- Overseas press excoriates new FATCA tax-Americans’-foreign-earnings law; some foreign banks now turn away American customers [Dan Mitchell, Cato, Reason] “The Fatca story is really kind of insane.” [Caplin & Drysdale's H. David Rosenbloom, NYT via TaxProf] Will Congress back down? [Peter Spiro/OJ, more]
- Important new book from James Maxeiner (University of Baltimore) and co-authors Gyooho Lee and Armin Weber on what the U.S. can learn from legal procedure overseas: “Failures of American Civil Justice in International Perspective” [TortsProf]
- Don’t do it: British administration mulls further move away from loser-pays rule in search of — what exactly, a yet more Americanized litigation culture? [Guardian, Law Society]
- Apparently in Norway it’s possible to lose one’s kids by feeding them by hand [Shikha Dalmia, Reason]
- Financial transaction tax? Ask the Swedes how that worked out [Mike "Mish" Shedlock, Business Insider]
- Notes from conference on globalization of class actions [Karlsgodt] Related: Adam Zimmerman;
- “Another conviction in Europe for insulting religion” [Volokh; Polish pop star] Campus secularists’ speech under fire in the U.K. as “Jesus and Mo” controversy spreads to LSE [Popehat] British speech prosecution of soccer star [Suneal Bedi and William Marra, NRO]
Tagged as:
Child Protective Services,
Europe,
free speech,
hate speech,
loser pays,
Norway,
Sweden,
taxes,
United Kingdom
- Latest of periodic Towers Watson (formerly Towers Perrin/Tillinghast) surveys: tort costs fell in 2010 excluding oil spill liability [Towers Watson]
- “Will Newt Neuter the Courts?” [James Huffman, Defining Ideas] Obama’s high court appointees are fortunately friendlier toward civil liberties than he is [Steve Chapman]
- Unanimous Cal Supremes: companies not legally responsible for other companies’ asbestos products used as replacement for theirs [Cal Biz Lit, Jackson, Beck, Mass Tort Prof]
- Claim: jurors considered policy implications of verdict and you can’t have that [On Point; defense verdict in Baltimore, Maryland school-bullying case]
- Airfare display mandate: “‘Protecting’ Consumers from the Truth About the Cost of Government” [Thom Lambert, TotM]
- Critical assessment of AP-backed new copyright aggregator “NewsRight” [Mike Masnick] Promises not to be “Righthaven 2.0″ [Cit Media Law]
- Restatement (Third) of Torts drafters vs. Enlightenment scientific views of causation [David Oliver in June]
Tagged as:
airlines,
asbestos,
Baltimore,
Barack Obama,
bullying,
California,
deep pocket,
juries,
Newt Gingrich,
RightHaven,
taxes,
Tillinghast,
toxic torts
So maybe it’s time to find a new way of expressing the idea of our Byzantine tax code, the Byzantine regulations of federal agencies, and so forth. [Brian Palmer, Slate; link fixed now, thanks reader Bob]
Tagged as:
regulation and its reform,
taxes
- Burning Man, risk, and self-reliance [Claire Gordon, related]
- Jacob Sullum challenges Mark “tax-the-snacks” Bittman [Reason; related, Rick Esenberg] “Fat tax” would be hard to target, hard to enforce, disliked by voters [David Gratzer]
- “CSX claims racketeering in Pittsburgh law firm’s legal tactics” [Post-Gazette; earlier here, here, here, etc.] A different view: Max Kennerly.
- Complaints over new class-action law in Canada [Reuters]
- Minnesota preacher sues Rachel Maddow [TVNewser, Mother Jones]
- Does the new Texas loser-pays bill go far enough? [Kyle Baum, WLF, earlier]
- Tell us about it: “Why the Right to Criticize Lawyers is Vital” [Hans Bader, CEI]
Tagged as:
asbestos,
Canada,
claims fraud,
class actions,
libel slander and defamation,
loser pays,
obesity,
Pittsburgh,
taxes,
Texas
Chris Edwards, Cato: The President in his speech last night “supported repealing an idiotic IRS requirement in the 2010 health care law that mandated hundreds of millions of additional 1099 tax forms. … Now it’s the GOP’s job to get him legislation to repeal this provision tomorrow.”
Tagged as:
Barack Obama,
taxes
I’ve got a post up at Cato at Liberty on the Freddie-Mac-versus-IRS litigation that Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil calls the “stupidest lawsuit ever.”
P.S. And welcome Mickey Kaus readers (”Stupidest lawsuit ever? Tough category”).
Tagged as:
taxes,
taxpayers
- Update: “Tax Panel Rejects Lawyer’s Bid to Deduct Spending for Sex” [NYLJ, William Barrett/Forbes, earlier] And: “Musings on laws affecting adult entertainment, alcoholic beverages and other ‘vice’ industries” [Meeting the Sin Laws blog]
- Mississippi: judge jails lawyer for not saying Pledge of Allegiance [Freeland]
- More on much-written-about Israeli “rape by fraud” case [Volokh, more, earlier here and here]
- “Tribune bankruptcy talks complicated by emergence of pugnacious hedge fund” [Romenesko; earlier on involvement of hedge funds in bankruptcies]
- More disturbing tales from Connecticut probate court [Rick Green, Hartford Courant, earlier]
- Marc Williams of the Defense Research Institute responds to Ted Frank’s criticism of many defense lawyers [PoL]
- Advice for Australians: to fix your litigation system, look to Germany’s success [Ackland, Sydney Morning Herald]
- Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.) & ’70s band Orleans threaten suit against GOP remix ["Orleans Reunion Tour"]
Tagged as:
Australia,
bankruptcy,
Connecticut,
defense lawyers,
Germany,
Mississippi,
music and musicians,
strippers and exotic dancers,
taxes,
U.S. House of Representatives,
wills and trusts
- “Sexting” Wisconsin prosecutor to resign [AP, AtL] Was bar discipline too lax? A contrarian view [Esenberg]
- Update: jury finds “caffeine killer” guilty in wife’s death [CBS, earlier]
- Not an Onion story: “New Orwellian Tax Scheme in England Would Require All Paychecks Go Directly to the Tax Authority” [Dan Mitchell, Cato]
- “The Fight Over Fire Sprinklers in New Homes” [Popular Mechanics via Fountain, earlier]
- Pre-Miranda interrogation of (no relation) Jimmy Olsen [another legally-themed comic book cover from the series at Abnormal Use]
- Slow customer service at pizza restaurant deemed “sabotage” in employment suit [Fox, Jottings]
- Website offers defendants’ perspective on some of the Enron prosecutions [Ungagged.net via Kirkendall]
- Pedestrian killed by out-of-control driver, and jury awards $37 million against California municipality for not having built sidewalks [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Enron,
fire,
prosecution,
restaurants,
taxes,
workplace
- Eugene Volokh on Lineage II “addictive videogame” lawsuit [Volokh Conspiracy, earlier]
- New “Trial Lawyers Inc.” report on environmental litigation [Manhattan Institute, related from Jim Copland on a Richard Blumenthal suit]
- Furor continues over Philadelphia’s $300 “business privilege tax” on bloggers and other low-revenue businesses [City Paper, Instapundit, Atlantic Wire, Kennerly]
- “DoJ seeks Ebonics translators” story affords glimpse of oft-abused market for prosecution experts [Ken at Popehat]
- Much more on FASB show-the-adversary-your-cards litigation accounting proposals [Cal Biz Lit and more, Beck, Hartley, ShopFloor, PoL (with Chamber views), earlier]
- “The Many Ways In Which Fashion Copyrights Will Harm The Fashion Industry” [Masnick, TechDirt, on the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act, earlier links here]
- Denmark carries out a real-world experiment in the incentive effects of unemployment compensation [Stossel]
- “Junk fax” suit demands $2 trillion [eight years ago at Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
accounting,
bloggers and the law,
copyright,
Denmark,
environment,
expert witnesses,
Philadelphia,
taxes,
unemployment benefits,
videogames
- More outcry over report of big new Treasury tax break for injury lawyers [Chris Moody, Daily Caller, Wood/ShopFloor]
- Geologists’ annoyance over bill to oust asbestos-containing serpentine as California state rock makes NYT front page [yesterday; Dan Walters, Facebook group, Calif. Civil Justice, Bailey via Adler, earlier]
- Great moments in international human rights: “Known al-Qaeda Operative Could Not Be Deported [from UK]” [Foster, NRO]
- “Is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act a Government Cash Cow?” [Koehler, FCPA Professor]
- Franklin Mint case cont’d: “Manatt Tries to Beat Back Malicious Prosecution Lawsuit” [Baxter/American Lawyer, earlier]
- “Washington’s parasites take aim at Apple” [David Boaz, Philadelphia Inquirer]
- Gubernatorial bid by Rhode Island attorney general Patrick Lynch seems to have fizzled [Jessica Taylor, Politico via Law and More]
- Go explicit or go home: Georgia abolishes implied private rights of action [PoL, my Reason take years ago]
Tagged as:
AAJ,
Apple,
asbestos,
attorneys general,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,
international human rights,
Rhode Island,
sanctions,
taxes,
terrorism
- “Sources: Trial lawyers expect tax break from Treasury Department” [Legal NewsLine, PoL, earlier; measure would reportedly replicate contents of bill that didn't pass Congress]
- No doubt totally unrelated: eight Dem Senate candidates journey to Vancouver for AAJ fundraiser [The Hill, David Freddoso, ShopFloor, more]
- Report: elderly man jailed after making “bomb” joke about carry-on at airport [NBCNewYork]
- New York debt collection law firm files 80,000 actions a year, critics say errors and lack of documentation inevitable [NYT]
- Kimberly-Clark: quit letting asbestos plaintiffs forum-shop against us [SE Texas Record] How a new asbestos defendant can get “passed around” among claimants [Global Tort, scroll] Prosperity of one Cleveland asbestos law firm I’d never heard of [Briefcase]
- North Carolina court of appeals: employee rushing to bathroom after getting off work not acting within scope of employment [Matthews v. Food Lion, PDF]
- “Curse of the greedy copyright holders” [Woodlief, WSJ, via de Rugy, NRO; TechDirt]
- Update: “Ninth Circuit suspends Walter Lack, reprimands Thomas Girardi” [famed California lawyers tripped up in Dole suit; Legal Ethics Forum, PoL, earlier]
Tagged as:
AAJ,
asbestos,
banana pesticide litigation fraud,
copyright,
debtor-creditor law,
forum shopping,
Harry Reid,
taxes,
terrorism,
Thomas Girardi
- Many interesting reader comments on post about jury award against manufacturer over injury on bicycle motorized post-sale;
- Reimbursed for money never paid: “Calif. Trial Lawyers Welcome Latest Ruling on Recovery of Medical Expenses” [The Recorder]
- Update: Defamation suit against travel blogger Chris Elliott resolved successfully [Citizen Media Law, earlier]
- Podcast: Northwestern lawprof Steven Calabresi on McDonald (Second Amendment incorporation) case [Federalist Society]
- “Provost Umphrey claims banana picker reps siphoned clients, money” [SE Texas Record]
- Lawprofs in a NYT flutter about deductibility of punitive damages [Walk, Drug & Device Law] On the merits, Carter at ShopFloor: “Changing Tax Laws to Punish Businesses — Unless They Settle”
- Troubled Pacific Law Center to close in San Diego [ABA Journal, earlier]
- New York high court rules Atlanta exec cannot invoke New York’s pro-plaintiff state or city laws to contest firing [NYLJ]
Tagged as:
Atlanta,
banana pesticide litigation fraud,
bloggers and the law,
California,
forum shopping,
guns,
New York,
punitive damages,
taxes
