman.  Alfred, maybe? Perhaps there’s a potential defamation claim there.  We’re trying to imagine Robin completing a complaint and submitting it to the EEOC.  Can you imagine that pre-investigation mediation?

Friend of our blog Jeff Richardson, himself of the famed iPhone J.D. blog, notes that we are just a few days away from the release of the iPad 3.  Make certain you are reading Jeff’s site next week for all iPad related news.

Eric Goldman has a post over at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog that you’ve got to read to believe.  We know we say stuff like that all the time, but here’s the headline: “Facebook, Google and Lexis-Nexis Get 47 USC 230 Immunity in a Bizarre Case Involving a Missing Sex Toy–Gaston v. Facebook.” Um, okay. How about that? Let’s hope that one makes the case books some day.

Don’t forget!  Today is Texas Independence Day!

The legal blogosphere is consumed with talk of the Washington, D.C. based federal judge who this week struck down the proposed federally required labels for cigarette packages.  As you will recall from our post here, the proposed new label were icky and gross. The district court basically agreed with our assessment.  See here for Findlaw’s Courtside blog’s post on this new development.

And, yes, if you must know, we here at Abnormal Use remain crestfallen that we were unable to catch the Radiohead concert last night in nearby Atlanta, Georgia. (Our editor has seen the band live four times!) We are recuperating – or attempting to – from this existential issue. Here’s the set list from last night, if you must know. Sigh.

This weekend will, however, be dedicated to another musical group, The Monkees.  As you know doubt heard, Monkee Davy Jones died this week in Florida at age 66.  Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. So, for the foreseeable future, we’ll definitely be listening to “Daydream Believer” and “A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You” on repeat. Rest in peace, Mr. Jones.

Doctors recently treated a Louisiana woman for redness in her right forearm that developed after she attended a party.  She admitted that she had the bright idea of injecting a drug into her arm two days earlier.  Doctors discovered that she had developed necrotizing fasciitis (doctor speak for a flesh eating bacteria), which spread so rapidly that they had to amputate the woman’s arm, shoulder, and collarbone, as well as perform a radical mastectomy.  What was the drug that caused such massive destruction in such a short time period?  Meth?  Heroine? Crack?  Nope.  Bath salts are at it again and it seems the government is helpless to stop it.

As we reported last fall, “bath salts” are a designer drug that contains stimulants that act much like meth and cocaine.  They are highly addictive, and their reported side effects include hypertension, extreme paranoia, hallucinations, and suicide.  Who would have guessed that a drug that mimics meth could string you out just like meth?  Well, now we can apparently add flesh-eating bacteria to that list of side effects.

How are these bath salts still legally available for purchase at many convenience stores? No one buys the idea that they are actually enhancing that spa retreat feeling in your bathroom.  Most states have actually attempted to ban them, but are running into one little problem.   The chemists who design these products are one step ahead of the lawmakers and are altering them to get around new laws.  For example, in Pennsylvania, a state law banned six chemical compounds of bath salts.  The makers responded by simply tweaking the formula, and voila, they were back on the market in no time.  Many other states have hit similar snags in their attempts to regulate these products.

We will be watching the evolution of this issue. Can the government get its act together and get this stuff off the market?  A host of lawsuits have already been filed against the makers of bath salts.  How will the fact that the makers are changing their products to get around anti-drug laws affect any defense that they are labeled as “not intended for consumption?”  In the mean time, we should continue to get a few more gem headlines courtesy of bath salts.  For instance, “Man Bites Car, Bath Salts to Blame?”

Today is February 29, the saddest and loneliest day of  the Gregorian calendar. February 29 lives a solitary life. Sure, this dreadful and curious day tries to make friends. Developing a social life, however, is quite a challenge when one only shows up to the party once every four years. Even though the 29th of this month has 28 comrade days in February, this short month is an oddity in its own right. February itself is simply a weird month. As we here at Abnormal Use can attest from our high school days, it’s difficult to find acceptance among your peers when you only associate with other outcasts. Thus, the 29th lives the hard-knock life, to be certain.

On the bright side, lawyers have bickered over the significance of the date, and there has been a surprising amount of jurisprudence generated over leap day. Defense counsel in criminal and civil cases alike have argued that the extra leap year day is not included within the statute of limitations’ calculation of time. Courts all across the country, including New York, Virginia, and Oregon to name a few, have responded to this argument and included the 29th within the meaning of the term “year.” When all else fails, that misfit of misfits, February 29, should take solace under the protective wings of the judiciary.

If February 29 is good enough for our court system, it should be acceptable to us, too, right? So, today, don’t anger yourself each time you mistakenly write “March 1” on your letters. (And by, what are you still doing writing letters by hand? It may be February, but it’s February 2012! This isn’t “Downton Abbey”!)   Instead, take a step back and marvel at the synchronization of our calendar with the astronomical year. Who knows? Maybe February 29 will turn out to be a friend after all.

We recently came across an article on Yahoo! Finance entitled “America’s 10 Most Sleep-Deprived Professions.”  Intrigued, we thought we would investigate to see if our noble profession made the list.  Sure enough.  Number 2.  The fact that attorneys made the list did not come as a surprise.  The morning crowd at the coffee maker is evidence enough that our profession is immune from blissful slumber.  But what does this study say about our profession?

Let’s take a look:

As you can see, there is not a great deal of variance among the professions on the list.  To say that lawyers are more sleep-deprived than police officers because they find one less minute of sleep seems ridiculous.  These sleep figures are based on the self-reported sleep times of 27,157 adults.  In reality, this study may reveal that we think we have less sleep than others – not that we actually get less sleep.

Now take a look at this:

In comparing the “sleep-deprived” with the “well-rested” occupations, it is difficult to decipher many defining characteristics.  On either side of the spectrum, you will find a dichotomy of professions in terms of compensation, hours of work, education-level, and job location.  Perhaps the sleep differential can be attributed to personality types or other behavioral attributes.  That type of analysis, however, would require an advanced psychological degree and is well beyond our expertise (although we do have a copy of the DSM-IV around here somewhere at Abnormal Use headquarters).

So what does all this mean?  Probably very little.  We doubt the 20-minute sleep differential between lawyers and forest loggers is actually statistically significant.  In any event, this study acts as a stark reminder to us all.  We enter this profession knowing that it requires a lot of hours and hard work to be good at it.  We are willing to do it because we love our jobs and we want to do everything we can to best serve our clients.  (Or, in the very least, we have to pay back all these student loans, right?) At the same time, we also have to balance being the best spouses and parents  we can be along with other outside commitments.  There are only so many hours in a day, and sometimes, sleep is the easiest to cut.

The moral of this story is twofold.  First, continue to work hard.  Not only do our clients expect and deserve it, we owe it to ourselves.  After all, nothing is worth doing unless you go all in.  Second, it is imperative that we find a work/life balance.  Life will be much happier when you can enjoy all aspects of it.  Make time for work.  Make time for family.  Make time for a little sleep. And now, I’m off to take a quick nap.

“Oh, no!” you exclaim.  “Not another hot coffee post!”

But today is quite an anniversary.  Twenty years ago today, on February  27, 1992, the world’s most famous litigant, 79 year old Stella Lieback, ordered what would become the most famous cup of hot coffee in America.  It was in Albuquerque, New Mexico at a McDonald’s drive-thru located on Gibson Boulevard.  She was inside her grandson’s Ford Probe.  He drove from the drive-thru to a parking spot, where Ms. Liebeck, clad in jogging pants, placed the cup of coffee between her legs and then attempted to pry open the lid.  She somehow lost control and the coffee spilled into her lap.  She was attempting to add sweetener to the coffee.  The rest is history, which we need not repeat here.  However, if you are interested in doing a little historical reading, we recommend you check out our Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case FAQ file as well as our history of reporting on other hot coffee cases here.

(Oh, and to our pal Steve McConnell of the Drug and Device Law blog, please note that we made it through the entire post without a “It was twenty years ago today . . . .” Sgt. Pepper’s reference.

If you frequent this site, you know we try to showcase legal themed comic book covers on Fridays. Let us tell you this: that gets more and more challenging each week! So, depicted above is Infamous: Lindsay Lohan #1, published not so long ago in September of 2011 by Bluewater Comics (which often produces quickie celebrity bio titles like these).  On that cover, we see the troubled former starlet taking her mug shot about as seriously as she likely takes everything else in her difficult, difficult life. Whatever the case, we doubt the folks in California would allow a prisoner to be so cavalier during the mug shot process.

As you may recall, in the past, our own Frances Zacher has written a bit about the legal issues involving driverless cars.  In a post called “Autobots – First Casualty,” the author of the Living the Meme blog attempts to pick up where Frances left off and explore the issue in further detail.  Check it out.

Get this!  Accordingly to The Lariat, Baylor Law School – our editor Jim Dedman’s alma mater – recently hosted a “People’s Law School.”  At that event, there was a section dedicated entirely to the McDonald’s hot coffee case! Had we been in Waco that day, we would not have missed it!

Speaking of our editor, last week he was hanging out in Philadelphia on a vacation of sorts and he met and hung out with Max Kennerly, the author of famed Litigation & Trial law blog. It was a great time, we hear.  However, if you had overhead their conversation about blogs, Twitter, and BBSs, you would have thought they were huge nerds.

Oh, and you may remember that we’ve been hinting for a while that we have some big plans in store for you, our dear readers, in 2012.  Today is the last Friday in February.  In just a few weeks, in mid-March, you’ll see our first such  blogging project of note.  Be forewarned: it’s a doozey!