Philip K. Howard has a by no means exhaustive list, in The Atlantic.
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From the monthly archives:
September 2009
Let me whole-heartedly recommend the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention coming up in November. The list of speakers–including Justice Alito, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, Judge Frank Easterbrook, former Judge McConnell, Judge Edith Jones, Richard Epstein, and on and on–is all you need to know, and the panels are designed to provide debate on the issues, including affirmative action, preemption, and bailouts. I learn something with every panel I attend. It’s not just for Federalists, and is perhaps the most entertaining source of CLE credit out there.
- Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce: “Elmer Fudd” commenter defamed us [Sun-News via Patrick at Popehat]
- “New Texas law seeks common sense instead of ‘zero tolerance’ in punishment of students” [Star-Telegram]
- Oprah can relax, poet’s self-scripted $1 trillion lawsuit against her is dismissed [THR Esq., Lowering the Bar and more, New Jersey Lawsuit Reform Watch]
- Overview of big push for new federal food safety laws [Kristin Choo, ABA Journal]
- And thanks for all the booze: “Chronic drunk costs SF taxpayers at least $150,000/year” [Obscure Store, Common Room]
- “We have made a grave mistake in politicizing the economy so deeply, and should back away now.” [Tyler Cowen, NYT]
- As a phrase, “sex toy product liability” is probably going to bring us the wrong sort of search engine traffic [Law and More]
- Overturning Supreme Court’s Iqbal/Twombly pleading jurisprudence emerging as key Congressional objective for trial lawyer lobby [Freddoso, Examiner; recent post of mine at Point of Law, and much other coverage there]
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A new study, based on video simulation, may raise doubts. [ACP Internist, Kevin MD, Ronald Miller]
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My Monday piece in the Wall Street Journal on the many failings of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act drew links and reactions from Holly Jahangiri, Jonathan Adler at Volokh (including an interesting, if not particularly CPSIA-related, commenter anecdote about old books and library guidelines), Peter Reynolds/Return Play to Kids, Katherine Mangu-Ward/Reason “Hit and Run”, Carter Wood/ShopFloor, Bookworm Room, and Hans Bader/CEI “Open Market”. The WSJ comments also include one from Bill Upton of Ann Arbor, Michigan which includes the following disturbing assertion: “The CPSC has ruled that the paper, internal bindings and standard inks in [post-1985] children’s books are safe, but other standard components, including the top-coatings used to protect the vast majority of book covers, still don’t have a green light.”
One hopes Prof. Sunstein has rethought this one by now [Christopher Beam, Slate; related here and here]
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HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius, now detailed as Obama administration point person in charge of the demonstration projects on liability reform, spent eight years as executive director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association: “I think I’m just the person to do it because I think I understand the system of litigation very well.” Mary Katherine Ham: “Indeed, as I’ve consistently said, the fox is uniquely qualified to guard the henhouse, because he understands the delicious taste of poultry very well.”
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- Online game purveyor Evony threatens to sue UK critic in Australian court [GameSetWatch, Ken at Popehat, Patrick at Popehat]
- 106: number of (counted) cases filed since 2005 that blame errant grapes for slip-fall injuries [ABA Journal]
- Bayonne, N.J.: “Connolly suing county for $1M over job switch” [Jersey Journal; background (city councilman took six months off from job as coordinator of 9/11 emergency call center; "doctors won't let him go back because it's too stressful.")]
- “Lessons from Andrew Sullivan’s pot bust” [Sullum, Reason] More: Patrick at Popehat.
- “The Appraisal Debacle: How Not to Regulate” [Jack Guttentag, Yahoo Finance, via Fountain]
- Bizarre: “Paralegal Guilty in Fake-Libel-Suit Scam That Briefly Won $3M” [ABA Journal]
- Idea for immigration reform: “Let the smart people in”. [Farhad Manjoo, Slate, via Alkon] More: “Free the H-1Bs, free the economy” [Vivek Wadhwa, TechCrunch]
- Academic finds that depending on whom you ask, “It’s not about the money” or maybe it is [Relis, SSRN/Pittsburgh 2007, via Burch, Mass Tort Lit]
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According to a new study, a high-profile government intervention in physician training may not be working out quite as hoped. [Chris Emery at Kevin MD]
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Watch what you say about lawyers dept.: a jury will consider the claim of East Texas intellectual property litigator Eric Albritton that he was defamed by Richard Frenkel at his lawyer-critical Patent Troll Tracker blog. The suit also names Frenkel’s employer, Cisco. The blog has “gone private” and is now for invited readers only. [Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, Texas Lawyer] More: AmLaw Daily. Sept. 18: Joe Mullin, IP Law and Business (reporting blog now entirely defunct except as archive for use in defending case).
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“Penknives may have formed as much part of the scouting experience as badges and campfires, but according to advice from the Scout Association they must no longer be brought on camping trips, except when there is a ’specific’ need.” [Times Online via Free Range Kids]
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TaxProf: “The Tax Court yesterday denied a New York tax lawyer’s claimed $100,000+ medical expense deduction for the costs of prostitutes and pornographic material.” Earlier here. More: Gothamist last year on related state-tax enforcement action (”The state auditor also argued that ‘in addition to being illegal in New York State, these expenses are not substantiated with receipts.’”
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- It’s almost as if Arizona wants to encourage broken-windshield fraud [Coyote]
- “They are so greedy that — how awful! — they are selling food cheap.” [Ann Althouse takes out after Michael Pollan]
- Tom Freeland examines “Clarksdale sugar daddy” prosecution [Northern Mississippi Commentor; cf. Radley Balko]
- “Fire-safe” cigarettes are apparently not pleasurable to smoke, which may be part of their appeal to backers [Sullivan]
- “Justices: Bags of cash, guilty plea merit Seattle lawyer’s disbarment” [Seattle Times]
- Facebook plays a revenge prank on TechCrunch, and there’s a lesson there for the thin-skinned [Ken at Popehat]
- “The Rubber Room: The Battle Over New York City’s Worst Teachers” [Steven Brill, The New Yorker; Joanne Jacobs]
- One trial lawyer’s anything-but-supportive view of “runners” and “chasers” [Turkewitz]
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Lowering the Bar has the story of Robert Friedrich, who after being in a car accident took up the Palm Beach, Fla. firm of Fetterman & Associates on its offer of a free office consultation. “He left with more legal options than he had come in with, because during that consultation the chair he was sitting in collapsed and he hit his head on another piece of furniture in the firm’s conference room.” The resulting $2.2 million jury verdict was divided between the law firm and a furniture store; the law firm said the chair was defective and that the manufacturer should have been responsible.
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“An Indiana court has ruled that a pizza shop must pay for a 340-pound employee’s weight-loss surgery to ensure the success of another operation for a back injury he suffered at work — raising concern among businesses bracing for more such claims.” The case was decided under workers’ compensation law, which is generally more coverage-friendly than workplace liability law. [AP] More: NLJ.
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Two sisters were repeatedly raped and sexually abused by their older half-brother. This is, a federal jury decided, the fault of their pediatrician, Dr. Patricia Monroe, who failed to report the abuse–though there was no evidence she was aware of the scope of it. Monroe’s attorney “says that’s because the girl refused to speak to Monroe and because the incident wasn’t reportable to Child Protective Services.” The decision will be appealed. (Chris Knight, “Monroe to appeal $11M verdict”, Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Sep. 3).
A message has been sent: make defensive reports to Child Protective Services, and parents will all be worse off when CPS overreacts.
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I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on CPSIA (the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) and Congress’s unwillingness to reform it despite its calamitous and unnecessary impacts on the children’s product business, especially its smaller participants. If you’re new to this site, here are some pointers for further reading about the issues raised in the piece:
- General coverage of the law;
- Congress’s role, and last Thursday’s hearing;
- The postponement until February of the main testing rules and the minibike and bicycle bans;
- The law’s effects on secondhand stores, on pre-1985 books, and on the toy and apparel businesses;
- The tracking label rules, which became effective last month;
- The exemption of industry giant Mattel from third-party independent lab testing;
- The push for “traceability” in food and farm safety.
Readers who use Twitter may also want to follow this stream, which includes regular updates from my @overlawyered and @walterolson accounts as well as from many other persons who follow the law.
PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGES from Ethel Everett, illustrator, Nursery Rhymes (1900), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org. 
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