Posts tagged as:

New Mexico

Checking out a published report, Erik Magraken contacted former New Mexico state senator Duncan Scott and found that it was true, the lawmaker had indeed introduced a legislative amendment in 1995 providing that:

When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant’s competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than two feet tall. The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts. Additionally, a psychologist or psychiatrist shall be required to don a white beard that is not less than 18 inches in length, and shall punctuate crucial elements of his testimony by stabbing the air with a wand. Whenever a psychologist or psychiatrist provides expert testimony regarding a defendant’s competency, the bailiff shall contemporaneously dim the courtroom lights and administer two strikes to a Chinese gong…

The amendment — intended satirically, one should hasten to add –”passed with a unanimous Senate vote” but was removed from its bill before consideration by the state house and never became law. (& Coyote, Above the Law)

{ 8 comments }

The anti-obesity campaign isn’t the only policy initiative that’s leading to regulatory scrutiny of high school bake sales. There’s Title IX and its state equivalents, too:

Controversy in New Mexico continues over booster club funding and Title IX implementation as discussion heats up over the state’s Schools Athletics Equity Act. The issue remains whether private donations raised by parents through bake sales and working concession stands, or whether philanthropic contributions by private businesses, should be pooled together and distributed among all boys and girls teams under the guise of Title IX equality — and regardless of which parents/teams raised what.

Not surprisingly, many expect volunteerism to droop if the chance to raising funds for your team’s road trip or new equipment is replaced by a new rule prescribing that you can only raise money for school sports generally and hope that some fraction gets passed through to your team. [Deborah Elson, Saving Sports; earlier on booster clubs]

{ 1 comment }

(Litigious) life in academia

by Walter Olson on September 18, 2010

Lawsuits fly in various directions arising from almost implausibly colorful fact patterns (”professor-dominatrix”) at the University of New Mexico English department [Chronicle of Higher Education]

{ 2 comments }

March 19 roundup

by Walter Olson on March 19, 2010

  • Plaintiff in case alleging defective clown shoes “does not want any additional publicity” [N.Y. Post via Lowering the Bar]
  • Santa Fe’s anti-wireless activists [The New Mexican, earlier]
  • Law vs. vaccines, cont’d: “Judge Declines to Upset $22.5 Million Jury Award in Polio Case” [NYLJ]
  • Arizona high court launches probe of Maricopa County prosecutor Andrew Thomas [Coyote, earlier]
  • “Innumerable histronics” but no conspiracy: litigation over 1996 Filegate scandal fizzles out [Althouse]
  • More boosts in regulators’ budgets [Roger Clegg, NRO, OFCCP employment regulation at federal contractors; Koehler, FCPA Professor] Obama’s putting in regulatory hardliners at many agencies; a clue to his politics? [Bainbridge, Judis/TNR]
  • If only they’d confine themselves to suing the actual bad actors in FACTA (credit-card-slip) and junk-fax litigation [Bart T. Murphy, Chicago Business Ledger; my '06 take]
  • So may bullies ever fare: sanctions set against company that sued BoingBoing for libel ["MagicJack" case and more]

{ 4 comments }

We’ve previously encountered Arthur Firstenberg of Santa Fe, N.M., and his anti-wi-fi litigation. Now the self-reported sufferer from electromagnetic sensitivity “is suing his next-door neighbor for refusing to turn off her cell phone and other electronic devices,” saying his efforts to avoid the fields threatens to render him homeless. He also thinks neighbor Raphaela Monribot should pay him $530,000. He’s represented by lawyer Lindsay Lovejoy Jr. [Santa Fe New Mexican, The Register, DSL Reports]

More: alt-paper SFreeper (which seems to have been on the story first) reports that attorney Lovejoy “is a graduate of Harvard and Yale, as well as a former Assistant New Mexico Assistant Attorney General who has argued cases alongside now-US Sen. Tom Udall, D-NM.” (via Chris Fountain)

{ 20 comments }

Albuquerque Journal, last month: “After deliberating for less than four hours, a Roswell jury decided that El Paso Natural Gas Co. is not liable for the emotional distress firefighters and emergency personnel suffered while responding to a pipeline explosion that killed 12 people, many of them children, in 2000.” Two years ago the New Mexico Supreme Court had allowed the suit to proceed, chipping away at the “firefighter’s rule” which traditionally barred recovery by rescuers against those who caused the accidents to which they were responding.

A New Mexico court has upheld state-levied fines against a photographer who refused a job taking pictures at a same-sex wedding (Elane Photography v. Willock). Eugene Volokh, who has written about the case previously, now has a series of posts on the implications of the court’s effort to force creators to “create speech that they don’t want to create.” He also adds posts on the religious accommodation angle, the inevitable what-about-racists objection, and the role of state laws prohibiting “discrimination” against customers based on their political beliefs. More: Timothy Kincaid, Box Turtle Bulletin (”time for New Mexico to change its law. …ultimately what kind of freedom will we have won to live our lives as we see best if it costs the freedom of others to do the same?”).

{ 17 comments }

August 20 roundup

by Walter Olson on August 20, 2009

A New Mexico appeals court says the stadium can be sued. [AmLaw Daily]

{ 2 comments }

New at Point of Law

by Walter Olson on April 29, 2009

If you’re not reading my other legal site, Point of Law, here’s some of what you’re missing:

{ 1 comment }

Microblog 2008-11-25

by Walter Olson on November 25, 2008

  • Why real estate agents make you sign 1,000 silly forms [Christopher Fountain] Michigan requires acknowledgment that nearby farms “may generate noise, dust, odors” [Land Division Act h/t Sean Fosmire]
  • Albuquerque police take out want ad seeking snitches [AP]
  • “A prez must know S of S has no agenda other than his own” Chris Hitchens flays the Hillary pick [Slate]
  • Not all British nannies are charming: U.K. regulators may ban “happy hour” in bars [AP h/t Jeff Nolan]
  • As Georgia “sex offender” horror stories go, Wendy Whitaker case may outdo Genarlow Wilson’s [Below the Beltway; more on Wilson case]
  • U.K. juror polls her Facebook friends to help decide on case [AllFacebook h/t @lilyhill and @Rex7; Greenfield]
  • Looking for political conservatives on Twitter? Here’s a long list [Duane Lester, All American Blogger; and I have a comment on ways to use Twitter]
  • New page of auto-feeds from leading Canada & U.S. law & politics blogs [Wise Law Reader]
  • Bailout’s a lot bigger than you think, try $7.8 trillion with a “t” [John Carney]. Claim: with $ sunk since ‘80, GM and Ford could have closed own plants and bought all shares of Honda, Toyota, Nissan and VW [David Yermack, WSJ via Cowen]. What if Citi gives up Mets naming rights? Gary’s Bail Bonds Stadium just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it [Ray Lehmann]
  • Australian class action could derail because overseas funders didn’t register as investment managers [The Australian h/t @SecuritiesD]

May 28 roundup

by Walter Olson on May 28, 2008

  • More on that New Mexico claim of “electro-sensitive” Wi-Fi allergy: quoted complainant is a longtime activist who’s written an anti-microwave book [VNUNet, USA Today "On Deadline" via ABA Journal]
  • Your wisecracks belong to us: “Giant Wall of Legal Disclaimers” at Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor at Disneyland [Lileks; h/t Carter Wood]
  • New at Point of Law: AAJ commissions a poll on arbitration and gets the results it wants; carbon nanotubes, tomorrow’s asbestos? California will require lawyers operating without professional liability insurance to inform clients of that fact (earlier here and here); and much more.
  • Actuaries being sued for underestimating funding woes of public pension plans [NY Times via ABA Journal]
  • City of Santa Monica and other defendants will pay $21 million to wrap up lawsuits from elderly driver’s 2003 rampage through downtown farmers’ market [L.A. Times; earlier]
  • Sequel to Giants Stadium/Aramark dramshop case, which won a gigantic award later set aside, is fee claim by fired lawyer for plaintiff [NJLJ; Rosemarie Arnold site]
  • Privacy law with an asterisk: federal law curbing access to drivers license databases has exemption that lets lawyers purchase personal data to help in litigation [Daily Business Review]
  • Terror of FEMA: formaldehyde in Katrina trailers looks to emerge as mass toxic injury claim, and maybe we’ll find out fifteen years hence whether there was anything to it [AP/NOCB]
  • Suit by “ABC” firm alleges that Yellow Book let other advertisers improperly sneak in with earlier alphabetical entries [Madison County Record]
  • Gun law compliance, something for the little people? A tale from Chicago’s Board of Aldermen [Sun-Times, Ald. Richard Mell]
  • Think twice about commissioning a mural for your building since federal law may restrain you from reclaiming the wall at a later date [four years ago on Overlawyered]

{ 1 comment }

“A group in Santa Fe says the city is discriminating against them because they say that they’re allergic to the wireless Internet signal. And now they want Wi-Fi banned from public buildings. … [Arthur] Firstenberg and dozens of other electro-sensitive people in Santa Fe claim that putting up Wi-Fi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The city attorney is now checking to see if putting up Wi-Fi could be considered discrimination. But City Councilor Ron Trujillo says the areas are already saturated with wireless Internet.” (Gadi Schwartz, KOB, May 20).

{ 16 comments }

April 11 roundup

by Walter Olson on April 11, 2008

  • Plenty of reaction to our Tuesday post questioning the NYT school-bullying story, including reader comments and discussion at other blogs; one lawprof passes along a response by the Wolfe family to the Northwest Arkansas Times’s reporting [updated post]
  • Geoffrey Fieger, of jury-swaying fame, says holding his forthcoming criminal trial in Detroit would be unfair because juries there hate his guts [Detroit News]
  • Another Borat suit down as Judge Preska says movie may be vulgar but has social value, and thus falls into “newsworthiness” exception to NY law barring commercial use of persons’ images [ABA Journal]
  • Employer found mostly responsible for accident that occurred after its functionaries overrode a safety device, but a heavy-equipment dealer also named as defendant will have to pay more than 90 percent of resulting $14.6 million award [Bloomington, Ill. Pantagraph]
  • New Mexico Human Rights Commission fines photographer $6600 for refusing a job photographing same-sex commitment ceremony [Volokh, Bader]
  • “Virginia reaches settlement with families of VA Tech shooting victims” [Jurist]
  • Roger Parloff on downfall of Dickie Scruggs [Fortune]
  • Judge in Spain fined heavily and disbarred for letting innocent man spend more than a year in jail [AP/IHT, Guardian]
  • Hard to know whether all those emergency airplane groundings actually improved safety, they might even have impaired it [Murray/NRO "Corner", WSJ edit]
  • “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value” — tracking down the context of that now-celebrated quote from a Canadian Human Rights Commission investigator [Volokh]
  • Who was it that said that lawyers “need to be held accountable for frivolous lawsuits that help drive up the cost of malpractice insurance”? Hint: initials are J.E. [three years ago on Overlawyered]

{ 7 comments }

New Mexico in recent years has been the scene of a little cottage industry in class-action settlements over insurance companies’ allegedly inadequate disclosure of charges on installment payments. Settlements often involve pledges to inform consumers more fully, modest coupons, and impressively large legal fees to the circle of law firms that file the cases. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, nearly every large insurer selling life and disability coverage has been hit with a New Mexico class action in the past decade. Now, for the first time, the state high court is set to review one such settlement, in a case against First Colony/Genworth. The “settlements have not been free of controversy, with even some policyholder-plaintiffs describing the lawsuits as frivolous and the attorney fees as excessive”; cumulatively they have brought the class counsel more than $41 million in fees. (Thomas J. Cole, “New Mexico’s Supreme Court to Review Award of $6.5 Million in Attorney Fees in Suits Against Insurer”, Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 14 courtesy NM Legal Reform; earlier).

Three years ago we prematurely reported that sanity had (as of that point) prevailed in the New Mexico case where firefighters and emergency medical personnel, otherwise uninjured, were seeking to sue El Paso Natural Gas over the emotional trauma of witnessing the disaster scene after a 2000 pipeline explosion. Earlier this month, however, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled the other way, poking a big hole in the “firefighters’ rule” which traditionally barred recovery by rescuers against those who cause accidents. Chief Justice Edward Chavez wrote that to throw out the emotional-distress suits would be to “reward reckless or intentional acts”. The suits now head to trial. (Stella Davis, “Responders can sue in pipeline explosion”, Carlsbad Current Argus, Dec. 5).

{ 4 comments }

But first, a greeting, and a thank you to the Overlawyered boys for inviting me to guest-blog this week. I’m Ron Coleman, proprietor of the LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® blog on trademark, copyright and free speech law, and a contributor to Dean’s World and other things. In short, I love practicing law so much that I spend most of the day blogging.

So much for self-promotion (if you can call it that) — now to the promotion of animal cruelty — it’s all the rage, after all:

A new state law against fighting roosters violates a treaty that ended the Mexican-American War, a cockfighting association claims in a lawsuit.

The New Mexico Gamefowl Breeders Association and six businessmen argued that the law infringes on rights protected under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which made New Mexico a U.S. territory.

The lawsuit contends the treaty guarantees civil, political and religious rights, privileges and immunities to the people of New Mexico.

Many of the association’s 2,000 members “are devoted to rural lifestyles, of which gamefowl breeding and-or participating in gamefowl shows and fights are, in New Mexico, long-standing, culturally bound and significant activities,” the lawsuit said.

Wow, some treaty! It guarantees the right to — well, to do what, exactly? Let’s ask the Humane Society:

Cockfighting is a centuries-old blood sport in which two or more specially bred birds, known as gamecocks, are placed in an enclosure to fight, for the primary purposes of gambling and entertainment. A cockfight usually results in the death of one of the birds; sometimes it ends in the death of both. A typical cockfight can last anywhere from several minutes to more than half an hour.

The birds, even those who do not die, suffer in cockfights. The birds cannot escape from the fight, regardless of how exhausted or injured they become. Common injuries include punctured lungs, broken bones, and pierced eyes. Such severe injuries occur because the birds’ legs are usually fitted with razor-sharp steel blades or with gaffs, which resemble three-inch-long, curved ice picks. These artificial spurs are designed to puncture and mutilate.

Nice. And, best of all, tanto auténtico! What judge could resist such a rootsy appeal to heartless blood lust? Plus there’s dinero at stake, too.

Okay, so what’s the legal theory again? Oh, yeah, that’s right: This novel civil right — the right to engage in any “long-standing, culturally bound and significant activities” — is enshrined in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Well, here’s the Treaty: You see the clause guaranteeing the inalienable right to “long-standing, culturally bound and significant activities”?

No? Okay, well how about just the piece about roosters? Any specifications for ice picks?

Me neither. The only thing I remember about the unlikely juxtaposition of ice picks and Mexico is a certain unpleasantness involving some murderous Bolsheviks. Now, we saw then that “breaking a few eggs” can be unpleasant, but these poor chickens deserve better. Plaintiffs in this lawsuit, however, don’t.

UPDATE: Wow. There’s more to this civil right than I thought!

{ 10 comments }

“House Republicans are pushing legislation to protect airline passengers from lawsuits for reporting suspicious behavior that might be linked to a terrorist attack. Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, introduced the Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act of 2007 on Thursday, a week after a lawsuit was filed by a group of Muslim imams who were taken off a US Airways flight in November.” (Dec. 6, Mar. 15, Mar. 22; Audrey Hudson, “Hill bill protects flying public”, Washington Times, Mar. 24). Syndicated columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin has been on top of developments (”The John Doe Manifesto”, National Review Online, Mar. 28; blog posts, Mar. 24, Mar. 27, Mar. 28).

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a response from the imams:

The imams’ Manhattan attorney, Omar Mohammedi, said the suit “is directed at the airlines and the airport, not passengers.”If someone has a legitimate security concern, we’re not going after that person,” he said. “Or if someone saw them praying and reported that out of ignorant fear, we aren’t going to target that.

“But if someone lied and made a false report with the intention to discriminate, such as in saying the imams made anti-American comments and talked about Iraq when in fact nothing like that ever happened, we have the right to challenge that,” Mohammedi said.

(Pamela Miller, “Attorney offers aid to defendants in imam suit”, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Mar. 22). USA Today has editorially weighed in on the passengers’ side: “This legal tactic seems designed to intimidate passengers willing to do exactly what authorities have requested — say something about suspicious activity.” (”Our view on post-9/11 travel: Clerics’ lawsuit threatens security of all passengers”, Mar. 27; opposing view by Arsalan Iftikhar). See also Marc Sheppard, American Thinker, Mar. 27.

P.S. And now AP is on the case (”Imams removed from flight may sue passengers”, AP/MSNBC, Mar. 30), and Sen. Fred Thompson (”Suing for Silence”, National Review Online, Mar. 29). The imams have now amended their complaint to cast a seemingly less capacious net for John Does: Audrey Hudson, “Imams narrow target of ‘Does’”, Washington Times, Mar. 31.

{ 8 comments }