I might post a little next week, but for now I’m going to take a break to enjoy the holiday, and I expect heavier fare will probably wait until the New Year. Enjoy the Christmas season!
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- Food Safety Modernization Act, much scrutinized in this space, revived and passed after Senate leadership obtains unanimous Republican consent, now heads for federal statute books [ABC "The Note", Marler, Bader; National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition on amendments aimed at lessening some of the bill's burdens]
- FCC’s “net neutrality” power play over Internet [John Fund, WSJ.com; Jack Shafer, Slate]
- “UConn’s Streak and Title IX” [Neal McCluskey, Cato] John Stossel’s new program on “Top Ten Politicians’ Promises Gone Wrong” included Title IX [video, one reaction] Related from College Sports Council: California rugby, Delaware equestrian.
- Cracked Bell: notorious California city milked small biz, tradespeople through vehicle seizures, fines [LAT]
- “Nothing says Christmas like taking away a child’s treasured toy and destroying it.” [Boston Globe, James Taranto/WSJ on Providence, R.I. program to shred toy guns]
- Dishes Still Dirty? Blame Phosphate-Free Detergent” [Shogren, NPR; Holmes, NRO and more]
- Domain seizures point up shaky legal stance of much music-blogging [Switched]
- “Santas have a pretty good chance of getting sued” [six years ago on Overlawyered] And this just in: “Man sues Santa Claus Parade after eye injury” [680News.com, Toronto, Canada; suit alleges frozen candy tossed into crowd caused injury]
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New frontiers in campaign law? Ohio Rep. Steve Driehaus, defeated in November’s election, is suing the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political group, for depriving him of his “livelihood” by way of allegedly unfair campaign attacks. [Cincinnati Enquirer, Politico]
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A major law-book publisher seems to have gone ahead with an update under the authors’ names despite their unwillingness to cooperate. [Max Kennerly; Philadelphia Inquirer]
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Only stony-hearted Scrooges could oppose it, right? Earlier here, here, etc. More: PoL; Senate passes modified bill.
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“In a brief opinion released today, the New York Court of Appeals agreed with lower courts that a golfer hit by an ‘errant’ shot could not sue his co-golfer for negligence, because one who chooses to golf assumes the risk of being whacked by a golf ball.” [Lowering the Bar, AP, earlier]
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Following extensive rumblings of an impending crackdown, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Kaplan, the private education company, over its alleged policy of considering applicants’ credit records in making hiring decisions [Baltimore Sun, George Lenard; earlier here and here]
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…of access to tribally unaffiliated Indian antiquities and remains, now endangered by new regulations from the Department of the Interior [Robert L. Kelly, New York Times] Earlier on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and Kennewick Man controversy here, here, etc.
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NJ.com, Radley Balko and David Rittgers have some of the first details. The gun-possession case aroused wide interest among blogs; we covered the story here, here and here.
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That’s something Congress should remember, notes the Economist, before it passes more laws named after victims, such as the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2008, under which the Department of Transportation is in the process of mandating rear cameras on cars so as to reduce back-over accidents in family driveways.
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After much uncritical reportage of claims that heart attacks in this or that community fell immediately and precipitously after a smoking ban went into effect, a larger and more careful study finds no evidence for any such miraculous effect [Jacob Sullum, Reason] Earlier here, etc.
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The problem, Ted writes in the Examiner, isn’t that the class action is “too large” — even very large classes can sometimes fit the law’s requirements that each claim be identical in nature and capable of standing or falling together.
But the theory of the Dukes lawsuit is exactly the opposite: the plaintiffs claimed that Wal-Mart’s central office did not exercise enough authority over each of its 3,400 stores; each of the individual managers’ discretionary employment or promotion decisions–whether made by male or female managers–was, on average, discriminatory; and thus Wal-Mart was responsible for a policy that “fosters or facilitates” discrimination. …
The discrimination laws permit Wal-Mart to defend itself by demonstrating that the challenged job decision was made for a reason other than gender. For example, looking at Betty Dukes, the named plaintiff, alone, we learn that she had a female manager and that she was repeatedly disciplined for returning late from lunch breaks. …Wal-Mart is stripped of its defense because the individualized defense would be inconvenient to trying the case as a class action. …
If the Supreme Court rules in Wal-Mart’s favor later this year, it will not be to protect business, but to protect due process.
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- Texas Gov. Rick Perry may urge the state to take a step toward loser-pays [NJLRA]
- “FCC push to regulate news draws fire” [The Hill]
- Could litigation on behalf of Madoff victims get more than all their money back? [Salmon, more, NYT, Above the Law]
- “Chevron Says Documents Show Ecuador Plaintiffs Worked With Government” [Dan Fisher/Forbes, more]
- Organized trial lawyers expect to fare less well in next Congress, but prospects for actual liability reform remain slender [Joseph Weber/Wash. Times, Matthew Boyle/Daily Caller]
- Mount Laurel rulings in New Jersey (towns given quotas to build low-income housing) described as “libertarian”, I express doubts [Hills, Prawfsblawg]
- Criminal law’s revolving door: “prosecutors turn up the fire and then sell extinguishers” [Ribstein, TotM]
- The wages of unconstitutionality: a Utah attorney’s curious fee niche [five years ago on Overlawyered]
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It’s the subject of an amusing new blog entitled Law and the Multiverse, whose posts consider how the doings of superpower-endowed heroes and their super-villain adversaries might implicate (e.g.) the Second Amendment, the ADA, RICO, and insurance coverage law [via Lowering the Bar]
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The ghastly incentives created by the federal SSI dependent disability program [Boston Globe series first, second, third parts, more]
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A UK game developer spent “tens of millions” successfully resisting a broad patent claim over online multiplayer gaming. [BoingBoing, GamaSutra]
“It is exceedingly unfortunate that the U.S. legal system can force a company with a sole presence in Cambridge, UK to incur a seven-digit expense and waste over a year of management time on a case with absolutely no merit,” [said company CEO Mark Gerhard] in a statement. “This anomaly, which could easily break smaller studios, doesn’t happen in the UK since you can pursue frivolous litigants for the costs of such claims,” he added.
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Lenore Skenazy: “As for cribs, one reason the drop-side models seem so ‘dangerous’ is because they are so popular. When you have millions of people using anything, no matter how safe, the odds of an accident go up because the odds go up with the numbers. … These products are not deadly. There’s a difference between a deadly product (cyanide) and a product that sometimes results in death (a grape). We keep obscuring that difference, and congratulating the folks who act as if it is only a lack of vigilance that allows anyone to die of anything other than old age.”
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