You can do that here (and if you’re on Twitter, follow the site as well as @walterolson)
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Spread the happy news: I’ve finally installed share buttons so that you can “Like” Overlawyered posts on Facebook as well as share them on Twitter and Google Plus. And if you’re a Facebook user, please remember to “Like” the entire page here.
Great news: thanks to Zach Graves and Cato’s new media department, Overlawyered finally has a working Facebook page with post updates and everything. Please take a moment to Like it now (& Tom Freeland (“Overlawyered celebrates discovery of world’s dumbest Facebook user by joining Facebook”)).
A Minnesota man named Aaron (no relation) Olson has met with no success in legal efforts to force his uncle to remove “innocuous [but surely awkward] family photographs” with snarky captions. [Christopher Danzig, Above the Law; Venkat Balasubramani/TMLB]
- Mortgage robo-signing settlement not actually as punitive toward the banks as you might think, succeeds in sticking costs onto various parties not at table [FT, more (US taxpayers could wind up covering much of write-down costs through HAMP program); Felix Salmon (write-downs of underwater mortgages should not be assessed at face value); Mark Calabria, Cato and more, Bloomberg (banks managing to offload much of the cramdown onto investors such as pension funds); Daniel Fisher/Forbes one, two, three (banks get covert benefits, politicos get social engineering and fees -- shades of the collusive tobacco settlement!); Above the Law (Schneiderman steers money to legal services programs); Linette Lopez, BI (banks still exposed on many issues). More: Hans Bader, John Steele Gordon.
- "Burned at mediation by my own Facebook post" [Stuart Mauney, Abnormal Use]
- As anti-discrimination law advances, religious liberty retreats [Roger Pilon, Cato] Two views on the birth control mandate [Cathy Young, David Henderson] More: Adler, Frum.
- Caswell Motel case from Tewksbury, Mass. heads to court, could test forfeiture law [Balko] More: Washington Post editorial.
- Which is more unreasonable, OSHA regulation or FAA’s? Open to dispute [John Cochrane, Grumpy Economist]
- Indiana becomes a right to work state. On to Michigan next? [Shikha Dalmia, Reason]
- Warning! Tale of trial psychologists in wizard garb comes from a sinister source, namely me ["In the News," forensic psychologist Karen Franklin, handsome illustration swiped from Cato site]
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“The Delhi High Court has ordered 21 companies, which have already been asked to develop a mechanism to block objectionable material in India, to present their plans for policing their services in the next 15 days.” A private complaint had charged the internet firms with permitting the dissemination of material offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians. [Emil Protalinski, ZDNet]
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“Once profiled in The New York Times as a former Harvard student who had his own claim as being the true genius behind Facebook, [Aaron] Greenspan is now involved in a dispute with Columbia Pictures that alleges [among other counts] he was defamed by being left out of the award-winning film about Facebook’s origins ['The Social Network'].” [Hollywood Reporter]
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- Yikes! “House Committee Approves Bill Mandating That Internet Companies Spy on Their Users” [EFF; Julian Sanchez, New York Post/Cato and podcast]
- Australia courts skeptical about claim that sex injury is covered under workers’ comp [Herald Sun]
- Well-off community doesn’t need annual HUD grant, seeks to sell it [Dan Mitchell]
- Report: playful City Museum in St. Louis has taken down signs criticizing lawyers [Bill Childs/TortsProf, earlier]
- Chicago neurosurgeons pay $4500 a week in med-mal premiums, blame lawless Illinois Supreme Court [Medill Reports] Supreme Court declines to review Feres doctrine, which shields military doctors (among others) from suits [Stars and Stripes] Why is the most widely cited number of medical-misadventure deaths such an outlier? [White Coat; more here, here, etc.]
- After “Facebook broken heart” suit, will pre-nups for Mafia Wars relationships be next? [Tri-Cities Herald]
- Another horrific report of poppy seed positive drug test followed by child-grabbing [Radley Balko]
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- Wild hypotheticals were grist for complaint: “Widener law professor cleared of harassment charges” [NLJ, earlier here, here, here]
- Ninth Circuit: Facebook didn’t breach user’s right to accommodation of mental disability [Volokh]
- House Judiciary hearing on litigation and economic prosperity [Wajert]
- “University of Michigan to stop worrying about lawsuits, start releasing orphan works” [Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing]
- PBS airs “The Story Behind Wacky Warning Labels” [Bob Dorigo Jones]
- Fifth Circuit “candy cane” religion-in-schools case controversial among conservatives [David Upham, NR Bench Memos]
- Great moments in public records law [Cleveland Plain Dealer, earlier related]
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- Michigan sex abuse prosecution of dad falls apart; it was premised on ultra-controversial technique of “facilitated communication” with autistic daughter [Detroit Free Press; Ted Frank/Point of Law]
- Do demagogy and hardball work as trial techniques? [Steve McConnell vs. Ronald Miller and Max Kennerly]
- When lawyer-pundits consent to chase cameras [Scott Greenfield]
- Lawyer dad sues middle school girls over Facebook video [Houston Chronicle]
- So-called Precautionary Principle slipping into Restatement (Third) of Torts? [David Oliver]
- U.S Attorney in Maryland didn’t think Lauren Stevens case was strong enough to indict [Sue Reisinger/Corporate Counsel, White Collar Law Prof, Legal Ethics Forum, my Cato take]
- “The SLAPP-Happy Story of Rakofsky v. Internet” [Citizen Media Law, Atlantic Wire ("Meet the Lawyer Who Sued the Internet"), Popehat, earlier here and here]
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Just out: one of the most serious and wide-ranging podcasts yet on my new book, Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America. I’m interviewed by James Haynes of the Society’s Professional Responsibility & Legal Education Practice Group Executive Committee and Baltimore Federalist Society Lawyers Chapter. It’s 53:25 minutes in length and you can listen here. Thanks also to the 100+ Facebook users so far who’ve “liked” the podcast.
They’re suing Facebook for allowing minors to “like” products without parental permission, and Twitter over its alleged sending of confirmatory “we won’t send you any more texts” texts.
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- “Teacher threatens student with defamation suit for complaining about her grades” [Bassett, Calif.; San Gabriel Valley Tribune via TortsProf]
- Rolls-Royce case: “Judge Posner Provides Preview of Wal-Mart v. Dukes Ruling?” [Trask]
- But note Davidoff comments: “Plaintiffs Lawyers Eyeing Marcellus Shale Work” [Legal Intelligencer]
- Massachusetts: for its 85-year-old administrator, is an anti-poverty empire forever? [Lawrence Eagle-Tribune via Zincavage]
- Senate Judiciary advances Rhode Island nominee Jack McConnell by 11-7 vote [PoL, earlier]
- Bonuses for arrests? Way to disgrace a law enforcement system [Greenfield, related]
- “Insulting Your Boss Online Is Now Protected Speech” [AtL, earlier]
- Treasury’s Do Not Shop list [five years ago on Overlawyered]
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But suing a variety of “nontraditional defendants,” including the City of New York and the owners of the apartment building where the victim’s body was found, may not be a sure-fire formula for doing that. Among the defendants is Facebook, on which a paramedic improperly posted pictures of the victim’s body; while the pics were quickly taken down, the suit demands that Facebook take further remedial steps such as identifying who may have “downloaded” (i.e. viewed?) the images. [CNN]
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