- Melissa Kite, columnist with Britain’s Spectator, writes about her low-speed car crash and its aftermath [first, second, third, fourth]
- NYT’s Nocera lauds Keystone pipeline, gets called “global warming denier” [NYTimes] More about foundations’ campaign to throttle Alberta tar sands [Coyote] Regulations mandating insurance “disclosures” provide another way for climate change activists to stir the pot [Insurance and Technology]
- “Cop spends weeks to trick an 18-year-old into possession and sale of a gram of pot” [Frauenfelder, BB]
- Federal Circuit model order, pilot program could show way to rein in patent e-discovery [Inside Counsel, Corporate Counsel] December Congressional hearing on discovery costs [Lawyers for Civil Justice]
- Trial lawyer group working with Senate campaigns in North Dakota, Nevada, Wisconsin, Hawaii [Rob Port via LNL] President of Houston Trial Lawyers Association makes U.S. Senate bid [Chron]
- Panel selection: “Jury strikes matter” [Ron Miller, Maryland Injury]
- Law-world summaries/Seventeen syllables long/@legal_haiku (& for a similar treatment of high court cases, check out @SupremeHaiku)
Tagged as:
Canada,
climate change,
discovery,
environment,
global warming,
Hawaii,
humor,
illegal drugs,
jury selection,
low-speed auto collisions,
Nevada,
North Dakota,
oil industry,
patent litigation,
politics,
Senate,
United Kingdom,
Wisconsin
- Judge Edith Jones rules: 5th Circuit spanks judge who overturned result of anti-traffic-cam vote [The Newspaper, background]
- “UK Nanny State: Let’s Send Gamers To Rehab” [Nick Sibilla, Reason] “If Poker Is a Public Health Issue, What Isn’t?” [Jacob Sullum]
- Struggle Resolutely Against Misleaders of the People In Weather Broadcasts Everywhere! [TP; reactions from Tony Hake/Examiner, Geoff Fox, Andrew Revkin, Watts Up With That]
- Jury awards $178 million in bariatric-surgery case against Jacksonville hospital, sum greater than GDP of several small island nations [Florida Times-Union]
- Sikh sues Jay Leno over comparison of Romney vacation home to Golden Temple of Amritsar [Daily Mail]
- Redevelopment without prerequisite “blight” akin to Hittite sack of Babylon [Gideon Kanner]
- Convinced hospital broke naming promise, jury tells it to pay $1 million to country singer Garth Brooks [AP]
- “Dean of law bloggers” — why, thank you, sir [Hans Bader, CEI]
Tagged as:
accolades,
climate change,
eminent domain,
Fifth Circuit,
global warming,
hospitals,
India,
red light cameras,
videogames
- Central Falls, R.I. lands in bankruptcy court [NYT; my Cato take]
- Less efficient patdowns? Man with one arm files complaint after being turned down as TSA inspector [MSNBC via Hyman]
- Don’t join the Mommy Mob [Ken at Popehat]
- Montana high court upholds failure-to-warn verdict against maker of aluminum baseball bat [PoL link roundup, Russell Jackson; earlier here and here]
- Finally some good news from Connecticut: state enacts law protecting municipalities from lawsuits over recreational land use [BikeRag; earlier here, etc.]
- Claim: climate-change tort suits will require radical changes in tort law and that’s a good thing [Douglas Kysar (Yale), SSRN]
- Attorney keen to go on TV, will take any case, either side [Balko]
Tagged as:
baseball bats,
climate change,
Connecticut,
recreation,
Rhode Island
- Correct result, yet potential for mischief in latest SCOTUS climate ruling [Ilya Shapiro/Cato, my earlier take]
- Wouldn’t even want to guess: how the Howard Stern show handles sexual harassment training [Hyman]
- Philadelphia: $21 million award against emergency room handling noncompliant patient [Kennerly]
- Antitrust assault on Google seems geared to protect competitors more than consumers [Josh Wright]
- “They knew there was a risk!” Curb your indignation please [Coyote]
- Theme issue of Reason magazine on failures of criminal justice system is now online;
- “Why Your New Car Doesn’t Have a Spare Tire” [Sam Kazman, WSJ]
Tagged as:
antitrust,
autos,
broadcasters,
climate change,
crime and punishment,
emergency medicine,
global warming,
Google,
harassment law,
Philadelphia,
safety
- Rules for Growth: Promoting Innovation and Growth Through Legal Reform is new book from Kauffman Foundation in which “formidable” contributors including Henry Butler, George Priest, and Peter Schuck prescribe pro-growth policy changes across a variety of fields [available at Kauffman or on SSRN via contributor Larry Ribstein, Diana Furchtgott-Roth/Real Clear Markets]
- Nick Farr is awfully apologetic (not really) for saying those mean things about Hot Coffee, the new documentary film presenting Lawsuit Lobby view of the world [Abnormal Use, earlier] Related: TBD, more. More: Bob Dorigo Jones.
- AEP v. Connecticut global warming case invites courts to supplant other branches’ role [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- Washington jury awards $46 million to victim of shooting spree at Denny’s who charged negligent security [Kent Reporter, KOMO, Seattle Times, earlier]
- New bipartisan Congressional Civil Justice Caucus forms on Capitol Hill [BLT, PoL]
- Oh, Professor Tribe, your rhetorical moves on the Supreme Court and Obamacare are so transparent [Ann Althouse] (& Ilya Shapiro letter in NY Times)
- DRI says “if you [defend] Med Mal cases the news isn’t good,” new filings show a drop; clients may take different view [For the Defense] James Pinkerton on med-mal reform [Serious Medicine Strategy] Jan. 20 medical liability hearing in the House [PoL]
- Jury: “customer of size” not victim of airline bias [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
climate change,
global warming,
medical malpractice,
restaurants,
Senate,
Stella Liebeck,
third party liability for crime,
U.S. House of Representatives
- Cato Institute scholars liveblog reaction to State of the Union speech and GOP response, plus video on Facebook with Gene Healy and Julian Sanchez, more video;
- Private store owners get beaten up for lack of ADA ramps. On the other hand, when the federal government is building courthouses… [Sun-Sentinel; earlier here and here]
- “Securities suits filed in 2010 again a record” [Business Insurance]
- Do mass tort “claims facilities” enable participants to bypass the strictures of legal ethics? [Monroe Freedman, Legal Ethics Forum]
- Latest workplace-retaliation ruling once more undermines “pro-business Supreme Court” narrative [Bader, Examiner, more]
- Jacob Sullum reviews Daniel Okrent book on Prohibition [Reason]
- Another “lawyers excited about coming wave of bet-the-company climate change suits” article [AFP]
- Dickie Scruggs: “It was never about the money for me, this litigation” [four years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
alcohol,
Cato Institute,
climate change,
disabled rights,
ethics,
global warming,
securities litigation,
Supreme Court
Having agreed to hear a different global warming case this term, the Supreme Court has declined to review the dismissal of a case blaming thirty energy companies (via greenhouse gas emissions) for Hurricane Katrina damage. [NOLA.com, earlier here and here] The case had reached a curious procedural posture following the recusal of half the judges on the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. My Cato colleague Ilya Shapiro has details on that and other cases that notably won’t be appearing on the Supreme Court’s docket this term.
Tagged as:
climate change,
global warming,
Supreme Court
And a choice quote (New York Times via Taranto) on how the legal system disposes of it all:
“If the administration gets it wrong, we’re looking at years of litigation, legislation and public and business outcry,” said a senior administration official who asked not to be identified so as not to provide an easy target for the incoming Republicans. “If we get it right, we’re facing the same thing.”
Tagged as:
Barack Obama,
climate change,
Environmental Protection Agency,
global warming
- Defendant “was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of death.” Come again? [Volokh]
- Supreme Court agrees to hear global-warming-as-nuisance case [Ilya Shapiro/Cato at Liberty, Jonathan Adler and more]
- Supreme Court agrees to review Wal-Mart employment case, could be Court’s biggest statement on class action issues in years [Beck, Schwartz, Ted at PoL]
- Investigator recommends disbarment of controversial former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas [Arizona Republic, earlier]
- Vessel-hull section of copyright law could give Sen. Schumer vehicle for controversial bill to accord IP protection to fashion design [WSJ Law Blog, Coleman, earlier here, here, etc.]
- Federal regulators propose requiring backup cameras in new cars [Bloomberg via Alkon]
- “Why Rosetta Stone’s Attack on Google’s Keyword Advertising Program Should Be Rejected” [Paul Alan Levy, CL&P]
- “Lawyer Got Secretary to Take His CLE Courses, Disciplinary Complaint Contends” [ABA Journal, Illinois]
Tagged as:
climate change,
copyright,
global warming,
Google,
Phoenix,
Supreme Court,
trademarks,
Wal-Mart v. Dukes
Developments in an emerging area of law much explored in my forthcoming book:
- “Developing Countries Could Sue for Climate Action — Study” [NYT/ClimateWire] “Do We Need Global Governance To Combat Global Warming?” [Ilya Somin/Volokh]
- From UN and oddly uncontroversial Human Rights Watch, pressure on U.S. to alter labor law in union-friendly direction [ShopFloor, Chamber Post]
- Recent academic conferences: “2009 National Forum on the Human Right to Housing” [Nov. 2009, Georgetown Law] “International and Comparative Law Review Symposium on the significance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” [Loyola L.A., Mar. 2010]
- At whose expense? “UN General Assembly Invents a Right to Water and Sanitation” [GGW, BoingBoing]
- Again, some survivors of U.S.S. Cole attack on U.S. military personnel sue government of Sudan [Jay Nordlinger/NRO "Corner", related paper by Elizabeth Bahr, George Mason]
- Copying liberals’ homework, some anti-abortionists claim mantle of international human rights for their cause [NRO "Bench Memos," approvingly, via Ku/OJ]
- “An Eminently Sound Approach to (Supposed) International Human Rights Norms, from the 9th Circuit” [Volokh]
- What Keynes knew: after 92 years, Germany finally pays off the last Versailles reparations [Marian Tupy, Cato at Liberty]
Tagged as:
climate change,
international human rights,
international law,
labor unions,
Ninth Circuit,
Schools for Misrule,
United Nations
The Supreme Court takes a look at curtailing lawsuits aimed at punishing or regulating carbon emissions, and might even revisit its pro-environmentalist ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA. [Marcia Coyle, NLJ] Related: “Call for Papers: Civil Litigation as a Tool for Regulating Climate Change” [Valparaiso University School of Law via TortsProf]
Tagged as:
climate change,
Supreme Court
- Insurance mandate or no, New Jersey specialists tending to duck out of high-legal-risk procedures like mammography [Amy Handlin, Gloucester County Times via NJLRA]
- Audi redux, or something different this time? L.A. Times endorses charges of sudden acceleration against Toyota [Holman Jenkins/WSJ, FindLaw "Injured"]
- Ghastly idea of the year: Rep. Waxman wants federal government to be “responsible” for fixing journalism [Coyote, Bainbridge]
- “Arkansas Judge Tosses Defamation Lawsuit Against Dixie Chicks Over ‘West Memphis Three’ Letter” [Citizen Media Law, Longstreth/American Lawyer]
- Judge Weinstein: falsification by arresting officers seems “widespread” in NYPD [Balko, Greenfield]
- U.K.: Carbon ration cards? [Krauthammer]
- Nova Scotia, Canada: “A Couple in their 70s Wave at A Kid…And In Swoop the Cops” [Free-Range Kids]
- Barbra Streisand loses suit over aerial photo of her Malibu home taken by environmental group; by suing, she ensures that many thousands more people will see the photograph, in what is dubbed “Streisand effect” [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Arkansas,
Canada,
child protection,
climate change,
defensive medicine,
libel slander and defamation,
New Jersey,
newspapers,
police,
Streisand effect,
sudden acceleration
