If you thought yesterday brought the final note to the Flea saga, you were wrong. Today, we have the coda, the backlash of anger and angst by the fans of the Flea against the evil lawyers. Take a look…here and here.
As it should be, Eric the Turk of the famous NY Personal Injury Blog bore the brunt of the docs’ outrage at the Flea’s settlement and outing. This is as it should be, since Eric was the first of our “ilk” to recognize what was happening over at the Flea’s blog and bring it to the attention of lawyers, and indeed had engaged in discussion/debate with the Flea and his sycophants even before the Med Mal trial blogging started. I even engaged in a bit of it, but only following on Eric’s heals, which earned me a piece of the Flea’s
So let us first deal with the Angels of Mercy. While their knee jerk support for the Flea (never mind the dead child, who apparently is now forgotten) is understandable in a “circle the wagons” sort of way, their blame of lawyers, and even the evil judge, is simply laughable. Is it just me, or did you want to believe that physicians were just a little smarter than appears from their rants? Such anger. Such jumping to baseless conclusions in the absence of evidence. Such a total loss of control. They are giving docs a really bad name here. And, of course, they can’t see it at all.
Caveat: Remember that these Flea Followers do not represent all physicians and physicians’ friends. Don’t do what they do, and jump to the conclusion that all physicians are morons. They are not. Morons are morons, and it happened that some members of the club are docs. Remember, some are lawyers too.
That said, let us now move on ourselves, the lawyers. The Flea story is all over the blawgosphere, as well it should be. Some of the biggest names put up stories yesterday about it. But it was as if they just discovered it. All on their own. Aren’t they just the most brilliant bloggers?
Where is the credit due Eric Turkewitz? Take a look at Volokh, Althouse, even the venerable WSJ and others. (UPDATE: Overlawyered was in this list originally, but has since been removed because they did mention Eric in their first post about the Flea, although not in their post of May 31). No hat tip. No mention that they stole the piece from Eric. Zippo. Legal blogs across the country had a field day stealing this story from Eric, and many linked to NY Personal Injury Blog or gave credit where credit was due. But these big shot blawggers who enjoyed the bounty of Eric’s efforts but neglected to mention their source are scoundrels. Eric is far too polite to mention anything. But I’m not. What’s the matter guys. Too ashamed of the fact that you have to go to school on the Turk to find your fodder? Want to pretend that you did it all yourself? Well, it didn’t go unnoticed.
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You accuse Overlawyered of making “No mention that they stole the piece from Eric. Zippo.” In fact:
1) Those of us who often link to the medical blogosphere were already familiar with “Flea” and his writings. On April 17 I included him in a list of doctors who had blogged about their courtroom experiences:
http://www.overlawyered.com/2007/04/malpractice_defendants_firstpe.html
2) When David Nieporent ran a lengthy post on Flea May 10, he indeed quoted and linked to Eric Turkewitz’s earlier posting:
http://www.overlawyered.com/2007/05/liveblogging_a_malpractice_tri.html
3) I guess your real gripe is that when the Boston Globe broke a big front-page story on the case yesterday — a story quickly picked up nationally, and sent in to us by many Overlawyered readers — David N. used that story as the basis for his update.
You are right that Eric T. has provided exemplary blogging on this case, but wrong when you claim that other bloggers (like Volokh, Althouse, etc.) are “scoundrels” guilty of “stealing” when they blog on a major media story without checking to see whether other bloggers have gotten there first.
a story quickly picked up nationally, and sent in to us by many Overlawyered readers — David N. used that story as the basis for his update.
So let me see if I understand this. There’s no question that Eric was all over the Flea before anyone else, including you in your April 17 piece (about 3 weeks after Eric). There’s no question that you knew this, as you acknowledged Eric’s work on May10. There’s no question that he was way ahead of the story yesterday (especially because the Boston Globe went to Eric first because THEY knew that he was instrumental in this story). But David neglected to mention Eric in yesterday’s post because the story was sent to you by “many Overlawyered readers,” after Eric had already posted about the Boston Globe story?
Well that changes everything. Thanks for straightening that out, and thanks for keeping abreast of Simple Justice.
SHG