Overlawyered » Spain http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:28:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 November 21 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-21-roundup-3/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-21-roundup-3/#comments Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:14:12 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25698
  • Spanish government fines filmmaker for movie poster showing “reckless driving” [Lowering the Bar] Siri, distracted driving, and police discretion [Balko]
  • Parents taking care of their kids under Michigan program must pay $30/mo. to SEIU for representation [Joel Gehrke, Examiner]
  • Stretching the Fifth: Joe Francis bad deposition behavior [Legal Ethics Forum]
  • WaPo covers deep split on Consumer Product Safety Commission, left wants fifth seat filled ASAP;
  • “Threat to Student Due Process Rights Dropped from Draft of Violence Against Women Act” [FIRE, background; Cathy Young/Reason]
  • After $300K donation from Philadelphia trial lawyers, you may call him “Judge Wecht” [AP/WPVI]
  • Court reverses $43M Madison County verdict against Ford [AP/Alton Telegraph, some background]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-21-roundup-3/feed/ 2     Lileks on Pamplona http://overlawyered.com/2010/07/lileks-on-pamplona/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/07/lileks-on-pamplona/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:08:38 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=18234 “If the event was held in America the bull would be in the back of a pickup truck going five miles an hour, and all the runners would have to wear helmets. The bull would wear a helmet.” [Ricochet.com]

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2010/07/lileks-on-pamplona/feed/ 0     “Universal jurisdiction”, Judge Garzon, and the Pope http://overlawyered.com/2010/04/universal-jurisdiction-judge-garzon-and-the-pope/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/04/universal-jurisdiction-judge-garzon-and-the-pope/#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:33:53 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=16919 I’ve got a few thoughts at Point of Law on the continuing uproar over prosecutions of international human rights violations against the will of the home countries of the alleged perpetrators.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2010/04/universal-jurisdiction-judge-garzon-and-the-pope/feed/ 3     Graffiti and copyright http://overlawyered.com/2008/09/graffiti-and-copyright/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/09/graffiti-and-copyright/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:05:05 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=7517 “For the graffiti artists, copyright cases are a common problem. ‘It is very disappointing that copyrights of our work are often not respected’, [says German graffiti artist CanTwo,] who received damages from a music label using one of his pieces illegally some years ago. ‘Strangely enough, but people think that because our work is public and it is sometimes illegally painted, they could use it any way they want.’” (Markus Balser, WSJ Law Blog, Sept. 9).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/09/graffiti-and-copyright/feed/ 8     April 11 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/april-11-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/april-11-roundup-2/#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:04:16 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=6084
  • Plenty of reaction to our Tuesday post questioning the NYT school-bullying story, including reader comments and discussion at other blogs; one lawprof passes along a response by the Wolfe family to the Northwest Arkansas Times’s reporting [updated post]
  • Geoffrey Fieger, of jury-swaying fame, says holding his forthcoming criminal trial in Detroit would be unfair because juries there hate his guts [Detroit News]
  • Another Borat suit down as Judge Preska says movie may be vulgar but has social value, and thus falls into “newsworthiness” exception to NY law barring commercial use of persons’ images [ABA Journal]
  • Employer found mostly responsible for accident that occurred after its functionaries overrode a safety device, but a heavy-equipment dealer also named as defendant will have to pay more than 90 percent of resulting $14.6 million award [Bloomington, Ill. Pantagraph]
  • New Mexico Human Rights Commission fines photographer $6600 for refusing a job photographing same-sex commitment ceremony [Volokh, Bader]
  • “Virginia reaches settlement with families of VA Tech shooting victims” [Jurist]
  • Roger Parloff on downfall of Dickie Scruggs [Fortune]
  • Judge in Spain fined heavily and disbarred for letting innocent man spend more than a year in jail [AP/IHT, Guardian]
  • Hard to know whether all those emergency airplane groundings actually improved safety, they might even have impaired it [Murray/NRO "Corner", WSJ edit]
  • “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value” — tracking down the context of that now-celebrated quote from a Canadian Human Rights Commission investigator [Volokh]
  • Who was it that said that lawyers “need to be held accountable for frivolous lawsuits that help drive up the cost of malpractice insurance”? Hint: initials are J.E. [three years ago on Overlawyered]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/april-11-roundup-2/feed/ 7     “Driver Who Killed Teen Sues for Damage” http://overlawyered.com/2008/01/driver-who-killed-teen-sues-for-damage/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/01/driver-who-killed-teen-sues-for-damage/#comments Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:03:21 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5789 Spain: “A speeding motorist who killed a teenage cyclist is suing the boy’s parents over damage to his luxury car, the government says.” (AP/WINS, Jan. 25).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/01/driver-who-killed-teen-sues-for-damage/feed/ 5     January 22 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2008/01/january-22-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/01/january-22-roundup-2/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:09:29 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5771
    • “Woman who ‘lost count after drinking 14 vodkas’ awarded £7,000 over New Year fall from bridge” [The Scotsman]

    • Bar committee recommends disbarment for Beverly Hills lawyer who “played the courts like a bully in a child’s game of dodgeball” [Blogonaut (with response by attorney) via ABA Journal]

    • Shot and paralyzed in parking lot of South Florida strip club, cared for back home in Tunisia, Sami Barrak is now $26 million richer by way of his negligent-security suit [Sun-Sentinel] Earlier Florida negligent-security here, here, and here.

    • Canadian government orders airlines to stop charging the severely obese the price of a second seat [Winnipeg Free Press; earlier]

    • Study of head-injury victims in Spain finds “nearly half of the people who go to court feign psycho-cognitive disorders with the objective of profiting from this in some way.” [Science Daily]

    • Federal judge vacates $1.75 million verdict, questions reliability of expert testimony in Nebraska recovered-memory sex abuse case [Lincoln Journal-Star, AP/Sioux City Journal]

    • Confess your thoughts, citizen: Ezra Levant on his interrogation by official panel in Canada for publishing Mohammed cartoons [Globe & Mail; earlier]

    • Class-action lawyers continue to hop on glitches with Xbox Live, Halo 3 and related Microsoft gaming systems [Ars Technica, News.com; earlier here and here]

    • Bay Area proposal to ban much burning of wood in fireplaces and stoves (Nov. 30, etc.) draws strong reactions both ways [SF Chronicle]

    • Harder to get into Ringling Bros.’s Clown College than law school, says man who attended both [six years ago on Overlawyered]
    P.S. Whoops, that’s what I get for posting while drowsy: earlier roundups by Ted already had the Scottish-tippler and obese-flyer items.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2008/01/january-22-roundup-2/feed/ 4     Running of the bulls http://overlawyered.com/2007/08/running-of-the-bulls/ http://overlawyered.com/2007/08/running-of-the-bulls/#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:09:53 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5173 The strength of local animal rights sentiment is not the only reason the event takes place in Pamplona as opposed to Pompano Beach:
    …Can you imagine if it were held in America, instead of Spain?

    …The running of the bulls would be followed by the running of the plaintiffs lawyers, as they clamor to represent injured parties who, honest your honor, had no idea that such an event could be hazardous to their health. Surely those hold harmless agreements signed by the participants do not absolve public officials of their responsibility to protect people from putting themselves in harm’s way, the class action lawsuit would allege.

    (Paul D. Winston, “America not yet ready for running of the bulls”, Business Insurance, Jul. 23).

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2007/08/running-of-the-bulls/feed/ 5     March 14 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2007/03/march-14-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2007/03/march-14-roundup/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:07:22 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=4660

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2007/03/march-14-roundup/feed/ 1     Court Compels Lunch http://overlawyered.com/2006/08/court-compels-lunch/ http://overlawyered.com/2006/08/court-compels-lunch/#comments Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:04:27 +0000 Peter Morin http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/index.php/2006/08/court-compels-lunch/ Judge Pendleton Gaines of he Superior Court of Maricopa County, Arizona must be a popular jurist indeed. Here, he grants plaintiff counsel’s Motion to Compel Acceptance of Lunch Date, ruling:

    “The Court has rarely seen a motion with more merit. The motion will be granted.

    The Court has searched in vain in the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure and cases, as well
    as the leading treatises on federal and Arizona procedure, to find specific support for Plaintiff’s
    motion. Finding none, the Court concludes that motions of this type are so clearly within the
    inherent powers of the Court and have been so routinely granted that they are non-controversial
    and require no precedential support.

    The writers support the concept. Conversation has been called “the socializing
    instrument par excellence” (Jose Ortega y Gasset, Invertebrate Spain) and “one of the greatest
    pleasures in life” (Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence). John Dryden referred to
    “Sweet discourse, the banquet of the mind” (The Flower and the Leaf)….”

    More light-heartedness follows. (The Legal Reader, Aug. 8)

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