Banks harvesting the last possible pound of flesh from millions of homeowners before kicking these failing debtors out of their homes

San Diegan David Soffer is suing J.P. Morgan Chase Bank for its practice of luring debtors with promises of loan modification, and then refusing to refinance after debtors have fulfilled their side of the bargain.

"The nation’s largest banks are methodically harvesting the last possible pound of flesh from millions of homeowners. We should put a stop to it." --Willaim Greider

It's Time for Debt Forgiveness, American-Style
William Greider
November 14, 2011
The Nation

..."We are in the reverse New Deal," Christopher Whalen, a savvy banking expert at Institutional Risk Analytics, told me. He meant that events are dismantling the ingenious engine that helped generate America's broad middle class. Homeownership was the main driver in accomplishing that great social change. For three generations, people of modest means could buy a house knowing it would secure their place in the middle class and allow them to accumulate significant savings. If the family held the standard thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgage, they were painlessly saving for the future every time they made a payment, acquiring greater equity in the home as they did so. With moderate inflation, the house would steadily increase in value even as their monthly mortgage payments stayed the same. So the cost of housing actually declined for the family, as a percentage of its income.

Meanwhile, the accumulating equity became a nest egg for retirement or something to pass on to the kids.

That virtuous process, originated by New Deal reforms, is in peril and has already shut down for tens of millions, especially working-class families whose incomes are no longer rising. As described by the brokerage investment firm Amherst Securities, the housing picture is ugly.

Among the 55 million families with mortgages, one in five is underwater—they owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth—or already delinquent. That's 10.4 million families who are sliding toward failure and foreclosure. Virtually all of them will become renters, since no bank is likely to give them a new mortgage.

As a result, the housing market will remain depressed for years—too many houses for sale, too few buyers. Amherst estimates excess supply of 4–6 million in the next six years. Economic recovery may have to wait until that surplus is gone, because the housing sector has always led the way out of recession. The more housing supply exceeds demand, the more prices fall. The more prices fall, the more families get sucked into the deep muddy. The vicious cycle is known in the industry as the death spiral. So far, there's no end in sight...

Nevada Supreme Court Upholds Fraud Verdict Against The California Franchise Tax Board

Nevada Supreme Court Upholds Fraud Verdict Against The California Franchise Tax Board

9/19/2014

Keith Paul Bishop  

Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP 

JD Supra

The Franchise Tax Board’s Shande

This is case that has been more than two decades in the making.  It began in the 1990s when inventor Gilbert Hyatt filed a California tax return showing that he relocated from California to Nevada.  Consequently, he reported licensing payments for only part of the year.  California was suspicious because his return reflected no moving expenses and it opened an audit.  This was really some audit, the Franchise Tax Board sent over 100 letters to third parties.  Many of these letters included Hyatt’s social security number, home address or both.  The FTB also interviewed Mr. Hyatt’s ex-wife and estranged brother and daughter.

Mr. Hyatt eventually had enough and sued the FTB in Nevada (state) District Court.  The FTB sought complete immunity based on the U.S. Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause (Art. IV, § 1) and comity.  In an unpublished order, the Nevada Supreme Court said no and the FTB appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 538 U.S. 488 (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Nevada Supreme Court’s conclusion that the FTB was only entitled to partial immunity under comity principles. (California accords full immunity to the FTB in Government Code Section 860.2(b)).

When Mr. Hyatt’s case finally went before a jury, the case lasted four months.  The jury returned a verdict awarding Mr. Hyatt damages in the amount of $85 million for emotional distress, $52 million for invasion of privacy, a little over $1 million as special damages for fraud, and $250 million in punitive damages.  No one should be surprised to learn that the FTB appealed the verdict to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Yesterday, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the special damages award for fraud and the finding of liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress.  Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 71 (2014).   The court, however, found error in the trial court’s damage award and remanded the case for a new trial on damages on the emotional distress claim.  The FTB, however, was successful in obtaining reversals of Mr. Hyatt’s other causes of action.  More importantly, the Nevada held as a matter of first impression that because punitive damages would not be available against a Nevada government entity, the FTB is immune under comity principles for punitive damages.

Although the FTB dodged a punitive damage bullet, the opinion is recounts numerous instances of misconduct on the part of the FTB.  For example, the FTB represented that it would protect Mr. Hyatt’s confidential information and then distributed his personal information to numerous third parties and revealed that he was being audited.  Without determining which doctor actually treated Mr. Hyatt, the FTB sent letters to all doctors with the same last name.  The FTB should be ashamed.

More On Yiddish And The Law

One reader wrote to let me know about a 1993 article entitled “ “Lawsuit, Shmawsuit” by Judge Alex Kozinski and UCLA Law School Professor Eugene Volokh that discusses the use of other Yiddish words in U.S. legal opinions.  You can find the article at 103 Yale Law Journal 463 (1993).  Other readers pointed out that “knell” is not the antonym of kvetch.  I had intended to type kveln.  Rather than take responsibility, I’ll blame the autocorrect function.  

Finally, I must not let a discourse on kvetch pass without mention of this 2011 speech by former SEC Commissioner Elisse Walter in which she asserts:

Let’s face it — many of us lawyers were born to kvetch. It’s simply part of our DNA...

Law protects makers of generic drugs from lawsuits

What chance does the Hippocratic oath stand against a system that protects billions in medical profits?

Do No Harm?
Cindy Nunn
Simvastin Nightmares
June 18, 2014

Many pharmaceutical companies have physicians sitting on their Board of Directors, the very same people who have taken the Hippocratic Oath, which includes the following lines:

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel.

So naturally it boggled my mind that the United States Supreme Court ruled that makers of generic drugs could no longer be held liable and sued for damages caused by their products. What kind of free society allows such abuse of its citizens? What doctor in his (or her) right mind would consider this to be fair or right? Well, when I saw George Soros listed as a main share holder of Teva Pharmaceuticals the penny dropped. It seems our government has more interests in helping billionaires to further line their pockets with money than it does in protecting the health and well-being of the people of the United States.

Somehow, this has got to be changed. When a large corporation is basically given permission to CONTINUE harming people without having to suffer any repercussions we cease to be a fair, balanced and civilized society and instead become one where the sick and the poor are just fodder to be used and sacrificed in the goals of the greedy CEOs  to add more money to the millions and billions of dollars already nicely filling up their bank accounts.

While you lay in your bed crying due to the excruciating pain caused by Simvastatin, some greedy fat cat is lounging around on his/her yacht in the Mediterranean or driving around town in a Lamborghini. And you can do absolutely NOTHING about it because the pharmaceutical companies and our own Supreme Court say that you and your sufferings are worth NOTHING, zip, zilch, nada! However, you can bet your Aunt Nellie’s knickers that if a close member of one of these powerful CEOs suffered damages from a medication they would pay out huge amounts of money to the best lawyers around to sue the hell out of the company responsible!

People need to get mad. People need to get completely, totally, insanely ANGRY that this is being allowed to happen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/opinion/a-damaging-decision-on-generic-drugs.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/business/drug-lawsuits-hinge-on-the-detail-of-a-label.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.sott.net/article/263713-Supreme-Court-rules-drug-companies-exempt-from-lawsuits

http://bobsnewheart.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/supremes-say-you-cant-sue-generic-drug-make-but-fda-may-change-that/

http://www.beckerlaw.com/2013/07/01/supreme-court-rules-generic-drug-makers-not-liable-for-drug-defects/

http://my.firedoglake.com/cranestation/2013/09/25/over-easy-scotus-shields-generic-drug-manufacturers-from-liability/

http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2011/06/30/injured-by-a-generic-drug-you-cant-sue-over-inadequate-warnings/

Here is a judge and a case that offers a bit of hope for our legal system

Judge Awards Utah Couple $306,750 in Case Against Retailer That Tried to Impose Fine for Critical Online Review

Statement of Scott Michelman, Attorney, Public Citizen

June 26, 2014

Contact: Angela Bradbery (202) 588-7741
Scott Michelman (617) 899-9076

On Wednesday, Judge Dee Benson of U.S. District Court in Utah awarded Public Citizen clients John and Jen Palmer $306,750 ($102,250 in compensatory damages and $204,500 in punitive damages) against the online retailer KlearGear.com. The company had demanded $3,500 from the Palmers for writing a critical online review of the company, then ruined John’s credit when he refused to pay.

As a result of KlearGear.com’s actions, the Palmers lost credit opportunities; suffered anxiety, fear and humiliation; and spent weeks without heat in their home for themselves and their 3-year-old son when their furnace broke and they were unable to obtain a loan to replace it.

Public Citizen sued KlearGear.com on the Palmers’ behalf in December. When KlearGear.com failed to respond, the court granted a default judgment declaring that John did not owe the $3,500 and setting a hearing, held Wednesday, to determine damages. After an hour-long hearing at which both plaintiffs testified, the judge announced the award from the bench.

We are gratified by Judge Benson’s ruling, which appropriately compensates the Palmers for their ordeal and punishes KlearGear.com for its abuse of the credit reporting system in retaliation for the Palmers’ speech. The court sent a strong message that corporate bullying of consumers would not be tolerated. The Palmers are relieved that John’s credit has been restored and they feel vindicated by today’s award.

More information about the case is available here.

Court rules BPI lawsuit against ABC News may continue

Illustration by Tim O'Brien for Mother Jones

Court rules BPI lawsuit against ABC News may continue
nicoleweddington
Daily Kos member
Mar 31, 2014

A defamation lawsuit filed by Beef Products, Inc., in 2012 against ABC News, will be heard in the state court of South Dakota, a circuit court judge ruled March 27. Defamed meat product and lost profits are at the lawsuit’s core.

Defamed meat product and lost profits are at the lawsuit’s core. The circuit court judge retained a majority of the counts against the defendants in her decision, which stemmed from a hearing Dec. 17.

The lawsuit’s claims are allowed under the state’s disparagement laws regarding food. The statements ABC News made in regards to BPI’s meat product were in fact disparaging, the judge said, however, the court does not recognize if the statements are true or false.

News anchors report BPI meat product is pink slime

Back in 2012, ABC News reported on BPI’s Lean Finely Textured Beef, deeming it “pink slime,” because, as ABC states, the meat product was pink and slimy. Not only was the term pink slime itself inappropriate, but the frequency in which it was used totaled 137 times while ABC also made over 100 false statements during the smear campaign, BPI asserts. The news outlet also paired its negative reports with positive statements about the meat product’s validity regarding approval from the FDA, but followed up by discounting the FDA.

The campaign made headway with consumers, who accounted for an 80-percent loss in sales. That equates to $400 million in profit. Three out of four plants closed and over 700 jobs were lost. Beef Products, Inc., is a private family business.

Reporters named in lawsuit

Other defendants in the case are two U.S. Department of Agriculture employees, two reporters who have a history with the story and a former employee of BPI who granted interviews. Diane Sawyer, anchor for ABC World News, is another defendant. All have a deadline of April 16 to file an answer on the current counts against them. Attorneys for ABC News, say the ruling may affect the First Amendment in an uncomfortable way.

The injury lawyer argued to dismiss the claims against ABC, but the judge was guided to the decision based on a reasonable fact-finding method and concluded the plaintiffs’ claims of defamation were satisfactorily alleged based on the defendants’ public statements.

Gagged by Big Ag
Horrific abuse. Rampant contamination. And the crime is…exposing it?
By Ted Genoways
Mother Jones
July/August 2013

Shawn Lyons was dead to rights—and he knew it. More than a month had passed since People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had released a video of savage mistreatment at the MowMar Farms hog confinement facility where he worked as an entry-level herdsman in the breeding room. The three enormous sow barns in rural Greene County, Iowa, were less than five years old and, until recently, had raised few concerns. They seemed well ventilated and well supplied with water from giant holding tanks. Their tightly tacked steel siding always gleamed white in the sun. But the PETA hidden-camera footage shot by two undercover activists over a period of months in the summer of 2008, following up on a tip from a former employee, showed a harsh reality concealed inside.

The recordings caught one senior worker beating a sow repeatedly on the back with a metal gate rod, a supervisor turning an electric prod on a sow too crippled to stand, another worker shoving a herding cane into a sow's vagina. In one close-up, a distressed sow who'd been attacking her piglets was shown with her face royal blue from the Prima Tech marking dye sprayed into her nostrils "to get the animal high." In perhaps the most disturbing sequence, a worker demonstrated the method for eutha­nizing underweight piglets: taking them by the hind legs and smashing their skulls against the concrete floor—a technique known as "thumping." Their bloodied bodies were then tossed into a giant bin, where video showed them twitching and paddling until they died, sometimes long after. Though his actions were not nearly as vicious as those of some coworkers who'd been fired immediately, Lyons knew, as the video quickly became national news, that the consequences for him could be severe.

As we sat recently in the tiny, tumbledown house he grew up in and now shares with his wife and two kids, Lyons acknowledged—as he did to the sheriff's deputy back then—that he had prodded sows with clothespins, hit them with broad, wooden herding boards, and pulled them by their ears, but only in an effort, he said, to get pregnant sows that had spent the last 114 days immobilized in gestation crates up and moving to the farrowing crates where they would give birth. Lyons said he never intended to hurt the hogs, that he was just "scared to death" of the angry sows "who had spent their lives in a little pen"—and this was how he had been trained to deal with them. Lyons had watery blue eyes that seemed always on the verge of tears and spoke in a skittish mutter that would sometimes disappear all the way into silence as he rubbed his thin beard. "You do feel sorry for them, because they don't have much room to move around," he said, but if they get spooked coming out of their crates, "you're in for a fight."

Lyons had been trained in these methods of hog-handling (many of them, including thumping, legal and widely practiced), but a spokeswoman for Hormel—one of the largest food processors in the country and the dominant buyer of MowMar's hogs—had already called the video "appalling" and "completely unacceptable," and MowMar's owners had responded by vowing that any additional workers found guilty of abuse as authorities pored over the tape would be terminated. Still, it came as a surprise when his boss informed him that he had been formally charged and immediately fired. "We don't want to do it," the supervisor told him, "but we got to—because Hor­mel will quit taking the sows." He told Lyons to turn himself in at the courthouse.

While Lyons filled out paperwork and had his mug shot taken, his wife's cellphone buzzed again and again: Her husband's name was already on the evening news. Lyons hired a lawyer—but he was on video and he'd confessed to the deputy sheriff. "They got you, dude," Lyons said his attorney told him. He accepted a plea agreement—six months' probation and a $625 fine plus court fees—and signed an admission of guilt. It may seem like a slap on the wrist, but Lyons was the first person ever convicted of criminal livestock neglect on a Midwestern farm—and only the seventh person convicted of animal abuse in the history of the American meat industry. He wasn't alone for long: Five of Lyons' coworkers soon signed similar agreements.

It was a major PR win for PETA—which often appeals to local authorities to make arrests but rarely gets the kind of cooperation they got from the Greene County Sheriff's Office—but it was also a hollow victory. "Who in their right mind would want to work in a dusty, ammonia-ridden pig shed for nine bucks an hour but somebody who, literally, had no other options?" asked Dan Paden, the senior researcher at PETA who helped run the investigation. "And at the end of a long, frustrating day, when you are trying to move a pig who hasn't been out of its crate in [months], that's when these beatings occur—and people do stupid, cruel, illegal things." PETA was urging prosecutors to go beyond plea agreements for farmworkers; they wanted charges against farm owners and their corporate backers, to hold them responsible for crimes committed by undertrained, overburdened employees.

Don't Squeal
Which states have ag gag provisions? This prospect scared industrial-scale meat producers into organizing a coordinated pushback. Recognizing that, in the era of smartphones and social media, any worker could easily shoot and distribute damning video, meat producers began pressing for legislation that would outlaw this kind of whistleblowing. Publicly, MowMar pledged to institute a zero-tolerance policy against abuse and even to look into installing video monitoring in its barns. And yet last summer, at the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, MowMar's co-owner Lynn Becker recommended that each farm hire a spokesperson to "get your side of the story out" and called the release of PETA's video "the 9/11 event of animal care in our industry."

As overheated as likening that incident to a terrorist attack may seem, such thinking has become woven into the massive lobbying effort that agribusiness has launched to enact a series of measures known (in a term coined by the New York Times' Mark Bittman) as ag gag. Though different in scope and details, the laws (enacted in 8 states and introduced in 15 more) are viewed by many as undercutting—and even criminalizing—the exercise of First Amendment rights by investigative reporters and activists, whom the industry accuses of "animal and ecological terrorism." Ag gag laws allow industry "to completely self-regulate," says a whistleblowers' advocate. That should "scare the pants off" consumers who want to know how their food is made.

Using a legal cudgel to go after critics wasn't entirely a new tactic for agribusiness. PETA first began undercover investigations around 1981—getting video of rhesus monkeys being vivisected in a Maryland medical research lab by posing as employees—and a few legislatures responded by enacting laws to protect animal research from exposés. (Only Kansas had the foresight to expand its law to cover "livestock and domestic animals.") Then, in 1992, when two ABC PrimeTime Live reporters shot undercover video of Food Lion workers in the Carolinas repackaging spoiled meat, Food Lion sued—not for libel, since the tapes spoke for themselves, but for fraud and trespass, because the reporters had submitted false information on their job applications. (A jury awarded $5.5 million, but an appeals court reduced it to just $2.) In 1996, at the height of the mad cow scare, the Texas Beef Group launched a two-year lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey over an episode that questioned the safety of hamburger. Recently, not only has the rhetoric heated up, but so has the coordinated legislative effort. Deeply invested in industrywide methods that a growing number of consumers find distasteful or even cruel, agribusiness has united in making sure that prying eyes literally don't see how the sausage is made.

"If you think this is an animal welfare issue, you have missed the mark," said Amanda Hitt, director of the Government Accountability Project's Food Integrity Campaign, who served as a representative for the whistleblowers who tipped off ABC in the Food Lion case. "This is a bigger, broader issue." She likened activist videos to airplane black-box recorders—evidence for investigators to deconstruct and find wrongdoing. Ag gag laws, she said, don't just interfere with workers blowing the whistle on animal abuse. "You are also stopping environmental whistleblowing; you are also stopping workers' rights whistleblowing." In short, "you have given power to the industry to completely self-regulate." That should "scare the pants off" consumers concerned about where their food comes from. "It's the consumer's right to know, but also the employee's right to tell. You gotta have both."

Until the 20th century, American meat production, especially in the Midwest, was necessarily seasonal. Cattle, hogs, and chickens were part of small, diversified farms that sustained livestock all year long but tended to fatten animals and bring them to market only after harvest, when feed was plentiful and cheap. After profits ballooned during World War II, packers were eager to keep upping output (and sales) by turning packing into a year-round activity.

But hog farming on the cold, windswept plains of the Midwest was difficult in those days. Even in milder winters, farmers often suffered deaths among their herds, and sows would farrow only once a year. Midwestern stockmen tended to raise either cattle, which were hardy enough to withstand the cold, or chickens, which could be cooped during winter months. But then some enterprising hog farmers began building large confinement barns with slotted floors and pits below to catch manure. Such enclosures not only overcame mortality due to bad weather, but they made it possible to farrow sows twice a year.

By the close of the 1960s, the practice was so successful that Midwestern family farmers worried that meatpackers would build their own confinement facilities, establishing feed-to-market monopolies that would squeeze out small operations. Between 1971 and 1982, laws devised to forbid vertical integration and price-fixing passed in every state between Wisconsin and Oklahoma. Thus, when big meat producers began erecting barns capable of holding thousands of animals, the boom centered in the unregulated South.

But as the 1990s drew to a close, the industry suffered a devastating one-two punch. First, in July 1999, a North Carolina grand jury handed down the first animal cruelty indictments of farmworkers in American history after a three-month PETA investigation at Belcross Farm documented "daily violent beatings and bludgeonings of pregnant sows with a wrench and iron pole." Then, in September, floodwaters from Hurricane Floyd ruptured and overtopped manure lagoons all across the state. As the New York Times reported, "Feces and urine soaked the terrain and flowed into rivers." The ensuing backlash pushed producers to reconsider the Midwest, already depopulated by farm consolidation, as a place they could build large facilities with little governmental oversight or public outcry.

Through a series of lawsuits, big meatpackers successfully rolled back the family-farm protection laws, and soon industrial producers were rushing to buy up smaller Midwestern meatpacking plants and finance large-scale confinement facilities and feedlots. Beef packers moved into cattle-rich Nebraska, but hog development tended to focus on Iowa, where three of the biggest packers—Smithfield, Cargill, and Hormel—had gained special exemptions to the family-farm protection law by agreeing to two conditions: They would not engage in price-fixing of feed or livestock, and they would not seek to punish whistleblowers.

This compromise led to a mind-boggling boom in Iowa factory farms. For example, Greene County—which had few large-scale facilities when MowMar Farms applied for its permit a decade ago—now has 70, with at least another 14 permitted for construction. In a county of roughly 9,000 people, the hog population is more than 250,000.

As in any boom, the quick money and minimal restrictions attracted a number of fly-by-night developers. They sold to long-distance owners who, via a few local management companies, often hired inexperienced workers. And before long, Iowa resembled North Carolina of a decade before: a state dotted with giant hog confinements, many operating in violation of health codes, environmental requirements, and animal cruelty laws.

The release of the MowMar Farms video could have been a gut-check for the industry, a moment to reflect on whether the runaway growth had led to conditions unsafe for man or beast, perhaps even an opening for dialogue with animal welfare advocates. Instead, Julie H. Craven, the spokeswoman for Hormel, went on the offensive against PETA, criticizing its practice of methodically building cases over a period of months in order to demonstrate patterns of abuse. "If they are truly concerned about animal welfare," she said, "they should release information when they obtain it."

It marked a transition in the industry's strategy: Where once it had pushed back against journalists and whistleblowers after their videos ignited public outrage, now they were looking for a way to prevent such exposure in the first place. Soon afterward, meat industry lobbyists dusted off a long-dormant piece of model legislation crafted by a conservative think tank that would not only make it harder to release undercover video but would criminalize obtaining, possessing, or distributing it to anyone—including journalists or regulators.

Cindy Cunningham, spokeswoman for the National Pork Board, told me she thought such legal protections could be appropriate. "I liken it to somebody walking into your living room and taking video," she said. "If you're at a cocktail party and somebody shoots video of you from behind a candle—like they did to Mitt Romney—is that legitimate?"

Back in September 2003, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released a piece of model legislation it called the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act. Like so many bills drafted by the free-market think tank, AETA was handed over, ready made, to legislators with the idea that it could be introduced in statehouses across the country with minimal modification. Under the measure, it would become a felony (if damages exceed $500) to enter "an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means," and, in a flush of Patriot Act-era overreaching, those convicted of making such recordings would also be placed on a permanent "terrorist registry."

After a few years on the shelf, ALEC's pet project found new life when radical groups like the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front destroyed testing labs and torched SUVs, prompting FBI deputy director John Lewis to say in 2005 that "the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat is the ecoterrorism, animal-rights movement." The bill was overhauled—modifying the ban on shooting video to "damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise" and eliminating the section on creating a terrorism watch list. This defanged version, renamed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, was repackaged to congressional leaders as a needed revision of existing laws protecting medical research from unlawful interference. Though it wouldn't become apparent until much later, it was the beginning of lobbyists and lawmakers conflating radical ALF-type incidents with the undercover work done by PETA and journalists. The bill sailed through the Senate by unanimous consent, and in the House encountered resistance only from Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). Kucinich warned it would "have a chilling effect on the exercise of the constitutional rights of protest," before a voice vote on the bill allowed it to be ushered through.

Application of the law soon nipped at the heels of the First Amendment. Most notably, a jury found a New Jersey chapter of a UK-based anti-animal-testing group guilty of conspiracy for publishing the home addresses of researchers at Huntingdon Life Sciences—handing down convictions for seven, including the chapter's webmaster. The case was chronicled in a low-budget documentary called Your Mommy Kills Animals, which discussed the case for prosecuting animal rights activist groups, including PETA and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), as homegrown terrorist organizations. The movie was underwritten by über-lobbyist Richard Berman, who runs the Center for Consumer Freedom and was immortalized by 60 Minutes as "Dr. Evil." Because nonprofits don't have to reveal their donor lists, it's impossible to know exactly how much money Berman takes in from particular corporations. However, a canceled check for $50,000, introduced as part of a lawsuit resulting from the documentary, revealed that Hormel was a backer—and Berman described them in testimony as a "supporter." (Berman sued the filmmakers because, contrary to his wishes, they made a movie that was too evenhanded.)

Next Page: Why would the industry possibly want to protect a few bad actors at the risk of major expense and public outcry?

Courtney Love Looks to Sue Ex-Attorney Over Bizarre Kurt Cobain Estate Fraud Claims

Marlon Brando's daughter Courtney Love, widow of Kurt Cobain (above), is the target of a defamation suit by her former lawyer.

Courtney Love Looks to Sue Ex-Attorney Over Bizarre Kurt Cobain Estate Fraud Claims
by Eriq Gardner
HollywoodReporter.com
9/17/2013

Courtney Love's unfettered love of social media has gotten her into much legal trouble over the years. In January, she is scheduled to go to trial for allegedly defaming her ex-attorney Rhonda Holmes in tweets and press interviews. The singer is charged with damaging the attorney's reputation by saying "they got to" Holmes and that her former lawyer was "bought off."

...In 2008, [Courtney] Love was ... preparing a lawsuit to charge that the Kurt Cobain estate had been mismanaged. Love says she hired Holmes to draft a complaint over stolen money and property. The following year, Holmes was quoted in the press as saying, "I have never seen such greed and moral turpitude. This case is going to make Bernard Madoff look warm and fuzzy."

But the lawsuit never came. Love says she didn't ever see a draft of the complaint that Holmes was working on. Holmes allegedly blamed it on others who had "broken into her computer and erased the drafts" and later, how she was "too busy."

As time went on, a fight over Frances Bean Cobain's trust erupted. In 2010, according to a story from The Fix, a settlement was reached to end litigation in Washington state court. A deal amended the trust known as "NMWH," said to be a reference to some of Kurt Cobain's final words to his wife, "No matter what happens, I love you."

Love also lost control of End of Music LLC, which owns Kurt Cobain's publicity rights. Love reportedly relinquished her position as acting manager after receiving a $2.5 million loan from the trust, and agreed not to participate in any revenues until she paid it back. Battles then ensued in arbitration over Kurt Cobain's musical equipment, paintings, and other personal belongings.

What led to all of this?

The countersuit centers on the 2009 letter allegedly sent by Holmes, which is said to have convinced those managing the Cobain trust that Love had hired an unstable attorney to represent her.

According to a motion to support the filing of counterclaims, when Holmes stated in the letter she was representing Love's daughter, it was untrue. She was only representing Love at the time.

Love's lawyer also points to "unduly personal," "bizarre," and "solicitous" statements made to Frances Bean Cobain in that same letter. Among the statements attributed to Holmes, "I lost my own husband from suicide within a few months of your Father's suicide. … I write you now because we all need your help and your support."

The letter also gives unsolicited advice about education, takes credit for winning "Trial Lawyer of the Year," and tells the teenager that, "You are ALL the unfortunate victims of a very large and very scary conspiracy. I have personally experienced the reach and criminality of these thieves: They have hacked into my PCs (on one such occasion, to make my legal brief in this very case 'disappear'; used my credit cards all over the county; and accessed/drained my savings account."

Cobain is told that she does "not have 1/1,000,000,000th of what it appears you should have in my view. … They accused your Mother of 'diverting money in 2003.' … Yes, as crazy as it sounds, not ONE of your 'protectors' (lawyers, bankers, accountants, managers, etc.) stood up to this. They had too much of an interest in keeping you and your Mom in the dark, sadly."

With less than four months left before a scheduled defamation trial, Love is looking to make her former lawyer pay for the statements made in this letter. She's seeking damages, including for emotional distress.

Holmes' attorney tells THR, "We view this as an act of desperation."

He adds that Love agreed to settle the case earlier this year and make a public retraction, and then breached the settlement agreement by going on Howard Stern's radio show and talking about it.

San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith accused police officer's victim of panty bribery

Oh, dear. Former Judge and current San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith got caught in the act of being--well--a normal lawyer. The Bar Association would never disapprove of a public entity lawyer, not even a City Attorney, acting in the financial interest of the city even though doing so might require inflicting serious harm on the public. In this case, it seems to have required that Jan Goldsmith make a false accusation against the victim of a sexual predator who acted under cover of authority.

It's amazing how morally compartmentalized lawyers (and some judges) are. When they're not out telling the public about how moral they are, they're back at the office preparing a motion to accuse the victim of a sexual predator police officer of bribing that officer!

This is the same issue that Mike Aguirre and Leslie Devaney argued in 2005. Leslie Devaney clearly thinks that people who work for the city attorney are right to defend the "city" by helping to conceal wrongdoing by the city against its own people.


Officer Anthony Arevalos Channel 6 video

I learned about this story from Roundtable on KPBS radio today:

...Arevalos Victim Accused Of Bribery

The woman who was the first to accuse SDPD officer Anthony Arevalos of sexual misconduct was praised by Police Chief William Lansdowne as courageous. That was then.

This week, we learned she was accused of bribery by the San Diego City Attorney’s Office in its pretrial defense of a federal lawsuit against the city.

The city said the woman, who remains anonymous, offered Arevalos her underwear to get out of a DUI. She engaged in negotiation with Arevalos over her arrest, which amounts to bribery. At Arevalos’ trial, she testified that he asked her for the panties to make the arrest go away.

The day after a story on the city's defense strategy appeared in U-T San Diego, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said the city had dropped that line of defense and would no longer accuse "Jane Doe" of bribery.

Some observers see similarities to the city attorney’s response last fall to Irene McCormack’s lawsuit against the city and Mayor Bob Filner for sexual misconduct. Among other things, the city said that any injury or damage was caused and exacerbated by McCormack herself...

CITY: EX-COP’S ACCUSER TRIED BRIBE
Woman hailed by police chief for reporting sexual misconduct offered her underwear, City Attorney’s Office says
By Greg Moran
SDUT
Jan 15, 2014

Once called courageous by San Diego’s police chief, the woman who first accused former San Diego Police Officer Anthony Arevalos of sexual misconduct is now being accused of bribery by lawyers defending the city in a federal lawsuit.

In court papers filed for a pretrial hearing, the city says the woman offered Arevalos her underwear as a bribe in order to get out of a drunken-driving charge in 2011.

That’s a dramatic turnabout by the city. Chief William Lansdowne called the woman “very courageous” for reporting Arevalos and cooperating with investigators when Arevalos was arrested three days after the March 8, 2011, incident.

The woman, identified only as “Jane Doe” in her civil-rights lawsuit against the city, was stopped by Arevalos in the Gaslamp on suspicion of drunken driving. She testified at his trial that he asked her what she would be willing to do to make the DUI arrest go away, and he suggested she give him her panties.

The two went to a bathroom inside a nearby 7-Eleven where she removed her underwear, she testified, and Arevalos touched her before allowing her to dress.

Arevalos, serving his sentence at Corcoran state prison, did not take the stand at the trial.

The city’s position, outlined in legal papers filed two months ago seeking to have the woman’s lawsuit dismissed, paints a different picture.

“Plaintiff bribed Officer Arevalos with her panties to get out of the DUI,” the filing says. “Both plaintiff and Arevalos agreed to consummate the bribe in a nearby 7-Eleven in the Gaslamp.”

Browne Greene, a lawyer for Jane Doe, said the city’s position is hard to believe.

“After she comes forward to report she’s been assaulted, they proclaim her a hero,” he said. “And now, in federal court, they call her a briber.”

A spokesman for San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said in a written statement that the Jane Doe case is different from a dozen other women’s claims that the office has settled related to Arevalos’ conduct.

“Unlike the other cases, this one remaining case has evidence that the plaintiff actually negotiated over avoiding a DUI,” the statement said. “Regardless of outrage from plaintiff’s lawyer seeking a payday, if we have to try a case our trial lawyers present the jury with the truth.”

The woman was not arrested for bribery or drunken driving. Citing the ongoing lawsuit and Arevalos’ appeal of his criminal conviction, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis declined to comment on whether prosecutors ever considered a bribery charge against the woman.

Jane Doe is the last of a dozen women who sued the city or filed legal claims alleging they were subjected to sexual harassment or assault by Arevalos when he was an officer. So far the city has paid out some $2.3 million in claims.

Dan Gilleon, a lawyer who represented several women in those claims, said the city’s statements accusing the woman could backfire with a jury.

“It’s offensive the city would be doing this right now,” he said. “In these sexual assault, sexual harassment cases the last option you want to take is to blame the victim.”

Arevalos’ trial lawyer, Gretchen Von Helms, said Tuesday that the woman testified that she wanted to get out of the DUI charge. The city interprets that as offering a bribe, she said.

The federal lawsuit has become increasingly contentious as it moves closer to a trial, which will probably occur this year. Neither side appears willing to settle.

In the two years since it was filed, lawyers for the woman have built a case arguing that Arevalos was part of a larger culture of misconduct inside the department. The lawsuit is seeking a federal judge to appoint an independent monitor to oversee how the department handles complaints from citizens about officer misconduct.

The city says no such monitor is needed.

Arevalos was convicted of sexual battery, bribery and other charges and sentenced to eight years in prison. He’s seeking a new trial based on evidence discovered after the trial during the Jane Doe civil case that his lawyers say San Diego police should have turned over before the trial, but never did as the law requires.

A hearing on that issue is set for Feb. 7 in front of Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser, who presided over the trial. Jane Doe has been ordered to appear to testify about the notes.