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April 11 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:06:29 +0000

More on Maryland cyber-bullying law vs. First Amendment [Mike Masnick/TechDirt, and thanks for quote; earlier here, here]
Family of Trayvon Martin settles with homeowners’ association for an amount believed north of $1 million [Orlando Sentinel, earlier]
Best of the recent crop of commentaries on violent political terrorists of 1960s landing plum academic gigs [Michael Moynihan, Daily Beast, earlier]
First the New Mexico photographer case, now attorney general of Washington sues florist for not serving gay wedding [Seattle Times; earlier on Elane Photography v. Willock]
“‘Vexatious litigator’ is suspect in courthouse bomb threats in five states” [ABA Journal]
Cannon, meet moth: Ken instructs a guy at WorldNetDaily why hurt feelings don’t equal fascism [Popehat] “The Trick In Dealing With Government: Find The Grown-Up In The Room” [same]
A true gentleman and friend: R.I.P. veteran New York editor and publisher Truman Talley, “Mac,” who published many a standard author from Ian Fleming to Jack Kerouac to Rachel Carson to Isaac Asimov and late in his illustrious career took a flyer on a complete novice in the books that became The Litigation Explosion and The Rule of Lawyers [NYT/Legacy]

Tags: colleges and universities, discrimination law, Martin-Zimmerman case, on other blogs, same-sex marriage, serial litigants, Washington state

April 11 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Two makes a trend: Reddit “Ask Me Anythings”

Walter Olson — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:39:44 +0000

Two personalities often linked in this space, Prof. Richard Epstein and Popehat’s Ken White, were both on Reddit yesterday doing an interactive feature called “Ask Me Anything.” Epstein’s is here, and White’s is here.

More: Epstein in response to a question on originalism: “The style of interpretation used by the founders was much more sophisticated than the attention to text. Implied limitations on government, as through the police power, were part of the picture, as were implied protections of the government, as with sovereign immunity. My new book out later this year, The Classical Liberal Constitution, addresses these issues.”

In response to a question about his rule-utilitarian rationale for libertarian principles: “My view is that the deontological explanations tend to fail because they cannot account for such common practices at Intellectual Property, taxation or eminent domain. The theory has no way to deal with forced exchanges, which is what taxation and eminent domain are about.”

On libertarianism and pollution: “externality control is an essential party of the overall libertarian theory, and that means control of nuisances. … It is a case where it is easier to mischaracterize a system than to understand it. Nuisance law has many distinctive remedial features and at times requires collective enforcement of the basic norm against invasion. But there is nothing about the theory which says that the way to make people happy and prosperous is to choke them.”

Also: why the movie Body Heat got the Rule Against Perpetuities wrong, and why he’s not a fan of the German way to organize legal academia.

And Ken White answers questions about when to talk to the police; pro bono cases he’s proud of having helped on; what to say to someone who wound up going to law school in part because of his blog; how having his identity “outed” affected his law practice; and three kinds of crazy case that result in Popehat posts.

Tags: nuisance, on other blogs, Richard Epstein, social media

Two makes a trend: Reddit “Ask Me Anythings” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Judge (and bloggers) want answers about copyright mill

Walter Olson — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 23:23:59 +0000

Ken at Popehat and Mike Masnick at TechDirt are on the case of Prenda Law, which is in the business of monetizing low-value copyrights to adult entertainment properties. The story, which recently resulted in the filing of defamation suits against Prenda critics, is highly convoluted, so I recommend scrolling down to earlier posts in the series (such as this one by Ken).

Tags: copyright, lawyers, on other blogs

Judge (and bloggers) want answers about copyright mill is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Torts roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 04:06:13 +0000

“City to pay $22.5 million to bipolar woman released in high-crime area” [Chicago Sun-Times, Greenfield]
On Medicaid settlement clawback evasion, Obama acts in line with wishes of both plaintiff’s and defense sides, though against interests of federal Treasury [Ted Frank] Michael Greve on Delia v. EMA, the Medicaid recoupment case before SCOTUS [Law and Liberty]
From Sasha Volokh, a Glee-ful Torts exam [Volokh]
Congrats to Abnormal Use, repeat winner in Torts category of ABA Journal Blawg 100;
UK: personal injury firms say they’ll need to lay off workers if government carries through on reform of civil suits [Law Gazette]
“How the First Amendment affects tort law” [Beck, Drug and Device Law]
Bummer: after involuntary pot brownie incident, lawsuit names club where incident took place [NJLRA]

Tags: Chicago, illegal drugs, on other blogs, United Kingdom

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

October 8 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 04:05:48 +0000

Karma in Carmichael: serial Sacramento-area filer of ADA suits Scott Johnson, often chronicled in this space, hit by sex-harass suit by four former female employees, with avert-your-eyes details [Sac Bee; News10, autoplays] One of Johnson’s suits, over a counter that was too high, recently helped close Ford’s Real Hamburgers, a 50-year-old establishment. [KTXL/The Blaze]
Fifth Circuit reverses decision holding Feds liable for Katrina flood damages [Reuters]
“Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril”: SCOTUS takes up first-sale doctrine in copyright law [Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch on Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons]
Rubber room redux: “New York Teacher Live-Streams $75,000 Do-Nothing Job” [Lachlan Markay, Heritage] Teacher charged with hiring hitman to kill colleague should have been fired decade ago [Mike Riggs]
“George Zimmerman sues NBC for editing 911 audio to make him sound racist” [Jim Treacher, Daily Caller]
Prof. Mark J. Perry has moved his indispensable Carpe Diem economics/policy blog in-house to AEI;
New York will require newly licensed lawyers to do pro bono [WSJ, Scott Greenfield, Legal Ethics Forum]

Tags: ADA filing mills, copyright, Fifth Circuit, Katrina, Martin-Zimmerman case, New York, on other blogs, pro bono, teacher tenure

October 8 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Deadline for ABA best-blog nominations is tomorrow

Walter Olson — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:31:11 +0000

If you don’t feel you can nominate Overlawyered in good conscience, Lowering the Bar would make a good blog to nominate.

Tags: on other blogs

Deadline for ABA best-blog nominations is tomorrow is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Labor and employment roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 04:04:28 +0000

Why is the U.S. Department of Labor funding Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC), a group that stages protests in front of restaurants and has “harassed” patrons? Rep. Darrell Issa wants to know [Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine, Daily Caller]
Connecticut public workers who wrongly took food stamps get their jobs back, and no, you can’t read the arbitration decisions [Raising Hale]
Michael Fox’s pioneering employment law blog turns 10;
“Why Defending Employment Lawsuits Can Be So Expensive” [Daniel Schwartz]
What lawprofs are up to: proposal to gut the employee-misconduct defense [Pandya, Workplace Prof]
Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains why he sees no contradiction in opposing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA] while supporting gay marriage. Related: Jacob Sullum;
Hyper-regulation of employment in Italy cries out for reform [John Cochrane, Tom Smith, one deterrent]

Tags: Connecticut, discrimination law, Italy, on other blogs, public employment, restaurants, workplace

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

“Factual Free-Market Fairness”

Walter Olson — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 15:36:30 +0000

The widely discussed blog post by Deirdre McCloskey is at Bleeding Heart Libertarians.

Tags: on other blogs

“Factual Free-Market Fairness” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Debate on law school faculty diversity

Walter Olson — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 10:42:51 +0000

In the light of the ongoing controversy over Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren’s ill-documented claims of Native American status, Point of Law — the website I launched and ran back when I was at the Manhattan Institute — has begun a featured discussion on the effects on legal academia of the ongoing pressure to hire by race (and sex and several other categories). Following an introduction by James Copland, I’ve kicked off the discussion with an opening post (“Better Scholarship Through Diversity?”). There’s plenty on the subject, of course, in my book Schools for Misrule from last year. Other participants in the discussion will include Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and, most likely disagreeing with us, Gerald Torres of the University of Texas.

Tags: law schools, on other blogs, Schools for Misrule

Debate on law school faculty diversity is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

May 22 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:10:24 +0000

Lacey Act madness: might Feds be empowered to disrupt summer concerts by seizing musicians’ Gibsons? [Bedard, DC Examiner; earlier; recent Heritage Foundation work; reworded to reflect comment from "Density Duck," below]
Contributors to new “Privatization Blog” include friend of this blog Coyote, e.g. here and here;
“Big Government Causes Hyper-Partisanship in the Judicial Appointment Process” [Ilya Shapiro] Fuels Culture War, too: “The faster the state expands, the more likely it is to violate your values” [Matt Welch]
Demagogy on expatriates: Schumer proposal for stiff tax on emigrants may have read better in original German [Ira Stoll, Roger Pilon/Cato, Paul Caron/TaxProf]
Georgia high court considers $459 million fax-spam verdict [AJC, AP, my take] “Hot fuel” class actions enrich the usual suspects [PoL]
New rebuttal to trial lawyer/HBO movie “Hot Coffee” [Victor Schwartz et al, auto-plays video] Ted Frank crossed swords with Litigation Lobby on the movie in January, particularly on the question of coffee temperature and the Liebeck case [PoL]
Overlawyered “will become the first [law] blog teenager this summer” [Bruce Carton, Legal Blog Watch] “I’ve been a fan of Walter Olson’s Overlawyered blog for years.” [Amy Alkon, Advice Goddess] Thanks!

Tags: accolades, endangered species, Georgia, hot coffee, judicial nominations, on other blogs, taxes

May 22 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system