Overlawyered » small business

February 14 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:08:05 +0000

“Brazil Sues Twitter in Bid to Ban Speed Trap and Roadblock Warnings” [ABA Journal]
Obama nominates Michigan trial lawyer Marietta Robinson to vacancy on Consumer Product Safety Commission, ensuring aggressively pro-regulatory majority [Bluey, Heritage]
“AMA reports show high cost of malpractice suits” [HCFN] “Average expense to defend against a medical liability claim in 2010 was $47,158″ [American Medical News, more] Survey of 1,200 orthopedic surgeons finds defensive medicine rife, at cost of billions, accounting for 7 percent of all hospital admissions [MedPageToday]
“Sue us only in Delaware” bylaws would kill off forum-shopping and what fun is that? [Bainbridge]
Trial by media: Lefty “SourceWatch” posts, then deletes, docs from Madison County pesticide suit [Madison County Record]
Think you’ve beaten FCPA rap? Meet the obscure “Travel Act” [Mike Emmick, Reuters] Federal court expands “honest services fraud” in lobbying case [Paul Enzinna, Point of Law]
“On the horrors of getting approval for an ice-cream parlour in San Francisco” [NYT via Doctorow/BoingBoing]

Tags: Brazil, CPSC, defensive medicine, Delaware, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, forum shopping, Madison County, medical malpractice, San Francisco, small business, traffic laws, Twitter

January 5 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:57:22 +0000

Big business vs. free markets again: light bulb makers “fuming” over GOP effort to restore consumer choice [Sullum] Large grocery chains like DC’s bag tax [Tim Carney]
Eeeuw! Bystander can sue train fatality victim whose body part flew through air and hit her [Chicago Tribune]
“Recommended Cell-Phone Ban Comes as ‘Shocking,’ ‘Heavy-Handed’ To Some” [Josh Long, V2M]
“Exploding churros are newspaper’s fault, Chilean court rules” [AP]
In New Jersey and North Carolina, GOP friends of trial bar block legal reform bills [Armstrong Williams, Washington Times]
Kozinski vs. ill-prepared lawyer in case of Sheriff Arpaio vs. newspaper that covered him [The Recorder; Phoenix New Times case]
Federal judges block cuts to in-home personal care services in California, Washington [Disability Law, San Francisco Chronicle, KQED]

Tags: Alex Kozinski, cellphones, disabled rights, New Jersey, North Carolina, Phoenix, small business, wayward Republicans

Food and agriculture roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:16:18 +0000

Steve Chapman on FDA salt reduction initiative [Tribune/syndicated] Canada: “Health minister takes sodium-reduction plan off the table” [Calgary Herald] Flashback: FDA holds first hearing on regulating salt content in food [2007, Medical News Today] Discussion of my piece last week [Adler/Volokh, Instapundit]
More on McDonald’s sidestepping of San Francisco would-be Happy Meal ban [Fair Warning, earlier; background here, here, here, here, etc.]
“Caveat Venditor: Cottage Food Laws Great in Theory, Often Less So in Practice” [Baylen Linnekin of pro-freedom Keep Food Legal, who guestblogged at Reason last week]
Rather than get government out of way, left’s farm bill (”Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act”) would cut small/local/organic growers in on more USDA programs [Obama Foodorama, Linnekin]
Good riddance to monopoly powers of the Canadian Wheat Board [CBC]
Texas now allows home bakers to sell their wares [Austin Chronicle via @pointoflaw]
Widespread opposition to new Department of Labor proposal to ban kids from much work on farms [Nebraska Outback]

Tags: agriculture and farming, Canada, McDonald's, salt, small business

November 2 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:08:25 +0000

A request for anti-SLAPP lawyers in Maine and Maryland [Popehat]
“Gallup: Government Regulation the Top Concern Among Small Business Owners” [NRO Corner] Almost as if in rebuttal to claims from Treasury economist [Business Roundtable]
Foreclosure law firm in upstate NY under fire after pics posted of its Halloween party [Nocera, Mystal]
“GAO Report Details Secrecy Of Asbestos Trusts” [Dan Fisher, Forbes] Crown Cork & Seal seeks successor-liability bill in Massachusetts [Eagle-Tribune]
Case against FMCSA’s rule change on truckers’ hours-of-service [Marc Scribner, CEI]
Richard Epstein on John Paul Stevens as justice and, now, author [Hoover]
Feds say lawyer who advised giant theft ring was partly paid in chic shoes and other designer gear [ABA Journal]

Tags: asbestos, don't, regulation and its reform, small business, Supreme Court

October 27 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:41:10 +0000

“Table Saw without ’saw stop’ technology defective: First Circuit” [George Conk, Ted Frank, earlier here, here]
Court OKs burned patron’s flaming-rum suit against Bacardi [Reuters]
Feds won’t pursue Title IX complaint against 60 Oregon school districts [Oregonian]
IRS putting the squeeze on small tax preparers [WaPo]
How the incinerator (and decades of bad decisions) bankrupted Harrisburg [Bond Girl]
“The most thoughtful, reasonable guy in the whole symposium” — aw [Greenfield on law licensing, earlier] P.S. And similarly from David Lat;
Adam Freedman and readers on Florida “wrongful birth” case [Ricochet, earlier]

Tags: alcohol, product liability, small business, taxes, Title IX, wrongful birth and wrongful life

October 6 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 05:39:43 +0000

Dodd-Frank, arms-trade laws serve to entrench bigger business against smaller [Tim Carney, Rand Simberg] Similarly with automakers and coal producers [David Henderson]
One guess as to why: “Many Physicians Feel They’re Delivering Too Much Care” [WSJ health blog, CJAC] Insurers report incidence of med-mal claims has dropped, severity has increased [National Underwriter] Roundtable on defensive medicine [Orthopedics Today]
Pinball Hall of Fame adversary doesn’t like being called a vexatious litigant [Las Vegas Weekly via @loweringthebar]
U.K. “Solicitors from Hell” gripe site has so far defied multiple efforts to shut it down [Independent]
WTC dust inhalation suits grind on on despite doubts on scientific effect [PoL, more] “Improbable Chain of Events Dooms Con Ed’s 9/11 Lawsuit” [Mark Hamblett, NYLJ]
Nathan Glazer’s work in perspective, and an interview [City Journal];
In the mail: Curtis Wilkie’s Dickie Scruggs book, “The Fall of the House of Zeus.”

Tags: autos, banks, defensive medicine, Dickie Scruggs, Ground Zero dust lawsuits, September 11, serial litigants, small business

Go for it, Sacramento

Walter Olson — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:04:47 +0000

Please do regulate babysitting much harder, urges Coyote [earlier; see also]

Tags: small business, workplace

“CA bars may soon be able to serve infused alcohol”

Walter Olson — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:40:16 +0000

A victory for California consumers and producers in search of artisanal tippling. [San Francisco Chronicle, last year]

Tags: alcohol, food safety, restaurants, small business

Artisanal ice cream OK in Illinois

Walter Olson — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 05:09:57 +0000

At least so long as it’s produced in an industrial manner. [Chicago Tribune]

Tags: food safety, Illinois, small business

Get ready to surprise yourself with a drug test

Walter Olson — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:41:19 +0000

In my new post at Cato at Liberty, I quote a few highlights from Philip Greenspun’s account of his encounter with Federal Aviation Administration regulators intent on applying to the smallest aviation businesses the same rules that govern the largest. Per George Wallace, “All regulation aspires to the condition of a Monty Python sketch.”

Tags: FAA, illegal drugs, small business, WO writings

Overlawyered » small business

February 14 roundup

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January 5 roundup

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Food and agriculture roundup

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