“Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

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

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

“I’ve lately been reading Mark Twain’s book Following The Equator, and I came across a passage in which he talks about employment recommendations. What he says immediately made me think of you — how employment law has changed!”

The first Bearer that applied, waited below and sent up his recommendations. That was the first morning in Bombay. We read them over; carefully, cautiously, thoughtfully. There was not a fault to find with them – except one; they were all from Americans. Is that a slur? If it is, it is a deserved one. In my experience, an American’s recommendation of a servant is not usually valuable. We are too goodnatured a race; we hate to say the unpleasant thing; we shrink from speaking the unkind truth about a poor fellow whose bread depends upon our verdict; so we speak of his good points only, thus not scrupling to tell a lie – a silent lie – for in not mentioning his bad ones we as good as say he hasn’t any. The only difference that I know of between a silent lie and a spoken one is, that the silent lie is a less respectable one than the other. And it can deceive, whereas the other can’t – as a rule. We not only tell the silent lie as to a servant’s faults, but we sin in another way: we overpraise his merits; for when it comes to writing recommendations of servants we are a nation of gushers. And we have not the Frenchman’s excuse. In France you must give the departing servant a good recommendation; and you must conceal his faults; you have no choice. If you mention his faults for the protection of the next candidate for his services, he can sue you for damages; and the court will award them, too; and, moreover, the judge will give you a sharp dressing-down from the bench for trying to destroy a poor man’s character, and rob him of his bread. I do not state this on my own authority, I got it from a French physician of fame and repute – a man who was born in Paris, and had practiced there all his life. And he said that he spoke not merely from common knowledge, but from exasperating personal experience.

(& State Bar of Michigan News)

Mark Twain on employment reference law is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

U.N. power grabs is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

More from Coyote: “left unsaid is how they would jack up their prices when at least two other companies (Bing, Mapquest) also provide mapping services online for free.” But note that the French case arose not from Google’s furnishing of its free map service to individual end customers, but from its furnishing of its map API to businesses that typically adapt it for use in their own sites; as commenters at BoingBoing and Reddit as well as news reports point out, Google has indeed introduced fees for its largest business users of this type (which has caused some of them to adapt by switching from Google’s API to OpenStreetMap, a free wiki-based map service).

Free Google Maps unfair to paid competitors, France rules is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Photos of high-design furniture is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“French fans sue Michael Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray over ‘emotional damage’” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

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

Update: French court tosses “book review defamation” case is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system