The Lighter Side of Health Law – December 2023

AHLA's monthly podcast featuring health lawyer and blogger Norm Tabler's informative and entertaining take on recent health law and other legal developments.

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Transcript

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This episode of A HLA speaking of health law is brought to you by A HLA members and donors like you. For more information, visit american health law.org.

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Hi, I am Norm Taber with this month's edition of the lighter side of health law. Robot Law Firm defeats human firm chalk one up for artificial intelligence AI. In Illinois, a robot law firm has defeated the human kind of firm in court. A small law firm of the human variety sued the AI firm. Do not pay all one word, claiming the AI firm was practicing law without a license, and more importantly, was engaged in unfair competition. IE taking clients away from the plaintiff human firm. The robot firm won hands down with the judge ruling that the human firm had failed to show that it had lost any clients at all to the AI firm. Good news, bad news. Well, the end of the patent infringement trial brought good news and bad news for plaintiff Rex Medical against defendant Intuit Surgical. The good news, the jury found that intuitive had in fact infringed on Rex Medical's patent. Even better, the jury pegged the damages that a cool $10 million. Now, the bad news, Rex's evidence on damages was based entirely on a licensing agreement covering seven patents, not just the one intuitive had infringed, so the judge ruled the evidence was no good. Well, Rex Gulped, can we have a second trial on damages No can do . The judge responded. You've had your one bite at the apple. What's a fair figure for damages in a case like this? $1, the Judge ruled case closed. The case is Rex Medical versus Intuitive Surgical District of Delaware who says the law is an. Well, actually, Charles Dickens put those words in the mouth of Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist, and ever since non-lawyers have been taunting lawyers with them. But here's a case that puts the light of those words showing how practical and commonsensical the law really can be. According to the American Bar Association Journal, the Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled in Rabinowitz versus Shenkman . Quote , A husband does not have to make continued payments to his ex-wife under a separation agreement after she tries to kill him with a hatchet and ask my I , Harvard and the Teapot. This is the latest chapter in the never ending story of Harvard's attempt to get insurance coverage for the attorney's fees. In its famous of affirmative action admissions case fees that amount to some 27 and a half million dollars. Where does the teapot come in? You're asking? Well, remember back in first semester civil procedure when you learned that the English common law allowed inconsistent pleading. The example is the lawsuit alleging that the defendant borrowed a teapot and returned it broken. The defendant was allowed to plead something along the following lines, A, I never borrowed your teapot. B, the teapot was broken when I borrowed it. C, your teapot was in perfect condition when I returned it. Well , the insurer says Harvard failed to notify it of the lawsuit within the required timeframe. So far, Harvard has pleaded A, Hey, we gave you informal notice, B, even if we didn't give you notice, which we did, you knew all about the case. Everybody did. C, the policy says the case has to be reported to you, not that we have to do the reporting. Reporters reported it to you and the news so it was reported to you. So far, none of that has worked. So they have a new position and a new lawsuit against a marsh. Their broker, the lawsuit says, Hey, you were supposed to give the insurer notice of the lawsuit and you didn't. Our poor insurer had no notice, whatever, and it's all your fault. You owe us 27 and a half million dollars. The new case is Harvard versus Marsh, USA Massachusetts Superior Court. The illegal flower arrangement. Well out in Bannock County, Idaho mortician, Lance Peck is in trouble over a flower arrangement in his funeral home. Law enforcement says the flower arrangement is illegal. His insurance company says It's not only illegal but criminal. And since it's criminal, they're not going to cover his liability. How can a flower arrangement at a funeral home be illegal and criminal? You're wondering, the answer is in the spelling. The explanation is that it's flower , F-L-O-U-R, not F-L-O-W-E-R. And the arrangement is that after cremation, Lance presents the family with an urn full of flour, F-L-O-U-R, along with some pepper instead of ashes. You can't make this stuff up. The case is federated, mutual versus downward funeral Home District of Idaho. AI continues to tempt lawyers. Well, for lawyers, artificial intelligence seems to be the forbidden fruit of the 21st century. They continue to use it even though it continues to bite them. Recently, two more young lawyers relied on AI with the result that they were cast out of Eden . I mean out of their law firms. 29-year-old Zach Rebel relied on AI to write a motion and surprise AI invented the cases it cited. Zach has been referred to the disciplinary authorities and fired from his firm. Meanwhile, an associate with the Dennis Block Firm has resigned. After using AI for a brief and an eviction case with the usual citation of non-existent cases, the judge finder $999, and the firm forced her to resign. When will they ever learn life imitates art? If you don't believe that life imitates art, take a look at the November nine order of the Iowa Supreme Court reprimanding lawyer Tom Rodriguez. It turns out that Tom has perhaps unknowingly been reenacting the role of the law clerk in Herman Melville's. Short story Bartleby , the Scrivener, the tale of a law clerk Bartleby , who simply refuses to perform even the simplest tasks assigned to him. Bartle be's invariable response. When asked why he refuses, I would prefer not to. Now back to Iowa, the court reprimanded Tom because time after time he simply failed to show up for hearings, leaving both his clients and the courts and a lurch. Tom's explanation to the disciplinary board was pure bartleby. I had other stuff to worry about past the burrito bowl in Parma, Ohio. Rosemary Haney is facing jail time for passing a burrito bowl. Well, she didn't just pass it. She threw it at a Chipotle server. Why? Because she says it was disgusting and it wasn't what I wanted. Actually, once you say it was disgusting, you don't need to go into say it wasn't what you wanted, but I digress. Rosemary was charged with assaulting the server. She threw it at, she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in prison with three months suspended, and she can trim time served down to one month if she works in a fast food restaurant for at least two months, let's hope the Chipotle server's friends don't find Rosemary at work and use her for fast food target practice buyer's remorse. Here's a case of buyer's remorse. If I ever heard one, you might call it triple remorse. The buyer is charismatic brands , manufacturer of hospital scrubs, charismatic, sued, rival scrubs, maker figs, and at the end of the long running litigation, charismatic lost the case and lost its shirt. Or should I say its top? Why did it lose its top? Because its legal bill was $31 million. What's the remorse for not just for filing suit, but because it opted for paying a flat fee rather than hourly billing to its lawyers? Charismatic now says the law firm fooled it in into thinking that the flat fee would be less than hourly billing. But now in hindsight, charismatic thinks that was a big fat lie, or should I say a big flat lie. So charismatic took the matter to arbitration. Lo and behold, the arbitrator sided with the law firm. More buyer's remorse, charismatic regretted ever taking it to arbitration and is now sued in state court. What don't . You bet charismatic will regret filing suit. The case is charismatic versus Michelman superior court. Los Angeles County. Can you speak chicken? Well, you have to hand it to Mattel for effort. They created a Barbie type doll in the likeness of Wilma man, killer first woman to become chief of the Cherokee Nation. It's part of Mattel's inspiring women series. So far so good. But Cherokee spokespeople have a knit to pick with the packaging. They swear that in the Cherokee language instead of Cherokee Nation, the label says Chicken Nation complaint department and defensive cursive. My complaint today is about the unrelenting attack on cursive writing. You know, the traditional handwriting, whether letters in a word, are all connected to one another. The way we write our signatures cursive has been under attack since at least the start of this century. Did you know it's no longer part of the common core state standards for K through 12 schools? Anti cursive spokespeople argue, Hey, everything is typed now on a computer or a smartphone. There's no need to force kids to learn the old-fashioned way their grandparents wrote. Well , I disagree. Everybody I know at some time or other has to jot a quick note with pen or pencil and paper because they're closer and handier than a computer or smartphone, and you can't tell me that printing is as fast as cursive. Here's another example. This morning, a nice young man at the service station checked my air pressure and my tires when he was done, I said, thank you , Steve. If I couldn't read cursive, I couldn't have said that. You know why? Because his name was sewn on over his left front pocket and it was Incursive The way it always is because sewing machines love cursive and hate printing. Or how about birthday cakes? You can't tell me. My baker doesn't prefer writing happy birthday nor and cursive, so he doesn't have to stop squeezing the frosting tube at the end of every letter and probably wipe off the tip too . If you have a complaint, send it to me. You can even write me a note in cursive. Well , that's it for this month's edition. I hope you liked it. I'll be back next month with another edition of the Lighter Side of Health Law .

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