Overlawyered » Supreme Court

Toobin on Citizens United

Walter Olson — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:57:18 +0000

Ed Whelan charges the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin with spinning the history of the First Amendment campaign regulation case [first, second, followup] Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSBlog, while sympathetic to Toobin’s overall project, also takes issue with him at numerous points. More: Adam White, Weekly Standard; Sam Bagenstos (what is supposed to have been so devious about Roberts’ handling of the case?); Howard Wasserman (why does Citizens United get singled out for demonization from among the several Court opinions pointing the same way?).

Tags: campaign regulation, Supreme Court

Toobin on Citizens United is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Don’t cooperate with Washington reporters!

Walter Olson — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:08:55 +0000

Quoth Warren Burger to Harry Blackmun, following Blackmun’s nomination to the Supreme Court [April 27, 1970 letter via Kyle Graham]

Tags: media bias, Supreme Court

Don’t cooperate with Washington reporters! is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

April 25 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:15:01 +0000

Eugene Volokh on civil liberties problems with the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization [first, second posts]
More coverage of the “N.C. vs. diet advice blogger” story we noted in February [Sara Burrows/Carolina Journal, Brian Doherty/Reason]
A case for an administrative alternative to asbestos litigation [Michael Hiltzik, L.A. Times] More on administered compensation funds [Adam Zimmerman, Prawfs]
Scuttle-the-boat insurance fraud scheme goes amusingly wrong [Lowering the Bar]
“To lower prices at the pump, abolish the boutique fuel regime” [Steven Hayward, Weekly Standard]
Supreme Court denies certiorari in NYC rent control case [Trevor Burrus, Cato; earlier here and here] But it does grant cert in Cato-backed property rights action [Ark. Fish & Game v. U.S.; Shapiro]
New Zealand’s innovative public policies: left, right or something else? [Eric Crampton] Let’s be more like the Scandinavian countries [Tim Worstall, UK] Don’t forget loser-pays…

Tags: asbestos, bloggers and the law, domestic violence, eat drink and be merry, insurance fraud, loser pays, New Zealand, North Carolina, oil industry, Supreme Court, Sweden, Victim Compensation Fund

April 25 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

April 23 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:07:43 +0000

Fearful of adverse Supreme Court ruling, Department of Justice said to have exercised pressure on city of St. Paul to buckle in housing-disparate-impact case [Kevin Funnell]
Justice Janice Rogers Brown: we can dream, can’t we? [Weigel] The Brown/Sentelle opinion everyone’s talking about, questioning rational basis review of economic regulation [Hettinga v. U.S., milk regulations; Fisher, Kerr]
Claim: “The Bachelor” TV franchise discriminates on basis of race [Jon Hyman]
Chicago sold off municipal parking garages. Good. It also promised to disallow proposals for private parking nearby. Not good [Urbanophile]
Bad day in court for Zimmerman prosecution [Tom Maguire, more, Merritt]
“I want some systematic contacts wherever your long arm can reach” — hot-’n'-heavy CivPro music video satire [ConcurOp, language]
Federal judge dismisses charge against man who advocated jury nullification outside courthouse [Lynch, Sullum, earlier]

Tags: broadcasters, Chicago, competition through regulation, disparate impact, fair housing, jury nullification, Martin-Zimmerman case, procedure, Supreme Court

April 23 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Why Did Legal Elites Underestimate the Case Against the Mandate?”

Walter Olson — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:25:06 +0000

Legal academia, and the sector of legal journalism most closely aligned with its views, is too remote from practice, too wrapped in theory and too far left to have a good feel for how the current Supreme Court approaches legal issues. Thus argues Jonathan Adler, who notes that “In some corners, it’s more important to reconcile one’s claims with the writings of John Rawls than the opinions of John Roberts.” More: Mike Rappaport (noting that the right too has been influenced by legal academia’s “preference for broad overarching theories,” as on originalism), Peter Suderman, David Bernstein.

Tags: Dahlia Lithwick, law schools, Schools for Misrule, Supreme Court

“Why Did Legal Elites Underestimate the Case Against the Mandate?” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

High court rejects medical-method patent

Walter Olson — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:12:52 +0000

A unanimous Supreme Court has struck down a patent over diagnostic methods in medicine, the latest in a series of controversies over the bounds of patentable subject matter. [Mayo v. Prometheus Labs; Marcia Coyle/NLJ, SCOTUSBlog, Timothy Lee/ArsTechnica] As I noted last fall, my Cato Institute colleagues Ilya Shapiro, Jim Harper and Timothy Lee filed an amicus brief on behalf of the side that prevailed yesterday, arguing against the spread of “a dangerous exception to traditional patent law… the Court should reject medical-diagnostic patents as impermissibly restricting the freedom of thought.”

Tags: medical, patent law, Supreme Court

High court rejects medical-method patent is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Bring back federal common law

Walter Olson — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:31:28 +0000

Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins (1938) was the New Deal-era decision that directed federal courts to apply the law of the states in which they are located, and in so doing abolished a huge body of federal common law. In a new series of posts based on his book The Upside-Down Constitution, Michael Greve argues that Erie was wrongly decided and in practical terms a gigantic mistake that needs correcting. [Liberty and Law]

Tags: federalism, Supreme Court

Bring back federal common law is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Herding home care workers into unions

Walter Olson — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 05:38:43 +0000

In Illinois and other states, union-friendly governors have spearheaded efforts to redefine home care workers funded by state programs as public employees, the better to herd them into union representation. The upshot: persons who take care of their own family members in their homes, and accept checks from state programs designed to keep their loved ones out of nursing homes or other institutions, wind up being obliged to take on the status of employees (as distinct from contractors) and pay union dues, whether or not they are so inclined. Critics say the practice raises questions of freedom of association under the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled possible interest on the part of at least one justice by asking for additional information in the pending case of Harris v. Quinn. [Trevor Burrus, Cato; David Rivkin and Andrew Grossman, NRO; Ilya Shapiro and Trevor Burrus, Cato amicus brief]

Tags: labor unions, Supreme Court

Herding home care workers into unions is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Supreme Court to review Alien Tort Statute

Walter Olson — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:32:11 +0000

In the case of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, scheduled for argument Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider curbing the modern scope of the Alien Tort Statute, which asserts U.S. jurisdiction over various human rights controversies arising within the bounds of other countries. [Reuters, earlier] Considering that it amounts to the Law of the Hegemon, the Statute is oddly popular in some Left circles [Kenneth Anderson/Volokh] European governments (Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands) have filed amicus briefs on the defense side [John Bellinger, Lawfare; more, WaPo]

More: The New York Times’s Room for Debate discussion includes a contribution by my Cato colleague Ilya Shapiro. And Point of Law is having a featured discussion on the case with David Weissbrodt of the University of Minnesota and Julian Ku of Hofstra.

Tags: Alien Tort Claims Act, extraterritoriality, Netherlands, Supreme Court

Supreme Court to review Alien Tort Statute is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

A Stuart Taylor, Jr. archive

Walter Olson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:45:22 +0000

The author, reporter, and legal commentator has just posted a nicely designed online archive of his work, often linked in this space.

Tags: Duke lacrosse, Supreme Court, workplace

A Stuart Taylor, Jr. archive is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system