My new post at Cato at Liberty is on Italian labor law professors Pietro Ichino and Carlo Dell’Aringa, who live under police protection because of their support for liberalization of the job market; two other professors, Massimo D’Antona and Mario Biagi, have been killed by Red Brigades gunmen. More: Coyote.
Tagged as:
employment at will,
Italy,
law schools,
terrorism
- Union withdraws, and NLRB drops, complaint against Boeing over plant location decision [Adler, earlier] “Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) Introduces Bill to Reverse NLRB’s ‘Micro-Union’ Decision” [LRT via @jonhyman] Video of “Organized Labor & Obama administration” panel [Federalist Society convention]
- Suing Atlantic City is an established sport for current, former employees [Press of AC] After lawsuit win, former Gotham sanitation worker litters neighborhood with cars [NY Post via Christopher Fountain] Why have House, Senate reversed usual ideological lines on federal employee workers’-comp reform? [WaPo]
- Murder of reformist professors reinforces difficulty of changing Italian labor law [Tyler Cowen] UK considers relaxing “unfair dismissal” controls on employers [BBC, earlier]
- Taylor Law and NYC transit strike: “ILO Urges that U.S. Stop Violating International Obligations It Hasn’t Agreed To” [Ku, OJ; Mitch Rubinstein, Adjunct Law Prof]
- Maryland’s misnamed 2009 “Workplace Fraud Act” bedevils carpet installers and other firms that employ contract workers, and perhaps that was its point [Ed Waters Jr./Frederick News-Post, Weyrich Cronin & Sorra, Floor Daily]
- “Government pay is higher” [Stoll] Notwithstanding “Occupy” themes, interests of unions and underemployed young folks might not actually be aligned very well [Althouse]
- More on outcry over proposed federal restrictions on kids’ farm chores [WSJ, NPR, Gannett Wisconsin, CEI, earlier]
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agriculture and farming,
international human rights,
Italy,
labor unions,
Maryland,
New Jersey,
NYC,
United Kingdom,
workers' compensation
- More reviews of Schools for Misrule: Counterpoint (U. of Chicago), Wilson Trivino at PurePolitics.com;
- “Cops Collar 12 Year Old for “Walking Alone” in Downtown Toronto” [Free-Range Kids] Cop tells mom kids under ten “by law are not allowed outside unsupervised except in their parents’ yard.” [western Maryland, same]
- As lawmakers seek budget cuts, school finance litigators are on the march to counter their plans [WSJ Law Blog]
- Wouldn’t waive regs: “U.S. blocks $1 million Italian supercar” [CNN Money]
- You see, entrepreneurial suit-filing does create jobs: “Hike in Wage-and-Hour Litigation Spurs Demand for Calif. Employment Law Associates” [ABA Journal] How U.S. Congress devastated American Samoa through minimum wage hikes [Mark Perry]
- CCAF objects in Sirius class action settlement [PoL, earlier]
- “The Phantom Menace of Sleep Deprived Doctors” [Darshak Sanghavi, NY Times Magazine]
Tagged as:
autos,
children's rights,
class action settlements,
hospitals,
Italy,
law schools,
schools,
Schools for Misrule,
wage and hour suits
- “Cleveland Browns lawyer letter is apparently real” [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- “Headlines of the Apocalypse: ‘Lady Gaga eyes legal action over breast milk ice cream.’” [@vsalus re: Breitbart via @EdDriscoll]
- Chesley discipline prospects in Kentucky fen-phen scandal: “King of Torts Dethroned” [Laura Simons, Abnormal Use]
- Busy construction-defect lawyers vex Fresno builders [Bee, Business Journal]
- “NHTSA Postpones Back-Up Camera Requirement Rule” [The Truth About Cars, earlier]
- Lawyers in Italy call strike to protest law requiring mediation of commercial disputes [WSJ Law Blog]
- NYT’s Mark Bittman has a magical touch with food (alas) [Patrick at Popehat]
- Beasley Allen lawyers sluiced $850K to Alabama GOP judicial contender [Birmingham News via PoL]
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Alabama,
construction defect,
Italy,
New York Times,
NHTSA,
Stan Chesley,
wayward Republicans
The Italian government passes a law against “molecular cuisine”, barring use of liquid nitrogen and chemical additives in restaurant kitchens. It expires in less than a year, though. [Caput Mundi Cibus via Tyler Cowen]
Tagged as:
Italy,
restaurants
- Renewed attention to Amirault case contributed to Coakley’s political nosedive [e.g., Jacob Weisberg of Slate via Kaus, earlier] First time a Massachusetts prosecutor has paid a political price over that episode?
- Many, many Democratic elected officials call for rethinking/renegotiating Obamacare rather than trying to force it through [e.g. Barney Frank] Blue Mass blogger: talk radio fueled ire at Coakley, let’s have FCC shut it down [Graham]
- “Big Brother and the Salt Shaker” [NY Times "Room for Debate", Food Liability Law, earlier on NYC initiative and more] NYU’s Marion Nestle “loves” being called a nanny statist, so we’ll just go right on calling her that [Crispy on the Outside]
- Terror suspects win right to seek compensation from UK government over restrictions on their activities [Canadian Press]
- “Men Without Hats. Meaning no hard hats. Meaning The Safety Dance never met OSHA requirements. No wonder it was shut down.” [Tim Siedell a/k/a Bad Banana]
- Italian judge orders father to go on paying $550/month living allowance to his student daughter, who is 32 [Guardian/SMH, earlier on laws mandating support of adult children]
- Two informants vie for potential bonanza of whistleblower status against Johnson & Johnson [Frankel, AmLaw Litigation Daily]
- “Polling Firm Says John Edwards Is Its Most Unpopular Person Ever” [Lowering the Bar]
Tagged as:
Barney Frank,
broadcasters,
child abuse,
child support,
Italy,
John Edwards,
Massachusetts,
nanny state,
OSHA,
prosecutorial abuse,
safety,
salt,
terrorism,
United Kingdom,
whistleblowers
Bloomberg reports that the trial in Italy is going forward
on charges related to a clip uploaded to Google Video in 2006.
The clip was created and posted on the Web by a group of students at a Turin school, who filmed themselves bullying a disabled classmate. Google says that it removed the video as soon as it was notified and that it helped Italian police identify those responsible. The trial has been closed to the media at Google’s request.
“Seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open Internet,” Google spokesman William Echikson said in June.
More: AP.
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bullying,
Google,
Italy,
privacy,
YouTube
- Find me someone who speaks Mixtecan, fast: under new California law health insurers must provide patients with certified language interpreters [Ventura County Star]
- “Law Prof’s Article on His Jury Experience Leads to Overturned Verdict” [ABA Journal]
- Quick, lock up the Internet: Harvard Law’s John Palfrey wants to unleash child-endangerment suits against online providers [Citizen Media Law]
- “Another Lesbian Visitation Case has Liberty Counsel Spouting Nonsense” [Ed Brayton; earlier Miller-Jenkins case]
- “Jury awards need to be fair, not lucrative” [Jackie Bueno Sousa, Miami Herald]
- Aussie strip club disagrees with exotic dancer on whether faulty pole caused her injury [Brisbane Courier-Mail]
- Hasbro nastygram over “Little Mr. Monopoly” use [Bob Ambrogi, Ron Coleman]
- No, “crash of ‘09″ doesn’t refute “capitalist system”, any more than “car wreck” refutes “auto-based travel”.
Tagged as:
Australia,
California,
Crisis of 2008,
Italy,
juries,
language bias,
Miller-Jenkins case,
nastygrams,
strippers and exotic dancers
- Probate court in Connecticut: bad enough when they hold you improperly in conservatorship, but worse when they bill you for the favor [Hartford Courant]
- Does “Patent Troll” in World of Warcraft count as a character type or a monster type? [Broken Toys]
- 102-year-old Italian woman wins decade-long legal dispute, but is told appeal could take 10 years more [Telegraph]
- “This Cartoon Could Be Illegal, If Two Iowa Legislators Have Their Way” [Eugene Volokh]
- David Giacalone, nonpareil commentator on attorneys’ fee ethics (and haiku), has decided to end his blog f/k/a. He signs off with a four-part series on lawyer billing and fairness to consumers/clients: parts one, two, three, four, plus a final “Understanding and Reducing Attorney Fees“. He’s keeping the site as archives, though, and let’s hope that as such it goes on shedding its light for as long as there are lawyers and vulnerable clients. More: Scott Greenfield.
- Even they can’t manage to comply? Politically active union SEIU faces unfair labor practice charges from its own employees [WaPo]
- Judge in Austin awards $3 million from couple’s estate to their divorce lawyers [Austin American-Statesman]
- “Keywords With Highest Cost Per Click”, lawyers and financial services dominate [SpyFu]
Tagged as:
attorneys' fees,
chasing clients,
Connecticut,
divorce,
do as we say,
ethics,
free speech,
Iowa,
Italy,
on other blogs,
patent trolls,
Texas,
wills and trusts
- Ninth Circuit, Kozinski, J., rules 8-3 that Roommates.com can be found to have violated fair housing law by asking users to sort themselves according to their wish to room with males or other protected groups; the court distinguished the Craigslist cases [L.A. Times, Volokh, Drum]
- Class-action claim: Apple says its 20-inch iMac displays millions of colors but the true number is a mere 262,144, the others being simulated [WaPo]
- U.K.: compulsive gambler loses $2 million suit against his bookmakers, who are awarded hefty costs under loser-pays rule [BBC first, second, third, fourth stories]
- Pittsburgh couple sue Google saying its Street Views invades their privacy by including pics of their house [The Smoking Gun via WSJ law blog]
- U.S. labor unions keep going to International Labour Organization trying to get current federal ground rules on union organizing declared in violation of international law [PoL]
- Illinois Supreme Court reverses $2 million jury award to woman who sued her fiance’s parents for not warning her he had AIDS [Chicago Tribune]
- Italian family “preparing to sue the previous owners of their house for not telling them it was haunted”; perhaps most famous such case was in Nyack, N.Y. [Ananova, Cleverly]
- Per their hired expert, Kentucky lawyers charged with fen-phen settlement fraud “relied heavily on the advice of famed trial lawyer Stan Chesley in the handling of” the $200 million deal [Lexington Herald-Leader]
- Actor Hal Holbrook of Mark Twain fame doesn’t think much of those local anti-tobacco ordinances that ban smoking on stage even when needed for dramatic effect [Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times]
- Six U.S. cities so far have been caught “shortening the amber cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners.” [Left Lane via Virtuous Republic and Asymmetrical Information]
Tagged as:
AIDS,
Alex Kozinski,
compulsive gambling,
Craigslist,
fair housing,
fen-phen,
Google,
haunted house,
Illinois,
international law,
Italy,
Kentucky,
Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud,
Ninth Circuit,
Pittsburgh,
red light cameras,
roundups,
Seattle,
Stan Chesley,
tobacco
- This tale of a class-action settlement over male, uh, enhancement products sure looks like a parody, and yet…. Please let it be a parody [Magill/DirectMag, Levine/CircleID, LEMSettlement.com]
- Big law firm partners say million a year really isn’t enough to keep up social status in Manhattan or Silicon Valley [ABA Journal]
- Clerical error results in Disney characters’ getting subpoenaed in Italian criminal case [USA Today]
- We’ve slipped to second place in this Blawg 100 contest thing, don’t you like us? [vote here]
- Update on Miami’s fire-fee scandal (Sept. 19): law firm of Adorno & Yoss, which once sought $2 million fee, will now pay taxpayers $1.6 million; bar probe continues [Miami Herald, Florida Masochist]
- Wife had begged him not to go kite-surfing in Long Island Sound in winter, but still sues town over its failure to warn against taking such risks [Conn. Post]
- “I don’t do any medmal,” lawyer hastens to make known as he’s being stitched up in ER [GruntDoc]
- Very expensive speech: “beyond cruel” shock-jock comments ridiculing Albany, N.Y. burn victim end in $1 million settlement, spoliation also raised as issue [ABA Journal]
- Hassle of dealing with regs in charming Old Town Alexandria is one that only chain outlets may be up to shouldering [Balko, Reason]
- Turkish lawyer sues Italian soccer team, deems its “Crusader-style” red crosses “offensive to Muslim sensibilities” [Times Online, UK]
- Plaintiff’s lawyers tend to throw the most opulent holiday parties in Texas, but our readers knew that already [Houston Chronicle via Lat]
- Two men shot in suspected drug deal win $1.7 million in negligent-security suit against hotel [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Europe,
Houston,
Italy,
Long Island,
roundups,
spoliation