Overlawyered » Europe

Labor and employment law roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:08:22 +0000

Court rebukes EEOC in big sex harassment class action against trucking firm [Memphis Commercial Appeal]
Union protects some dodgy educators: “Found to Have Misbehaved With Pupils, but Still Teaching” [New York Times]
Spain changes its labor law [Global Post]
Employment-law blogs debate employment at will [Jon Hyman]
James Sherk of Heritage on proposed Employee Rights Act;
Unlawful under Contracts Clause to alter public employee pensions? Really? [Secunda, Workplace Prof; Barnes v. Arizona State Ret. Sys., Ariz. Super. Ct., No. CV-2011-011638, 2/1/12]
Coalition challenges Connecticut governor’s executive order aimed at unionizing home health aides [Michael Tremoglie, Legal NewsLine]

Tags: Arizona, Connecticut, constitutional law, EEOC, employment at will, Europe, labor unions, Spain, teacher tenure

Labor and employment law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 23 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 04:05:34 +0000

Tips for those facing vexatious-litigant proceedings [Lowering the Bar; U.K.]
Credit card arbitration: “Plaintiffs’ lawyers protect their cartel by bringing antitrust suit” [Ted Frank, PoL]
Just what European business needs: gender quotas for corporate boards [Bader, CEI]
“Food sovereignty” movement: next, rediscovering freedom of contract? [Alex Beam, Ira Stoll]
Much-assailed group for state legislators: “ALEC Enjoys A New Wave of Influence and Criticism” [Alan Greenblatt, Governing]
Symposium on David Bernstein’s Rehabilitating Lochner [Law and Liberty, earlier here and here]
Because rent control is all about fairness [Damon Root]

Tags: arbitration, eat drink and be merry, Europe, freedom of contract, NYC, serial litigants

March 23 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

European roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:05:33 +0000

Overseas press excoriates new FATCA tax-Americans’-foreign-earnings law; some foreign banks now turn away American customers [Dan Mitchell, Cato, Reason] “The Fatca story is really kind of insane.” [Caplin & Drysdale's H. David Rosenbloom, NYT via TaxProf] Will Congress back down? [Peter Spiro/OJ, more]
Important new book from James Maxeiner (University of Baltimore) and co-authors Gyooho Lee and Armin Weber on what the U.S. can learn from legal procedure overseas: “Failures of American Civil Justice in International Perspective” [TortsProf]
Don’t do it: British administration mulls further move away from loser-pays rule in search of — what exactly, a yet more Americanized litigation culture? [Guardian, Law Society]
Apparently in Norway it’s possible to lose one’s kids by feeding them by hand [Shikha Dalmia, Reason]
Financial transaction tax? Ask the Swedes how that worked out [Mike "Mish" Shedlock, Business Insider]
Notes from conference on globalization of class actions [Karlsgodt] Related: Adam Zimmerman;
“Another conviction in Europe for insulting religion” [Volokh; Polish pop star] Campus secularists’ speech under fire in the U.K. as “Jesus and Mo” controversy spreads to LSE [Popehat] British speech prosecution of soccer star [Suneal Bedi and William Marra, NRO]

Tags: Child Protective Services, Europe, free speech, hate speech, loser pays, Norway, Sweden, taxes, United Kingdom

European roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Posited “right to be forgotten online”

Walter Olson — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:02:16 +0000

This idea, gaining some currency in Europe, would require government to get deeply into the control of privately published information content [Adam Thierer, Scott Greenfield, PC World]

Tags: Europe, online speech, privacy

Posited “right to be forgotten online” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

International law roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:13:07 +0000

More on John Fonte’s new book Sovereignty or Submission [FrontPage interview, W. James Antle III/Washington Times, Clifford May via Israpundit, earlier here and here] U.N. Human Rights Council finds much to criticize about U.S. rights record, including inadequate attention to rights of clean water and sanitation; State Department response to “universal periodic review”;
“The President Can’t Increase Congress’s Power Simply by Signing a Treaty” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato, on Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Bond]
Another “international norms vs. American sentencing practices” showdown headed to SCOTUS? [Hans Bader]
France, Turkey restrict talk of Armenian genocide in opposite ways, and both are wrong [Walter Russell Mead]
Transnational prosecutions on an inexorable upward arc? Depends on how you count them [Jeremy Rabkin, TAI]
International law pressed into use to remake family law and gender customs [Stephen Baskerville]
“Time to Fix the European Court of Human Rights?” [Julian Ku, Opinio Juris]
“We are fighting the caste system with capitalism”: open market in India helps Dalits [NY Times]

Tags: Europe, family law, France, India, international human rights, international law, Supreme Court, Turkey

International law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Austrian Court Upholds Conviction for ‘Denigrating Religious Beliefs’”

Walter Olson — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:45:25 +0000

“An Austrian appellate court has upheld the conviction of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a Viennese housewife and anti-Jihad activist, for ‘denigrating religious beliefs’ after giving a series of seminars about the dangers of radical Islam.” [Soeren Kern, Hudson New York via Volokh]

Tags: Europe, hate speech

“Austrian Court Upholds Conviction for ‘Denigrating Religious Beliefs’” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Baroque performers glum as Europe bans gut strings

Walter Olson — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:00:50 +0000

Violin and cello strings made of animal intestine might transmit Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, if you ate enough of them. [Telegraph via Tim Cavanaugh, Reason]

Tags: agriculture and farming, Europe, music and musicians

Baroque performers glum as Europe bans gut strings is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

November 26 roundup

Walter Olson — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 17:21:39 +0000

“Ohio Attorney Sues Over Misleading Emails, Even Though He Wasn’t Misled” [Chris Danzig, Above the Law]
Feds say new EPA-ordered fuel economy standards could add $2000 to price of new car [C.J. Ciamarella, Daily Caller] More: WSJ.
Las Vegas considers following Chicago’s lenders-must-cut-grass folly [Kevin Funnell, earlier] “The Fed actually does impose, via legal risk, a de facto ceiling on mortgage rates.” [Mark Calabria, Cato]
2nd Circuit: Prison Litigation Reform Act curbs attorney fee shift at 150% of cash won, and yes, that applies to a $1 award [PoL] Panel on attorneys’ fees in class actions at Federalist Society convention [video, PoL]
John McClaughry reviews Reckless Endangerment, Morgenson/Rosner book on financial crisis [Reason]
Daniel Hannan on John Fonte’s new book on transnational law, Sovereignty or Submission [Telegraph, and see chapters 11-12 of Schools for Misrule] International human rights activism pushes into “economic rights” [James P. Kelly III, Federalist Society "Engage"] NGOs exercise oft-envied combination of power without responsibility [Anderson] UK attorney general Dominic Grieve takes on the European court of human rights [Joshua Rozenberg, Guardian] UN battle plan on non-communicable diseases aims to save us from ourselves;
Sans statutory authority, EPA wanders into “environmental justice” [PowerLine]

Tags: attorneys' fees, autos, Environmental Protection Agency, Europe, international human rights, mortgages, United Nations

November 26 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration”

Walter Olson — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 05:06:53 +0000

Beyond satire: “Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month. …NHS health guidelines state clearly that drinking water helps avoid dehydration, and that Britons should drink at least 1.2 litres per day.” [Telegraph] A writer in the Guardian defends the ban.

Tags: advertising, eat drink and be merry, Europe

“EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

EU directive on kids, balloons and other toys

Walter Olson — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:37:54 +0000

“Whistle blowers, that scroll out into a long coloured paper tongue when sounded – a party favourite at family Christmas meals – are now classed as unsafe for all children under 14. … the EU legislation will impose restrictions on how noisy toys, including rattles or musical instruments, are allowed to be.” Unsupervised children under 8 should not be allowed to blow up balloons, according to the European Union directive, which has just taken effect. [Telegraph; headline changed after objection that the Telegraph's headline was misleading]

In related news, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, addressing a United Nations conference on “the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases,” has said that “mak[ing] healthy solutions the default social option” on matters such as diet is “ultimately government’s highest duty.” [Sullum]

Tags: child protection, Europe, Michael Bloomberg, nanny state, United Nations

EU directive on kids, balloons and other toys is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system