On Martha’s Vineyard, the town of Chilmark, Mass. would rather not spend $2,000 per election cycle on federally mandated technology to help its one visually impaired voter. In the past the town has offered voters with poor or no eyesight a range of less costly choices including large print ballots and their choice of a person to read the ballot to them. [Megan Dooley, Vineyard Gazette via Ira Stoll, Future of Capitalism]
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts’s highest court thought it a bit much that fees and costs would eat up $800,000 from an estate valued at $1.2 million, or two-thirds of the value at stake. [Robert Ambrogi, Legal Blog Watch; Above the Law]
Incidentally, Robert Ambrogi is hanging up his keyboard after an impressive four-year tenure at Law.com’s Legal Blog Watch, but he’ll continue to maintain his other sites. He has kind words for this site as one to “follow religiously”, too.
Tagged as:
accolades,
feeing frenzy,
legal blogs,
Massachusetts,
wills and trusts
- 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
- Already-infamous Coakley-for-Senate rape-ad mailer: did they really line up all those photo permissions? [Lopez, NRO] Earlier on photo-permissions legal exposures here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.
- “Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Peyton Thomas: Blame the Libertarians!” [Balko, earlier]
- Georgetown lawprof Robin West takes such a rude tone with homeschoolers, it’s enough to make you wonder who brought her up [Common Room, Izzy Lyman/Big Journalism, "The Harms of Homeschooling" (PDF)] Parents charged with child endangerment for homeschooling their kids without submitting lesson plans [Albany Times-Union]
- Videogames and the ADA: “Sony Launches Defense to Gamer’s Equal Access Suit” [OnPoint News, earlier]
- Regulations may spell end for independent New England fishermen [AP/MSNBC, earlier]
- Veteran California pol Willie Brown criticizes civil service entrenchment [Kaus] Government employment has its privileges [Stuart Greenhut, Reason]
- New Jersey appeals court reverses $260K award over student’s fatal window fall at Fairleigh Dickinson U. [Star-Ledger]
- Georgia federal judge orders plaintiff to pay $268K costs of discovery for stretching patent claims [Fulton County Daily Report]
Tagged as:
art and artists,
civil service,
colleges and universities,
disabled rights,
discovery,
loser pays,
Massachusetts,
patent litigation,
Phoenix,
schools,
videogames,
web accessibility
A late-night binge drinking outing by some high school friends in Norfolk, Mass. ends badly. The mother says her late daughter “is absolutely 100 percent responsible” for what happened to her but is still is suing seven (7) teenagers and adults for their roles. [Boston Globe]
Tagged as:
alcohol,
Massachusetts,
social host
In the latest round in the prolonged controversy over the Nantucket Sound development, Aquinnah Wampanoag Indians who live on the west side of Martha’s Vineyard say that turbines off the east side of the island would spoil their welcome of the morning sun [NYT, WSJ editorial]
Tagged as:
environment,
Indian tribes,
Massachusetts
A dismissed teacher’s case against the school system in Lowell is now before Massachusetts’s Supreme Judicial Court. Phanna Rem Robishaw, a native of Cambodia originally hired to teach bilingual programs, had received favorable evaluations for years but received an unsatisfactory rating in English fluency after the state began requiring that teachers be tested on that skill. An arbitrator reinstated her but a state court judge reversed the reinstatement, terming her performance on an interview test tape “utterly incomprehensible”. Robishaw’s lawyer says the arbitrator excluded the tape from evidence and that the judge should not have considered it, and that the judge failed to observe the presumption against overturning arbitration results. “In 2002, Massachusetts’ voters passed Question 2, requiring all school superintendents to attest to the English fluency and literacy of their teachers where ‘the teacher’s fluency is not apparent through classroom observation and assessment or interview assessment.’” [Lowell Sun]
Readers with long memories will recall the 1990s controversy over a hard-to-understand foreign-born teacher in Westfield, Mass. which led Massachusetts voters to adopt Question 2; I wrote about it for Reason here. By coincidence, presumably, Robishaw attended Westfield State College.
Tagged as:
language bias,
Massachusetts,
teacher tenure
- “Common sense makes a comeback” against zero tolerance in the classroom [USA Today]
- Slip at Massachusetts antiques show leads to lawsuit [Wicked Local Marion]
- Update: Washington Supreme Court takes up horn-honking case [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- MICRA as model: “California’s Schwarzenegger stumps for medical liability reform” [American Medical News]
- “Inventing a better patent system” [Pozen, NYT]
- Google Books settlement narrowed to countries with “common legal heritage” [Sag, ConcurOp]
- One way to make ends meet: cash-strapped Detroit cops are seizing a lot more stuff [Detroit News via Business Insider]
- What temperatures are hot coffee actually served at? Torts buffs (including our Ted Frank) want to know [TortsProf exchange with Michael Rustad and followup, more and yet more]
Tagged as:
California,
forfeiture,
Google,
hot coffee,
Massachusetts,
medical malpractice,
patent law,
Ted Frank,
Washington state,
zero tolerance
- Woman who escaped first WTC bombing broke her ankle ten days later. Should New York’s Port Authority pay her $500,000? [Hochfelder]
- Former New York congressman and Pace Law School dean Richard Ottinger and wife rebuffed in what court deems SLAPP suit against commenter who criticized them on online forum; commenter says legal fees have cost him two years’ income [White Plains Journal-News, Westchester County; earlier] Amici in Massachusetts case endorse anti-SLAPP protection for staff of media and advocacy organizations [Citizen Media Law] “Canadian Court Rejects Defamation Liability for Hyperlinks” [same]
- “Chuck Yeager Tries Again to Stretch Right of Publicity” [OnPoint News, earlier]
- And naturally the advocates are demanding more regulation rather than less: “[Restaurant] Calorie Postings Don’t Change Habits, Study Finds” [NYT] More: Ryan Sager, Jacob Sullum.
- Famed L.A. lawyers Thomas Girardi and Walter Lack might get off with wrist-slaps over Nicaraguan banana suit scandal [The Recorder, Cal Civil Justice, earlier]
- Ralph Lauren lawyers: don’t you dare reproduce our skinny-model photo in the course of criticizing our use of skinny models [BoingBoing; and welcome Ron Coleman, Popehat readers; more at Citizen Media Law and an update at BoingBoing] Copyright expert/author Bill Patry is guestblogging at Volokh Conspiracy [intro, first post, earlier]
- Profile of John Edwards aide who played key role in Rielle Hunter affair [Ben Smith, Politico]
- Blind lawyer’s “call girl bilked my credit card” claim includes ADA claim against credit card company (but judge rejects it) [ABA Journal, Above the Law]
Tagged as:
banana pesticide litigation fraud,
copyright,
disabled rights,
intervening causation,
Massachusetts,
Port Authority,
restaurants,
Rielle Hunter,
right of publicity,
Thomas Girardi
Tagged as:
ACORN,
Barack Obama,
class action settlements,
Florida,
land use and zoning,
libel slander and defamation,
Massachusetts,
newspapers,
privacy,
restaurants,
schools
- California: “Feds Say Lawyer Took Bribe to Encourage Client to Lie in Immigration Case” [NLJ]
- “Before you celebrate [the] seemingly wise anti-litigation statement [of the "Skanks in New York" blogger], take note that she’s suing Google…” [Althouse, earlier here, here, etc.] Dispute is female-vs.-female, but feminist lawprofs inevitably spot gender discrimination [Citron, ConcurOp; Greenfield]
- “Ousted members of Florida chess board sue to reclaim their volunteer positions” [St. Petersburg Times]
- Man freed after serving 22 years on dubious child abuse charges, but prosecutor who went after him is doing fine [Radley Balko, Reason "Hit and Run", Bernard Baran case, Massachusetts]
- Khalid bin Mahfouz, plaintiff in celebrated “libel tourism” case against Rachel Ehrenfeld in England, is dead at 60 [Wasserman/Prawfsblawg]
- Colorful University of Connecticut law professor lands in a spot of bother again after girlfriend’s arrest [Above the Law]
- Federal judge says prosecutor in Chicago U.S. Attorney’s office allowed witness to testify falsely [WSJ Law Blog]
- Deja vu? “‘Seinfeld’ joke gets man canned for harassment” [Des Moines Register, earlier Wisconsin case; & see Ted's caveat in comments]
Tagged as:
child abuse,
Connecticut,
Google,
harassment law,
immigration law,
law schools,
Massachusetts,
prosecutorial abuse
