- “The real cost of patent trolls” [Brad Feld, PoL on BU study] Survey finds patent litigation booming [Corporate Counsel, Reynolds Holding/Reuters] Company claiming patent on wi-fi-in-stores unlikely to sue retail customers “at this stage” [Patent Examiner] Retrospective on crustless-sandwich case [Peter Smith/Good, earlier]
- Louisiana federal court holds severe obesity to be disability under ADA [Sam Bagenstos, related]
- Florida: many cops remain on job despite evidence linking them to crimes [Balko on Sarasota Herald-Tribune investigation]
- “FDA Regulation Could Doom Cigar Shops” [Jacob Sullum]
- Ted Frank vs. Brian Fitzpatrick on class action fees [PoL, David Lat on Federalist Society panel]
- Orange County keeps mum about partnerships it’s entered with plaintiff’s attorneys Robinson, Calcagnie and Thomas Girardi [Kim Stone, Fox & Hounds] Maybe like “private attorney generals”? Fannie/Freddie genre of government-sponsored enterprises called “monstrous moral hybrids” [Mark Calabria, Cato]
- Posner: lawyers appeared more likely to run junk-fax suit for own interests than clients’ [Beck, Trask (Creative Montessori Learning Centers v. Ashford Gear LLC)]
Tagged as:
class actions,
Florida,
Los Angeles,
obesity,
patent litigation,
patent trolls,
police,
public employment,
tobacco
- TSA: design of gun on purse is “replica gun” [Radley Balko]
- “Note: Before Attaching Ankle Monitor, Make Sure Leg Is Real” [Lowering the Bar]
- “Harm to others” rationale seems to fall by wayside as Boston bans workplace use of e-cigarettes [Jacob Sullum]
- “Should legislation protect the obese?” [NYT "Room for Debate"]
- German town drops charges against Pope Benedict XVI for failure to wear seat belt in Popemobile [WaPo, Lowering the Bar, Irish Times]
- Ninth Circuit agrees to review litigation seeking court takeover of vets’ mental care [SFChron, WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
- The shaky science of “shaken baby syndrome” [Pfaff, Prawfs, ABA Journal, earlier here, here] Jerry Brown should pardon dubiously convicted grandmother [Emily Bazelon, Slate]
Tagged as:
Boston,
Catholic Church,
Germany,
guns,
obesity,
seatbelts,
tobacco
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]
Tagged as:
McDonald's,
obesity,
San Francisco
“An 8-year-old Cleveland Heights boy was taken from his family and placed in foster care last month after county case workers said his mother wasn’t doing enough to control his weight.” Lawyers for the mother of the >200-lb. boy “think the county has overreached in this case by arguing that medical conditions the boy is at risk for — but doesn’t yet have — pose an imminent danger to his health.” The county claims that the mother has ignored doctor’s orders, which she denies. [Rachel Dissell, Cleveland Plain Dealer; see correction on weight in comments]
P.S. As several press accounts note, the issue has been building for a while, notably this summer when Harvard researchers published a piece in JAMA calling for wider removal of obese children from homes.
Tagged as:
Child Protective Services,
Cleveland,
obesity
- Just as FDA begins laying groundwork for mandatory salt reduction in prepared food, research raises new doubts about the science [Reuters, Atlantic Wire, Alkon]
- Feds now scrutinizing “everything about kids’ food” [Star-Tribune] Top-down remake of school lunches runs into trouble in Congress [AP]
- “Christmas tree tax”: blame big growers and GOP lawmakers, not White House [Tad DeHaven, , Mark Perry]
- Living right by a USDA-designated “food desert,” she’s “never had better access to food in my life.” [Angie Schmitt, Urbanophile] “As income rises, so does fast-food consumption, study finds” [L.A. Times, Sullum] “You can eat local, or you can eat organic, but it’s very hard to do both.” [Felix Salmon]
- Bloomberg News (not Bloomberg Hizzoner) hypes food-as-addiction, child obesity figuring in more custody battles [WSJ] Michelle Obama on the role of personal responsibility, alas not in this realm of life [Andrew Coulson, Cato]
- Private bed-leasing law is finally restoring Maryland’s depleted oyster stocks [Rona Kobell, Reason] Catch shares for Alaskan king crab might even be saving human lives [Adler]
- Why bother cooking for your kids at all? Feds ramp up program that serves them dinner as well as breakfast, lunch [Stoll]
Tagged as:
agriculture and farming,
Alaska,
eat drink and be merry,
Maryland,
obesity,
salt,
schools
- “Wisconsin Judge Rules No Right to Own a Cow or Drink Its Milk” [Food Freedom; related on demonstration at FDA]
- We’re from the authorities, and we’re shutting down your “farm-to-fork” dinner [Amy Alkon]
- “FTC Makes Strategic Concessions on Food/Beverage Marketing Guidelines” [Lammi, WLF]
- Given a little humility, NYT’s Mark Bittman might have noticed that his new junk food insight contradicts his old [Jacob Sullum, Reason]
- Urban myths about Halloween candy tampering [Free-Range Kids]
- New Jersey lawsuit over serving of meat to devout Hindu vegetarians [Abnormal Use; compare 1999 case]
- “First lady will achieve goal of eradicating all food deserts by 2017″ — calm down, that’s “deserts” with just the one “s” [Obama Foodorama, more, more] Premise that lack of access to fresh fruits/vegetables accounts for poor urban diet, however, is sheerest fantasy [Katherine Mangu-Ward/WaPo, earlier here and here]
Tagged as:
advertising,
eat drink and be merry,
food safety,
obesity
The promotional claims that General Mills makes about its snack product seem to be accurate enough, but the busybody Center for Science in the Public Interest says the company should be calling attention to other, less positive nutritional facts too. Stephen Richer wonders whether dating profiles are going to have to begin listing the candidate’s less appealing qualities. [WLF Legal Pulse]
Tagged as:
advertising,
CSPI,
eat drink and be merry,
obesity
Maine and Colorado senators are in the forefront as the U.S. Senate vindicates the ongoing presence of potatoes in the federal school lunch program [Caroline May, Daily Caller]
Tagged as:
obesity,
schools
- “Federal judge: ADA makes porches in new stores illegal” [PoL]
- “San Francisco Manages to Spend $700K for a Wheelchair Ramp” [Lowering the Bar] Taco Bell hit with potentially expensive California verdict [AP]
- Looking for regulations that burden economy? Look no further than the ADA [Bader]
- Website critical of serial California filers [Highest Paid Lawyer]
- Parking lot rules imperil historic re-creation of Victorian setting in east L.A. [EastSider]
- “Morbidly” obese, at least, covered: EEOC sues over firm’s dismissal of 680-lb. man [Houston Chronicle, Hyman, MySanAntonio]
- $1.1 million verdict against Iowa university for failing to accommodate worker’s mental state could encourage more suits [Fox]
- Missed this in June: “Netflix sued by deaf group over lack of subtitles” [Lance Whitney, CNet]
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
obesity,
San Francisco
The food-truck revival has stirred much enthusiasm, but now paternalists have begun to demand that goodie-laden vehicles — like drug dealers — be made to stay at a considerable distance from schools. [Bay Citizen]
Tagged as:
nanny state,
obesity,
schools
- Feds fund Boston campaign bashing sweetened drinks [Globe; see also on NYC] More on ObamaCare “Public Health Fund” subsidies to local paternalist initiatives on diet [WLF]
- Thanks to federal funding priorities, New York education department had 40 experts on school lunches, only one on science education [Frederick Hess via Stoll]
- Grocers hope to escape federal menu labeling mandate [FDA Law Blog] How regulations exasperate midsize restaurant operators [Philip Klein, Wash. Examiner]
- “The Eight Dumbest Restaurant Laws” [Zagat]
- Proposed federal standards on kid food ads extreme enough that many USDA “healthy” recipes would flunk [Diane Katz, Heritage] Do FTC’s guidelines violate the First Amendment? [WSJ]
- Compared with what? “Egg farm regulations still skimpy” [Stoll] Deer blamed for E. coli in pick-your-own strawberries [USA Today]
- U.K.: Your kids are too fat so we’re taking them away [Daily Mail; earlier here, here, etc.]
Tagged as:
advertising,
Boston,
eat drink and be merry,
Federal Trade Commission,
food safety,
nanny state,
New York,
obesity,
restaurants,
schools
New York: “A 290-pound diner claims the White Castle chain has violated the civil rights of its more sizable clientele by not following through on promises to make its tight booths bigger to accommodate their bellies.” [S.F. Chronicle]
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
obesity,
restaurants
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines a food desert as a low-income census tract where a large number of residents are more than a mile from a grocery store…. [L]ess than 4.5 percent of the U.S. population [falls into that category], yet roughly two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese.” And that’s just the start of the difficulties with the food-desert theory [David Gratzer, Washington Examiner]
Tagged as:
obesity
- Burning Man, risk, and self-reliance [Claire Gordon, related]
- Jacob Sullum challenges Mark “tax-the-snacks” Bittman [Reason; related, Rick Esenberg] “Fat tax” would be hard to target, hard to enforce, disliked by voters [David Gratzer]
- “CSX claims racketeering in Pittsburgh law firm’s legal tactics” [Post-Gazette; earlier here, here, here, etc.] A different view: Max Kennerly.
- Complaints over new class-action law in Canada [Reuters]
- Minnesota preacher sues Rachel Maddow [TVNewser, Mother Jones]
- Does the new Texas loser-pays bill go far enough? [Kyle Baum, WLF, earlier]
- Tell us about it: “Why the Right to Criticize Lawyers is Vital” [Hans Bader, CEI]
Tagged as:
asbestos,
Canada,
claims fraud,
class actions,
libel slander and defamation,
loser pays,
obesity,
Pittsburgh,
taxes,
Texas
Infuriating: “a pair of Harvard scholars writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association advocate stripping away the custody rights of parents of super obese children. … ‘Despite the discomfort posed by state intervention, it may sometimes be necessary to protect a child,’ said Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health. The study’s co-author, David Ludwig, says taking away peoples’ children ‘ideally will support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible.’” [Atlantic Wire]
More: Ira Stoll notes the following sentence from the JAMA piece: “Even relatively mild parenting deficiencies, such as having excessive junk food in the home or failing to model a physically active lifestyle, may contribute to a child’s weight problem.” From M.M., via social media: “I’ve never seen better evidence for that old William F. Buckley, Jr. quote: ‘I’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 members of the Harvard faculty.’” And Ken at Popehat examines the possibility that the researchers were just, you know, trying to “start a conversation” about the need for more child-snatching.
Tagged as:
child protection,
nanny state,
obesity
- Texas legalizes sale of home-baked goods; “Mom can come out of hiding” [KLTV; @JohnWaggoner] New York regulators order Greenmarket cheese vendors to stop custom-slicing wedges for customers [Baylen Linnekin]
- Children who take school lunch more likely to be obese than those who brown bag it [Freddoso] And is there still time to save chocolate milk? [Boston Herald on proposed Massachusetts school ban]
- “Obesity policy” in theory: “High-calorie food is too cheap” argument of NYT’s Leonhardt is open to doubt [Josh Wright] “Is obesity really contagious?” [Zoë Pollock, The Dish] Knives out among scientists debating food causes of obesity [Trevor Butterworth, Forbes] Feds look to regulate food similarly to tobacco in hope of saving money on health care [Munro, Daily Caller]
- …and practice: “Calorie counts don’t change most people’s dining-out habits, experts say” [WaPo, Richer/WLF] Obama nutrition campaign: eat as we say, not as we do [The Hill] Of recent USDA “recipes for healthy kids,” 12 of 15 would not have met proposed FTC ad standards [WSJ] Nanny’s comeuppance? “States rein in anti-obesity laws” [WSJ Law Blog]
- “Food safety chief defends raw milk raids” [Carolyn Lochhead, SF Chronicle, earlier]
- “It’s Time to End the War on Salt: The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science” [Melinda Wenner Moyer, Scientific American]
- After talking with experts, NYT’s Mark Bittman walks back some assertions about the European e. coli outbreak, now blamed on Egyptian fenugreek seeds [Science Mag; related, Kolata/NYT]
- “If anything, China’s food scandals are becoming increasingly frequent and bizarre.” [LATimes]
- Public criticism of activist food policy often calls forth a barrage of letters defending government role in diet. Ever wonder why? [Prevention Institute "rapid response" talking point campaign; how taxpayers help]
Tagged as:
agriculture and farming,
China,
eat drink and be merry,
FDA,
food safety,
New York Times,
obesity,
salt
