Nonprofit Group Files Suit For Guardian Appointment Over Suleman Octuplets.
The Suleman octuplets have gotten a lot of press. Well, recently, a nonprofit group (A Minor Consideration) has filed suit requesting appointment of a guardian to steward the money generated by the octuplet twins borne to Octomom Nadya Suleman.
Dionne quintuplets ca. 1934. Wikipedia.
The nonprofit group—formed by Paul Petersen, a former child actor on “The Donna Reed Show” (a group advocating for children in the entertainment business)—tapped attorney Gloria Allred to file the Orange County Superior Court action. The primary basis for the suit is the fear that the money generated from revenue-generating publicity actions would not be used for the benefit of the octuplets. It is an unusual action, because most guardianship proceedings are brought by parties with closer ties to the children.
Any attorney’s fees from the suit would be paid from the children’s estate if the court determines that a benefit was conferred from the guardianship.
For more details on this action, see Bethania Palma Markus’ May 4, 2009 article “Gloria Allred files suit on octuplets’ behalf”. (Also, it is a little unclear from the article whether Mr. Petersen or his nonprofit group is suing, so we apologize if we got it wrong!)
BLOG TRIVIA—Who did Mr. Petersen play on “The Donna Reed Show”? Answer: Jeff Stone, the youngest son of the Stone family. By the way, the show ran for eight seasons between 1958-1966. (For some of us, brings back memories, doesn’t it?) Click here to hear Paul Petersen sing, "My Dad."
L.A. City Attorney Battle Spotlights Possible Hiring of Outside Counsel From Candidates’ Affiliations With Prior Firms or Clients.
Westside councilman Jack Weiss and defense lawyer Carmen Trutanich are campaigning for the Los Angeles city attorney position. Both sides have raised conflicts of interest which they assert may cause the city attorney’s office to hire expensive outside counsel to avoid conflicts arising from each campaign’s affiliation with prior law firms or clients.
Mr. Weiss claims that the city attorney might have to hire costly outside counsel, if Mr. Trutanich was elected, based on Trutanich’s representation of private defense clients that would be adverse to the city in the future. Preposterous, says Mr. Trutanich, and you may have the same egg on your face—after all, Mr. Weiss, you worked for Century City-based Irell & Manella and represented two billboard companies that may well be adverse to the city at some stage given the litigiousness of many of those businesses.
The conflict issue surfaced based on a 2006 California Supreme Court ruling involving Cobra Solutions that resulted in disqualification of the San Francisco city attorney’s office because the city attorney had gained confidential information from a defendant sued by the city for a kickback scheme. Both sides said the supreme court decision is “very fact-specific” and deny it will have much impact. I guess we will have to see who wins and what the future holds before seeing which side had the better “crystal ball” on this issue.
Comments