ARMS AND THE MAN
In 2005, Eastern District Judge Jack Weinstein allowed a controversial lawsuit against the gun industry by New York City to go forward, in which the city claimed that gun makers and distributors knowingly allowed weapons to end up in the hands of criminals by failing to safely monitor distribution practices. As reported by The New York Times, yesterday the Second Circuit reversed this decision, ruling that New York’s public-nuisance law — under which the City claimed authority — did not constitute an exception to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The decision casts doubt on another series of lawsuits filed by the City against 27 individual gun dealers across the country in 2006, though Mayor Bloomberg said, “Regardless of this ruling, we will continue our fight against illegal guns full-bore — in the courtrooms, on the streets, and in Congress.” Read the decision here.  

STORM WARNING
Speaking of Weinstein, yesterday he dismissed as untimely a securities class action lawsuit filed against the drug maker Eli Lilly and Company, which alleged the company misrepresented the health risks of its popular anti-psychotic drug, Zyprexa. The New York Law Journal has the story. Used for the treatment of schizophrenia since 1996, Zyprexa’s approval was extended by the FDA to certain bipolar-disorder uses in 2000 and 2004, and the drug went on to earn billions for the company. A 2006 New York Times investigation disclosed that internal documents showed that Eli Lilly misrepresented or kept secret Zyprexa’s link to diabetes, obesity and heightened blood sugar. Weinstein’s ruling turned on when the three-year statute of limitations for the case began — in 2006, after The New York Times series (as the plaintiffs claimed), or years earlier, when documentation supporting potential claims first became available to attorneys and investors. Weinstein chose the latter. He wrote: “Under ruling law, what is referred to as ‘storm warnings’ from information available to the stock market, place every hypothesized reasonably astute and well informed investor on notice of the need for further inquiry, beginning the running of the applicable two-year statute of limitations.”

TRUMP CARD 
And Newsday reports that Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Leonard Austin has recused himself from hearing Donald Trump’s lawsuit against New York State for rejecting his proposal to build a $300 million catering hall at Jones Beach. Patricia Friedman, a local activist against the project, requested Austin off the case since he’d helped organize a judicial pay raise lawsuit against the state, and because two of the lawyers in the firm of Trump’s attorney, Steven R. Schlesinger, are state legislators. “We were concerned that, based on the fact that he has recused himself [in other cases] when a state legislator was anyway involved in the case on the grounds that he may be influenced by that,” said Friedman’s attorney, Ronald J. Rosenberg. “We felt that it was safer for him to recuse himself.” Schlesinger responded with accusations of judge shopping. “She doesn’t want the judge on the case because the judge wants raises, and she doesn’t want the judge favoring my clients to curry favor to induce the members of the Legislature to approve a raise. I think Pat Friedman might be disappointed that the judge indicated there may be merit to the case and the state should consider settling it.”