While killing time recently, I ran across this rant posted on the Opinion page of CNN.com, written by Dean Obeidallah, who is apparently “a political comedian,” and a former attorney, among other things.  Well, we don’t think he was trying to be funny in this column.

In fact, I take issue with his tone.

Obeidallah’s basic point is that—wait for it–America is too litigious.  Certainly not new material.  He uses a recently-filed lawsuit against the TV doctor personality “Dr. Oz” as the latest evidence for this theory.  Apparently, a diabetic man is suing Dr. Oz because the remedy Dr. Oz suggested caused the man to suffer burns on his feet.  Of course, as Obeidallah notes, the gentleman seems to have ignored some of the basic instructions for the remedy.  You can read more about the lawsuit here.  Obeidallah then continues his column by providing a list of other “ludicrous” lawsuits (although we noticed that he does not mention the infamous Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee case).

Obeidallah’s verdict on the reasons for our litigious society?  A perfunctory “Blame the lawyers” slogan, especially plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyers, who hope for a quick settlement “so that they can do as little work as possible before seeing their own payday,” and “taking a questionable case that will reap you some media coverage and money.”

Now, we here at Abnormal Use have worked with–and against–a number of hard-working, honorable plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyers who are not just good, but great, attorneys.  We’ve also worked with some who didn’t quite hit the mark.

But we’ve met and worked with just as many great and not-so-great lawyers on our own side of the bar.

Despite his anger, Obeidallah does make one point that we don’t see often in such analysis.  There are a “growing number of lawyers out there struggling to make ends meet,” he says.  He might be on to something.  According to a recent Wall Street Journal column, there are approximately 21,800 new legal jobs each year for the approximately 44,000 law school graduates.  Those numbers don’t crunch.  Hungry lawyers, Obeidallah suggests, might be more willing to take a questionable case simply to keep their practices afloat.

There is, of course, a larger conversation in the legal community these days—about the role of law schools, the quality of legal education, and the available jobs for graduates and seasoned lawyers alike.  We will continue to monitor these issues, comment upon them, and invite your input, as well.  We hope that the tone of these discussions remain civils, and don’t always have to be accompanied by column headings as abrasive as Obeidallah’s “Dr. Oz suit is another reason people hate lawyers.”

We think these heavy subjects deserve a more nuanced approach than that.

We here at Abnormal Use encourage our readers to comment on our posts. We can be a bit out-spoken at times (even blunt), so reader comments are a means of encouraging healthy conversation about those issues. Unfortunately, we sometimes allow that conversation to remain one-sided. We love reading your comments. Honestly, we do. When living the double life of the lawyer blogger, it is just hard to find the time to respond in the way you deserve. But one day, we promise to reply to each and every remark.

One day, we promise to reply to the 30 comments to our post about the potential biases of Hot Coffee documentary filmmaker Susan Saladoff. Perhaps, we will finally find the time to respond to one reader who asked:

By the way, exactly how much are you being paid for that “obligation”? I’m very interested in that “pesky little detail” of yours.

Sigh. Soon, we will let her know that we do not represent McDonalds, but we would love to do so, if she could get us connected.

Maybe, when we have a spare moment, we will respond to this comment, posted a year and a half after our story:

WHO WAS TELLING US THAT STORY [Stella Liebeck lawsuit]????? Why is it that Nick Farr, and the others who have posted demeaning and insulting comments about Susan Saladoff, did not ask themselves that question? Why is it that these folks did not ask themselves what the motivation was for the people who decided to circulate that total distortation of Stella Leibeck’s case?

When we have time, we will let her know that our goal has always been to put forward as much factual information as is available on the McDonalds case regardless of the “side” it discredits. It would also probably help if we pointed her to our expansive – and objective! – FAQ on the issue.

One day, we swear to finally chime in on the 33 comments to our Hot Coffee review. We need to respond to those comments that cited our jobs as defense lawyers and claimed that we were advocating tort reform via film review. We promise to give each of those the attention it deserves. We especially need to respond to this reader, who writes:

Remember the victim and take your beating like an adult.

We will finally let him know that the writer was a mere 14 years old and was more concerned with the perils of puberty than passing the New Mexico bar exam when the Liebeck verdict was rendered. As such, he takes no credit for the “beating” that occurred in the courtroom in 1994. Unless, the reader was referring to the fraternal order of defense lawyers in which we all share in each others losses. Once we have a moment, we will let him know.

One day.

One day, we will respond. We really will. We appreciate your comments and encourage the continued dialogue. One day, we engage in these debates. Just not today. Back to work.

Above, you’ll find the cover to the trade paperback The Trial of Yellowjacket, a storyline in featured The Avengers comic series in the early 1980’s published by Marvel Comics. Here’s hwo Comicvine describes the narrative: “The end of an era! They say pride comes before the fall, and this tumultuous tome is proof of that! When longstanding and founding Avenger Hank Pym – in his guise as Yellowjacket – demonstrates reckless behavior in battle, his fellow members schedule a formal court-martial hearing to determine the fate of their emotionally conflicted comrade. Will Yellowjacket triumph over his inner demons – or crumble under the pressure of being an Avenger?” But can the Avengers court martial one of their members? Are they members of the military? Aren’t they private citizens with superhuman talents and powers who have simply banded together to fight the bad guys? Where does a court martial come in? Why wouldn’t Yellowjacket be tried in the traditional civil – or criminal – courts for any reckless behavior in battle?

Well, Yellowjacket, whose real name was Hank Pym, is not the nicest guy.  Here’s how his Wikipedia describes these incidents:

. . . Pym participates in several missions until, after demonstrating hostile behavior towards Janet, he attacks a foe from behind once the opponent had ceased fighting. Captain America suspends Yellowjacket from Avengers duty pending the verdict of a court-martial. Pym suffers a complete mental breakdown and concocts a plan to salvage his credibility by building a robot (named Salvation-1) and programming it to launch an attack on the Avengers at his court-martial. Planning to exploit the robot’s weakness at the critical moment, Pym hopes to regain his good standing with the Avengers. The Wasp discovers the plan and begs Pym to stop, at which point he strikes her. Although the robot does attack the Avengers as planned, Pym is unable to stop it and the Wasp uses the design flaw to defeat it. Pym is subsequently expelled from the Avengers, and Janet divorces him.

Uh, that’s not good.

By the way, last week, in our weekly installment of Friday Links, we apparently misidentified a Marvel Comics alien symbiote.  We thought the symbiote Carnage was, in fact, Venom.  They are both foes of Spider-Man, and they are both really, really bad dudes. Shame on us. (Thanks to eagle-eyed commenter MattS for pointing out the error in our comments).

In a postscript to his recent blog entry “Donald Trump v. Bill Maher,” Walter Olson of Overlawyered includes a link to our McDonald’s hot coffee case coverage.  We’d love to see the depositions in that case, if it ever gets off the ground.

This can’t be good.

Now is the time that we, as consumers of media, are inundated with year end best-of lists. So, just as we did last year and the year before that, we here at Abnormal Use have collected our favorite posts of this past year – our third full year of existence. If you’ve followed us from the very beginning, you know that we’ve posted at least every business day these past three calendar years. That’s a lot! Looking back over our posts this year, it was difficult to choose our favorites. But, dear readers, the ones we enjoyed the most are linked for you below, along with their author and publication date. Fill yourself with nostalgia, just as we have, and revisit these entries from 2012.

Dealing with the Anxiety of Pfizer’s Birth Control Pill Recall: A Flowchart (Steve Buckingham, February 6, 2012)

Ten Years Ago Today: Dedman Graduates From Baylor Law School (Jim Dedman, February 9, 2012)

Gas Can Litigation = Big Business for Plaintiffs Firms (Frances Zacher, February 13, 2012)

20th Anniversary: “My Cousin Vinny” (1992) (Various Bloggers, March 12, 2012)

Lessons Learned from Vincent L. Gambini (Rob Green, March 12, 2012)

Remedies for Unreasonably Defective Law Schools (Frances Zacher, March 28, 2012)

American Bar Association Denies Provisional Accreditation To Miskatonic University School of Law (Jim Dedman, April 1, 2012)

Deposing Siri (Jim Dedman, April 2, 2012)

Johnny Cash’s “Cocaine Blues” Leaves Much To Be Desired (Legally, Anyway) (Nick Farr, June 12, 2012)

The Flaming Rat Case: A Revisionist Analysis (Steve Buckingham, June 27, 2012)

Critical Thoughts on Depositions of Asbestos Plaintiffs (Jim Dedman, July 12, 2012)

CPSC aims to eradicate Buckyballs, outstretch its boundaries (Nick Farr, July 31, 2012)

UIM Coverage Issue Goes Viral; Great Misunderstandings Ensue (Nick Farr, August 15, 2012)

The Most Important Unwritten Rule: Depositions Should Start at 10:00 AM (Jim Dedman, September 26, 2012)

First World Problems: Litigating A Really Sweet Pool Table (Steve Buckingham, October 15, 2012)

First Hot Coffee, Now Hot Tequila? (Rob Green, November 26, 2012)

Today is an anniversary of sorts.  Two years ago today, on December 6, 2010, we published what was to be a ground breaking, at least for us, interview with the actor who played one of pop culture’s most flamboyant attorneys, Jackie Chiles, the television lawyer from “Seinfeld.”  The character, now infamous, was played by actor Phil Morris.

That, we think, is the moment where we learned we loved this blogging thing.  It’s also the moment we realized that the sky is the limit with respect to blog posts.

Think about it: In this day of Internet blogging and journalism, every citizen is a pamphleteer.  Everyone can be a journalist.  So, why not seek interviews like journalists do?

Back in 2010, we had that thought, and so, we spent weeks and weeks and months and months communicating with the agent and publicist for Mr. Morris.

Our persistence paid off, and we were granted the interview.  After that success, we were emboldened, ultimately seeking and securing interviews with the director, writer, and several casts memnbers of My Cousin Vinny.  But it all goes back to Phil Morris and Jackie Chiles.

So, today, we share with you our favorite part of that interview.  Of course we asked Mr. Morris about the Stella Liebeck McDonald’s hot coffee case:

ABNORMAL USE: . . .  [aO]e of the story lines from “Seinfeld” was, I guess, Kramer’s burns from the hot coffee. Do you have any feeling about that? What about people filing these lawsuits for burning themselves on hot coffee?

MORRIS: Well, we’re so litigious in this society, too much. It’s way beyond the pale. So that’s where I kinda jump off from Jackie. I certainly wouldn’t put stock in a lot of that stuff. I think, it’s just, we’ve gotten away with way too much here in the United States in terms of the legal ramifications of everything. I think, again like I said, beyond the pale. Jackie is an opportunist. So anything like that is manna for him. But personally, I think we’re really hurting ourselves and shooting ourselves in the foot. Not only are we giving our legal system a bad name, but we’re abusing it! We’re misusing those bits of legal power that we have – we’re fortunate enough to have in this country. It kind of drives me crazy.

You can revisit the full interview here.

We here at Abnormal Use often write about hot beverage litigation. Just last week, we reported on the tale of the hot tea and the airplane.  And, of course, we are no strangers to the McDonald’s hot coffee case.  Most of these hot beverage lawsuits share a common hurdle – the liquid at issue is intended to be served at temperatures the plaintiff’s later deem “unreasonably dangerous.”  If a consumer demands his beverage to be served hot, he shouldn’t be able to sue the restaurant for meeting his expectations.

But what happens when the hot liquid is a cup of soup?  And the consumer is an young old girl in a school cafeteria?

In Wisconsin, an 8-year old girl has sued the Beloit Turner School District over burns she sustained by a cup of soup served by the cafeteria staff at Powers Elementary School.  According to the Janesville Gazette, the complaint alleges:

The hot soup was placed on the girl’s lunch tray. She began to carry her tray to another table, but someone bumped her, and the tray tipped, causing the hot soup to spill onto her left forearm and cause injuries.

Further, she alleges that the School District and its cafeteria staff were

[N]egligent in serving a substance at an unsafe temperature to an 8-year-old child, were negligent in failing to properly instruct its students on how to carry the unsafe substance, failing to properly warn its students of the unsafe substance and the dangers thereof, and failing to properly supervise its employees, agents and students at all times material to this complaint.

At this time, there is no information regarding the temperature of the soup.

As an initial matter, this case is clearly distinguishable from many of its hot beverage predecessors.  First, the plaintiff is a minor and doesn’t share the same degree of culpability for assuming the risk of her food choice (if she actually had one).  Second, she was required to transport the hot soup on a lunch tray through the cafeteria – a scenario that can lead to spills.  As a result, this case could find itself in the hands of a jury.

Nonetheless, a bowl of soup shares one thing in common with a cup of coffee.  Even in a school cafeteria, soup is expected to be served hot.  If not, parents would undoubtedly be complaining at the district office.  While we do not know the actual temperature of the soup served, the school district should not be found liable solely on the basis of serving “hot” soup.

As stated above, this case is unique in that it involves a minor in a school cafeteria.  Obviously, the school has some duty to look out for the safety of students.  But how far should that duty extend?  This is not a case about a corporation allegedly sacrificing safety to protect its profit margin.  School districts all across the country are in dire straits financially.  Should we really require that they provide warning labels on its soup bowls?  Or, will a simple verbal warning suffice?

Certainly, this case presents some novel issues for the hot beverage (or food) progeny.  We will be sure to keep you posted as more information surfaces.

Above, you’ll find the cover of Superman: The Man of Steel #50, published not so long ago in the wonderful days of 1995. We’re bringing this issue to your attention because of its part in the “Trial of Superman” narrative, which we previously mentioned here. As for this cover, all we have to say is, that’s a lot of chains. Wouldn’t it be easier just to make one chain, but have that chain be stronger? We don’t know who is putting Superman on trial, or what the charged offense is, but that’s got to be cruel, right? It’s certainly unusual.

Did you know that you can follow our writer and contributor, Nick Farr, on Twitter? Nick, you may recall, is one of our prolific hot coffee litigation writers. To do so, simply click here.

We should go ahead and say that we are excited that college football has returned to the airwaves.  Please feel free to suggest to us any football related products liability issues, or even any non-legal football topics, you think we should be discussing here.

[Editor’s note: This Dallas Cowboys lawsuit was of such great interest to us that we decided that both Steve Buckingham and Nick Farr, fine writers of this site, should comment upon it. Accordingly, today, we offer Nick’s views, while tomorrow, we’ll share Steve’s thoughts. We hope you enjoy reading about it as much as we did.]

In 2009, Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys unveiled the billion dollar Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.  With its plethora of unique and extravagant features, the stadium is the closest thing the National Football League has to a work of art.

Now, it is the subject of a lawsuit.

When we here at Abnormal Use heard that “Jerry’s World” was involved in a civil suit, we just knew it had to be some devastating accident involving the 2,100 inch video screen suspended over 60 yards of the field.  (Seriously, how do they keep that think hanging?)  To our surprise, however, it is not the monstrous video board at the center of the personal injury litigation, but, rather, a bench.  A simple black marble bench.

According to reports, a Texas woman has sued the Dallas Cowboys and Jerry Jones in the Tarrant County District Court after she allegedly sustained third-degree burns on her buttocks after sitting on the marble bench.  The woman, attending a Cowboys scrimmage in August 2010, sat on the bench in 100-plus degree temperatures for an undisclosed amount of time while wearing full-length pants.  She alleges that the combination of the black marble and the hot sun made the bench extremely hot and unreasonably dangerous – a condition about which the Cowboys allegedly failed to warn her.

The words “extremely hot and unreasonably dangerous” immediately conjure up thoughts regarding the infamous hot coffee litigation.  Like freshly brewed coffee, a black object basting in 100 degree temperatures will be hot.  Common sense and logic would suggest that the woman bares at least some responsibility for her injuries.

Unlike hot coffee, however, there may be issues of fact regarding whether the common person should appreciate the risk of sitting on a bench made of marble as opposed to a less heat-absorbent material.  Nevertheless, it seems a bit ridiculous to require a warning that a bench resting in the Texas sun may be hot.  Should they also warn that a bench sitting in the rain may be wet?

Of course, the naysayers will suggest that Jones obviously had the money to purchase a sign or design an external bench out of a non-heat-absorbent material.  But should he have to?  This is a marble bench – clearly not a case of a company skimping on costs by cutting safety measures.

Depicted above is the cover of Batman: Gotham City Police Department #2, published not so long ago in the halcyon days of 1996.  The cover is dominated by Harvey Bullock, a controversial Gotham City detective.  We know that citizens maintain certain rights when confronted by a police officer. There are many, many criminal procedure law blogs out there that explain these rights to citizens and other lawyers alike. But based on Detective Bullock’s Wikipedia entry, we’re going to stay clear of him and not invoke any legalisms in his presence. We’re too scared. Unless Batman’s around, we guess. But he’s pretty scary, too, no?

According to news reports, there may not be any hot coffee lawsuits against McDonald’s in Mumbai for a while. That’s because the franchise has run out of beans!

This week, we discussed the viral firestorm that has befallen Progressive Insurance Company after one man claimed it “defended his sister’s killer in court” over a UIM claim. (We still maintain that the whole ordeal is premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of UIM insurance and claims over same.). Since that time, news about the underlying trial has come to light. As we expected, at issue was the alleged contributory negligence of the man’s sister. Despite testimony from the police department’s accident reconstructionist and other witnesses that the sister ran a red light, the jury found her not to be negligent. The estate was awarded $760k in damages, but there is still no news on the limits of Progressive’s UIM policy. We will keep you posted as more information surfaces, as it appears that everyone on the Internet is still talking about this one.

Did you know that you can follow our fearless leader, Mills Gallivan, on Twitter? To do so, simply click here.

Behold, the cover of Showcase #96, published by DC Comics way, way back in 1978.  This issue of the series focused on the Doom Patrol, one of whom’s members, Negative Woman a/k/a Valentina Vostock, faces arrest on the cover. “Your team can call it quits, Robotman . . . Valentina Vostock is under arrest,” proclaims someone who must be a state actor of some sort. Now, Ms. Vostock was a Soviet defector, so maybe there is some late 1970’s Cold War era politics going on here, but this is still more than a decade after Miranda. You’d think Robotman could at least raise that issue with the arresting officer. Thanks for nothing, Robotman.

Here is a funny tweet about courtroom sketch artists.

Colin Miller of the EvidenceProf Blog remarks upon Adam Sandler. And Adam Sandler litigation. And litigation with similar themes to Adam Sandler films. Read it here. (Oh, and if you haven’t seen Red Letter Media’s ultra harsh video review of Sandler’s Jack and Jill, you’re missing out. Really, seriously, you should check out that movie review.).

The always great Letters of Note blogs publishes the famous 1988 legal letter from Laramie, Wyoming attorney Becky Klemt to a California lawyer who asked for a $100,000 retainer and a $1,000 per hour rate to collect a partially unsatisified judgment of $4,239.84.  If you’ve not read Klemt’s letter, please do so, as you can’t help but enjoy it.

William K. Berenson, a Plaintiff’s lawyer blogging at the Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog, offers “McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case: Bet You Didn’t Know That . . . .” (Warning: A graphic image of Stella Liebeck’s burn injuries is embedded in the entry.).