Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
From the monthly archives:
“Health and safety regulations which burden Britain and lead to good samaritans facing prosecution are to be swept away in a blitz on ‘compensation culture’”. Among the measures are rollbacks of liability for volunteers, emergency service responders and school recreation. “A coalition source said: ‘What we are determined to see is a great extension of personal freedom, at the same times as a rolling back both of the state and the power of the courts.’” [Telegraph]
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For your own good, of course — and so that they can make more arrests. [Radley Balko]
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Of course everyone has their own favorite insane zero tolerance story. This one, which involves a Swiss Army Knife, an excursion to private school and a series of figures assuring the protagonist “I would love to make this all go away, but my hands are tied,” is Lenore Skenazy’s.
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RightHaven, the copyright mill which sues unauthorized online reprinters of Las Vegas Review-Journal material without bothering with such courtesies as notice or takedown requests, has now sued more than 100 blogs, online discussion sites, small businesses, community groups, and other defendants (sample: an EMT blog.) Among newer targets is Nevada GOP Senate hopeful Sharron Angle, whose candidacy the paper has endorsed [Politics Daily]. The Las Vegas paper, which has been identified in the past with a conservative editorial line and even sometimes with the cause of lawsuit reform, is apparently of the opinion that suing bloggers and other online mentioners will get it linked to more often [TechDirt]. A site named RightHavenLawsuits.com has compiled what it intends to be comprehensive lists of the lawsuits and of news and opinion coverage of the phenomenon.
Other recent developments: a regional newspaper chain of which the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is the best-known unit has apparently signed on as a second major client with RightHaven [“We’re up to our armpits in Righthaven defendants,” a referral coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation says; Wired] TechDirt looks into the question of why the company demands the domain names of groups it sues. Ways of protecting oneself before the fact are bruited at Instapundit, Daily Pundit, and Las Vegas Trademark Attorney. More commentary: Legal Ethics Forum (on a grievance filed with the Nevada state bar against RightHaven CEO Steven Gibson), No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money, Las Vegas Sun. A few weeks ago at Cato at Liberty I compared the RightHaven business model to that of ADA filing mills, patent trolls, and the California subculture of entrepreneurial lawsuits against small businesses and school districts over paperwork violations.
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I appeared in this Washington Legal Foundation web video yesterday. I discussed ways in which the rise of online media has helped correct some of the deficiencies of the older media in covering controversies like that over “unintended acceleration”. The other presentation on the video is by Andrew Trask of McGuire Woods and the Class Action Countermeasures blog. Viewing is free but you’ll need to register.
Lawsuits fly in various directions arising from almost implausibly colorful fact patterns (”professor-dominatrix”) at the University of New Mexico English department [Chronicle of Higher Education]
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Roger Parloff of Fortune has this excellent summary of where the controversy stands. Before the new revelations, it had been taken for granted in many quarters that the large oil company was guilty as charged in the environmental suit — not least because a widely hailed independent documentary film advanced that position, as did “a sympathetic 12,600-word article for Vanity Fair in 2007.” But here’s what a U.S. Magistrate Judge said in a ruling last week: “While this court is unfamiliar with the practices of the Ecuadorian judicial system, the court must believe that the concept of fraud is universal, and that what has blatantly occurred in this matter would in fact be considered fraud by any court. If such conduct does not amount to fraud in a particular country, then that country has larger problems than an oil spill.” It’s sad to think we might have to start reading those 12,600-word Vanity Fair articles with a more skeptical eye.
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The Supreme Court takes a look at curtailing lawsuits aimed at punishing or regulating carbon emissions, and might even revisit its pro-environmentalist ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA. [Marcia Coyle, NLJ] Related: “Call for Papers: Civil Litigation as a Tool for Regulating Climate Change” [Valparaiso University School of Law via TortsProf]
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Have we arrived yet at a bipartisan consensus? Or is Washington’s “tough-on-crime” faction simply choosing to give the issue a pass? [Josh Gerstein, Politico] Related: if you think conservative Justices on the Supreme Court are adamant against overturning criminal convictions, think again [Marie Gryphon, National Law Journal]
Derek Jeter gets to first base by misleading the umpire, and debate ensues over his lack of apparent scruple. A parallel to lawyers’ ethics in adversary factfinding? [Freedman and Vischer, Legal Ethics Forum]
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It’s that time of year again and you can not only nominate blogs to the ABA’s “Best Legal Blogs” compilation, but tell why you like them (hint hint). The entry form is here.
Authorities in the Lincolnshire village of Glentham, U.K., are threatening action based on “child protection” if a couple continue to let their daughter walk 40 yards to her school bus stop. The couple say the road isn’t particularly busy and that Isabelle is good about looking both ways before crossing. [Daily Mail]
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Such at least is one reading of the federal government’s unusual decision to settle the Hannah Poling vaccine compensation claim [Michael Krauss at PoL]
(Some) Italian-Americans have been fighting the City University of New York, in court and out, for thirty-five years now. [New York Times]
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Individual liberty, free markets, and peace: the world's premier libertarian think tank. Publishes Cato at Liberty, where I blog on contemporary policy issues.