Overlawyered » New York

March 15 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:32:11 +0000

Part III of Radley Balko series on painkiller access [HuffPo]
“Note: Add ‘Judge’s Nameplate’ to List of Things Not to Steal” [Lowering the Bar]
California’s business-hostile climate: if the ADA mills don’t get you, other suits might [CACALA]
Bottom story of the month: ABA president backs higher legal services budget [ABA Journal]
After string of courtroom defeats, Teva pays to settle Nevada propofol cases [Oliver, earlier]
Voting Rights Act has outstayed its constitutional welcome [Ilya Shapiro/Cato] More: Stuart Taylor, Jr./The Atlantic.
Huge bust of what NY authorities say was $279 million crash-fraud ring NY Post, NYLJ, Business Insider, Turkewitz (go after dishonest docs on both sides)]

Tags: ADA filing mills, bar associations, California, crash faking, insurance fraud, legal services programs, New York, pharmaceuticals, Voting Rights Act

March 15 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The twitching teens of LeRoy, N.Y.

Walter Olson — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 12:57:12 +0000

Susan Dominus explores an outbreak of tics and other neurological symptoms among teenage girls in a town near Rochester, as hyped on outlets like “Today” and CNN. Roving Tort-Finder Erin Brockovich, who parachuted into the town to blame possible chemical spills, does not come off well either: “Things only go wrong,’ [King's College London epidemiologist Simon] Wessely wrote in 1995, ‘when the nature of an outbreak is not recognized, and a fruitless and expensive search for toxins, fumes and gases begins.’” [NY Times Magazine]

Tags: Erin Brockovich, New York, toxic torts

The twitching teens of LeRoy, N.Y. is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Great moments in foreseeable misuse

Walter Olson — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:56:14 +0000

Cybex International, a manufacturer of exercise equipment, has agreed to pay $19.5 million to a Buffalo-area woman “who was injured by a piece of Cybex equipment when she improperly used a leg machine to stretch her shoulder.” A jury had awarded $66 million and a New York appellate court upheld the verdict, while reducing the sum to $44 million. [Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York; Lintoid/Seeking Alpha and more; Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association]

Tags: jackpot justice, New York, product liability, recreation

Great moments in foreseeable misuse is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Seats too small: the sequel

Walter Olson — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:30:28 +0000

An overweight customer in Rockland County, N.Y. has dropped his Americans with Disabilities Act suit against White Castle after a Nanuet, N.Y. outpost of the hamburger chain put in new free-standing chairs that could accommodate him [NY Post, December via Lowering the Bar, earlier]

Tags: disabled rights, New York, obesity, restaurants

Seats too small: the sequel is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Annals of wage and hour law

Walter Olson — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:44:26 +0000

New York’s notoriously stringent Department of Labor has fined a pizza shop owner $5,535 for not giving his employees enough polo shirts to wear — at least five for those who work five days a week, even if they work only a few hours a day. Owner Christian King

was told that an appeal would take years due to the backlog and the fine would accrue with interest….

“What happened to him is not unusual,” agreed Richard De Groot, a Syracuse consultant who advises businesses — including King’s — on human resource issues. He represents employers across much of the Eastern Seaboard and says New York is unusually demanding.
“There is so much in the way of state rules and laws,” he said, adding that he would advise some businesses, such as manufacturers, to simply look to elsewhere.

[Albany TImes-Union via Stoll]

Tags: New York, restaurants, small business, wage and hour suits

Annals of wage and hour law is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Schneiderman tapped for mortgage probe

Walter Olson — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:53:39 +0000

In a move likely to be welcome to his Left base, the president is naming New York’s business-bashing attorney general to head up a probe into banks’ mortgage misconduct. Capital New York’s headline says it all: “Obama elevates Eric Schneiderman, Who Was Too Liberal for Andrew Cuomo.” Another view: Felix Salmon (& Roger Donway, Atlas Business Rights Center).

Tags: mortgages, New York

Schneiderman tapped for mortgage probe is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

New York’s “Triborough Amendment”

Walter Olson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:19:32 +0000

A distinctively unfair bit of favoritism toward public sector unions, it legally locks in benefits after a contract expires, thus encouraging and rewarding union intransigence in negotiating the next. [Michael Allegretti, Public Sector Inc.; Empire Center for New York State Policy]

Tags: labor unions, New York, New York state

New York’s “Triborough Amendment” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Labor and employment law roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:12:05 +0000

NLRB rules employment contracts that specify arbitration for group grievances violate federal labor law even in nonunion workplaces [D. R. Horton, Inc. and Michael Cuda; Ross Runkel, Corporate Counsel]
Richard Epstein on “living wage” legislation [Defining Ideas]
In Greece, law providing early retirement for “hazardous” jobs was extended to some that are not so hazardous, like hairdressing, pastry making and radio announcing [Mark Steyn via Instapundit, IBTimes, Reuters]
“Prosecutor’s double-dippers draw millions from New Jersey pension funds” [Mark Lagerkvist, DC Examiner] Even if convicted on felony charges of misappropriation of public funds, Beverly Hills school superintendent unlikely to forfeit pension [LA Times]
“Against Forced Unionization of Independent Workers” [Ilya Shapiro on Cato amicus brief in Harris v. Quinn]
Whoops: UAW officials appeal extortion sentence, 6th Circuit sends it back as too lenient [AutoBlog via Kaus]
New York appeals court makes it harder to get weak NYC job-bias cases dismissed on summary judgment [Judy Greenwald, Business Insurance] Connecticut’s job-bias commission doesn’t seem to consider any cases frivolous any more [Daniel Schwartz]

Tags: arbitration, Connecticut, discrimination law, labor unions, New York, NYC, prosecution

Labor and employment law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Labor law roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:26:22 +0000

But don’t call it quotas: “New Proposal May Force Federal Contractors to Hire More People with Disabilities” [Diversity Journal]
Wow: SEIU local advertises job described as “Train/lead members in … occupying state buildings and banks” [Instapundit]
$174K/year annual pension, collected for several decades? “Public retirement ages come under greater scrutiny” [AP] “Report makes ‘progressive’ pension-reform case” [Steven Greenhut, Public Sector Inc.] “Retired Cops and Firefighters in RI Town Accept Pension Cuts in Bankruptcy Deal” [Debra Cassens Weiss/ABA Journal, earlier] New York officials move to cut off public access to information about who’s getting what [NY Post]
In end run around Congress: “Obama instating labor rules for home-care aides” [LAT]
Artificial “take home pay” rule helped some highly paid Connecticut public workers qualify for emergency food stamps [Hartford Courant, more]
Lawyers, business groups alarmed at Department of Labor’s proposed “labor persuader” regulations [ABA Journal, earlier]

Tags: Connecticut, disabled rights, labor unions, New York, public employment

Labor law roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

December 20 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:09:35 +0000

No regulatory surge under Obama? Check the numbers please [WSJ edit, James Gattuso/Heritage] Now online: Federalist Society convention panels on regulation [Cass et al, Epstein et al] “House passes REINS Act, president promises veto” [Adler, Mike Kelsey/Heritage] Regulation Moratorium and Jobs Preservation Act “dying in Senate committee” [PoL]
Study: NY municipalities battered by litigation [Sydney Cresswell & Michael Landon-Murray, Rockefeller/Albany, PDF]
Dodd-Frank and corporate credit [David Henderson]
Inside the great Las Vegas condo-board-takeover scam [Bloomberg, earlier]
“Copyright Law and European Compilations of U.S. Jazz Recordings” [Kerr, Volokh]
Autism-care cheat: “Former MoFo Partner Draws 12-Month Sentence in Fraud Case” [Recorder]
Would privacy torts do better? Jim Harper on the Fair Credit Reporting Act [Cato Institute, PDF]

Tags: autism, debtor-creditor law, music and musicians, New York, privacy, regulation and its reform

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