I joined the host on Connecticut’s WTIC Thursday morning to discuss President Obama’s proposed ban on employer discrimination against unemployed job applicants:
Subversive thoughts from Mike Rowe of the Discovery Channel hit “Dirty Jobs“. Clearly a man who has no future in Senate-confirmable appointments… [Link fixed now, thanks commenter C.S.]
Ninth Circuit chief judge and libertarian favorite Alex Kozinski gave the annual B. Kenneth Simon lecture earlier this month at Cato’s annual Constitution Day Conference. [YouTube]
“EEOC showing late summer spike in discrimination suits” [NLJ]
In new Lamons Gasket case, NLRB generously protects unions from many secret-ballot decertification elections [Hyman] Some employers rename quickie-elections proposal “ambush elections” [ShopFloor; see alsoHannah Bowen, CRC, PDF] “NLRB’s Pro-Big Labor Ruling Trifecta is Bad News for the Economy” [Ivan Osorio, CEI] Did NLRB have legal authority to issue rule requiring employers to post union-rights posters on pain of criminal penalties? [Schaumber/NRO via Ted/PoL]
Wage and hour law roundup: Law clerks fail in bid for overtime pay [Above the Law] “U.S. Open Umpires Sue for Overtime” [Fox Rothschild] Lawsuit challenges unpaid Hollywood internships [NYT]
“Verizon Settles EEOC Disability Suit Based on No-Fault Attendance Policy” [Workplace Prof]
Just can’t win dept.: after white firefighters extract large settlement from city of New Haven over reverse discrimination, Second Circuit rules that black firefighters can sue the city over the same “validated” test [WSJ, Schwartz]
Screening job applicants through personality tests: when is it legal? [Hyman]
Way to discourage employers from offering sabbaticals: have courts construe them as deferred vacation benefits [Cal Labor] Way to discourage volunteers [Cain, FindLaw]
No, rules Judge Preska, the law doesn’t obligate employers to provide work/life balance [Hyman, Greenfield, PoL]
Another purportedly disabled firefighter fit enough to run an Ironman event [WITI] “Can you pay me under the table? I would lose my disability” [Coyote]
It’s a welcome development, but as I told Reuters, by the time it got through the legislative process there was less there than the name had promised. More at Cato. [Reuters link keeps changing, fixed for the moment]
Reader Helene G. writes: “I recently joined our local mother’s club, and I received this message. It’s sad that we can’t use the mother’s club forum to report on experiences freely, without risk of being sued”
“Our forums are a great help to many in our moms community. However, we have a very specific guideline relating to negative comments about an individual, company or indeed health clubs.
Specifically, if you’ve had a negative experience with a vendor or individual, you need to use this format below. NO MATTER HOW BAD THE EXPERIENCE.
——-
Message Title: Negative Experience at
Message: I had a negative experience with . If you are thinking of hiring/using this vendor, please contact me.
——-
I’m sorry that in some instances we cannot have more relaxed guidelines, but we have to protect our group. Thanks for understanding.”
“The full volume of toothpaste will not be dispensed, no matter how hard the consumer tries to squeeze,” complains the lawsuit filed against Procter & Gamble by Jonathan Rothstein of Encino, Calif., needless to say as a class action [LA Weekly]
Busybody lawprof (at a different law school) continues to sue Catholic U. demanding coed dorms [WSJ Law Blog, Mystal/AtL]
So does air pollution cause childhood asthma, as the American Lung Association claims in its ads? [Hayward] “Obama’s Smog Standard Capitulation Enrages Environmentalists” [AW]
A look inside the Shell Nigeria Alien Tort cases [Goldhaber, AmLaw]
The new patent reform bill may end, or at least restrict, the odd practice of asserting patents on ways to reduce tax liability. [Legal Ethics Forum, earlier here, here, etc.]
Popular commentator Andrew Bolt “was found guilty Wednesday of breaking Australian discrimination law by implying that fair-skinned Aborigines chose to identify as indigenous for profit and career advancement.” A judge “said he will prohibit reproduction of the offending articles,” and “Bolt and his publisher must meet with the plaintiffs to discuss appropriate court orders that would reflect the judgment.” [AP, earlier, Volokh](&Popehat)
3M sues prominent Washington lawyer/lobbyist Lanny Davis, says threat of bad publicity improperly used as lawsuit leverage [Above the Law, more, Legal Ethics Forum]
Robin Fretwell Wilson and Jana Singer debate on scope of religious exemptions in law’s recognition of same-sex marriage [FedSoc Engage] New Heritage backgrounder on same topic cites my writing (in the course of disagreeing). Michael Barone on the politics of the issue, and why he supports the evolution of the law [Examiner]
“Kite flying, schoolyard games and sports day sack races have all been hit by an ‘epidemic’ of health and safety excuses, which should be challenged by the public, the Government said.” [Independent] Plus: UK school deems leather balls too dangerous for youngsters, directs use of sponge balls instead [BBC]
At Paid Content, Jeff Roberts reports that Wal-Mart may have found a clever way to pitch its services at Netflix’s streaming subscribers, namely by settling a class action lawsuit to which they are party:
A federal court in California late last week approved a class-action settlement that requires Wal-Mart to pay out $27.5 million. But here’s the key element of the ruling: Wal-Mart will be allowed to pay the 40 million Netflix subscribers in the form of gift cards for Wal-Mart.com—where there is prominent advertising for Vudu, which rents and sells movies a la carte.
The court ruling is a blow to Netflix, which had earlier blasted the settlement as “the equivalent of a marketing campaign that costs Walmart only 68 cents per potential customer.”
Following up on last week’s post, Gideon Kanner calls our attention to this summer’s case of Clover Valley Foundation v. City of Rocklin. As Prof. Kanner wrote at the time in the L.A. Daily Journal:
This was a lawsuit challenging a housing project on environmental grounds some 30 years after the subject property was zoned for housing development, 20 years after the developer’s request for a permit, and after 10 years of planning and environmental review, plus a nearly one-half reduction in the number of permitted dwellings, a five-fold increase in open space, and after millions of dollars were exacted for in-lieu payments. The city approved the project in 2007.
Then the NIMBYs attacked in court. To its credit, the court in effect said “enough already” and rejected the NIMBY challenge. But the court also said that this was a case in which environmental laws “worked.” I would hate to see what it would take for their Lordships to acknowledge a case in which those laws didn’t work.
For more of a flavor of the Clover Valley case, see the write-up from the Meyers Nave law firm.
Trial lawyer stimulus: Obama jobs bill requires states to waive defenses to lawsuits [Joel Griffith, Big Government]
Because it’s done such a great job with drugs: government panel calls for heavier FDA hand in restricting availability of medical devices [Wajert, Beck, FairWarning] Better idea: “Moving to a Safety-Only [FDA] System” [Tabarrok on Boldrin/Swamidass]
“Do we really need a breastfeeding discrimination law?” [Hyman]
Welcome forum-shoppers: “St. Clair County [Ill.] Courthouse overflowing with out-of-towner law suits” [Madison County Record]
Lawyers in black-farmer action deploy Cornell’s Theodore Eisenberg in quest for $90.8 million payday [BLT]
“Ohio Man Sues Coworkers Who Won’t Share Mega Millions Lottery Win” [AOL; more on the evergreen lawsuit genre of co-worker lottery suits]
My new Cato post points out that while this may be craziness, it’s craziness with a long pedigree:
It was way back in the first Bush administration that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) began filing lawsuits against employers for “discriminating” against employees with difficult-to-understand or heavily accented speech, the theory being that this served as an improper proxy for discrimination based on national origin. The scope for allowable exceptions was exceedingly narrow, too narrow to cover most teaching positions, as I wrote quite a while back when the issue had just come over the horizon in a Massachusetts case. Indeed, the National Education Association (I pointed out) had been prevailed on to pass a resolution “decrying disparate treatment on the basis of ‘pronunciation’ — quite a switch from the old days when teachers used to be demons for correctness on that topic.”
The food-truck revival has stirred much enthusiasm, but now paternalists have begun to demand that goodie-laden vehicles — like drug dealers — be made to stay at a considerable distance from schools. [Bay Citizen]
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