- Ninth Circuit panel strikes down California’s Prop 8 [Volokh, Kerr, Magliocca, Lithwick, Steve Chapman]
- Judge dismisses PETA “killer whales enslaved” case [Caroline May/Daily Caller, CNN, earlier]
- “Patent Troll Claims Ownership of Interactive Web – And Might Win” [Joe Mullin/Wired, earlier; more on testimony by Web father Tim Berners-Lee] Update: Ding Dong! Jury rejects claim;
- “Further Analysis of the Bottle-Rocket Case” [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- As patients suffer: “The War Over Prescription Painkillers,” start of a Radley Balko series [HuffPo parts one, two so far]
- Richard Epstein on federal fiat and Yale disciplinary procedure [Defining Ideas] Under new-style rules at Yale, will a professor even be aware he’s been accused and henceforth is to be “monitored”? [KC Johnson]
- Jim Copland testimony on abuses in government contingent-fee litigation [Manhattan Institute, PDF] “Parens patriae” proposal to replace class actions with state attorney general suits, but with private entrepreneurial bar still in saddle [Adam Zimmerman/Prawfs on Myriam Gilles/Gary Friedman, SSRN]
Tagged as:
animal rights,
attorneys general,
class actions,
colleges and universities,
Ninth Circuit,
patent trolls,
pharmaceuticals,
same-sex marriage,
Yale
- Manhattan Institute’s “Trial Lawyers Inc.” series looks at cozy relations between state attorneys general and plaintiff’s bar [report, related featured discussion, Copland, Examiner] Report comes down hard on Ohio’s Richard Cordray, nominee to head CFPB [Copland, Gorodetski/PoL] Judge tosses Cordray suit against credit rating agencies [O'Brien/LNL, Krauss/American Thinker] Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller denounces report [IowaPolitics.com]
- “The Tort of Internet Mobbing Is Perfect For Suing The Internet” [Popehat]
- Canada faces challenge to hate speech law [Arthur Bright, Citizen Media Law] Do not put a frog down Her Majesty’s back at the county fair [Lowering the Bar]
- “Markopolos eyes a fortune from BNY whistleblowing” [Felix Salmon] “Bounty hunters in Korea” and closer to home [Alex Tabarrok] “Developments in Whistleblower Laws: Advantage Whistleblower” [Larry Wood & Richard William Diaz, Federalist Society "Engage"]
- As third party liability for crime anecdotes go, the case of Bonilla v. Motel 6 is on the lurid side [Point of Law]
- Prospect of cyberwar: official U.S. response is commando lawyering [Stewart Baker, Foreign Policy]
- Why it’s hard to stimulate manufacturing through product liability reform in one state [Rick Esenberg]
Tagged as:
attorneys general,
free speech in Canada,
Iowa,
Manhattan Institute,
Ohio,
product liability,
third party liability for crime,
whistleblowers
- Minneapolis police arrest author-blogger-gun rights activist Joel Rosenberg [Popehat, Mark Bennett, Scott Greenfield]
- In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, Justice Ginsburg’s instincts as a proceduralist might come in tension with her instincts as a feminist [Alexandra Lahav, Mass Tort Lit]
- “Cease this shouting!” cried Grinch, “From all Yule din desist!” But he’d Moved To The Nuisance and so, case dismissed [Art Carden, Forbes]
- “San Francisco Sues to Close Down Immigration Law Firm, Claims ‘Exorbitant’ Fees” [ABA Journal]
- New ATRA report blasts overly cozy state attorneys general cooperation with plaintiff’s bar ["Beyond Reproach? Fostering Integrity and Public Trust in the Offices of State Attorneys General," PDF]
- Nathan Myrhvold’s patent aggregator Intellectual Ventures, which said it was disinclined to sue, begins suing [The Recorder, Salmon]
- Privacy = when I choose to conceal my life data, secrecy = when you conceal yours [Kelly Young via Dave Boaz, Cato at Liberty]
- One doc’s memoir: litigation crisis as morality crisis [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
attorneys general,
Christmas and other holidays,
guns,
immigration law,
Minnesota,
patent trolls,
privacy,
Wal-Mart v. Dukes
Suddenly it’s tight: a late surge has brought Staten Island district attorney and Republican Dan Donovan even in the polls with left-wing Manhattan state senator Eric Schneiderman in the race to succeed Andrew Cuomo. [NYLJ, NYDN]
Tagged as:
attorneys general,
New York
Election edition:
- On Oklahoma ballot: grossly overbroad measure to ban use of foreign law [Atlantic Wire, Transplanted Lawyer, earlier Volokh]
- Michigan race: “Dems cross the line with bigoted Supreme Court ad” [Stephen Henderson, Freep; earlier on attacks on Justice Robert Young]
- Jacob Sullum is another non-fan of Andrew Cuomo’s record;
- What was the exact nature of that Vancouver fundraiser so many Senate hopefuls attended? Carter Wood wishes he could add a footnote to an already strong column by George Will on the Linda McMahon-Richard Blumenthal Senate race in Connecticut;
- Speaking of which, Will’s latest election roundup column is just out, while Nate Silver at the NYT’s Five Thirty Eight blog offers an outstanding hour-by-hour election-night guide;
- Iowa poll shows former AAJ/ATLA president Roxanne Conlin, of SomePeopleJustNeedToBeSued.com fame, trailing far behind in bid to unseat Sen. Chuck Grassley [WHO-TV via Carter Wood's PoL election roundup;
- Trial lawyers pour cash into California insurance commissioner race [CJAC]
- Latest effort by New York Times to lionize activist AGs as “next Eliot Spitzers” recalls earlier Times pieces written to same formula, in the most amusing of which it lionized as the next Spitzer Ohio’s since-disgraced Marc Dann. Yet (the shaky electoral performance of such Times favorites as Massachusetts’ Martha Coakley aside) there’s reason to suspect voters this year will return a roster of AGs that’s less inclined toward business-bashing, not more [Jack Fowler at NRO].
- Government a threat to liberty? Doesn’t just depend on whether “our” team’s in charge [Gene Healy, Examiner]
Tagged as:
Andrew Cuomo,
attorneys general,
California,
Connecticut,
Iowa,
judicial elections,
Michigan,
Oklahoma,
politics
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has bestowed $100,000 to assist in construction of the Arkansas Fallen Firefighters Memorial on the grounds of the state Capitol. The money came from the settlement of a lawsuit against the Pfizer drug concern, the connection of which to the cause of fallen firefighters is at best obscure. [Arkansas Online]
Tagged as:
Arkansas,
attorneys general,
cy pres
Ted at Point of Law has a post mortem on a decision that’s pretty bad, but not as bad as it might have been. More: Legal Ethics Forum, John Sullivan/Civil Justice Association of California, Wood/ShopFloor. Thanks, by the way, to CJAC for citing my writing in their amicus brief (PDF, see p. 10).
Tagged as:
attorneys general,
California,
contingent fee,
lead paint,
public nuisance
Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute informs me that Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal has in a sense won his recount after all: a recalculation taking into account a bit of overlooked data has now moved him up from #3 to #2 on this year’s list, though he’s still essentially tied with Oklahoma’s Drew Edmondson. In first place: California’s Jerry Brown, while perennial favorites Patrick Lynch of Rhode Island and Darrell McGraw of West Virginia fill the #4 and #5 places, and a newcomer, William Sorrell of Vermont, makes an appearance at #6.
More: Bader in the Examiner on the selection process.
Tagged as:
attorneys general,
Darrell McGraw,
Jerry Brown,
Richard Blumenthal
