- Boilermaker union president resorts to litigation against satirical site [Levy; another case on demands for disclosure of anonymous commenters] More on ghastly NY bill to strip protection from anonymous online speech [David Kravets/Wired, Daily Caller, my take]
- Defending people like Aaron Worthing and Patterico shouldn’t be a left-right matter [Popehat, Tapscott/Examiner, earlier] Maryland and indeed all states need stronger statutory protection against vexatious litigants [Ace of Spades] And as a longtime Charles Schwab customer I was at first distressed to find the Schwab Charitable Fund on this list, but since the fund is billed as “donor-advised” I take it some Schwab customer rather than the company itself got to choose the beneficiary;
- “Indonesia Prosecution for Posting ‘God Doesn’t Exist’ on Facebook” [Volokh] Curious to see an argument for Euro-style hate speech laws appearing on the Liberty and Law site [David Conway]
- “Cyberbullying and Bullying Used As Pretexts for Censorship” [Bader]
- “EEOC: Wearing Confederate Flag T-Shirts May Be ‘Hostile Work Environment Harassment’” [Volokh, more, Bader]
- Video on new freedom of assembly book [FedSoc]
- Maybe Citizens United turned out so badly for the speech-suppressive side because a government lawyer was imprudently candid before the Court [Jacob Sullum, earlier on Toobin New Yorker piece]
Tagged as:
bullying,
campaign regulation,
EEOC,
hate speech,
hostile environment,
libel slander and defamation,
Maryland,
online speech,
serial litigants
Following an unsuccessful effort to unionize franchise restaurants of the Jimmy John’s chain around the Minneapolis area, run by a firm named MikLin, the Industrial Workers of the World union (“Wobblies”) began a second campaign, as John Hauge 
explains at Minnesota Employer:
Part of the campaign involved putting up posters that called into question the healthfulness of sandwiches prepared in MikLin’s shops. The posters erroneously stated that employees were not allowed to call in sick, and implied that persons eating the sandwiches risked illness by doing so. Several employees supporting the campaign met with MikLin to demand that it provide sick pay to employees, and threatened to put the posters up all over the Twin Cities. The union also issued a press release entitled “Jimmy John’s Workers Blow the Whistle on Unhealthy Working Conditions.”
In a 1953 case called NLRB v. Electrical Workers Local 1229 (Jefferson Standard), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that although federal labor law in general forbids employers to dismiss workers for union advocacy, it makes an exception for expressions of “disloyalty”, as in the case of “a sharp, public, disparaging attack upon the quality of the company’s product and its business policies, in a manner reasonably calculated to harm the company’s reputation and reduce its income.” In those cases, the Court ruled, an employer was still free to dismiss the disloyal workers, union activists or no.
You might think that would fit the facts of the Jimmy John’s case quite well, especially given the falsity of the assertion that the restaurant workers couldn’t take sick leave. But an administrative law judge at the NLRB has disagreed, ordering back pay and reinstatement for the dismissed union workers and dismissing the falsity as mere “hyperbole.”
Hauge at Minnesota Employer calls the decision “creative” and warns readers that (assuming the decision is not overturned at the board level) the NLRB may be increasingly inclined to extend protection against “retaliation” to a wider swath of “untrue, malicious and/or disparaging” talk during union campaigns. At least when it comes from the pro-union side.
Tagged as:
labor unions,
restaurants
Must-read Mark Steyn: “Edwards now faces 30 years in jail, for the crime of getting a couple of pals to pay for his baby’s diapers. For purposes of comparison, Anders Breivik murdered 77 people and is looking at 21 years in jail, the maximum sentence permitted under Norwegian law.” Contra: Hans von Spakovsky argues that the prosecutors’ argument is not such a stretch. And Beldar predicts the issue on which the jury’s verdict may turn. Earlier here, here, etc.
Tagged as:
campaign regulation,
John Edwards
- Gov. Walker’s public sector labor reforms popular with Wisconsin voters, and have saved taxpayers a fortune [Morrissey, Fund, Marquette poll (public favors new law by 50-43 margin] What would FDR say? [Dalmia, The Daily]
- “Why you should stop attending diversity training” [Suzanne Lucas, CBS MarketWatch, following up on our earlier post]
- The gang that couldn’t regulate straight: “Court rebuffs Labor Department on sales rep overtime” [Dan Fisher, Forbes] Lack of quorum trips up NLRB on “quickie”/ambush elections scheme [Workplace Prof]
- Not all claimed “gun rights” are authentic, some come at expense of the vital principle of at-will employment [Bainbridge]
- Brace yourself, legal academics at work on a Restatement of Employment Law [Michael Fox]
- “Why Delaware’s Proposed Workplace Privacy Act Is All Wrong” [Molly DiBianca]
- USA Today on lawyers’ role in growth of Social Security disability rolls [Ira Stoll]
Tagged as:
Delaware,
employment at will,
guns,
labor unions,
privacy,
wage and hour suits,
Wisconsin
Imagine that: a discontented Gloria Allred client, in this case Debrahlee Lorenzana, who filed a pioneering “fired because I looked too hot” suit against Citicorp in 2010. (Allred is now representing a second such client, against a Manhattan lingerie shop.) “Allred told the Daily News she and her team ‘put in hundreds of hours fighting for her (Lorenzana’s) rights.’” [Fox News]
And from comments: Ted Frank defends Gloria Allred.
Tagged as:
discrimination law,
Gloria Allred
The hassle, the tax complications, the legal risks, the permitting difficulties just go on and on. Business relocation specialist Joseph Vranich has the details [North County Times] Earlier here (on small business survey).
Tagged as:
California
- On party-line vote, Sacramento Dems turn down bill to curb ADA access shakedown suits [ATRF, KABC, Sacramento Bee (auto-plays video ad)]
- Illinois sues local schools for not developing standards for disabled athletic competition [Chicago Tribune]
- Open secret: criminals exploit federally mandated IP Relay disabled-phone system [Henderson]
- Judge certifies nationwide ADA accessibility suit against Hollister over stepped entrances to its stores [Law Week Colorado via Disability Law]
- In settlement, AMC movie chain agrees to install captioning, audio-description at Illinois theaters [ABC Chicago]
- “Has the Expanded Definition of Disability under the ADAA Gone Too Far?” [Russell Cawyer]
- “Fake handicaps a growing problem for disabled sports” [Der Spiegel]
Tagged as:
ADA filing mills,
disability & schools,
disabled rights,
Illinois,
movies film and videos,
sports,
telecommunications
The other day the Chicago Tribune documented a longstanding campaign (see Friday link) to get government bodies to adopt standards requiring flameproofing of furniture upholstery, carpets and other household materials. Turns out key actors in that campaign were companies that make the chemicals used in flameproofing, which thereby guaranteed themselves a giant market for their products, as well as cigarette companies that worried that they would face regulatory and legal pressure over fires caused by careless smoking and decided to pursue a strategy of turning the issue into someone else’s problem.
Unfortunately, according to the Tribune series, the supposedly flameproof furnishings 1) aren’t necessarily very good at reducing fire risk and 2) are doused with chemicals that one might not want rubbing off on one’s family and pets. That’s aside from the regulations’ obvious cost in making furnishings more expensive and narrowing consumer choice by excluding producers unable or unwilling to use the chemical treatments. Whether or not you accept the series’ interpretation in all respects — the authors tend to taken an alarmist line, for example, on the chemicals’ environmental dangers — it’s useful as reminder #83,951 that government regulation often is driven by motives quite different from those advertised, and in particular by business lobbies whose interest is frequently squarely opposed to laissez-faire.
On Sunday, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, criticized lately in this space for his views on supposed Big Beer responsibility for Indian reservation alcoholism, addressed the flameproofing story in his column. After reciting the controversy — laying a particular emphasis on chemical alarmism, long a specialty of his — Kristof concludes as follows:
This campaign season, you’ll hear fervent denunciations of “burdensome government regulation.” When you do, think of the other side of the story: your home is filled with toxic flame retardants that serve no higher purpose than enriching three companies. The lesson is that we need not only safer couches but also a political system less distorted by toxic money.
Which affords James Taranto of the WSJ’s “Best of the Web” this response:
The guy is so blinded by ideology that he fails to notice he has just given an example of burdensome government regulation.
Tagged as:
environment,
expert witnesses,
fires,
lobbyists,
New York Times,
safety
Imagine how it would change the practice of litigation if lawyers could be held answerable for intentionally inflicting emotional distress on opponents, witnesses or third parties. Of course that’s not going to happen, since our legal profession is quite good at immunizing itself from exposure to liability for the same sorts of injuries that it sues over when inflicted by others. In this SSRN paper (via Robinette, TortsProf), Alex Long of the University of Tennessee proposes a presumption that lawyers’ behavior is “extreme and outrageous,” a precondition of IIED liability, if they could get disbarred for it.
Tagged as:
discipline,
emotional distress,
legal malpractice
- Lacey Act madness: might Feds be empowered to disrupt summer concerts by seizing musicians’ Gibsons? [Bedard, DC Examiner; earlier; recent Heritage Foundation work; reworded to reflect comment from "Density Duck," below]
- Contributors to new “Privatization Blog” include friend of this blog Coyote, e.g. here and here;
- “Big Government Causes Hyper-Partisanship in the Judicial Appointment Process” [Ilya Shapiro] Fuels Culture War, too: “The faster the state expands, the more likely it is to violate your values” [Matt Welch]
- Demagogy on expatriates: Schumer proposal for stiff tax on emigrants may have read better in original German [Ira Stoll, Roger Pilon/Cato, Paul Caron/TaxProf]
- Georgia high court considers $459 million fax-spam verdict [AJC, AP, my take] “Hot fuel” class actions enrich the usual suspects [PoL]
- New rebuttal to trial lawyer/HBO movie “Hot Coffee” [Victor Schwartz et al, auto-plays video] Ted Frank crossed swords with Litigation Lobby on the movie in January, particularly on the question of coffee temperature and the Liebeck case [PoL]
- Overlawyered “will become the first [law] blog teenager this summer” [Bruce Carton, Legal Blog Watch] “I’ve been a fan of Walter Olson’s Overlawyered blog for years.” [Amy Alkon, Advice Goddess] Thanks!
Tagged as:
accolades,
endangered species,
Georgia,
hot coffee,
judicial nominations,
on other blogs,
taxes
“A sitting district attorney in South Texas has been federally indicted, accused of working with his former law partner and others to operate the local justice system as a criminal racketeering enterprise.” Cameron County D.A. Armando Villalobos “is currently running for election to a seat in the U.S. Congress.” [ABA Journal]
- Government’s hospital care guidelines may be fueling dangerous overuse of antibiotics [White Coat] FDA says fewer drugs are in shortage [Reuters, earlier here, etc.]
- “Post-tort-reform Texas doctor supply” [Ted Frank/PoL and commenters] “Change in Procedures Lets Medical Malpractice [Insurance] Industry Thrive” [PC 360]
- Forcing companies to make politicized disclosures to customers implicates First Amendment [Hans Bader on HHS "must credit ObamaCare" reg]
- Iqbal and Twombly SCOTUS decisions on pleading have helped protect pharmaceutical defendants from flimsily based suits [James Beck, who has changed law firms to Reed Smith]
- How accurate is hospital data coding? Ask thousands of pregnant British men [Nigel Hawkes via Flowing Data]
- Class-action-fed boom in Medicaid dentistry + “let’s put docs in schools” idea = scope for horrific abuse, no matter how it’s financed [Bloomberg via Jesse Walker]
- Suits blaming obstetricians for cerebral palsy rack up $78 million win in Philadelphia, $74 million in California [Legal Intelligencer, Cal Coast News]
- Ninth Circuit: on reflection, let’s not seize control of VA mental health programs [AP, earlier here, etc.]
Tagged as:
hospitals,
medical malpractice,
medical malpractice insurance,
Ninth Circuit,
pharmaceuticals,
pleading,
psychiatry,
Texas
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s press spokesman describes as “inaccurate” Reuters’ report that his boss endorses a Congressionally enacted national across-the-board ban on cellphone use. (The Newspaper; our earlier posts here and here; Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg View).
More from The Newspaper:
At the same time that the US Department of Transportation is pushing laws to ban in-car cell phone use, it is promoting the “511″ government program that encourages drivers to dial 511 for information on traffic conditions instead of tuning in to a traffic reports on AM radio.
Related: “Communities start to fine for texting and walking” [USA Today]
Tagged as:
cellphones
