Overlawyered » Louisiana

May 18 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:14:02 +0000

Very silly Common Cause suit against Senate filibuster [Adler, Doug Mataconis, Jack Shafer (Filibuster unconstitutional? "Yes, but only when the GOP has the majority.")]
More on football concussion lawsuits [Will Oremus, Slate; Gerard Magliocca, Concurring Opinions; earlier]
Phrase I’ve heard before: Niall Ferguson says U.S. beset by the “rule of lawyers” [Business Insider]
“I have filed over a hundred lawsuits and another one will be no sweat for me. On the other hand, it will cost you a lot of time and money[.]” One blogger’s prolonged legal ordeal ["Aaron Worthing," Allergic2Bull and summary version] Plus: Ken/Popehat;
Louisiana land-taint suits: “maybe I’m just going to contend the oil companies did it, not the salt domes” [Lachlan Markay, Heritage, earlier]
Kansas differs from SCOTUS on legality of resale price maintenance. Will it make policy for the other 49 states? [Ted Frank] New Federalist Society project on state courts and how they’re picked;
A lot of lobbying went into that government-prescribed “flame-resistant” furniture [Chicago Tribune]

Tags: antitrust, bloggers and the law, CPSC, fires, football, Kansas, Louisiana, oil industry, serial litigants, state high courts, The Rule of Lawyers

May 18 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

April 20 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:19:00 +0000

Lawsuit claim: MERS mortgage system is just a racket to deprive court clerks of recording fees [Baton Rouge Advocate]
More reporting on hospital and community drug shortages [Washington Post; my post last summer]
Roger Pilon: How the “judicial activism” debate changed [Cato at Liberty]
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, spoken of as a future national political figure, has rather a lot of ties to trial lawyers [Political Desk]
Problems with DOJ e-book antitrust suit targeting Apple [Declan McCullagh]
One bogus campaign feeds into another: “ALEC Unfairly Demonized Over ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws” [Bader, CEI "Open Market"]
New Point of Law discussion on class actions with Ted Frank and Brian Fitzpatrick;
Today’s best spam comment? “With all the thistledown floating almost on the net, it is rare to look over a locate like yours instead.”

Tags: antitrust, Apple, class actions, Louisiana, mortgages, politics, Ted Frank

April 20 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 6 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 05:11:54 +0000

D.C. Circuit’s Janice Rogers Brown: three-decade-long case over Iran dairy expropriation raises “harshest caricature of the American litigation system” [BLT]
Legal blogger Mark Bennett runs for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals as Libertarian [Defending People, Scott Greenfield] And Prof. Bill Childs, often linked in this space, is departing TortsProf (and legal academia) to join a private law practice in Texas;
Ambitious damage claims, more modest settlements abound in Louisiana oil-rig cleanup suits [ATLA's Judicial Hellholes, more, more, earlier]
Better no family at all: Lawprof Banzhaf jubilant over courts’ denial of adoption to smokers [his press release]
“The worst discovery request I’ve ever gotten” [Patrick at Popehat] And yours?
Concession to reality? Class action against theater over high cost of movie snacks seen as dud [Detroit Free Press]
FCPA is for pikers, K Street shows how real corruption gets done [Bill Frezza, Forbes] Dems threatening tax-bill retribution against clients whose lobbyists who back GOP candidates [Politico]

Tags: adoption, D.C. Circuit, discovery, environment, legal blogs, lobbyists, Louisiana, movies film and videos, oil industry, smoking bans, Texas

March 6 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 5 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:07:35 +0000

Trial lawyer TV: mistranslation, plaintiff’s experts were instrumental in “Anderson Cooper 360″ CNN story trying to keep sudden-acceleration theory alive [Corp Counsel, Toyota, PDF, background]
“Can I get a form to file a police complaint?” No. No, you can’t [Balko]
Madison County lawyer runs for judgeship [MCRecord; earlier on her columnist-suing past]
RIP Dan Popeo, founder and head of Washington Legal Foundation [Mark Tapscott, Examiner]
Louisiana: “Church Ordered to Stop Giving Away Free Water” [Todd Starnes, Fox via Amy Alkon]
Developer of “Joustin’ Beaver” game files for declaratory judgment against singer Justin Bieber’s trademark, publicity claims [THR, Esq.]
“Why are Indian reservations so poor?” [John Koppisch, Forbes] “Payday loans head to the Indian reservations” [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason] Tribal recognition: high-stakes D.C. game where lobbyists get the house rake-off [Chris Edwards, Cato]

Tags: celebrities, churches, Illinois, Indian tribes, Louisiana, Madison County, media bias, police, sudden acceleration, Toyota

March 5 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Liability-proof your Mardi Gras parade watch party

Walter Olson — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:14:07 +0000

Among ways to add to the festive atmosphere: sign-in and sign-out sheets, monitors hired to look out for slip-inducing bead spills, and rules against letting supervisors or employees pour drinks. [Melissa Landry, The Hay Ride] Earlier on Mardi Gras liability here (tossed coconuts), here (floats), here (King cake figurine), and here (flasher’s-remorse cases.

Tags: Christmas and other holidays, Louisiana, recreation

Liability-proof your Mardi Gras parade watch party is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Louisiana: secondhand dealers must report customers to police

Walter Olson — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:28:13 +0000

The law is meant to reach anyone who buys or otherwise deals in used items at least once a month, and requires noncash payment methods. And that’s just the start: [Ackel & Associates]

…For every transaction a secondhand dealer must obtain the seller’s personal information such as their name, address, driver’s license number and the license plate number of the vehicle in which the goods were delivered. They must also make a detailed description of the item(s) purchased and submit this with the personal identification information of every transaction to the local policing authorities through electronic daily reports. If a seller cannot or refuses to produce to the secondhand dealer any of the required forms of identification, the secondhand dealer is prohibited from completing the transaction.

P.S. According to James in comments, the quoted account exaggerates the stringency of the law in question as well as its novelty. More: Volokh, Opposing Views, Greenfield, Masnick.

Tags: Louisiana, police

Louisiana: secondhand dealers must report customers to police is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Louisiana Legislators Narrowly Reject Car Seizure for Littering”

Walter Olson — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:25:28 +0000

A near encounter with forfeiture madness in the Pelican State [The Newspaper]:

Under the legislation, impounded vehicles [of third-conviction litterers] would be sold at auction with the revenue split 10 percent to the towing company, 30 percent to the local police or investigative agency, 10 percent to the indigent defender board, 20 percent to the prosecutor and 30 percent to the state. The vehicle would be seized regardless of whether the offender was also the owner of the car. A bank or other lien holder on a leased car would have to pay “all towing and storage fees” before recovering their property.

According to The Newspaper, the bill passed the Louisiana state senate by a vote of 34 to 1 before its defeat 49-46 in the state House.

Tags: environment, forfeiture, Louisiana, traffic laws

“Louisiana Legislators Narrowly Reject Car Seizure for Littering” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“2006 Louisiana environmental law leads to jackpot justice”

Walter Olson — Mon, 30 May 2011 13:05:49 +0000

Ted at Point of Law has details on an environmental-remediation law that has helped perpetuate a culture of big-ticket litigation: “One verdict awarded $54 million for environmental damage to a piece of land that was never worth more than $108,000.” We covered the long-running Exxon v. Grefer case, in which a jury ordered the oil company to pay $1 billion (later knocked down to $112 million) over an instance of contamination on land owned by a Louisiana judge’s family.

Tags: environment, Louisiana, oil industry

“2006 Louisiana environmental law leads to jackpot justice” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Lawyer asks for $10M in desegregation case”

Walter Olson — Mon, 16 May 2011 05:10:05 +0000

Opelousas, Louisiana: “The attorney who filed the original desegregation lawsuit against the St. Landry Parish School Board in 1965 is seeking nearly $10 million in legal fees for his work on the case over the past 46 years.” [AP/Daily World, Baton Rouge Advocate]

Tags: attorneys' fees, Louisiana, schools

“Lawyer asks for $10M in desegregation case” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Update: teen who rode oil pump loses case

Walter Olson — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:43:30 +0000

Reversing a state appeals court, the Louisiana Supreme Court has reinstated summary judgment in favor of a defendant manufacturer in the case of a 13-year-old injured while playing unsupervised with an oil pump, “finding that riding an oil-well pump like it was an amusement park ride was not a reasonably anticipated use of the pumping unit at the time of its manufacture in the 1950′s.” [Wajert; earlier]

Tags: Louisiana, oil industry, personal responsibility, product liability

Update: teen who rode oil pump loses case is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system