- Thank you, San Francisco rent control, for our almost-free Nob Hill pied-a-terre [Nevius, SF Chronicle]
- Switzerland: be sure the preschoolers have a nice saw to play with [Suzanne Lucas]
- DOT regulation forbids workaround that could end drivers’ “blind spot” [Technology Review via Stoll]
- CFAA madness: “How a federal law can be used to prosecute almost anyone who visits a website” [Jacob Sullum]
- “Judge halts Facebook fishing expedition before it can grow into a suit” [Daniel Fisher]
- Finding too many of us subsidy-resistant, Feds pursue ad campaigns hawking food stamps [Veronique de Rugy, NRO]
- Yoo-hoo, Institute for Justice: State regulation restricts competition for moving van service in Connecticut [New London Day via Raising Hale]
Tagged as:
autos,
Connecticut,
Facebook,
San Francisco,
Switzerland
World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon is again running for a Connecticut seat in the U.S. Senate, two years after she won the Republican nomination for the state’s other Senate seat but then lost badly to Democrat Richard Blumenthal. Chris Powell of the Manchester Journal-Inquirer, a prominent commentator on Connecticut politics, expressed scathing opinions on the type of entertainment purveyed by WWE under McMahon’s leadership, deeming it a “business of violence, pornography, and general raunch.” On Friday a WWE vice president, in a letter sent to news media throughout the state, “threatened the Journal Inquirer with a libel lawsuit.” In response, the newspaper contends that “The programs were issues in the Senate election two years ago and, by distributing its libel lawsuit threat throughout Connecticut’s news media, the McMahon campaign aims to prevent them from being mentioned this year.” [via Jared Eberle](& Rick Green, Hartford Courant)
Tagged as:
Connecticut,
libel slander and defamation,
wayward Republicans
“There are plenty of charities that do good work without including Weather Underground co-founders on their boards of directors and openly praising prison rioters on their websites.” [National Review's Robert VerBruggen on $400,000 in U.S. Department of Justice grants to the W. Haywood Burns Institute, its board adorned by Northwestern lawprof Bernardine Dohrn; more, Chicago Sun-Times] Speaking of gruesome austerity in public expenditure, there’s clearly no room left to cut the state of Connecticut’s budget either [Chris Powell on $300,000 for the New Haven People's Center]
Tagged as:
Bernardine Dohrn,
Connecticut
- Primer on “severability”: would ObamaCare fall if individual mandate struck down? [Loyola, Epstein, Shapiro, American Interest] Maybe the President picked the wrong fight: “Supreme Court’s Ratings Jump Following Health Care Hearings” [Randy Barnett]
- Heritage on med-mal reform and federalism [Hans von Spakovsky; my take] A case for New Hampshire’s “early offer” med-mal proposal [Robinette, TortsProf] “Ohio’s tort reform has curbed soaring malpractice costs” [Columbus Dispatch editorial]
- Madison County: plaintiff’s lawyer seeks gag order in med-mal case [MC Record]
- Academics debate whether authorities should crack down on medical tourism [Cohen et al, Opinio Juris]
- Shortage of physician volunteers at marathon sports events, readers of this site can guess the reason [Outside mag via White Coat]
- Connecticut Gov. Malloy proposes letting home health workers rather than nurses administer pills to homebound patients, major savings foreseen [Connecticut Mirror] Related, David Henderson;
- Governments now often cite HIPAA as reason not to release information regarding accidents, crimes and disasters [Glenn Cook, Las Vegas Review-Journal] How HIPAA implementation can keep patient history out of emergency medical responders’ hands [EP Monthly]
- London: Red Ken has pay doc, NHS being Not His Style [Marian Tupy, Cato at Liberty]
Tagged as:
Connecticut,
emergency medicine,
HIPAA,
medical malpractice insurance,
New Hampshire,
ObamaCare,
Ohio
- In time for Easter: egg prices soar in Europe under new hen-caging rules [AP]
- For third time, the Environmental Protection Agency backtracks on claims of harm from gas “fracking” [Adler; U. Texas study on drinking water safety, CBS Dallas] Yes, there’s a plaintiff’s lawyer angle [David Oliver] Don Elliott, former EPA general counsel, on why his old agency needs cutting [Atlantic] Blow out your candles, coal industry, and so good-bye [Pat Michaels/Cato, Shikha Dalmia]
- Following the mad logic wherever it leads: “State Legislators Propose Mandatory Drug Testing of Judges and Other State Officials” [ABA Journal]
- Proposal: henceforth no law may run to greater length than Rep. Conyers’s copy of Playboy [Mark Steyn]
- Creative American lawyers: “Carnival cruise ship briefly seized in Texas” [AP]
- “Overlawyered” is the title of a new commentary in The New Yorker, not related to a certain website [Kelefa Sanneh]
- Repressive Connecticut “cyber-harassment” bill [Volokh, Greenfield, Popehat] And now, not to be outdone, Arizona… [Volokh]
Tagged as:
agriculture and farming,
animal rights,
Arizona,
bullying,
Connecticut,
cruise ships,
Environmental Protection Agency,
harassment law,
illegal drugs,
oil industry
That’s what Connecticut plaintiff’s lawyer Craig Yankwitt said on filing a lawsuit against Stamford Hospital’s Tully immediate-care unit for allegedly missing pulmonary embolisms in a Greenwich man who came in complaining of flank pain. [Connecticut Post] White Coat analyzes what it would mean for emergency departments to hold on to patients until any possible life-threatening conditions had been ruled out.
Tagged as:
Connecticut,
emergency medicine
“Deputy Commissioner Jonathan Schrag of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection was forced to resign his position in the Malloy administration over his involvement in a menacing phone message left at the home of a conservative activist.” After a group calling itself Conservative Women’s Forum alerted its supporters to the threat to property rights posed by a pending coastal management bill, a late-night phone message from Schrag’s phone to the home of the forum’s leader, Cynthia David, warned that the group’s emails were being “observed.” You can listen to the phone message here. Schrag is a Harvard graduate and Fulbright scholar. [Kevin Rennie, Hartford Courant; editorial]
Tagged as:
Connecticut,
environment
- NLRB rules employment contracts that specify arbitration for group grievances violate federal labor law even in nonunion workplaces [D. R. Horton, Inc. and Michael Cuda; Ross Runkel, Corporate Counsel]
- Richard Epstein on “living wage” legislation [Defining Ideas]
- In Greece, law providing early retirement for “hazardous” jobs was extended to some that are not so hazardous, like hairdressing, pastry making and radio announcing [Mark Steyn via Instapundit, IBTimes, Reuters]
- “Prosecutor’s double-dippers draw millions from New Jersey pension funds” [Mark Lagerkvist, DC Examiner] Even if convicted on felony charges of misappropriation of public funds, Beverly Hills school superintendent unlikely to forfeit pension [LA Times]
- “Against Forced Unionization of Independent Workers” [Ilya Shapiro on Cato amicus brief in Harris v. Quinn]
- Whoops: UAW officials appeal extortion sentence, 6th Circuit sends it back as too lenient [AutoBlog via Kaus]
- New York appeals court makes it harder to get weak NYC job-bias cases dismissed on summary judgment [Judy Greenwald, Business Insurance] Connecticut’s job-bias commission doesn’t seem to consider any cases frivolous any more [Daniel Schwartz]
Tagged as:
arbitration,
Connecticut,
discrimination law,
labor unions,
New York,
NYC,
prosecution
“A police lieutenant, fired for covering up a hit and run crash involving a fellow officer [she] was involved in a relationship with, has been reinstated following an arbitration decision that chastised the city’s Police Commission.” Christine Burns also got six months back pay. The arbitrator found that Burns’s boyfriend had been treated leniently, drawing only a one-year unpaid suspension despite serious misconduct, which in turn deprived her of her right to be treated “evenhandedly and without discrimination.” [Connecticut Post]
And while we’re at it: Police union defends Denver cop fired for driving drunk at 143 mph [Tina Korbe, Hot Air; The Truth About Cars]
Tagged as:
Connecticut,
Denver,
labor unions,
police,
public employment
- Popehat’s Ken to the rescue after Maine lawyer/lawmaker assists naturopath in bullying critical blogger [Popehat]
- Newt’s “patriotism made me stray” among highlights of the year in blame-shifting [Jacob Sullum]
- Nifong sidekick, now in a spot of legal bother himself, hits back with lawsuit [K C Johnson, Durham in Wonderland]
- Shareholder action: “Delaware approves $285 Million in Plaintiffs’ Lawyers’ Fees” [Bainbridge, WSJ Deal Journal, WSJ Law Blog]
- “Even one death is too many — WE MUST BAN NETI POTS!” [NYDN via Christopher Tozzo]
- Debatable premise of Joe Nocera analysis on Stephen Glass case: bar admission turn-down = “rest of his life … destroyed” [NYT, Howard Wasserman/Prawfs, earlier]
- Who says Connecticut never reforms liability? Towns won protection last year from some recreation-land tort exposure [CFPA, earlier here, here]
Tagged as:
bar associations,
bloggers and the law,
Connecticut,
Delaware,
Duke lacrosse,
recreation,
safety
