Justice Scalia Goes on Hunting Trip with Plaintiffs Lawyer
Justice Antonin Scalia went hunting over the weekend with a plaintiffs lawyer who wrote an amicus brief in a pre-emption case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Scalia went on the outing with Houston plaintiffs lawyer W. Mark Lanier, a graduate of Texas Tech University law school who is underwriting a lecture series that featured Scalia, reports The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times and the Tex Parte Blog.
“The juxtaposition is fairly hard to imagine,” Legal Times writes. “Scalia, no friend of unbridled tort litigation (though not always an enemy), chowing down and stalking deer along with Lanier, the colorful trial lawyer who won the first Vioxx verdict and is known for quoting the Bible and slamming corporate America in front of juries.”
Lanier wrote an amicus brief in Wyeth v. Levine that urges the court to allow failure-to-warn lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies despite FDA approval of their drug labels, according to the Legal Times story. Oral arguments earlier this month left observers with the impression that the court would issue a narrow decision in the case.
Scalia also spoke last night at a $150-a-head steak and potatoes dinner sponsored by the Federal Bar Association, the Houston Chronicle reports. In response to questions, Scalia said he disagrees with the decision of his alma mater, Harvard Law School, to drop letter grades as Yale has done. “I want to know who’s best in the class. I don’t want to know just who went to Yale,” he said.
