Last week the New York Times ran a chilling investigative account of what goes on at New York group homes for the developmentally disabled, where employees in hundreds of cases appear to have abused or mistreated residents with impunity. Per the Times:
…in 25 percent of the cases involving physical, sexual or psychological abuse, the state employees were transferred to other homes. The state initiated termination proceedings in 129 of the [399] cases reviewed but succeeded in just 30 of them, in large part because the workers’ union, the Civil Service Employees Association, aggressively resisted firings in almost every case.
Revelations like this should be front and center in the unfolding debate over public employee unionization, but often aren’t. [h/t: James Sherk, NRO "Corner"]
Tagged as:
labor unions,
New York,
public employment
- “A conversation with class action objector Ted Frank” [American Lawyer]
- Reviews of new Lester Brickman book Lawyer Barons [Dan Fisher/Forbes, Russell Jackson] Plus: interview at TortsProf; comments from Columbia legal ethicist William Simon [Legal Ethics Forum]
- “Collective Bargaining for States But Not for Uncle Sam” [Adler] Examples of how Wisconsin public-sector unionism has worked in practice [Perry] Wisconsin cop union: nice business you got there, shame if anything were to happen to it [Sykes, WTMJ] “Union ‘rights’ that aren’t” [Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe]
- “Minnesota House Considering Significant Consumer Class Action Reform Measures” [Karlsgodt]
- 10,000 lawyers at DoD? Rumsfeld complains military overlawyered [Althouse via Instapundit]
- “Are Meritless Claims More Prevalent in Copyright?” [Boyden, Prawfs]
- Claim: availability of punitive damages reduces rate of truck accidents. Really? [Curt Cutting]
- Now with improved federalism: “The Return of the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act” [Carter Wood, more, earlier here].
Tagged as:
class actions,
copyright,
labor unions,
Lester Brickman,
military,
Minnesota,
police,
public employment,
punitive damages,
sanctions,
Ted Frank,
Wisconsin
An employee who was kept on the Norfolk, Va. payroll for 12 years without being asked to come in to work has complained that she was wrongfully fired. The employee was originally suspended after misconduct allegations that her agency head for unclear reasons failed to get resolved; his successor dismissed her. [PilotOnline]
Tagged as:
public employment,
Virginia
The California Beer & Beverage Distributors has contributed money to defeat the marijuana-legalization measure, as have police groups. One consideration that might shed light on the latter stance: “Police forces are entitled to keep property seized as part of drug raids and the revenue stream that comes from waging the drug war has become a significant source of support for local law enforcement.” Surprisingly, the politically active prison-guards union has not (yet) thrown its weight onto the “no” side, though prison supervisors have. [Ryan Grim, HuffPo via Tabarrok]
Tagged as:
beer and brewers,
California,
illegal drugs,
police,
public employment
- Cleverer approach NFL might have taken in “Who Dat” affair [Schwimmer, HuffPo, earlier here, here, etc.]
- Justice Anthony Kennedy: influence of unionized prison guards in passing California’s three-strikes law “sick” [LA Times]
- Federal prosecutors going after poster designer Shepard Fairey for untruth in civil lawsuit? How strange is that? [Kennerly]
- Plaintiff in complaint against Mark Steyn before Canadian rights tribunal boasted of having “increase[d] the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material” [NRO "Corner"; earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- Federal jury rejects wrongful birth suit against Elkton, Maryland obstetrician [Miller, more on wrongful birth]
- Forced-reincarnation suit against Oprah Winfrey dismissed, George W. and Laura Bush off hook too [WV Record]
- “How to Report the News”: funny plug-and-use TV reporting template [YouTube/Charlie Brooker, Newswipe, UK]
- “Virginia Legislators Kill Bills to Mandate Child Support for Adult College Students” [Hans Bader/CEI "Open Market", earlier here and here]
Tagged as:
Mark Steyn,
Oprah Winfrey,
public employment,
wrongful birth and wrongful life
The federal government is seeking applicants who are mentally ill, mentally retarded or both to work as lawyers in the Justice Department. Specifically, a job announcement for “up to 10 experienced attorneys for the position of Trial Attorney in the Voting Section in Washington, D.C.” contains the following language:
The Civil Rights Division encourages qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply. Targeted disabilities are deafness, blindness, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, convulsive disorder, mental retardation, mental illness, severe distortion of limbs and/or spine. Applicants who meet the qualification requirements and are able to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation are encouraged to identify targeted disabilities in response to the questions in the Avue application system seeking that information.
[via Eugene Volokh and many others]
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
public employment
- Online game purveyor Evony threatens to sue UK critic in Australian court [GameSetWatch, Ken at Popehat, Patrick at Popehat]
- 106: number of (counted) cases filed since 2005 that blame errant grapes for slip-fall injuries [ABA Journal]
- Bayonne, N.J.: “Connolly suing county for $1M over job switch” [Jersey Journal; background (city councilman took six months off from job as coordinator of 9/11 emergency call center; "doctors won't let him go back because it's too stressful.")]
- “Lessons from Andrew Sullivan’s pot bust” [Sullum, Reason] More: Patrick at Popehat.
- “The Appraisal Debacle: How Not to Regulate” [Jack Guttentag, Yahoo Finance, via Fountain]
- Bizarre: “Paralegal Guilty in Fake-Libel-Suit Scam That Briefly Won $3M” [ABA Journal]
- Idea for immigration reform: “Let the smart people in”. [Farhad Manjoo, Slate, via Alkon] More: “Free the H-1Bs, free the economy” [Vivek Wadhwa, TechCrunch]
- Academic finds that depending on whom you ask, “It’s not about the money” or maybe it is [Relis, SSRN/Pittsburgh 2007, via Burch, Mass Tort Lit]
Tagged as:
Australia,
food safety,
forum shopping,
immigration law,
libel slander and defamation,
mortgages,
New Jersey,
not about the money,
public employment,
slip and fall,
videogames
Most of the 37 guards who work at the Cornwall Island, Ontario border crossing have notes from doctors saying that tensions arising from relations with the local Mohawk Indian tribe make it too stressful to work there and could result in harmful health effects. [CanWest/Vancouver Sun]
Tagged as:
Canada,
public employment
- Legal hazards of beachcombing: “Keeping bald eagle feather could result in a $100,000 fine and year in prison” [BoingBoing; our Sept. 1999 post]
- “E.U. Condemns America’s Online Gambling Crackdown” [Sullum, Reason "Hit and Run"]
- Much-loved Stockton, Calif. eatery Chuck’s Hamburgers is menaced by ADA serial litigator, and friends rally to save it [Stockton Record, 4000-member Facebook group]
- Doomed AF Flight 447 had multiple connections with France (airline, aircraft maker) and Brazil (takeoff, many passengers’ nationality), so of course some American lawyers are hoping to get resulting suits heard in U.S. courts [Bloomberg]
- Sure takes a lot of lawyering to bring a movie like “Bruno” to the screen [Althouse, WSJ Law Blog, Legal Ethics Forum]
- Form vs. substance: U.K. historic-preservation edict saves increasingly impractical Victorian bell frames, at expense of 650-year-old bell ringing tradition [Telegraph via Never Yet Melted]
- All in a day’s (double) work: take city retirement or even disability, then come back in second job [Al Tompkins, Lowell (Mass.) Sun]
- Can it be? In just about another two weeks your favorite source of legal consternation will turn ten years old [nine years and eleven months or so ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
ADA filing mills,
aviation,
endangered species,
forum shopping,
gambling,
historic preservation,
public employment,
United Kingdom
- Boy fatally shoots stepbrother at home, mom sues school district as well as shooter’s family [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
- Problem gambler sues Ontario lottery for C$3.5 billion [Toronto Star]
- Cop declines training in which he’d be given Taser shock, and sues [Indianapolis Star]
- Ultra-litigious inmate Jonathan Lee Riches scrawls new complaint linking Bernard Madoff, Britney Spears [Kevin LaCroix]
- Just to read this update feels like an invasion of privacy: “Judge to Hear Challenge to $6M Herpes Case Award” [On Point News, earlier]
- “Best criminal strategy: join the Spokane police” [Coyote Blog] More: Greenfield, Brayton.
- Will mommy-bloggers be held liable for freebie product reviews? [Emily Friedman, ABC News, earlier]
- Update: “Fifth Circuit says no bail for Paul Minor” [Freeland]
Tagged as:
advertising,
Canada,
Federal Trade Commission,
Indiana,
Jonathan Lee Riches,
lottery,
Paul Minor,
police,
public employment,
schools,
Washington state
