Under a bill introduced by a New Hampshire legislator, “state employees who interact with the public would not be allowed to wear perfume. Rep. Michele Peckham, R-North Hampton, is the prime sponsor of the perfume bill, which she said she put forward after a constituent asked her to do so. She said there are people allergic to fragrances. ‘It may seem silly, but it’s a health issue,’ Peckham said. ‘Many people have violent reactions to strong scents.’” [Union-Leader via Radley Balko, who calls it reductio creep] Similar proposals have surfaced in places like Portland, Ore., and “perfume sensitivity” lawsuits have been reported from Detroit and New Jersey (& welcome WSJ Law Blog readers; day’s “Five Must-Read Stories”).
Tagged as:
environment,
New Hampshire
- A federal fishing raid, the Pew Charitable Trusts and a biased Business Week account [Nils Stolpe on Gloucester, Mass. fisheries, via Stoll]
- Intimidating the judiciary? “Group Opposing Citizens United Pushes ‘Occupy the Courts’ Protest” Jan. 20 [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] Mob rallies at Michigan governor’s private home [Meegan Holland, MLive] “Occupy” forces Gingrich to cancel event [Daily Caller] Earlier here, here, here, etc.
- “Paper Airplane? Late for School? Shouting Too Loud? You’re Under Arrest!” [Free-Range Kids, Texas]
- Spielberg in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” paid homage to earlier movie sequences without sweating permissions. Oh, for those days [Joho] “Cultural gems that should be in the public domain today” [Atlantic Wire, Tabarrok]
- UPS settlement exaggerates benefits to class members [Ted Frank; related, CCAF] “Federal Judges Have Harsh Words, Rulings for Class Action Plaintiffs’ Lawyers” [Lammi/WLF]
- “Justice Breyer Calls Recusal Controversy a ‘Non-Issue’” [ABA Journal]
- “Add Plaintiff-Lawyer Fees To The Cost Of Most Mergers” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes on Cornerstone Research report]
Tagged as:
class action settlements,
environment,
Massachusetts,
movies film and videos,
police,
recusals,
schools,
securities litigation,
Texas
- Peter Schweizer: “To RFK, Jr: I’m No Sock Puppet, But You Sir Are a Bootlegger” [Huffington Post; some background on America's Most Irresponsible Public Figure®]
- Will legal campaign succeed in shutting down natural gas fracking? [WLF, David Oliver, CL&P, Abby Wisse Schachter/NYP]
- Nice work if you can get it: key figure in dubious Chevron-Ecuador expert report slated for National Academy of Sciences reappointment [WizBang, earlier]
- EPA’s move-cement-production-to-China plan runs into uncooperative judge [Josiah Neeley, Daily Caller]
- Spare that tree? Environmentalists battle Montana underbrush clearance aimed at preventing catastrophic fires [William Perry Pendley, MSLF] More on trees and power outages in Connecticut [WSJ, related earlier]
- New book on Endangered Species Act reform [James Burling, Federalist Society]
- Rural property owners foot the bill for California green policies [Steven Greenhut]
- “What are you in for?” “Backed-up toilets” [Shannen Coffin, NRO]
Tagged as:
California,
Chevron,
Connecticut,
endangered species,
environment,
Environmental Protection Agency,
Montana,
oil industry,
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
trees
Kim Strassel has a must-read piece at the Wall Street Journal exposing the politics of the Lacey Act’s extension to importation of plant products, by no means fueled just by inflexible environmentalist sentiment: crucially, wood-products industry and union forces recognized that the law could serve as a way to eliminate competition from imports.
Trees are ubiquitous, are transformed into thousands of byproducts, and pass through dozens of countries. Whereas even a small U.S. importer would know not to import a tiger skin, tracking a sliver of wood (now transformed into a toy, or an umbrella) through this maze of countries and manufacturing laws back to the tree it came from, would be impossible.
Furniture maker Ikea noted that even if it could comply with the change, the “administrative costs and record-keeping requirements” would cause furniture prices to “skyrocket.” The wood chips that go into its particleboard alone could require tracking back and reporting on more than 100 different tree species.
Which is exactly what the Lacey expanders wanted.
The WSJ also recently interviewed Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz [related, Reuters; earlier] while Pat Nolan points out how the feds’ raid on the facility points up many evils of unbridled prosecution power [NRO] Musicians and others held a “We stand with Gibson” rally and concert [Mark Perry, rally pics] As for press coverage, Andrew Revkin at the NYT notes that outrage over the raid is energizing those horrid “anti-regulatory campaigners” ["DotEarth"] while an op-ed contributor at the paper explains that (not to sound like those same awful campaigners!) the operation of the Lacey Act does indeed menace innocent artisans who make musical instruments [Kathryn Marie Dudley] Tim Cavanaugh finds the L.A.Times strumming a derivative ideological tune, while Radley Balko notes, in a police-restraint-for-me-but-not-for-thee vein, that a reporter arrested at Occupy Nashville had mocked concern over the gun-toting Gibson raid. More: ABA Journal.
Tagged as:
competition through regulation,
environment,
free trade,
media bias,
prosecution
- Sure, let’s subvert sound mortgage accounting in the name of energy efficiency. What could go wrong? [Mark Calabria, Kevin Funnell]
- California: fireworks shows are “development” and coastal commission can ban ‘em [Laer Pearce, Daily Caller]
- Trial lawyers’ lobbyist: I got Cuomo to bash Chevron in Ecuador case [John Schwartz, NYT]
- Politics of intimidation: “jobs bill” advocates occupy office of Sen. Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) [ABC News] Union protesters invade Sotheby’s during big auction [NYObserver] “Occupy Denver protesters try to storm conference of conservative bloggers” [Denver Post] “What’s the matter with Oakland?” [Megan McArdle] Post-’08 downturn, not wealth of the few, at root of economic woes [Steve Chapman] “Bohm-Bawerk forget to include [Ms. Katchpole] in his commentaries on sundry theories of interest.” [Tyler Cowen]
- New breakthroughs in abundant energy aren’t welcome to some [NYT "Room for Debate"] Is GOP wrong to make EPA an issue? [Michael Barone]
- After extracting $450,000 settlement, employee admits falsifying whistleblower evidence in oil filter antitrust case; class action suits continue [Bloomberg, Abby Schachter/NYPost via PoL]
- Least surprising Washington-DC-datelined story of year: “Medical malpractice reform efforts stalled” [Politico]
Tagged as:
Andrew Cuomo,
antitrust,
California,
Chevron,
environment,
labor unions,
mortgages,
whistleblowers
- Washington Post pundit Dana Milbank’s lament: Obama isn’t doing enough to intimidate opponents [David Boaz, Cato]
- FDA defends itself against rising criticism on drug and device approval [NYT] NYT approaches the issue with a curious slant [Paul Rubin]
- California courts: what makes you think we need to follow SCOTUS on arbitration? [Cal Biz Lit, more, Russell Jackson] Senate anti-arbitration hearing could have used more truth in advertising [PoL]
- Pols want to fast-track favored L.A. stadium against environmental suits under California’s obstructor-friendly CEQA. Hmmm… why not fast-track everyone else too? [Gideon Kanner, Stephen Smith, SCPR, Paul Taylor, Examiner]
- State law forbids use of deadly force in defense of business property: “Burglar’s family awarded $300,000 in wrongful death suit” [Colorado Springs Gazette]
- One reason the Ninth Circuit may go off on more frolics: three-judge, one-clerk bench memos [Kerr]
Tagged as:
arbitration,
California,
criminals who sue,
environment,
FDA,
harassment law,
Ninth Circuit
As Gideon Kanner points out, you don’t need to be a property rights advocate to see the California Environmental Quality Act as a lawsuit-intensive mess (quoting Prof. Robert Freilich):
Many attorneys, planners, architects, engineers, scientists, developers, small businesses, business associations and governments in the state, and many environmentalists are agreed that CEQA needs major reform. Delays in the system are causing projects to suffer delays of 2 to 9 years to get EIRs approved, especially for (but not limited to) the failure to compare the project with all “feasible” alternatives, establish vague baseline analysis for existing mitigation, and the tricky determination as to which parts of regional, general and specific plan EIR findings can be incorporated, to eliminate duplication of effort and cost. The law is so confused on these points that it is a miracle that any EIR can survive its first round in the courts without a remand to do it over again. Complicating this result is the establishment of a specialized group of attorneys that initiate litigation at the drop of a hat, primarily because the statute authorizes attorney’s fees for any remand or reversal. Many community associations and no growth environmentalists use the EIR litigation process to delay and in many cases kill projects for little or no environmental substance.
Tagged as:
attorneys' fees,
California,
environment,
land use and zoning
Timothy Egan, New York Times, on lawsuits over rogue mountain goats and other hazards of wild places:
My experience, purely anecdotal, is that the more rangers try to bring the nanny state to public lands, the more careless, and dependent, people become. There will always be steep cliffs, deep water, and ornery and unpredictable animals in that messy part of the national habitat not crossed by climate-controlled malls and processed-food emporiums. If people expect a grizzly bear to be benign, or think a glacier is just another variant of a theme park slide, it’s not the fault of the government when something goes fatally wrong.
More: Steve Chapman (most dangerous animal in the parks is the one “wearing your pants”); David Boaz.
Tagged as:
animals,
environment,
nanny state
Let’s all panic over cross-contamination from BPA on store receipts, or maybe let’s not [Coyote]
Tagged as:
environment
- Even before federal raid on Gibson, Lacey Act scared owners of vintage instruments: “I don’t go out of the country with a wooden guitar.” [Eric Felten/WSJ, AW, PoL, Trevor Burrus/Cato]
- Dear NYT contributor Bakan: getting your kids’ attention may not require overthrowing world corporate economy [Nancy French, NR "Home Front"] More: Sullum.
- “West Memphis Three” freed [Damon Root, Greenfield]
- Forest Labs case: after outcry, feds drop effort to force firing of drug company CEO not charged with wrongdoing [WSJ, WLF] Background: Charles Hooper & David Henderson, Hoover (”The FDA’s War on Drugs”), The Economist (”The government seeks to sack an innocent boss”, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Steve McConnell/Drug and Device Law, Josh Wright/Truth on the Market]
- Google paid dearly in smartphone deal for our dysfunctional patent system [Gordon Crovitz] “Google Should Publicly Oppose Software Patents” [Timothy Lee, Forbes]
- Lawyer’s suit: Kasowitz firm ignored his “superior legal mind” [Lowering the Bar, Above the Law]
- “In Chicago, You Need a License To Help Others Get a License” [Mark Perry]
Tagged as:
cellphones,
Chicago,
child protection,
environment,
Google,
music and musicians,
patent quality,
pharmaceuticals
Great WSJ article on the unending proliferation of federal crimes, with appearances by a family that ran into a law making it a felony to dig for arrowheads on federal land, Bobby Unser and his snowmobile-astray ordeal, and a man effectively ruined by the $860,000+ cost of successfully defending himself against a federal charge of violating Russian hunting regulations.
“Most people think criminal law is for bad people,” says Timothy Lynch of Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. People don’t realize “they’re one misstep away from the nightmare of a federal indictment.”
More: from Tim Lynch, and (via PoL) Josh Blackman, William Anderson/Regulation mag.
Tagged as:
antiquities,
crime and punishment,
environment,
extraterritoriality,
prosecution
- Illinois prisoner sues for land to start his own country [AP]
- “Have you got a piece of this lawsuit?” Important Roger Parloff piece on litigation finance [Fortune, now out from paywall] “Hedge Funds Finance Medical Malpractice Claims” [Jeff Segal, Michael Sacopulos and Wayne Oliver, Forbes via White Coat]
- Criminalizing bad parenting: more scrutiny of “Caylee’s Law” proposals [Steve Chapman, L.A. Times and Boston Globe editorials, New Scientist]
- Deal with ADA complainant averts closure of popular Popponesset Marketplace in Mashpee, Mass. [Cape Cod News]
- Because it’s not as if NYC needs electricity or anything: Bloomberg gives $50 million to Sierra Club campaign to stop coal burning by utilities [WaPo] “Environmental justice” arguments deployed against pipeline that would bring Alberta tar sands oil to U.S. [John Kendrick, WLF]
- Unimpaired have permanent right to sue: Fla. high court throws out asbestos-reform law [PBP]
- Red tape demanded by quality-of-life progressivism suffices to strangle poorer urban economies [Walter Russell Mead]
Tagged as:
asbestos,
Chevron,
disabled rights,
environment,
Florida,
litigation finance,
Massachusetts,
medical malpractice,
Michael Bloomberg,
prisoners,
regulation and its reform
- More on CPSC’s crib ban train wreck [Commissioner Anne Northup, more, earlier]
- One man’s nightmare of false accusation [LA Times via PoL]
- How many plaintiff’s-side flicks is HBO going to air this summer, anyway? ["Mann v. Ford," Abnormal Use]
- Apple granted “incredibly broad patent” over screen gesture technology [Tabarrok]
- Will Congress reverse this term’s much-attacked SCOTUS decisions? [Alison Frankel] Podcast on Wal-Mart v. Dukes with Brian Fitzpatrick [Fed Soc] “Wal-Mart ruling no knock-out blow for class actions” [Reuters] Contrary to some assertions, current law does strongly incentivize individual job-bias claims [Bader] More on case: Dan Bushell, and welcome Craig Newmark readers.
- Mississippi stops proceedings in $322 million asbestos case to consider judge’s possible conflict [JCL, earlier here, here]
- Nice coat, where’dja get it? [annals of incompetent crime, UK Daily Mail]
Tagged as:
CPSC,
environment,
Ford Motor,
Mississippi,
patent law,
recusals,
Wal-Mart v. Dukes
- Not for first time, Dahlia Lithwick misrepresents Wal-Mart case [Ponnuru, Whelan, earlier here and here]
- Merciful gods, please spare us ghastly “Caylee’s Law” proposal [Josh Blackman, Reuters, Greenfield, Frank] More on constitutional flaws [Robson, Tribe]
- Mark Perry on efforts to replace the relatively open-entry Washington, D.C. taxi system with NYC-style cartelization via medallion;
- “Wrongful Convictions: How many innocent Americans are behind bars?” [Balko]
- “Persaud identified himself as a juror, offering to fix the verdict for a fee.” [CBS NY; Long Island med-mal case]
- “Is the Common Law the Solution to Pollution?” [Jonathan Adler, PERC]
- “Rice Krispies class action settlement” [Ted Frank]
Tagged as:
class action settlements,
Dahlia Lithwick,
environment,
juries,
prosecution,
Wal-Mart v. Dukes,
Washington D.C.
