Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
From the monthly archives:
The cost of buying a Piper Cub or similar sport/light aircraft has risen very steeply as measured in constant dollars or labor hours since 1947, in contrast to the cost of most other engineered goods. Economists David Henderson and W. Kip Viscusi know why.
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Following the horrific murder-suicide of a woman who intentionally drowned herself and three of her four children, the woman’s estranged boyfriend is suing the city of Newburgh, N.Y. and its surrounding county for failing to prevent the crime. Joint and several liability reform would help, if only Albany were more sympathetic to the cause. [Thomas Stebbins, Poughkeepsie Journal; Daily News]
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And community is undermined as a result, argues Thom Lambert at Truth on the Market.
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At least so long as it’s produced in an industrial manner. [Chicago Tribune]
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I’m quoted in this article by the Daily Caller’s Caroline May on New York’s paternalist chief executive. Another memorable Bloomberg health-nanny moment: his health department’s edict ordering labs to report high blood sugar readings to the city whether patients want them to or not, the better to pave the way for “interventions.”
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My new op-ed at the New York Post looks at the history of Spitzer-to-Cuomo-to-Eric Schneiderman prosecutorial overreach and asks: how exactly did the New York Attorney General come to have so much power with so little constraint? (& welcome Instapundit, Real Clear Markets, Timothy Carney/Examiner, CEI readers)
More: I and others have written about the act here and at Point of Law.
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Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc., an interstate trucking company, doesn’t want to put drivers with a history of drinking problems behind the wheel, and has accordingly been sued by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), under which alcoholism is considered a protected condition. I’ve got details in a new post at Cato at Liberty (& Bader/CEI, Lachlan Markay/Heritage, Fox News).
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A court has dismissed the Illinois action, saying that to let such cases proceed “could potentially open the floodgates to subject family childrearing to … excessive judicial scrutiny and interference.” [Chicago Tribune/SLT; Volokh]
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The disclosure of a Pennsylvania judge’s email to interested parties in a politically charged redistricting case may have stalled his hopes for advancement to the federal bench. [The Legal Intelligencer]
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Two weeks from this Thursday, on Sept. 15, Cato is holding its annual Constitution Day in Washington, D.C., just down the street from the Institute offices (which are undergoing renovation). The event will celebrate the publication of the 10th annual Cato Supreme Court Review and panelists will include familiar names like Jonathan Adler, Orin Kerr, Roger Pilon, Ilya Shapiro, Andrew Trask and many others. I’ll be moderating a panel on “Federalism, Civil Procedure, Business, and the Proper Judicial Role,” which will discuss among other topics the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Wal-Mart v. Dukes. The closing lecture will be given by Judge Alex Kozinski. How can you not plan to attend?
I’m getting an early start on the weekend and won’t be posting for a few days. See you soon.
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As I note at Cato, antiquities law has been expanding to restrict private ownership of more and more ancient artifacts. The latest targets are numismatists; more on that in an op-ed that I published last week in the Examiner.
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The WSJ has been doing a series on asset seizures and Tim Lynch at Cato sums up some of the highlights.
A neat idea for reclaiming abandoned city land, but it labors under a “cloud of extralegality” arising from a century’s worth of zoning and other regulations [Kristin Choo, ABA Journal]
Fired after allegations of being abusive toward staff, Frank “Stephenson said the university should have provided ‘reasonable accommodations’ for his handicap of alcoholism, which the suit says his supervisors were aware of. State law prohibits discriminating against a person with a handicap.” [Orlando Sentinel; background; & welcome Above the Law readers]
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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.