The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

RV Campgrounds Group Retains McDermott Will to Lobby on ADA Issues

A Colorado-based group that represents more than 3,000 private campgrounds and recreational vehicle parks is using McDermott Will & Emery to stake out a presence in Washington.

The National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds, which hasn't had lobbyists in D.C. before, has deployed McDermott to lobby on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), among other matters concerning parks and campgrounds, congressional records show. McDermott partner David Ransom and legislative affairs director W. Kam Quarles are handling the account, according to a lobbying registration report filed with Congress on Friday.

The organization has expressed concern about ADA accessibility requirements for swimming pools and spas. Under the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, pool owners will be required to make their swimming facilities handicap accessible. The requirements favor fixed pool lifts over the devices' portable counterparts, which, Ransom said, many campgrounds and RV parks have bought.

D.C. Jury Awards $5M for Failure to Screen for Cancer

Updated at 6:12 p.m.

A District of Columbia Superior Court jury recently awarded more than $5 million to the family of a man who died of colon cancer last year, finding that his doctor was liable for failing to properly screen him for cancer for 16 years.

Ronald Berger, 69, died in December following four years of chemotherapy treatment. From 1992 until his diagnosis in 2008, however, Berger's family claimed that his Washington-based doctor, Dr. Francis Chucker, failed to perform the full scope of screening laid out in guidelines from national health organizations. Berger's family filed a lawsuit alleging malpractice against Chucker in July 2010.

The trial began June 11 and the jury began deliberating on June 20. They returned a verdict the next day in favor of Berger's family, awarding $5.36 million. The Berger family's attorney, Julia Arfaa of Baltimore, said the large award was justified by the evidence the jury heard about Berger's painful experience with chemotherapy in the years after he was diagnosed.

Supreme Court Narrows Arizona Immigration Law

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected key provisions in Arizona's tough anti-immigration law, but let stand controversial police checks of immigration status.

In Arizona v. U.S., a divided Court, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, held that three of four provisions in the law challenged by the Obama Administration were preempted—or blocked—by federal immigration law. Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the case.

Kennedy said the following three provisions were preempted because they either conflicted with federal law or because Congress has "occupied the field" with federal regulation and "even complementary state regulation" is impermissible:

Section 3 of what has become known as S.B. 1070 created a new state misdemeanor: willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document.

Section 5(C) also created a misdemeanor penalty for an illegal alien to apply for, solicit or perform work as an employee or independent contractor.

Section 6 authorized a state officer to make a warrantless arrest if the officer has probable cause to believe the person had committed a removable offense.

The majority held that Section 2(B) was not preempted—at least not until there has been experience with its application. Under that section, state officers are to make a "reasonable attempt" to determine the immigration status of any person they stop, detain or arrest on some other legitimate basis if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is unlawfully in the country. Anyone who is arrested also must have his or her immigration status determined before being released.

Final week of the Supreme Court term

With health care and immigration both on the agenda, this will be a blockbuster week at the U.S. Supreme Court. We’ll post news as we have it at The Blog of Legal Times and on our healthcare hub page www.nlj.com/healthcare. Stay tuned.

House Moving Toward a Vote This Week on Contempt for Holder

The House of Representatives appears ready to vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress later this week in the standoff over documents from the botched Fast and Furious gun trafficking operation, barring a last-minute negotiated settlement between the Department of Justice and House leadership.

But such a deal looks unlikely. The DOJ has said Holder would rather "take his lumps" than turn over some of the documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as part of a probe, according to investigators for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) who were at a meeting on the issue last week.

And the chairman of that committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), took to the Sunday political talk show circuit to say he and House leadership would not back down this week unless he had those documents in hand.

This Week in The National Law Journal

In Apple fight, sharp elbows: With key patents at stake, Jenna Greene reports that lawyers for Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Corp. deployed tough strategies at the International Trade Commission.

Darvon plaintiffs look to Sixth Circuit: A once-promising class action involving claims of serious heart ailments linked to the prescription painkillers Darvon and Darvocet now depends on a Hail Mary pass to the Sixth Circuit. Amanda Bronstad has the story.

Buyers' market at law school: Faced with a nationwide decline in applicants, Karen Sloan reports that many law schools have responded by accepting a larger percentage of applicants and sweetening their scholarship packages, in hopes of locking in prospective students.

The Morning Wrap

Convicting: A Pennsylvania jury on Friday convicted former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on 45 of 48 counts of child sex abuse, The Legal Intelligencer reports. "It was a day of justice," said Philadelphia plaintiffs attorney Thomas Kline, who represents a man known as Victim 5.

Keeping Quiet: With the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on the health care law expected this week, The Associated Press examines how the court in the Internet age is able to keep quiet about how it will rule. Lawyer Stephen Miller, who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, said lawyers would shun a clerk who leaked information from the court. "So what's in it for a clerk to leak?" Miller said.

Clearing Out: Former clients of Dewey & LeBoeuf would have 45 days to claim documents from the defunct firm if a bankruptcy court judge approves its plan to clear out hundreds of thousands of boxes, The Am Law Daily reports. "[M]ost of the Client Files are not only unnecessary" for the bankruptcy proceeding, "but their maintenance imposes a significant ongoing burden to the estate's effective administration," according to Dewey.

Appeals Court Revives Former Prosecutor's Privacy Suit Against DOJ

A federal appeals court in Washington today revived a suit by a former federal prosecutor who claims an unidentified U.S. Justice Department official unlawfully disclosed information about an internal, confidential ethics investigation.

Richard Convertino is suing DOJ in Washington's federal trial court, alleging that an unidentified DOJ employee violated privacy rights by intentionally leaking information about a confidential ethics probe to a newspaper reporter. Convertino claims the department retaliated against him.

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in March 2011 shut down the suit, saying that Convertino cannot identify the DOJ leaker. Lamberth refused to allow the continuation of the case, which he called a "quest to unmask the leaker" of private information.

Today, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit revived the suit. The allegations flow from a DOJ investigation of Convertino for alleged prosecutorial misconduct. The appellate panel said "we believe that Convertino submitted ample evidence to suggest that additional discovery could reveal the source's identity."

Ninth Circuit Under More Fire from GOP Over Maui Conference

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit received bad press about its planned judicial conference in Maui in August after two Republican senators claimed the trip is too "lavish" in times of government austerity. Now, the circuit's top judge is getting hit again by Fox News and others in the media for his response to criticism about the trip.

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) asked Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski to justify the trip to Hawaii last month. In a 13-page letter to the senators, Kozinski defended the conference, writing that the conference is the most cost-effective way to conduct circuit business. It provides 500 judges, lawyers and court administrators a more engaging way to learn and exchange ideas than teleconferencing, he said.

Kozinski states that the circuit’s conferences are renowned for the quality and depth of their educational programs. And, they are authorized under law.

Appeals Court Reaffirms Dismissal of Patton Boggs Suit Against Gibson Dunn, Chevron

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit delivered another blow to Patton Boggs when it reaffirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against Chevron Corp. and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

The opinion, published Friday, reaffirmed U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr.'s rejection of the case in August of last year. Patton appealed in December.

"At the same time that it filed its motion for reconsideration, Patton Boggs took the unusual step of filing a new, separate complaint asserting claims identical to those in the original lawsuit," Judge Thomas Griffith wrote on behalf of Chief Judge David Sentelle and Judge Janice Rogers Brown. "Patton Boggs had also failed to properly state a cause of action with its new theory."

Patton also sought a declaratory judgment that the firm could not be disqualified from representing the Ecuadorians because of its acquisition of the lobbying shop called Breaux Lott Leadership Group, which had previously done work for Chevron.