• Contriving to give Sheldon Silver the moral high ground: NY judges steamed at lack of raises are retaliating against Albany lawmakers’ law firms [NY Post and editorial. More: Turkewitz.]
• When strong laws prove weak: Britain’s many layers of land use control seem futile against determined builders of gypsy encampments [Telegraph]
• “U.S. patent chief: applications up, quality down” [EETimes]
• Plenty of willing takers for those 4,703 new cars that survived the listing-ship near-disaster, but Mazda destroyed them instead [WSJ]
• “Prof. Dohrn [for] Attorney General and Rev. Wright [for] Secretary of State”? So hard to tell when left-leaning lawprof Brian Leiter is kidding and when he’s not [Leiter Reports]
• Yet another hard-disk-capacity class action settlement, $900K to Strange & Carpenter [Creative HDD MP3 Player; earlier. More: Sullum, Reason "Hit and Run".]
• Filipino ship whistleblowers’ case: judge slashes Texas attorney’s fee, “calling the lawyer’s attempt to bill his clients nearly $300,000 ‘unethically excessive.’” [Boston Globe, earlier]
• RFK Jr. Watch: America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure (r) endorses Oklahoma poultry litigation [Legal NewsLine]
• Just what the budget-strapped state needs: NY lawmakers earmark funds for three (3) new law schools [NY Post editorial; PoL first, second posts, Greenfield]
• In Indiana, IUPUI administrators back off: it wasn’t racial harassment after all for student-employee to read a historical book on fight against Klan [FIRE; earlier]
• Fiesta Cornyation in San Antonio just isn’t the same without the flying tortillas [two years ago on Overlawyered]

• Jack Thompson, call your office: FBI search turns up no evidence Virginia Tech killer owned or played videogames [Monsters and Critics]


• How many zeroes was that? Bank of America threatens ABN Amro with $220 billion suit if it reneges on deal to sell Chicago’s LaSalle Bank [Times (U.K.), Consumerist]


• Chuck Colson will be disappointed, but the rule of law wins: Supreme Court declines to intervene in Miller-Jenkins (Vermont-Virginia lesbian custody) dispute [AP; see Mar. 2 and many earlier posts]


• Oklahoma legislature passes, but governor vetoes, comprehensive liability-reform bill [Point of Law first, second, third posts]


• Good primer on California’s much-abused Prop 65 right-to-know toxics law [CalBizLit via Ted @ PoL]


• “Defensive psychiatry” and the pressure to hospitalize persons who talk of suicide [Intueri]


• Among the many other reasons not to admire RFK Jr., there’s his wind-farm hypocrisy [Mac Johnson, Energy Tribune]


• “Screed-O-Matic” simulates nastygrams dashed off by busy Hollywood lawyer Martin Singer [Portfolio]


• “Liability, health issues” cited as Carmel, Ind. officials plan to eject companion dogs from special-needs program, though no parents have complained [Indpls. Star; similar 1999 story from Ohio]


• First glimmerings of Sen. John Edwards’s national ambitions [five years ago on Overlawyered]

• More on that Edwardsville, Ill. Pizza Hut door-swing case and its attorney-complainant [Madison County Record; earlier]


• Workers at U.K. health and safety agency told not to move chairs in the office, they might hurt themselves [Daily Mail via Nobody's Business]


• Lawyer who hoped for $25 million will appeal arbitrator’s ruling awarding him only a solitary buck ($1.00) for “redundant and unnecessary” work on San Diego pension crisis [Lattman]


• New at Point of Law: Ted on Sen. Fred Thompson, Oklahoma enacts liability reform, RFK Jr. as mass-tort tout, birthing balls, and much more;


• Title IX from outer space: now it’s Virginia’s James Madison U. axeing teams [USA Today; more]


• Westchester County, N.Y. dominatrix sues police dept., saying media frenzy dashed her hopes of Wall Street career [Journal-News; more on attorney Ravi Batra]


• Parodists, retire now: ex-N.J. governor McGreevey, disgraced after hiring unqualified paramour for key safety post, appointed to teach course on ethics [Orac]


• “School choice, but only for the most irritating parents” [Coyote on Supreme Court's pending special-ed case; more]


• Will tainted-pet-food episode give lawyers their long-sought breakthrough on loss-of-companionship, other intangible damages for animal injury? [NLJ; earlier]


• Disgruntled former partner withdraws charge of impropriety over Oz breast implant fees [The Australian; Aust. Prof. Liab. Blog; earlier]


• Dr. who delivered Illinois Gov. Blagojevich’s daughter throws in the towel [three years ago on Overlawyered]

• Trucker-friendly Arizona legislature declines to ban naked lady mudflaps [NBC4.com; Houstonist]


• Crumb of approbation dept.: I’m “[not] as unreasonable as most of the tort-reform crowd” [Petit]


• Sponsors of large banquets in D.C. must pay to have a paramedic on hand even when the banquet crowd consists of doctors [ShopFloor]


• Homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover homewrecking: umbrella policy doesn’t create duty to defend lawsuit claiming the insured broke up someone’s marriage (Pins v. State Farm (PDF), S. Dak., Mayerson via Elefant)


• New York mag on RFK Jr.: Is there some law saying all press profiles of America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure (r) must be weirdly softball in nature and glide over his embarrassing book and rants, his Osama-pig farm lunacy, his anti-vaccine humbug, his trial-lawyer entanglements and even the wind farm flap?


• Australia court rules Muslim prison inmate suffered discrimination and deserves money for being served canned halal meat rather than fresh [The Australian]


• High medical costs and their causes: am I listening? [Coyote]


• Economists may puzzle their heads over the ultimate incidence of business taxes, but in Wisconsin it’s whatever Gov. Jim Doyle says it is [Krumm via Taranto]


• Feds may punish Red Sox pitcher Matsuzaka for doing a beer ad in Japan, where it’s perfectly legal for athletes to appear in such [To The People]


• Guns in company parking lots: still one of the rare issues where the ABA manages to be righter than the NRA [AP/CBSNews.com; see Apr. 6, 2006]


• Thanks, NYC taxpayers: Brooklyn jury awards $16 million against city in case where drugged-up motorist jumped sidewalk and ran over pedestrians, later blaming the accident on a city sanitation truck [seven years ago on Overlawyered]

“Mutually assured character destruction”: that’s what Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam says to expect from a trial that started March 7 in Portland, Me. federal court that pits some of the country’s better-known members of the plaintiff’s bar against each other. Among the cast of characters: Jan Schlichtmann, of “A Civil Action” fame, Steve Berman of Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, and Massachusetts tobacco litigator Thomas Sobol of the same firm, and Alabama’s Garve Ivey. At issue is whether lawyers breached legal ethics or sold out the interests of class members in their sharp-elbowed maneuvers to control the process of litigation and reach a lucrative settlement with Poland Spring’s parent company, Nestle. Also testifying is celebrity enviro-pol Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had signed up a water company he controls as one of the plaintiffs — gee, who knew RFK Jr. was tied in with hotshot plaintiff’s lawyers? (Alex Beam, “An uncivil action in Maine”, Mar. 8; Gregory D. Kesich, “Water bottlers in court to recoup lost settlement”, Portland Press Herald, Mar. 8; “Law firm’s handling of Poland Spring case at issue in trial”, AP/Boston Globe, Mar. 8; Gregory D. Kesich, “Water case puts lawyers’ ethics on trial”, Portland Press Herald, Mar. 10; “Witnesses tell of how Nestle case fell apart”, Mar. 17). The trial is expected to conclude this week. For more on the Poland Spring class actions, see Sept. 10, 2003, Feb. 2, 2004 and Jun. 25, 2004.

Mark Kleiman, on the alleged link between autism and thimerosal in vaccines (Mar. 6), commenting on the latest from Respectful Insolence (Mar. 6). Orac of Respectful Insolence also takes another whack (Mar. 2) at the emissions of the egregious Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the same controversy, as published (Mar. 1) in the Huffington Post. More: Feb. 21, etc.

P.S. And here’s Kathleen Seidel, who’s been covering the issue in depth at Neurodiversity Weblog (Mar. 1): “It’s time for RFK Jr. to come clean about the fact that he represents the interests of private litigants seeking compensation for supposed vaccine injury when in fact many of those litigants have no evidence that such injury occurred.. …Widespread suspicions are fueled by an aggressive public relations campaign engineered by wealthy PR maven and pioneering ‘mercury mom’ Sally Bernard, early litigant Lyn Redwood, their close associates, faux-journalists David Kirby and Dan Olmsted, and a core of personal injury lawyers who have cultivated this market for years. A lot of money has gone into convincing parents of autistic children that their kids were poisoned.”

The federal government has established something called a Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to collect reports of possible side effects related to immunizations. Sounds like a useful tool for epidemiological study, right? Except that, it seems,

anyone can submit a report to it, and no one actually verifies the accuracy of the report. Indeed, James Laidler once tested the system by submitting a report that the influenza virus had turned him into The Incredible Hulk. The report was accepted and duly entered into the database.

A more serious problem with the self-submitted nature of the data is that it provides a way for vaccine scares to self-amplify: lawyers pressing compensation claims make a point of submitting their clients’ case histories to the VAERS, and before long — what do you know? — the database is showing a worrying rise in reported side effect incidents, which itself feeds the litigation. Now a study in Pediatrics traces the ways in which litigation-driven reporting has distorted the contents of the VAERS database, especially as regards the purported association of the preservative thimerosal with childhood autism. Respectful Insolence explains (Feb. 6 at old site, more recently blogging at ScienceBlogs)(via MedPundit) and also ties the story in to the disgraceful performance last year in Rolling Stone by celebrity demagogue Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Jun. 20 and Jun. 26, 2005). More: pediatrician Flea also weighs in (Feb. 22).

How low can he go? James Taranto investigates (Aug. 30). More: Jonathan Adler, here and here; more on RFK Jr. here. And the Boston Herald spanks him in an editorial (”Critics fiddle as Gulf Coast drowns”, Sept. 1).

Because for Florida Republican officials, sending one hotshot plaintiff’s lawyer with socially conservative views to the U.S. Senate apparently isn’t enough. (Lesley Conn, Pensacola News-Journal, Aug. 17) (more on Joe Scarborough: Sept. 15, 2003, Jan. 3, 2004)(more on incumbent Sen. Mel Martinez: Dec. 15, 2003, Sept. 3, 2004, PoL Jan. 12 and Jul. 7). Scarborough was the headliner for the Republican Trial Lawyers rally at last year’s ATLA convention (PDF); another headliner at the same convention was perennial bete noire of this site Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose on-air chumminess with Scarborough, sometimes seen as an instance of mutual admiration across ideological lines, appears not quite so strange given that RFK Jr. has collaborated with Scarborough’s firm in the pursuit of big-ticket cases. Update Aug. 21: false alarm this time, though he’s pretty clearly expecting to run for something in future.

Blissful Knowledge is providing extensive coverage (via Megan McArdle)(see Jun. 26, Jun. 20, etc.).

One of America’s least credible public figures, celebrity environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wades into the mercury in vaccines/autism controversy (Dec. 29, 2003, earlier posts) with a “special investigation” for Salon and Rolling Stone rehearsing the contentions of anti-thimerosal activists (”Deadly Immunity”, Jun. 16). Orac at Respectful Insolence, who’s covered the controversy extensively, hits back hard here, here and here. Reactions from Salon’s readers are here, and the online magazine has already been obliged to post several corrections of Kennedy’s errors, including the following remarkably embarrassing one:

The article also misstated the level of ethylmercury received by infants injected with all their shots by the age of six months. It was 187 micrograms — an amount 40 percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA’s limit for daily exposure to methylmercury.

More: Skeptico (Jun. 20) challenges RFK Jr.’s account of a supposedly hush-hush meeting of vaccine scientists held outside Atlanta (via Adler, the Corner).

It seems wayward scion Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wants to be Spitzer’s replacement (Jonathan P. Hicks, “Only in New York: Kennedys, Cuomos and Voters, Oh, My”, New York Times, Jan. 18). Well, this should be entertaining, at least.

I’m in Sunday’s New York Post with a review of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new volume on environmental policy, “Crimes Against Nature”. It’s fair to say I didn’t much care for the book; in fact, I found it staggeringly bad (”the book affords the fun of a pratfall on every page, most of them occasioned by Kennedy’s epic self-righteousness and astounding disregard for conventional accuracy”). (”Crimes of Ego”, Oct. 17). For more on RFK Jr., see Oct. 5, Apr. 19-21, 2002 and links from there (& welcome Instapundit, Volokh Conspiracy readers)(bumped Oct. 18).

Prof. Jonathan Adler of Case Western attends a speech given at Case by celebrity environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and blogs the hothead scion’s frothy rant (Sept. 30). (Kennedy on the media, per Adler: “They should all drink poison Kool Aid and restore integrity to their profession.”) Kennedy was widely ridiculed two years ago for repeatedly asserting that large hog-raising operations are a greater threat to American democracy than Osama bin Laden (see Apr. 19-21, 2002) and if Adler’s account is accurate, the embarrassment has by no means abated.

See separate entries for archived entries on animal rights and mold.

Wildlife management, species protection, 2003: “U.K. roundup” (licensing of exotic pet fish), Jun. 12-15. 2001: “False trail of missing lynx“, Dec. 18; “Pricing out the human species“, Aug. 22-23; “Stories that got away“, Jul. 23; “Bush’s environmental centrism“, Apr. 24.  2000: “Endangered list“, Dec. 4; “Snakes’ rights not always paramount” (man killed snake in self-defense), Aug. 18-20; “‘Imperfect laws add to danger of perfect storms’“, Aug. 10.  1999: “Property owners obliged to host rattlesnakes“, Oct. 12; “Knock him over with a feather” (migratory bird contraband laws), Sept. 11; “Mow’ better ADA claims” (claim of “exotic prairie plants” by resident who didn’t want to mow her lawn), Jul. 26.

“Bounty-hunting in New Jersey“, Jun. 10-11, 2003.

“‘State is suing ex-dry cleaners’” (Calif., Superfund), May 27, 2003.

“Suing ’til the cows come home“, May 20, 2003. 

“U.K. roundup” (global warming suits), Jun. 12-15, 2003; “Tort suits over global warming“, Feb. 6-9, 2003; “Global warming suit?“, Jul. 31, 2001 (& Aug. 10-12); “Plus extra damages for having argued with us“, Aug. 19, 1999. 

“California’s hazardous holiday” (fireplaces), Dec. 27-29, 2002; “Chestnuts-roasting menace averted“, Dec. 24-27, 2001; “Put out that match” (agricultural burning, residential wood burning), Feb. 28-Mar. 1, 2001.

“Right to know” laws, 2002: “California’s hazardous holiday” (acrylamide), Dec. 27-29; “‘Lawyers who sue to settle’“, Nov. 4-5; “Chocolate, gas-pump fumes, playground sand and so much more“, Oct. 15; “‘Greedy or Just Green’“, Mar. 13-14.  2001: “There’ll always be a California” (chocolate and Prop 65), Dec. 4; Letter to the editor (lutefisk exempted from toxic-substance status in Wisconsin), Nov. 29; “Be somewhat less afraid” (nuclear plant terrorism), Nov. 30-Dec. 2; “‘U.S. Debates Info on Chemical Hazards’” (”right to know” and terrorism), Nov. 12; “Chemical-plant vulnerabilities: read all about them“, Oct. 1. 1999: “Lockyer vs. keys” (California attorney general declares brass a toxic hazard), Nov. 2. 

“How much did you say that Indian legend was worth?“, Sept. 25-26, 2002; “Final innings for Kennewick Man“, Sept. 27-28, 2000; “Free Kennewick Man!” (pre-Columbian remains), Oct. 11, 1999. 

Low exposures, 2002: “A breast-cancer myth“, Sept. 3-4; “‘Unharmed woman awarded $104,000′” (Canada), May 6. 2001: “There’ll always be a California” (chocolate and Prop 65), Dec. 4; “‘Incense link to cancer’“, Aug. 27-28; “‘Candles might be polluting your home, EPA says’“, Jun. 19; “While you were out: the carbonless paper crusade“, Apr. 25 (& letter to the editor, May 18); “Hunter sues store over camouflage mask“, Jan. 12-14. 2000: “‘Airbag chemical on trial’“, Aug. 14; “Multiple chemical sensitivity from school construction“, Jul. 3-4; “Feelings of nausea? Get in line” (Baton Rouge chemical spill), Jan. 26-27. 1999: “Lockyer vs. keys” (California attorney general declares brass a toxic hazard), Nov. 2. 

Zoning, land use, 2002: “How much did you say that Indian legend was worth?“, Sept. 25-26; “‘Preserving’ History at Bayonet Point“, Feb. 15-17; “Planners tie up land for twenty years“, Jan. 18-20.  2001: “Columnist-fest” (John Tierney on NYC battle over IKEA site), May 25-27; “Lessons of shrub-case jailing“, May 17; “Perils of regulatory discretion“, Jan. 24-25. 2000: “Cornfield maze as zoning violation“, Oct. 30.  1999: “Great moments in zoning law” (rescued pets from storm, charged with running unlawful animal shelter), Nov. 22.

“Mercury in dental fillings“, Jul. 16-17, 2002 (& Nov. 4-5, 2002). 

“Going to blazes” (logging and Western fires), Jul. 1-2, 2002; “Credibility up in smoke?” (same), Jul. 12-14, 2002; letter to the editor, Oct. 23. 

Industrial farming: “‘Tampa Judge Tosses Out Class-Action Suit Against Hog Company’“, Jul. 3-9, 2002; “RFK Jr. blasted for hog farm remarks“, Apr. 15, 2002 (& Apr. 17, Apr. 19-21, letter to the editor and editor’s response, Apr. 19); “Chickens are next“, Feb. 6-7, 2002; “Judge throws out hog farm suit“, May 7, 2001; “Trial lawyers vs. hog farms“, Dec. 7, 2000; “This little piggy got taken to court“, Sept. 12, 2000; “Not so high off the hog“, Oct. 4, 1999. 

“‘San Francisco Verdict Bodes Ill for Oil Industry’“, Jun. 11-12, 2002. 

“‘Legal fight over chemical spill ends with whimper’” (W.V.), Jun. 7-9, 2002. 

“Flowers, perfume in airline cabins not OK?” (Canada), May 17-19, 2002; “Scented hair gel, deodorant could mean jail time for Canadian youth“, Apr. 24, 2000.

“The mystery of the transgenic corn“, May 14-15, 2002.

“Erin Brockovich”, 2002: “‘Erin Brockovich, the Brand’“, Apr. 29-30.  2001: “Exxon Brockovich vs. Erin Valdez“, Nov. 15; “NBC mulls Brockovich talk show“, Nov. 6, 2001; “Brockovich a heroine?  Julia really can act“, Mar. 23-25.  2000: “Errin’ Brockovich?“, Dec. 21, 2000; “‘All about Erin’“, Oct. 12; “More woes for ‘Brockovich’ lawyers“, Jun. 22-25;  “Brockovich story, cont’d: the judges’ cruise“, Apr. 18; Brockovich story breaks wide open“, Apr. 17; “Plume of controversy“, Apr. 14-16; “Hollywood special“, Mar. 30.  1999: “A Civil Action II?“, July 7. 

Trial lawyer/enviro alliance?  “RFK Jr. blasted for hog farm remarks“, Apr. 15, 2002 (& Apr. 17, Apr. 19-21, letter to the editor and editor’s response, Apr. 19); “‘Working’ for whom?” (Environmental Working Group), May 23, 2001; “Judge throws out hog farm suit“, May 7, 2001; “‘Bogus’ assault on Norton“, Jan. 18, 2001; “Trial lawyers vs. hog farms“, Dec. 7, 2000.

“‘Former clients sue attorney O’Quinn’” (Kennedy Heights case), Apr. 8-9, 2002. 

“Arsenic: one last dose?“, Mar. 22-24, 2002; “The view from Arsenictown“, Sept. 11, 2001; “‘The arithmetic of arsenic’“, Aug. 17-19; “Bush’s environmental centrism“, April 24; “Tempest in an arsenic-laced teacup?“, Apr. 18; “‘Bogus’ assault on Norton“, Jan. 18; “The Times vs. Gale Norton“, Jan. 15; “Ecology and economy“, Jan. 5-7, 2001. 

“Liability concerns fell giant sequoia“, Mar. 12, 2002. 

“Environmental lawsuits vs. military readiness“, Jan. 2-3, 2002.

“Overlawyered schools roundup” (environmental impact statement for teacher layoffs?), Dec. 7-9, 2001.

“Infectious disease conquered, CDC now chases sprawl“, Nov. 9-11, 2001.

“States lag in curbing junk science“, May 29, 2001.

“‘Family awarded $1 billion in lawsuit’” (Louisiana land contamination), May 24, 2001. 

“Prospect of $3 gas“, May 10, 2001.

Who needs power anyway?: “Sweetness and light from Bill Lockyer“, Jun. 1-3, 2001 (& see June 8-10, June 22-24); “California electricity linkfest“, Mar. 26, 2001; “Brownout, Shivers & Dim, attorneys at law“, Oct. 11, 2000; “Worse than Y2K?” (EPA/DOJ suit against coal-burning utility plants), Nov. 18-19, 1999. 

“Seventh Circuit rebukes EPA” (Superfund search and seizure), Apr. 23, 2001. 

Attorneys’ fees: “Stories that got away” (Endangered Species Act suits), Jul. 23, 2001; “Losers should pay” (columnist Thomas Sowell; injunctions, bonding requirements), Aug. 4-7, 2000; “Marbled Murrelet v. Babbitt: heads I win, tails let’s call it even” (”one-way” fee shifts), Sept. 8, 1999 (& see National Law Journal, Dec. 14, 1999).

“Enviro litigator: debate belongs in Congress, not courts“, Dec. 29, 2000-Jan. 2, 2001.

“Federal power over mud puddles?” (wetlands case), Nov. 28, 2000. 

“From the evergreen file: cancer alley a myth?“, Nov. 8, 2000. 

“‘A Civil Action’ and Hollywood views of lawyers“, Jun. 20, 2000. 

“Don’t cooperate” (lawyers’ advice re local health survey), Jun. 9-11, 2000.

“EPA’s high courtroom loss rate“, May 26-29, 2000; “When agencies like getting sued“, Dec. 6, 1999.

“After the great power-line panic“, May 24, 2000; “Another scare starts to fizzle” (endocrine disrupters), Aug. 19, 1999. 

“This side of parodies” (”dihydrogen monoxide” parody), May 10, 2000.

“Diapered wildlife?” (animal emissions as environmental problem), Apr. 10, 2000; “Backyard trash burning” (suspected as major dioxin source), Jan. 6, 2000.

“Emerging campaign issue: ‘brownfields’ vs. Superfund lawyers“, Apr. 4, 2000; “Mayors: liability fears stalling ‘brownfields’ development“, Feb. 26-27, 2000. 

“Lawyers for famine and wilderness-busting?” (anti-biotech), Jan. 3, 1999. 

“Weekend reading: evergreens” (Race car great Bobby Unser’s snowmobiling rap), Dec. 3-5, 1999. 

“Leave that mildew alone” (EPA considers mildew-proof paint to be pesticide), Nov. 30, 1999.

“Flag-burning protest requires environmental permits” (one for smoke, one for fire), Nov. 3, 1999.

“A mile wide and an inch deep” (EPA considers Platte River impaired because sun heats it up), Oct. 15, 1999.

“Careful what you tell your lawyer” (feds demand waiver of lawyer-client confidentiality in environmental cases), Sept. 14, 1999; “Overlawyered skies not always safer” (environmental audits and other “self-critical analysis”), Jul. 19, 1999. 

“Tainted cycle” (class action over infectious bacterium in Milwaukee water supply), Sept. 2, 1999. 

Articles by Overlawyered.com editor Walter Olson:

“Hollywood vs. the Truth” (”Civil Action” movie), Wall Street Journal, December 23, 1998. 

“Don’t Steal This Book“, review of Property Matters by James DeLong, Wall Street Journal, April 2, 1997 (property rights).

“Lawyers with Stethoscopes: Clients Beware“, Manhattan Institute Civil Justice Memo # 26, June 1996.

April 19-21 – Pitcher hit by line drive sues maker of baseball bat. Hurling for the Pittsfield (Ill.) High School baseball team, Daniel Hannant put one over the plate to a batter from opponent Calhoun High School, who smacked the ball in a line drive straight at the pitcher’s mound where it hit Hannant on the head. Now Hannant is suing … guess who? The maker of the baseball bat, Hillerich & Bradsby, known for its trademark Louisville Slugger. (”Lawsuit comes out swinging”, Chicago Tribune, Apr. 18) (& see letter to the editor, Jun. 14; update, Dec. 30). (DURABLE LINK)

April 19-21 – No apologies from RFK Jr. As the uproar continues in Iowa over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s assertion that large hog-raising operations are more of a threat to American democracy than Osama bin Laden, Kennedy’s office has sent word to the Des Moines Register not to expect an apology or retraction. (Mark Siebert, “Kennedy stands by hog-lot remark”, Apr. 18; J. R. Taylor, “To the Preening Born”, New York Press “Billboard”, Apr. 18; earlier reports on this site Apr. 15, Apr. 17). Far from being an unconsidered slip of the tongue, the comparison seems to have been a feature of Kennedy’s speeches for months, to judge from a report published back in January on another of his Midwestern swings: “This threat is greater than that in Afghanistan,” he was quoted as saying. “This is not only a threat to the environment, it is a threat to the American economy and democracy.” (Gretchen Schlosser, National Hog Farmer, Jan. 15, linked in WSJ OpinionJournal.com “Best of the Web” Jan. 21). And a staff attorney from Kennedy’s office has sent us a letter responding to our editor’s Wednesday New York Post op-ed on the affair, to which we append a fairly lengthy response — see our letters page.

MORE: The food-industry-defense group Center for Consumer Freedom has been on the warpath against Kennedy and his band of lawyers for a while. It quotes Iowa Agriculture Secretary Patty Judge as saying: “The true agenda of this group is to sue farms and take the monetary rewards back to the East Coast.” (”Trashing Pork, Cashing In”, Apr. 11). Kennedy has estimated “damages” against the industry of $13 billion: “We have lawyers with the deepest pockets, and they’ve agreed to fight the industry to the end,” he has said. “We’re going to go after all of them.” (”Kennedy’s Pork Police Hit Iowa”, Apr. 2; “Waterkeepers, Farmers Weepers”, Dec. 12, 2001) “‘We’re starting with hogs. After the hogs, then we are going after the other ones,’ referring to the poultry and beef industries.” (”Warning”, Jan. 16, 2001, citing “Concerns that pork suit may be extended to other areas,” Des Moines Register, Jan. 8, 2001). (DURABLE LINK)

April 19-21 – Traffic-cams, cont’d. In the controversy (see Apr. 8-9) over the uses and abuses of automated traffic camera systems, a reader writes in (see letters page) to say we were wrong to describe Lockheed Martin as the current contractor on the systems; it actually sold the operation last August to another company. Our apologies. And Eugene Volokh reports on his blog (Apr. 17) that he found some inaccuracies in Matt Labash’s Weekly Standard investigative series on the cameras which Labash and the Standard have been happy to correct. See also “Hawaii scraps ‘Talivan’ traffic cameras”, AP/ABC News, Apr. 11. (DURABLE LINK)

April 19-21 – Clipboard-throwing manager = $30 million clipping for grocery chain. The Ralphs supermarket chain in California had a store manager who over the course of a decade “physically and verbally abused six female Ralphs employees by calling them vulgar names, manhandling them, and throwing items like telephones, clipboards and, in one instance, a 30- to 40-pound mailbag, at them.” So a San Diego jury awarded them $5 million each in damages. (Alexei Oreskovic, “$30M Awarded in Sex Harassment Suit Against Grocery Chain”, The Recorder, Apr. 9)(& update Jul. 26-28: judge cuts total award to $8 million). (DURABLE LINK)

April 19-21 – See you … at the Big Apple Blog Bash Friday night. (DURABLE LINK)

April 18 – “Tampa Taliban” mom blames acne drug. By reader acclaim: “The family of 15-year-old Charles Bishop has filed a $70-million lawsuit against the maker of acne medication Accutane, saying nothing else explains the teenager’s suicidal flight into a downtown Tampa high-rise.” Bishop, whose father bore an Arab surname, left a suicide note praising Osama bin Laden; the county medical examiner’s office found no trace of Accutane in his bloodstream, although it says that does not rule out the possibility that he might have been on the medication, for which he had been written a prescription. Although the maker of the widely used acne drug denies that it causes psychosis or suicidal impulses, its cautious consent form “required the Bishops to agree to tell their physician ‘if anyone in the family has ever had symptoms of depression, been psychotic, attempted suicide, or had any other serious mental problems.’ Julia Bishop, however, did not reveal that in 1984, she and Charles’ estranged father failed in a bloody suicide pact during which she stabbed him with a 12-inch butcher knife.” Mrs. Bishop’s lawyer, Michael Ryan of Fort Lauderdale, calls that earlier suicide pact incident “completely irrelevant”. (Robert Farley, “Suit: Drug behind suicide flight”, St. Petersburg Times, Apr. 17; Natashia Gregoire, “Teen Pilot’s Family Sues Drug Maker”, Tampa Tribune, Apr. 17; “Accutane acne drug maker sued over suicide”, USA Today/Reuters, Apr. 16; Broward Liston and Tim Padgett, “Despair Beneath His Wings”, Time, Jan. 13; Howard Feinberg, “Is Accutane to Blame?”, TechCentralStation.com, Apr. 18; see Feb. 1). Updates: manufacturer wins first jury trial (Margaret Cronin Fisk, “Suits Probe Acne Drug, Depression”, National Law Journal, Apr. 25; Michael Fumento, “The Accutane Blame Game”, National Review Online, May 9). (DURABLE LINK)

April 18 – Judge compares class action lawyers to “squeegee boys”. A Florida judge has rejected the tentative settlement of a shareholder lawsuit filed by Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach against power company Florida Progress Corp. over a 1999 merger, saying the evidence indicated that the suit did not leave class members in a better position than if it had never been filed. Added Pinellas County Judge W. Douglas Baird: “This action appears to be the class litigation equivalent of the ’squeegee boys’ who used to frequent major urban intersections and who would run up to a stopped car, splash soapy water on its perfectly clean windshield and expect payment for the uninvited service of wiping it off.” (Jason Hoppin, The Recorder, Apr. 17). (DURABLE LINK)

April 18 – Welcome Humorix.org readers. The Linux-humor site started linking to us way back in 1999, if we remember correctly. Also sending us visitors lately: Auckland (N.Z.) District Law Society, Mar. 14 (”For a change of pace, spend some time with this digest of news stories … Most cases reported on are from the U.S., but there are quite a few examples from Europe, Australia, and elsewhere”); WTIC-AM Hartford, “Morning Links”, Apr. 7; American Civil Rights Union “ACLU Watch”, Nintendominion “Site Unseen”, Mar. 31; Dog Brothers Martial Arts (Hermosa Beach, Calif.), Mutual Reinsurance Bureau, Anne Klockenkemper (Univ. of Florida) Media Law Resources, Smith Freed & Eberhard P.C. (attorneys at law, Portland, Ore.), Univ. of Nevada-Reno Tau Kappa Epsilon, RKKA.org (Russian Red Army-themed wargaming); Fureyous.com, Mar. (”My dream site, a site where I can find the entire downfall of civilization due to frivolous and pathetic lawsuits and legal actions”), and many more. (DURABLE LINK)

April 17 – New York Post op-ed on RFK Jr. & hogs. Our editor has a piece today on the op-ed page of the New York Post about the furor that broke out in Iowa when celebrity environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. told a rally that large-scale hog farms are more of a threat to America than Osama bin Laden and his terrorists. For links to the local Iowa coverage, see our item here from Monday, of which the Post op-ed is an expansion. (Walter Olson, “Osama, the Pigs and the Kennedy”, New York Post, Apr. 17).

April 16-17 – Pharmaceutical roundup. The total cost of the settlement over the diet compound fen-phen has ballooned to more than $13 billion, swollen by mass recruitment by law firms of claimants who defendants believe have suffered no ill effects from the compound at all aside from possible worry. “Wyeth’s general counsel, Louis L. Hoynes Jr., said he believes that in a different legal climate his company might have been able to settle all serious claims for less than $1 billion. That would amount to an average of $1 million each for 1,000 cases.” (L. Stuart Ditzen, “Mass diet-pill litigation inflates settlement costs to $13.2 billion”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 9 — whole article well worth reading). Lawyers for a group of British women have filed what is believed to be the first injury suit over the “third-generation” birth control pill, which they say raises the risk of blood clots, and similar suits are expected to follow in the United States (Mary Vallis, “U.K. suit targets perils of The Pill”, National Post, Mar. 5). In one of the more recent applications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Daubert doctrine, courts have dismissed several lawsuits seeking to blame Pfizer’s anti-impotency drug Viagra for users’ heart attacks, ruling that the expert testimony in the cases was not based on scientific principles that had gained “general acceptance.” (Tom Perrotta, “Viagra Cases Dismissed”, New York Law Journal, Jan. 22). The Nov. 9, 2001 installment of CBS’s “48 Hours” launched a one-sided attack on psychiatric drugs used to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity and told the stories of two parents who say their use of the ADHD drug Adderall caused them to behave irrationally, resulting in the death of their children; but Hudson Institute fellow Michael Fumento finds that much was misstated or left out in the network’s account, including the exact role of the trial lawyers hovering in the background (Michael Fumento, “Prescription for Bias“, “Dawn Marie Branson: A Sad Story Only Half Told“) And although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not chosen to give a green light for the reintroduction of silicone breast implants for American women following the litigation-fueled panic that drove them from the market, they have regained popularity among women in Canada, reports the CBC (”Silicone implants back in style”, Sept. 20, 2001). (DURABLE LINK)

April 16-17 – A DMCA run-in. Tom Veal’s Stromata site, which covers topics ranging from pension regulation to science fiction, had a run-in a few days ago with its hosting service, Tripod, which abruptly closed down access to the site and then took its sweet time about reopening it. The reason? Tripod had received a nastygram from a law firm charging that Stromata was in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, not because it had posted any copyrighted material itself, but because it had linked to another site which had (it said) posted an unauthorized translation of a widely discussed piece on terrorism by Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. Unfortunately, as Veal notes, the incentives under DMCA are for hosts to muzzle speech in haste and un-muzzle at leisure. (”Et Cetera”, Apr. 9). (DURABLE LINK)

April 16-17 – Unlikely critic of litigation. The Washington group Judicial Watch files lawsuits at a manic clip, but now its founder Larry Klayman is taking to the mails to decry our national problem of excessive litigiousness. “One may liken the overall effect of Klayman’s direct-mail sermon against frivolous lawsuits to that of a Weight Watchers commercial starring Marlon Brando or a temperance lecture given by Hunter S. Thompson.” (Tim Noah, “Larry Klayman Decries Evils of Litigation!”, Slate, Apr. 3). (DURABLE LINK)

April 15 – RFK Jr. blasted for hog farm remarks. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the highest-profile spokesman for the developing alliance between trial lawyers and some environmentalist groups (see Dec. 7, 2000), “made an ass of himself” in remarks last weekend at a Clear Lake, Ia. rally, according to veteran Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen. Kennedy’s “statement that large-scale hog producers were a bigger threat to America than Osama bin Laden’s terrorists has to be one of the crudest things ever said in Iowa politics. … [Kennedy] brought his Waterkeeper’s Alliance for a rally [in Clear Lake]. It’s a group that is threatening lawsuits against livestock industries. … Rural America needs positive solutions to this problem, not the corrosive rhetoric of another out-of-state political operative or lawsuits from greedy trial lawyers. … What was one of the finest hours of this legislative session was marred by this fool from the East. … Kennedy looks to be cashing in on his family’s name. … If his name were Bob Fitzgerald, he’d be dismissed as another one of the kooks on the fringe of this debate.” Other reaction was not much more favorable: “‘You have to be a complete wandering idiot to make that statement,’ said [Luke] Kollasch [of Algona, Ia.], whose family owns several hog farms and feed and construction companies in northwest Iowa.” (Donnelle Elder, “Big hog lots called greater threat than bin Laden”, Des Moines Register, Apr. 10; “Kennedy’s outrageous rhetoric” (editorial), Apr. 11; David Yepsen, “Kennedy cashes in on family name while acting like a fool”, Apr. 14) (DURABLE LINK)

April 15 – Updates. Stories that seem to have a life of their own:

* Richard Espinosa, “who is suing the city of Escondido because his dog was attacked by a cat inside a city library, now says the attack was a hate crime.” (see Dec. 4, 2001) (”Cat attack now described as hate crime”, MSNBC, Apr. 5)

* “The Florida Legislature has partially undone a landmark Florida Supreme Court ruling issued in November that gave slip-and-fall injury victims the upper hand in lawsuits against supermarkets and other premises owners.” (see Jan. 7). The ruling had required businesses to prove they were not negligent when presented with slip-fall claims. However, trial lawyers extracted a compromise in which plaintiffs will not have to prove that a slippery material was on the floor for long enough for the store owner to have known about it. (Susan R. Miller, “Florida Legislature Passes Bill on Slip-and-Fall Cases”, Miami Daily Business Review, Mar. 27).

* “A Hays County judge has thrown out a default judgment that would have awarded $5 million to a local woman whose near-topless image was used in a national television ad for a ‘Wild Party Girls’ video without her permission. … Judge Charles Ramsay set aside the default judgment, ruling that the plaintiff had listed the wrong company in the lawsuit, and that the video’s makers were not either properly named or properly served.” (see Mar. 6-7) (Carol Coughlin, “Topless suit is groundless, judge rules”, San Marcos (Tex.) Daily Record, Mar. 30).

* More on the symbiotic relationship between state attorneys general and Microsoft competitors (see Apr. 3-4): “An April 2000 e-mail message from the Utah attorney general’s office to Novell, revealed in court, asked for ‘guidance … preferably without involving too many people seeing this language.’” (Declan McCullagh, “Report: MS Foes Bribed Attorneys”, Wired News, Apr. 6). (DURABLE LINK)

April 12-14 – Hey, no fair talking about the pot. During a 20-hour trip from California to Texas pulling a U-Haul trailer, three young women work their way through a bag of marijuana. Of course the ensuing rollover accident is, like, practically totally the fault of their Firestone tires and the U-Haul company, or at least so their lawyers argue in a suit against those companies, even though the tires did not suffer the “tread separation” that has heretofore been seen as the distinctive source of accident risk with the now-recalled Firestones. Now Matagorda County, Tex. Judge Craig Estlinbaum has declared a mistrial at the request of plaintiff’s lawyer Mikal Watts who complained that defense attorney Morgan Copeland “had breached a pretrial order by introducing detailed evidence of marijuana use” during the trip. If we read the AP story correctly, Judge Estlinbaum had ruled that the defense could mention only that portion of the marijuana it could prove the driver consumed, and attorney Copeland, who may now face sanctions in the famously pro-plaintiff county, had improperly let jurors know about the whole bag. The Ford Motor Co. was also named as a defendant but has already settled out of the case (”Texas judge declares mistrial in Firestone case”, Yahoo/ Reuters, Apr. 5; Pam Easton, “Judge declares Firestone mistrial”, AP/ MySanAntonio.com, Apr. 6). Update — additional coverage of ruling: Miriam Rozen, “Mistrial declared in Firestone case”, Texas Lawyer, Apr. 15).

April 12-14 – In the line of fire. Post-Enron, many companies feel the need to seek out savvier and more experienced executives to sit on boards and audit committees, but with escalating fears of personal liability “attracting talent may become nearly impossible. ‘Recruiting directors for the audit committee is like calling them on deck for a kamikaze attack,’ quips [corporate finance officer Bob] Williamson.” (Marie Leone, “Audit Committee? Thanks, But No Thanks”, CFO Magazine, Apr. 5).

April 12-14 – L.A. police sued, and sued. The family of the late James Allen Beck, who died in a fiery shootout with L.A. sheriff’s deputies last August after barricading himself in his home, has filed a wrongful death claim against the sheriff’s department. During the standoff Beck, an ex-police officer with a history of stockpiling weapons at his home, shot and killed Deputy Hagop Kuredjian. (”Mother of gunman who died in shootout files claim”, Sacramento Bee, Apr. 10)(& see Feb. 23, 2000). And: “Heirs of the late rap star Notorious B.I.G. have filed a wrongful death and federal civil rights lawsuit against Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks, two former chiefs and the city of Los Angeles, claiming they did not do enough to prevent the rapper’s death five years ago in a drive-by shooting.” (”Notorious B.I.G. heirs sue LAPD, officials, city”, CNN, Apr. 11).

April 11 – Don’t ban therapeutic cloning. Though not usually the petition-signing types, we (our editor) have signed a petition being circulated by Virginia Postrel’s just-launched Franklin Society opposing the current stampede in Congress to ban all scientific use of cloned human cells including “therapeutic” (non-reproductive) uses, and even the use of imported pharmaceuticals developed via such methods (see “Criminalizing Science” (symposium), Reason, Nov.). If you agree with us that this proposed law is a bad idea, you can sign the petition here and view the list of distinguished signers: despite efforts in some conservative quarters to hand down a party line opposing this potentially life-saving branch of biomedical research, support for it in fact cuts across the political spectrum. For information on contacting elected representatives, see InstaPundit, Apr. 10. (DURABLE LINK)

April 11 – Texas doctors’ work stoppage. Monday’s one-day work stoppage by South Texas doctors outraged at spiraling malpractice costs (see Mar. 15-17) drew national attention (”Texas docs protest malpractice claims”, AP/CNN, Apr. 8; see also Dean Reynolds, “Crushing Cost of Insurance”, ABCNews.com, Mar. 5 (Nev., Pa.)). And a Florida physician has launched an insurance policy for doctors “that aims to provide them with the legal resources they would need to countersue lawyers or expert witnesses filing frivolous lawsuits”. (Tanya Albert, “Frivolous suits feel wrath of Medical Justice”, American Medical News, Feb. 11). (DURABLE LINK)

April 11 – Batch of reader letters. Topics include the “pedal-extender” suit against Ford; what happened to attorney Alan Wolk’s suit against posters who criticized him on AvWeb?; OxyContin; suing food companies for waistline problems; police getting ticketed while responding to calls; laws mandating handicap accessibility in private homes; and why schools would send kids home when they have a slight sniffle. One writer upbraids blogger Natalie Solent for thinking it crazy to impose strict product liability on British blood suppliers that currently offer their services free of charge to patients; he thinks she (and by extension we) must not have stopped to consider that blood transfusions can transmit lethal diseases like AIDS and hepatitis.

Best of all, we hear from attorney Jack Thompson, the anti-videogame crusader who has just filed a lawsuit claiming that Sony’s EverQuest game is responsible for the suicide of a user, and he turns out to be every bit as suave and ingratiating as we dared hope (”go to Afghanistan where your anarchist, pro-drug views will be greatly rewarded”), though we wonder whether he caught the phrase “as if” in our original Apr. 3 posting. Mr. Thompson will probably not appreciate Eugene Volokh’s new satirical piece for TechCentralStation.com (”Worse than Internet Addiction”, Apr. 10). (DURABLE LINK)

November 30-December 2 – Be somewhat less afraid. Notwithstanding a scare campaign by antinuclear activists including the egregious Robert F. Kennedy Jr., two physicists argue that U.S. nuclear power plants are not likely to top the list of targets of opportunity for terrorists seeking to inflict mass casualties (Gerald E. Marsh and George S. Stanford, “Terrorism and Nuclear Power: What are the Risks?”, National Center for Policy Analysis Analysis #374, November; “NY Nuclear Plant Shutdown Sought Pending Security Review”, AP/Dow Jones/Business Times, Nov. 9 (RFK Jr. compares Indian Point facility near NYC to nuclear bomb); NCPA “Ten Second Response” series, “Media Overplays Risk of Terrorist Attacks on Nuclear Power Plants”, Nov. 16). California agricultural officials are seeking to calm public fears that Central Valley crop dusters furnish a likely method of attack on major urban targets; among the planes’ limitations are their constricted range and speed (Michael Mello, “Crop-dusters nothing to fear, officials told”, Modesto Bee, Nov. 29). And for a really contrarian view, U.S. Army veteran Red Thomas has written a short essay on why, if you possess fairly minimal civil defense smarts, you’re likely to survive a chemical, biological or even radiological attack. (”The Real Deal — Words of Wisdom About Gas, Germs, and Nukes” — Snopes.com, via Libertarian Samizdata and Rallying Point weblogs).

November 30-December 2 – “U.S. Judge Dismisses All but One Columbine Lawsuit”. “A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed all but one lawsuit filed against police and all claims lodged against a school district by victims and relatives of people killed and injured in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, lawyers said.” (Yahoo/Reuters, Nov. 27)

November 30-December 2 – Whiplash days: a memoir. Back in 1992, actor/writer Thomas M. Sipos (books: Vampire Nation, Manhattan Sharks, Halloween Candy) answered a help wanted ad in Los Angeles’s newspaper for lawyers and took a job with a high-volume personal injury law firm. He’s now published on his website a memoir of that experience, entitled “How To Make Money In Soft Tissue Injury” — names changed to protect the not necessarily innocent.

November 30-December 2 – Rejecting an Apple windfall. The news that a disgruntled Apple employee had filed a race discrimination lawsuit seeking $40 million from the computer maker prompted this reaction from one African-American who recalls his own run-in with prejudice at a high-tech employer (AppleLinks, “Moore’s Mailbag”, letter from Marvin Price, Nov. 9; Duncan Campbell, “Apple faces £27m ‘race bias’ lawsuit”, The Guardian, Nov. 9).

November 29 – “Patriot Act would make watchdogs of firms”. “Ordinary businesses, from bicycle shops to bookstores to bowling alleys, are being pressed into service on the home front in the war on terrorism. Under the USA Patriot Act, signed into law by President Bush late last month, they soon will be required to monitor their customers and report ’suspicious transactions’ to the Treasury Department — though most businesses may not be aware of this.” (Scott Bernard Nelson, Boston Globe, Nov. 18).

Broadcaster Neal Boortz, who unlike many lawmakers actually sat down and read the text of the USA Patriot Act, spells out the details of what this means: “if you go to a business [not just a bank] and spend more than $10,000 in cash that business has to report your name, address, social security number and other pertinent information to the feds. It doesn’t matter whether you spend the money on one item, or a whole shopping cart full … the federal government must be notified.” He adds: “This has absolutely nothing to do with international terrorism” — at least not the variety practiced by the Sept. 11 killers, who used credit cards and “did not deal in large amounts of cash. … They never spent $10,000 in cash with any business. In short, they never engaged in any activity that would have to be reported under Section 365.” (Neal Boortz, “Neal’s Nuze: The ‘Patriot’ Act???”, Nov. 20). In fact, the Treasury Department has been hoping to extend federal “money laundering” law in this manner for years; it just wasn’t pressing an anti-terrorism rationale for doing so (see “Lost in the Wash”, Reason, March 1999). According to Gabriel Schoenfeld in Commentary, one of the conclusions of former CIA counterterrorism deputy director Paul R. Pillar in a major new study of terrorism policy for Brookings is that financial controls are primarily of “symbolic” importance in combating terrorism, which unlike drug trafficking typically involves the transfer of only smallish sums. (”Could September 11 Have Been Averted?”, Commentary, December).

November 29 – Taco Bell a liquor purveyor? Well, no, you can’t buy booze at its outlet in Fort Smith, Ark. However, after several of its employees there attended a party together on their own time, one got into a fatal traffic accident, and before you can say “Yo quiero deep pockets” the lawyers had figured out who they really wanted to blame (Jeff Arnold, “Taco Bell Attorneys Seek Dismissal”, Fort Smith Times-Record, Nov. 9). Update Feb. 20: case settled.

November 29 – Lutefisk as toxic substance, and other reader letters. A Wisconsin attorney writes to say that his state’s employee right-to-know law specifically excludes the Scandinavian discomfort food from being considered a toxic substance; and we hear about precedents for Sept. 11 litigation, the proper response to malicious email pranks, and whether judges should expect any more privacy than the people who appear before them.

November 29 – “North America’s most dangerous mammal”. It’s not the grizzly bear or mountain lion, but adorable Bambi: deer-car collisions kill 130 Americans a year and seriously injure many more. Meanwhile, “nearly all the venison served in America’s finest restaurants is imported from places like New Zealand (where deer are an exotic species).” One idea for getting more on platters and fewer on fenders: reconsidering old laws restricting traffic in hunted game. (Ronald Bailey, Reason, Nov. 21).

November 28 – Bioterror unpreparedness. First the government does its best to render the making of vaccines uneconomic; then it declares that the private sector has failed and vaccine production must be federalized (Sam Kazman & Henry I. Miller, “Uncle Sam’s Vaccines”, National Review Online, Nov. 26; Naomi Aoki, “Nation wants vaccines, but drug makers remain wary of the risks”, Boston Globe, Nov. 14). Meanwhile, the haste with which politicians like Sen. Charles Schumer and anti-intellectual-property activists called (quite unnecessarily) for abrogating Bayer’s patent in its antibiotic Cipro helped send the worst possible signal to drug companies’ research budgeters about the safety of their investments (James Surowiecki, “No Profit, No Cure”, The New Yorker, Nov. 5; John E. Calfee, “Bioterrorism and Pharmaceuticals: The Influence of Secretary Thompson’s Cipro Negotiations”, draft, American Enterprise Institute, Nov. 1).

November 28 – Oklahoma forensics scandal, cont’d. The Washington Post has a substantial front-page piece catching up with it. “Already, a reexamination of [Joyce Gilchrist's] work has freed a convicted rapist and a death row inmate, overturned a death sentence, and called into question the evidence used to execute a man last year.” (Lois Romano, “Police Chemist’s Missteps Cause Okla. Scandal”, Nov. 26)(see May 9).

November 28 – “Does reading grades aloud invade privacy?” The Supreme Court has now heard arguments on that very strange case (see June 27) in which a teacher who allowed students to rate each other’s performance on an exam was accused of violating federal “educational privacy” laws. (Warren Richey, Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 27; Frank J. Murray, “Students’ grading papers passes Supreme Court’s test”, Washington Times, Nov. 28; Marcia Coyle, “High Court Faces First School Records Case”, National Law Journal, Nov. 13). Update: high court rules practice not unlawful (Feb. 22, 2002).

November 28 – Fiat against further fatherhood. The Wisconsin Supreme Court “has upheld a ban preventing a man who owes thousands of dollars in child support from having any more children. The court ruled that David Oakley, a father of nine, would be imprisoned if he had another child, unless he was able to prove that he would pay support for both that child and his current offspring.” (BBC, “Baby ban on US child support shirker”, Nov. 24).

November 27 – U.K. to compensate relatives who saw WTC attack on TV. “British families who watched their relatives die during live television coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center may receive compensation for the trauma they suffered. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA), which normally compensates people who witness in person a relative killed or injured in Britain, has taken the unprecedented decision that people who watched coverage of the 11 September attacks should be eligible for payments. … Those eligible will receive payouts of between £1,000 and £500,000, although the average level will be an estimated £20,000.” Under earlier rules, such payouts were made only in cases where family members witnessed crimes that took place in Great Britain. Critics complain that the U.K. is developing a “compensation culture”. (Matthew Beard, “British families of New York victims may be compensated for trauma”, The Independent, Nov. 19; Dominic Kennedy, “Surprise payout for relatives who saw attack on TV”, The Times, Nov. 19; Sarah Womack, “Cash plan for British TV witnesses”, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 19).

November 27 – Target: ethnic-immigrant landlords. Latest shock-horror on the housing front: many ethnic immigrant landlords prefer to rent units to members of their own minority group. Who knew? Such patterns have been detected among “Cambodians in Long Beach, Latinos in El Monte and Taiwanese in Rosemead”; some landlords, it seems, will take tenants from their own state in Mexico but not from other states in Mexico. The L.A. Times lends a sympathetic ear to civil rights activists who send out “testers” to catch such building owners and supers in the act, though the article does not explore the hefty financial rewards sometimes available when activists succeed in these missions (see “Tripp Wire”, Reason, April 1998). The article quotes no critics of the law, but does unveil yet another demand coming down the pike: “In California, advocates say the state should require antidiscrimination training for landlords.” (Sue Fox, “Mi Casa No Es Su Casa”, L.A. Times, Nov. 21).

November 27 – Columnist-fest. Very topical stuff today:

* The proposed settlement of (some of) the private Microsoft class actions (donations of outdated product to school districts, which could entrench the company even more as standard-setter) may be absurd, but blame that on the absurdity of the underlying lawsuits themselves, argues Nick Schulz (”‘You’re an Evil Predator; Now Teach My Kids’”, TechCentralStation.com, Nov. 23; Matthew Fordahl, “Few criticize Microsoft deal”, AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Nov. 24).

* Canada’s super-liberal asylum policies are coming under a lot more scrutiny (Christie Blatchford, “Canada and terrorism: programmed to receive”, National Post, Nov. 24; “Canada probes 14,000 refugees”, Nov. 24)(see Sept. 14-16). See Cindy Rodriguez, “Suspects take advantage of liberal asylum program”, Boston Globe, Nov. 23 (tossed grenades at airliner, now collects welfare in Ontario).

* “A desperately needed bill to protect the nation’s insurance industry and the greater economy after Sept. 11 remains in dire peril, thanks to the financial pressure group that exerts the most influence over the Democratic Party: the plaintiff trial lawyers of America.” (Robert Novak, “Politics as usual”, syndicated/TownHall, Nov. 22).

November 26 – Utah: rescue searchers sued. “The family of Paul Wayment and his son Gage have filed claims against searchers who did not find 2-year-old Gage before he froze to death last year. The family of Paul Wayment is seeking more than $3 million. Paul Wayment committed suicide after being sentenced to jail for negligent homicide in his son’s death. The family is accusing searchers of being negligent in their efforts to find Gage and are seeking more than $2 million in damage for the deaths of father and son.” (Pat Reavy, “Wayment kin sue searchers”, Deseret News, Nov. 21; Jim Woolf, “Multimillion-Dollar Claim Filed By Wayments Against Searchers”, Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 21; Lucianne.com thread).

November 26 – “Smokers Told To Fetter Their Fumes”. In suburban Washington, D.C., the Montgomery County, Md. council has approved a measure setting stiff fines for residents who smoke at home if their neighbors object. “Under the county’s new indoor air quality standards, tobacco smoke would be treated in the same manner as other potentially harmful pollutants, such as asbestos, radon, molds or pesticides. If the smoke wafts into a neighbor’s home — whether through a door, a vent or an open window — that neighbor could complain to the county’s Department of Environmental Protection. Smokers, and in some cases landlords or condominium associations that fail to properly ventilate buildings, would face fines of up to $750 per violation if they failed to take steps to mitigate the problem.” “This does not say that you cannot smoke in your house,” said council member Isiah Leggett (D-At Large). “What it does say is that your smoke cannot cross property lines.” Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s capital area chapter, expressed unease over the proposal, but George Washington U. law prof and