Personal injury lawyers are either champions of the people or rapacious parasites, depending on your political persuasion. In my view, both species exist - why should trial lawyers be any different from politicians, CEOs or journalists? Nevertheless, the civil courts have undoubtedly benefited citizens in their mismatched battles with government, business and other huge institutions. When the legislative and executive branches have often been paralyzed, meaningful change has still happened via the courts.

The latest issue of Minnesota Law & Politics magazine has a list of the state’s top-grossing personal injury cases of 2007, along with a list of the lawyers and firms that represented the plaintiffs. In some cases, the plaintiffs aren’t identified, presumably because the case was settled before it was ever filed. The 37 cases are truly a litany of horrors:

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The regular drumbeat of recalled products this week included:
Corduroy jackets with strangle-prone drawstrings
Carbon monoxide and smoke alarms that don’t sound when they’re supposed to
Leaf blowers that might fire projectiles

and a local product:

Tumble Tower Infant Rattles, sold by Manhattan Group LLC of Minneapolis, are five inches long and have blue plastic end caps that can break, “resulting in small parts, posing a choking hazard to young children,” according to the recall notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The company has two reports of the end caps breaking, but no injuries have been reported. The recall affects about 7,000 units, which were sold at “gift and specialty stores nationwide, mail order catalogs, and the Internet from September 2007 through April 2008 for about $15.”

The CPSC notes that the rattles were made in China, which of course makes just about everything these days, but as usual omits the name of the factory or even the city. As a consumer, that’s information I’d like to know. By contrast, the recall for the 23,000 Shindaiwa Backpack Blowers notes they were manufactured by Shindaiwa Kogyo Co. Ltd. of Hiroshima, Japan and imported by Shindaiwa Corp. of Tualatin, Oregon.

The web site for Manhattan Toy, known for its “Groovy Girl” dolls, includes a statement about its commitment to safe toys.

This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took the unusual action of ordering perhaps the best-known lawn chemical company to remove products from store shelves. The “stop sale, use or removal” order affects Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.’s “Garden Weed Preventer + Plant Food” and “Miracle-Gro Shake ‘n’ Feed All Purpose Plant Food Plus Weed Preventer.” The EPA doesn’t know if the stuff is dangerous, but the agency’s Midwestern regional office says the pesticide registration number, 62355-4, is invalid. The EPA news release quotes Region 5 Administrator Mary A. Gade: “A manufacturer such as Scotts cannot ignore the important legal requirement of registering its pesticides. This is a serious violation of EPA’s system for protecting people and the environment from the potential harmful effects of pesticides.” Company officials in Ohio told the Columbus Dispatch newspaper that the recall involves 1 million units of the product and would cost $5 million to $10 million. The company on Thursday blamed the registration problem on an employee who has since been fired, and the company announced it was improving its commitment to obeying federal pesticide laws. The same news release indicated that a criminal investigation was underway.

If you think you bought some of this stuff, you’re not supposed to use it or throw it in the trash. You can get more info at the EPA’s special web site or call (888) 838-1304 or (800) 858-7378.

4/29 UPDATE: The EPA announced it was ordering the recall of two additional Scotts pesticides, for different reasons: “Scotts Bonus S Max Southern Weed & Feed And Fire Ant Killer,” “Scotts Turf Builder Max Plus 2 Weed & Feed And Crabgrass Preventer” and related pesticide products, identified by EPA registration numbers 538-301 and 538-299 listed on their packages. Unlike the other recalls, these products were registered, but were “misbranded” because “its label makes false or misleading claims, or does not provide required warning or caution statements that protect public health and the environment.”

Every day, the federal government announces product recalls. These are items that companies thought would make money for them, but are later determined to be products that could strangle, poison, burn, lacerate or otherwise injure their customers. The recent discoveries of lead paint on a certain line of Thomas the Tank Engine toy trains and other common toys have focused attention on the factories in China and the inadequate oversight of import products.

But the April 10 recall announcement for 26,000 packages of FUNTASTIC “Hillbilly Teeth” (which are painted with toxic lead) doesn’t elicit much sympathy from me. Note the description: “The gums are brown and the teeth are yellow.” If you wear your ridicule for mountain people in your mouth, it seems a little brain damage might be justified.