- Gov. Christie vetoes bill enabling workers and job applicants to sue employers who asked about Facebook use [NJLRA, Star-Ledger, more]
- “Shockingly a British pub might want to hire British employees,” NYC Human Rights Commission sees things differently [Amy Alkon]
- Anticlimax: despite fears, NLRB won’t ban at-will disclaimers in employee handbooks [Jon Hyman]
- “Equally injurious to the children of the laboring classes is their utilization by their parents in theatrical and operatic shows” [Kyle Graham]
- Senate confirms plaintiffs’ class action attorney as newest appointee to EEOC [Stoel Rives]
- Public accounting: “Two advances for pension transparency” [Josh Barro]
- At least there’s one category of young worker for whom job prospects remain bright, namely kids of Andrew Cuomo’s friends [David Boaz]
Tagged as:
Andrew Cuomo,
discrimination law,
EEOC,
Facebook,
New Jersey,
NYC
- An Instalanche from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, and Prof. Bainbridge remembers the phrase “takes the Boeing;” R.S. McCain on blogging communities and linkiness; Coyote (“Congrats… The Overlawyered blog is one of the blogs I read every day, and is one of the grand old blogs of the Internet”); Joe Patrice/Above the Law; Chris Fountain/For What It’s Worth (“If you haven’t used it to keep track of the inanities of our modern society of flawed men and laws, here’s a good opportunity.”); Think Tank Watch.
- From Twitter: Tunku Varadarajan (“I love — and recommend — ‘Overlawyered’”), Alan Gura (“so the lawyers have gone over all the details and finalized the documents?”), Sohrab Ahmari (“sharpest critic of our litigious culture… must-read”), Popehat (“indispensable”), David Boaz, Danny Alvarez, Sr. (“REALLY? Congrats. You better keep that flippant attitude now that you are part of ‘The Man!’”), Jack Robling (“I’d love to meet the lawyer who lawyered @overlawyered and @CatoInstitute’s marriage”); occasional guestblogger Ron Coleman (“So, hey, am I now retroactively a prestigious ‘Cato blogger’?”), Kurt Loder, Andrew Stuttaford, John Carney (“Surprised it took this long”), Massimiliano Trovato (“must read for anyone interested in law and liberty”), Jeremy Kolassa (“must [follow] if you want to know how litigation is screwed up in this country”), Scott Greenfield (“indie blogs bite the dust. Congrats to Wally, but I hate to see it go ‘corporate’” — and exchange with Popehat), Tom Kirkendall, Susan Cartier Liebel, Business Roundtable, Bob Lucas Jr., and many others.
- At Facebook, various reactions including from longtime reader Doug Iverson: “I’d just like to say that I think Overlawyered was better before Walter turned it over to Cato to market. I think it’s hyped more.” My response, in part: “Ian, my colleague at Cato, now writes the regular Facebook links, which are the chief reason visits to the site via Facebook are up tremendously in recent weeks. If Doug writes to Cato to say that Overlawyered’s Facebook presence has become a flagrant puffery scheme designed to lure readers into giving the website a try, I think they will give Ian a raise.”
- If you missed it, Friday’s announcement.
Tagged as:
about the site,
accolades,
Facebook
- Police in city of Manchester, U.K. say they’ll record attacks on punks, Goths as hate crimes [AP]
- If claiming severe permanent injuries from auto mishap, best not to place well in a marathon six months later [West Virginia Record]
- “Altering or deleting a Facebook account during litigation may be … spoliation of evidence” [Paul Kostro, Brian Wassom, Jim Dedman]
- Note to Trademark Office: “breastaurant” is not trademarkable [David Post; earlier here, here, and here]
- Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley, a Litigation Lobby stalwart, seeks Senate seat of retiring Harkin [DMR, earlier]
- Meta? Lawyer files suit over a suit [the Brooks Brothers kind] [Staci Zaretsky, Above the Law]
- Judge Shadur: “the most egregious fraud on the court … encountered in [my] nearly 33 years on the bench.” [Courthouse News]
- Do you enjoy reading Overlawyered? Check back later today, after 9 a.m. Eastern, for a major announcement about the site!
Tagged as:
Facebook,
hate crimes,
Iowa,
trademarks
With a new law, Vernon County, Wisconsin has put itself at the forefront of attempts to regulate disparaging email, online chat, blogs, Facebook posts (specifically cited by one advocate at a hearing), and Twitter. The law seems to be a product of the media hype over “cyberbullying.” [Popehat, Volokh]
Tagged as:
bloggers and the law,
bullying,
Facebook,
free speech,
online speech,
Twitter,
Wisconsin
- Wendy Murphy brings her believe-the-accuser shtick to the University of Virginia [KC Johnson, Minding the Campus]
- UK: foster parents in Rotherham might want to take care not to belong to the wrong political party [Telegraph]
- “The Disappearance of Civil Trial in the United States” [John Langbein, Yale Law Journal & SSRN]
- “Liability Is ‘Wrong’ Solution for Rating Agencies” [Mark Calabria, Cato at Liberty] Mere days later: “Sixth Circuit Rejects Ohio Pension Fund Suit Against Rating Agencies” [Adler]
- “Yes, it is now illegal to be fully nude in San Francisco *unless you are in a parade*” [Lowering the Bar]
- Once lionized in press: “Former Ohio AG Loses Law License for 6 Months Over Ethics Violations While In Office” [ABA Journal, Adler]
- Facebook says it may go after some lawyers who’ve repped adversary Ceglia [Roger Parloff, Fortune]
Tagged as:
colleges and universities,
Facebook,
Marc Dann,
San Francisco,
United Kingdom,
Wall Street
Many politically active people “like” candidates and causes to which they are in fact ardently opposed, since following the opposition’s Facebook stream can be a smart way to keep tabs on what it’s doing. But as a result Facebook keeps feeding us sponsored posts — often very misleading ones — that follow the formula “[my friend] likes [candidate/cause X]“.
By the way, if you’re on Facebook, you really should be liking Overlawyered, here. That’s true even if you can’t stand the site and just want to keep tabs on its nefarious ways.
Tagged as:
about the site,
Facebook,
politics
“Paul Ceglia, who sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2010, claiming he was promised a 50% share in the social media company, was arrested on Friday. His alleged crime: doctoring, fabricating and destroying evidence to support his claims. The feds described his lawsuit as a multi-billion dollar scheme to defraud Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg.” [Joe Palazzolo, WSJ Law Blog, Donna Tam, CNet]
Tagged as:
Facebook,
fraud
From the summary: “Judge throws out multibillion dollar suit arising from obscure CD-and-audiotape rental law, saying there’s no evidence anyone was actually harmed by Pandora’s integration with Facebook two years ago.”
The suit [by class action firm Edelson McGuire] claimed violations of an obscure pre-Internet era Michigan law, which says a company “renting or lending” sound recordings may not disclose details about customers’ transactions without their written permission. Because it specifies $5,000 penalty per violation, the possible damages could total in the tens of billions — far more than Pandora’s actual $1.8 billion market capitalization.
The judge, however, said the law did not create a right of action on behalf of unharmed consumers, and also was unpersuaded that the music-streaming service was “renting or lending” songs. [Declan McCullagh, CNet]
Tagged as:
class actions,
Facebook,
music and musicians
…is now approaching 1,000 “likes.” Won’t you help push it over by “liking” it now, recommending it to friends, and sharing a few posts?
Tagged as:
Facebook
- 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
- Most embarrassing lawsuit Hall of Fame (plaintiff’s decedent division) [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, cardiology med-mal; more]
- Latest twist in ongoing speech-chilling saga worthy of attention from PEN: attorney Aaron Walker is charged in Rockville, Md. after a court interprets his blogging about an adversary as a violation of a peace order [Hans Bader and more, Eugene Volokh, Scott Greenfield with comments from Maryland lawyer Bruce Godfrey, Patterico, Popehat, and many others; earlier here, here, and here.] And Ken at Popehat, in a perhaps not unrelated development, puts out a call for a pro bono criminal lawyer to protect a blogger in M.D. Fla. and M.D. Tenn.
- California lament: Facebook must pay hefty bribe to be allowed to hire more employees [Coyote]
- “The burdens of e-discovery” [Ted Frank/PoL]
- Strangest judicial campaign video of the year? [Jim Foley, candidate for Washington Court of Appeals, Olympia; Above the Law, followup]
- Massive wave of disability claims among returning vets [AP]
- We keep loading up company compliance/ethics folk with new regulatory responsibilities. How’s that working out? [Compliance Week]
Tagged as:
bloggers and the law,
California,
discovery,
Facebook,
free speech,
medical malpractice,
military,
Washington state
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.
Tagged as:
about the site,
Facebook,
Twitter
