- TSA: design of gun on purse is “replica gun” [Radley Balko]
- “Note: Before Attaching Ankle Monitor, Make Sure Leg Is Real” [Lowering the Bar]
- “Harm to others” rationale seems to fall by wayside as Boston bans workplace use of e-cigarettes [Jacob Sullum]
- “Should legislation protect the obese?” [NYT "Room for Debate"]
- German town drops charges against Pope Benedict XVI for failure to wear seat belt in Popemobile [WaPo, Lowering the Bar, Irish Times]
- Ninth Circuit agrees to review litigation seeking court takeover of vets’ mental care [SFChron, WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
- The shaky science of “shaken baby syndrome” [Pfaff, Prawfs, ABA Journal, earlier here, here] Jerry Brown should pardon dubiously convicted grandmother [Emily Bazelon, Slate]
Tagged as:
Boston,
Catholic Church,
Germany,
guns,
obesity,
seatbelts,
tobacco
A staffer at Suffolk Law School in Boston solicited “much needed supplies to put in care packages to be sent to deployed troops” in Afghanistan, including a Suffolk student serving there. That didn’t sit well with Prof. Michael Avery, whose letter deploring the request, as well as the display of a large American flag at Suffolk, has been stirring discussion among Michael Graham listeners and Above the Law readers ever since.
Tagged as:
Boston,
law schools,
military
- Feds fund Boston campaign bashing sweetened drinks [Globe; see also on NYC] More on ObamaCare “Public Health Fund” subsidies to local paternalist initiatives on diet [WLF]
- Thanks to federal funding priorities, New York education department had 40 experts on school lunches, only one on science education [Frederick Hess via Stoll]
- Grocers hope to escape federal menu labeling mandate [FDA Law Blog] How regulations exasperate midsize restaurant operators [Philip Klein, Wash. Examiner]
- “The Eight Dumbest Restaurant Laws” [Zagat]
- Proposed federal standards on kid food ads extreme enough that many USDA “healthy” recipes would flunk [Diane Katz, Heritage] Do FTC’s guidelines violate the First Amendment? [WSJ]
- Compared with what? “Egg farm regulations still skimpy” [Stoll] Deer blamed for E. coli in pick-your-own strawberries [USA Today]
- U.K.: Your kids are too fat so we’re taking them away [Daily Mail; earlier here, here, etc.]
Tagged as:
advertising,
Boston,
eat drink and be merry,
Federal Trade Commission,
food safety,
nanny state,
New York,
obesity,
restaurants,
schools
It doesn’t count as a “healthier choice” unless you actually let people choose. [Amy Alkon] And: Are we surprised that federal tax money is bankrolling the Boston mayor’s demonize-sweet-drinks kick? Not really, given that the federal government has been dishing out money to Michael Bloomberg’s administration in New York for similar purposes.
P.S.: “To encourage healthful eating, [a Chicago public] school doesn’t allow kids to bring lunches or certain snacks from home.” [Chicago Tribune]
Tagged as:
Boston,
nanny state,
obesity
- Judge Ciavarella defiant after racketeering conviction in Pennsylvania cash-for-kids horror [TheLegalIntel, Sullum and more, WSJ Law Blog, Greenfield, earlier]
- Widener lawprof Lawrence Connell facing discipline over hypotheticals in class [Orin Kerr, NLJ, interview at NAS]
- “Do we even want to remain a child care center if we have to eliminate all the parts we love?” [Free-Range Kids] Lawsuit fears tame a Frederick, Md. ice playground [same]
- Marquette lawprof Rick Esenberg on Wisconsin showdown [first, second, third posts]
- A patent owner, the Chicago Tribune and Sen. Durbin: Anatomy of a pool drain scare story [Woldenberg, AmendTheCPSIA.com]
- Mayor Thomas Menino vows to save Boston from scourge of everyday low prices [Mark Perry]
- “Comp Hearing Scheduled ‘On the Sly’ for Texting Cop Who Caused Fatal Accident” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] “Paying for bad cops” [Balko]
- Demand for shaker abstinence: nosy, hectoring CSPI files suit asking that salt in food be subjected to FDA regulation [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Boston,
Chicago,
law schools,
Luzerne County judicial scandal,
police,
pools,
Wal-Mart,
Wisconsin,
workers' compensation
“A judge has awarded more than $6.7 million to the family of a Northeastern University student who fell down a set of stairs at a Boston bar in 2007 and died after a night of drinking. The judge’s award comes about three months after a jury ruled the bar violated the city building code but was not liable for the 21-year-old man’s death.” [Boston Globe; Herald; MyFoxBoston]
Tagged as:
alcohol,
Boston,
personal responsibility
- Will they get group discounts on lawyers? Groupon vs. MobGob patent brawl [TechCrunch]
- Why American courts should sometimes recognize Islamic law [series of Eugene Volokh posts]
- No, it’s not a “public health issue”: “The Case Against Motorcycle Helmet Laws” [Steve Chapman, syndicated/RCP]
- Failed system of justice on some Indian reservations [McClelland, Mother Jones]
- Ten years ago: Morgan Lewis & Bockius handed mlb.com domain over to its client Major League Baseball [Ross Davies, SSRN]
- City of Boston adds insult to injury after employee runs into building [TJIC, Popehat]
- Citing fans’ drug use, feds seek forfeiture of farm used for Grateful Dead tribute concerts [Greenfield]
- Johann Sebastian Bach, serial copyright violator [Cavanaugh, Reason]
Tagged as:
baseball,
Boston,
copyright,
forfeiture,
Indian tribes,
international law,
music and musicians,
patent litigation,
public health
We know you’re looking for small-scale, locally produced meat, but it’s been marginalized thanks to regulation among other causes:
The state [Vermont] has seven operating slaughterhouses, down from around 25 in the mid-1980s, [state meat inspection official Randy] Quenneville said. One is a state-inspected facility, meaning that meat inspected there cannot be sold over state lines. …
Mr. Quenneville said a number of small, family-owned slaughterhouses started closing when strict federal rules regarding health control went into effect in 1999.
Not entirely unrelatedly, here’s an article on underground restaurants in Boston, a trend that has spread from Portland, Ore.
Tagged as:
Boston,
food safety,
restaurants,
small business,
Vermont
“Phoenix Media/Communications, which owns The Boston Phoenix and other local alternative weeklies and websites, is suing popular social networking site Facebook for allegedly violating a patent related to setting up online personal profile pages.” [Boston Globe]
Tagged as:
Boston,
Facebook,
patent litigation
- Tiananmen Square events echo today in acrimonious defamation suit against filmmakers [Boston Globe]
- Andrew Ferguson disrespectful toward David Kessler’s nanniferous book on obesity policy [Weekly Standard]
- “Yes, People Dislike The RIAA Because Of Its Actions” [TechDirt]
- The big difference race makes in medical school admissions [Discriminations, Mark Perry/Carpe Diem]
- Texting, workplace flirtation and sexual harassment law [Forbes/MSNBC]
- After real estate firm grabs and uses online pic, photographer finds satisfaction through small claims court [West Seattle Blog h/t @VBalasubramani]
- Virginia: latest case seeking to open emotional-distress damages for death of pets gets help from former White House counsel Lanny Davis [WaPo, earlier]
- Brazil police allege that host of true-crime TV series ordered killings to ensure good footage for the show [AP]
Tagged as:
Boston,
Brazil,
damages for animal companionship,
harassment law,
libel slander and defamation,
movies film and videos,
obesity,
RIAA and file sharing,
Virginia
A long-running controversy pits some elected officials and townspeople of Framingham, Mass., west of Boston, against a social service agency that has proposed the town as a site for halfway houses and other residential facilities for recovering addicts, the homeless and others. Two years ago things turned particularly unpleasant:
…[South Middlesex Opportunity Council] filed suit in federal court this week demanding damages not just from town officials, but from citizens who have dared criticize the agency and challenge its plans.
SMOC’s 99-page complaint [which alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act, federal Rehabilitation Act, Americans With Disabilities Act and Civil Rights Act -- ed.] piles up charges against selectmen and planning board members not just in their official capacity, but as individuals. It targets town employees, both named and unnamed. It calls for damages against four Framingham Town Meeting members and two citizens for comments made on a private Web site and e-mails distributed on a privately-operated mailing list.
The ACLU of Massachusetts expressed unease at the naming of private citizens as defendants over their advocacy efforts. While the lawsuit has been narrowed somewhat in the two years since then, it continues to engender much acrimony as it drags on:
Aggravating the ill will is a recent revelation that a man charged with shooting a local police officer had lived in a home run by the agency, the South Middlesex Opportunity Council, or SMOC.
Tagged as:
ACLU,
Boston,
fair housing,
land use and zoning,
Massachusetts,
taxpayers
American legal concepts crossing the Atlantic yet again: “A council suing its former managing director for £1m for allegedly lying on her job application is at risk of being accused of disability discrimination, an expert has warned.” Cheltenham Borough Council claims its former executive gave false answers on a medical history to conceal a history of depression, but an employment lawyer says employers should not assume they have a right to discipline workers for lying about their medical history during the application process.
Readers of my book on employment law, The Excuse Factory, may recall the somewhat similar case with which I started off Chapter 1. Incidentally, those who are curious what became of the Boston police officer cited in that account may be interested in following this link.
Tagged as:
Boston,
disabled rights,
police,
The Excuse Factory
