Overlawyered » McDonald’s

Judge tosses Happy Meal lawsuit

Walter Olson — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:01:46 +0000

In San Francisco, Judge Richard Kramer has dismissed the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s lawsuit on behalf of parent Monet Parham seeking to declare unlawful McDonald’s practice of including a toy in its Happy Meal. I wrote about the case last year. [SF Weekly, earlier here, here]

Tags: McDonald's, nanny state, obesity

Judge tosses Happy Meal lawsuit is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Woman Blames McDonald’s for Prostitution”

Walter Olson — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:30:46 +0000

Some stories just seem destined for this site, including this one about a woman whose legal complaint alleges that “her ex-husband met her after she was hired to work at McDonald’s and later pushed her into prostitution in Nevada.” [Courthouse News, NY Daily News]

Tags: McDonald's, Nevada, personal responsibility

“Woman Blames McDonald’s for Prostitution” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

McDonald’s and the legal academy

Walter Olson — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:55:16 +0000

Another law professor finds the hot-coffee and obesity lawsuits admirable, and Ted Frank once more begs to differ.

Tags: hot coffee, law schools, McDonald's, obesity

McDonald’s and the legal academy is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Food and agriculture roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:16:18 +0000

Steve Chapman on FDA salt reduction initiative [Tribune/syndicated] Canada: “Health minister takes sodium-reduction plan off the table” [Calgary Herald] Flashback: FDA holds first hearing on regulating salt content in food [2007, Medical News Today] Discussion of my piece last week [Adler/Volokh, Instapundit]
More on McDonald’s sidestepping of San Francisco would-be Happy Meal ban [Fair Warning, earlier; background here, here, here, here, etc.]
“Caveat Venditor: Cottage Food Laws Great in Theory, Often Less So in Practice” [Baylen Linnekin of pro-freedom Keep Food Legal, who guestblogged at Reason last week]
Rather than get government out of way, left’s farm bill (“Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act”) would cut small/local/organic growers in on more USDA programs [Obama Foodorama, Linnekin]
Good riddance to monopoly powers of the Canadian Wheat Board [CBC]
Texas now allows home bakers to sell their wares [Austin Chronicle via @pointoflaw]
Widespread opposition to new Department of Labor proposal to ban kids from much work on farms [Nebraska Outback]

Tags: agriculture and farming, Canada, McDonald's, salt, small business

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

San Francisco Happy Meal ban

Walter Olson — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:01:40 +0000

It takes effect Thursday, but, as some had predicted, the hamburger chain seems to be evading its reach fairly easily just by assigning a separate price to the toy. [SF Weekly]

Tags: McDonald's, obesity, San Francisco

San Francisco Happy Meal ban is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Happy Meals and Campbell’s Soup

Walter Olson — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:20:51 +0000

This week has brought one nudge forward and one push back for the paternalistic “food policy” crowd, or so I argue in a new opinion piece for the New York Daily News (& welcome Instapundit/Glenn Reynolds readers, Center for Consumer Freedom “Quote of the Week“).

Tags: McDonald's, nanny state, obesity, salt, WO writings

Happy Meals and Campbell’s Soup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Hot Coffee” documentary (HBO) reviewed

Walter Olson — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:56:40 +0000

Great review by Miami Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin casting a skeptical eye on the trial-lawyer film project (“done in by its essential dishonesty… like any good lawyer — and unlike any good documentarian — [director Susan Saladoff is] intent on concealing the weakness in her case).” Read it here. Meanwhile, from the “How does this sort of thing get past the editors of the Washington Post?” files, there’s this from Hank Stuever:

For to really embrace tort reform, you have to be willing to treat all potential plaintiffs as no-good grifters. … To support tort reform, you have to believe all lawsuits against businesses are a threat to the free market.

Stuever does not, for some reason, name any proponent of reform who has actually asserted either of the propositions. Do you think that might be because he’s trafficking in absurd caricatures? (earlier on “Hot Coffee” here, here, here, etc.)

P.S. More: Cory Andrews, WLF. And if lawyers are really eager to have the facts of the Liebeck v. McDonald’s case come out, it’s curious they don’t take steps to release the trial transcript, in the absence of which critics of the case are obliged to speculate on key points. And as I just wrote in a comment at Abnormal Use:

I believe organized tort reform groups were caught flat-footed by the McDonald’s case and didn’t get around to doing much with it until it had already become the talk of the nation through talk shows, late night TV and so forth. As often happens, plaintiff’s-side advocacy groups were more aggressive in seeking coverage for their side in the media. Thus Public Citizen and allies gave a press conference on Capitol Hill and were rewarded with a big Newsweek story summarizing their talking points (as well as, earlier, coverage in the news-side WSJ). I’m pretty sure no groups critical of the Liebeck award ever did a comparable press push; and the McDonald’s company itself, so far as I know, never chose to cooperate with commentators who might be sympathetic to its legal case.

Tags: hot coffee, McDonald's, media bias, Stella Liebeck

“Hot Coffee” documentary (HBO) reviewed is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Sanctimonious posse pursuing Ronald McDonald

Walter Olson — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:12:31 +0000

Columnist Steve Chapman has their number:

People don’t like cheap, tasty, high-calorie fare because McDonald’s offers it. McDonald’s offers it because people like it. … We live in an age of inexpensive, abundant food carefully designed to please the mass palate. Most of us, recalling the scarcity, dietary monotony and starvation that afflicted our ancestors for hundreds of millennia, count that as progress. But those determined to save human beings from their own alleged folly see it as catastrophic.

[Examiner]

Tags: McDonald's, obesity

Sanctimonious posse pursuing Ronald McDonald is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Coffee temperatures and the McDonald’s case

Walter Olson — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:39:20 +0000

A survey by Tampa’s ABC Action News confirms a point often made by Ted in this space: “The Liebeck case did little, if anything, to alter the manner in which fast food restaurants serve coffee.” [Nick Farr, Abnormal Use]

Tags: hot coffee, McDonald's

Coffee temperatures and the McDonald’s case is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system