Posts tagged as:

cellphones

Toronto lawyer Michael Deverett thinks a bad guy must have followed him home from the Apple Store; at least someone smashed his hatchback car window when he stepped away for a couple of minutes and made off with what he said was a well concealed bag of new electronics purchases worth C$2,200. The company — which gave him a store credit plus a small extra for legal fees — is also facing criticism from theft victims who say it should do more to help owners retrieve stolen cellphones. [Toronto Star](& welcome Elie Mystal, Above the Law readers)

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January 5 roundup

by Walter Olson on January 5, 2012

  • Big business vs. free markets again: light bulb makers “fuming” over GOP effort to restore consumer choice [Sullum] Large grocery chains like DC’s bag tax [Tim Carney]
  • Eeeuw! Bystander can sue train fatality victim whose body part flew through air and hit her [Chicago Tribune]
  • “Recommended Cell-Phone Ban Comes as ‘Shocking,’ ‘Heavy-Handed’ To Some” [Josh Long, V2M]
  • “Exploding churros are newspaper’s fault, Chilean court rules” [AP]
  • In New Jersey and North Carolina, GOP friends of trial bar block legal reform bills [Armstrong Williams, Washington Times]
  • Kozinski vs. ill-prepared lawyer in case of Sheriff Arpaio vs. newspaper that covered him [The Recorder; Phoenix New Times case]
  • Federal judges block cuts to in-home personal care services in California, Washington [Disability Law, San Francisco Chronicle, KQED]

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Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, who has made “distracted driving” his “signature safety issue,” is putting distance between himself and the NTSB’s call for a sweeping ban. [Reuters, Tina Korbe/Hot Air, earlier here and here]

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Might it be time to abolish the National Transportation Safety Board? It’s supposed to serve as an authoritative source on the causes of accidents, but last week its chief, calling for a nationwide ban on cellphone use by drivers, was not just non-authoritative but actively misleading. I explain in a new post at Cato at Liberty (& Instapundit, Balko, Stoll, Adler).

More on misleading government public health advisories here.

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As Washington launches a new crusade against “cognitive distraction” behind the wheel, it no longer seems to matter whether your eyes and hands are in correct driving position. I explain in a new Cato post.

More: Glenn Reynolds (NTSB “distracted” by its own pre-existing agenda and oversimplifying causes of Missouri accident) and more, Chapman, Marc Scribner/CEI (even bans on texting don’t seem to have worked as intended), Amy Alkon, (two years back) Radley Balko, and Ira Stoll (per IIHS, quoted on NPR, “states with cellphone bans have seen no real decrease in accident rates”). And: drivers’ use of portable GPS and MP3 devices to be included in contemplated ban? [NMA]

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August 29 roundup

by Walter Olson on August 29, 2011

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A pretty graphic depicting a not-so-pretty situation [Design Language News; more, FlowingData] Related: “When Patents Attack,” NPR; Will Wilkinson, “Patents Against Prosperity”, The Economist; “Good Defensive Patents Are Bad Patents,” Julian Sanchez.

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June 2 roundup

by Walter Olson on June 2, 2011

  • “Italian Seismologists Charged With Manslaughter for Not Predicting 2009 Quake” [Fox, earlier]
  • “With context in place, it appears the WHO isn’t saying cell phones are dangerous” [BoingBoing, Atlantic Wire, Orac]
  • Wrongful convictions and how they happen — new book “Convicting the Innocent” by Brandon Garrett [Jeff Rosen, NY Times]
  • SEC to Dodd-Frank whistleblowers: no need to go through company’s internal complaint route [D&O Diary, WSJ Law Blog]
  • “British Press Laws Facing Twitter Challenge” [AW]
  • Despite legislated damages cap, jackpot awards continue in Mississippi [Jackson Clarion-Ledger] More problems with that $322 million Mississippi asbestosis verdict [PoL, earlier]
  • Golf club erects large net to comply with legal demands to prevent escape of errant balls, is promptly sued by neighbors who consider net too ugly [five years ago on Overlawyered]

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A novel lawsuit theory that obtained more-than-respectful coverage in the New York Times did not succeed in convincing the Oklahoma courts, notes Russell Jackson. “The Court of Civil Appeals’ decision in Doyle is a strong demonstration that trying to use civil legal duties to make the US a Nanny State is simply wrongheaded.”

[cross-posted from Cato at Liberty]

New York state senator Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) is crusading to ban pedestrians’ use of cellphones and other mobile devices while crossing the street. It’s for your own good, you must understand:

“When people are doing things that are detrimental to their own well being, then government should step in.”

The Daily Caller asked me to write an opinion piece about this proposal so I just did. Excerpt:

Phone use on the street has become near-ubiquitous in recent years, yet over nearly all that time — nationally as in Gotham — pedestrian death rates were falling steadily, just as highway fatalities fell steadily over the years in which “distracted driving” became a big concern.

In the first half of 2010, the national statistics showed a tiny upward blip (0.4 percent), occasioned by a relative handful of fatalities in a few states. Even a spokesman for the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, Jonathan Adkins, seems to agree it’s premature to jump to conclusions: “You don’t want to overreact to six months of data,” he told columnist Steve Chapman.

Like others who seek quasi-parental control over adults, Sen. Kruger tends to infantilize his charges. He told the Times: “We’re taught from knee-high to look in both directions, wait, listen and then cross. You can perform none of those functions if you are engaged in some kind of wired activity.”

This drew proper scorn from columnist Chapman: “Actually, you can perform all those functions and dance an Irish jig, even with text messages or rock music bombarding you.” That some ear bud devotees don’t take due caution is no reason to pretend they can’t.

C.S. Lewis, Lily Tomlin and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood all get walk-on parts as well.

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The much-hyped new Devra Davis book on cellphone radiation reviewed: “There are so many things wrong in Disconnect it is difficult to know where to begin.” [Lorne Trottier, Science-Based Medicine]

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Honestly, it was only a finger twitch, I wasn’t meaning to infringe: “Hopewell Culture & Design reckons it owns the act of double-clicking, and is suing Apple, Nokia, Samsung and just about everyone else for breaching its patent.” [The Register]

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Through its uncritical coverage of the purported radiation hazards of cellphones — taken up by noted toxics alarmist Devra Lee Davis as her latest crusade — the New York Times is taking chances with its credibility. Author Randall Stross seems unfamiliar with the tendency of companies to warn (on lawyers’ advice) against supposed risks they have good reason to consider non-existent, as in pharmaceutical package inserts and many other contexts [David Oliver, earlier, more]

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Sacrificing not only passenger convenience, but also important elements of emergency response and crime prevention, to the Government That Knows Best: “Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said using a cell phone while driving is so dangerous that devices may soon be installed in cars to forcibly stop drivers — and potentially anyone else in the vehicle — from using them.” [Daily Caller] Post-furor update: DOT “currently has no plans” to do this.

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An update on lawsuits claiming employees should be on the books for pay and overtime purposes if the employer asks them to carry a BlackBerry [Workplace Prof, NPR, earlier]

July 28 roundup

by Walter Olson on July 28, 2010

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July 6 roundup

by Walter Olson on July 6, 2010

  • “Kagan refused to identify anything the government couldn’t do under its Commerce Clause power” and “consciously left herself plenty of breathing room to cite foreign law inappropriately” [Ilya Shapiro, more]
  • Multiple civil/criminal hats? “The odd responses of the attorney general to the oil spill” [WaPo editorial]
  • Phillies Phanatic, “‘Most-Sued Mascot in the Majors’ Is Back in Court” [Lowering the Bar, which also hosts Blawg Review #271 this week]
  • Federalist Society has a new blog;
  • California will pay $20 million to woman abducted for nearly two decades [AP]
  • Charges dropped against teen who tried to help lost kid in shopping mall [Lenore Skenazy, earlier]
  • Two libertarians arrested after videotaping police in Greenfield, Mass. [Balko, earlier here and here]
  • “‘Ambulance Chaser’ Lawsuits Hound Apple Over iPhone 4″ [Atlantic Wire]

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Study after study finds no health effects to worry about, but the city by the Bay wants warnings anyway. [Bruce Nye, Ted Frank/PoL]

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