- Abuse of out-of-state motorists an issue: “The Perils of Policing for Profit: Why Tennessee should reform its civil asset forfeiture laws” [Beacon Center, earlier]
- Manhattan: “Lawyer takes plea in $279M no-fault auto insurance fraud case” [ABA Journal]
- “AAA Warns of ‘Dangerous’ Free Market in Parking Spaces” [Matt Yglesias, Slate via Tim Carney]
- Negotiated rates on auto loans at dealerships might violate Obama administration’s disparate-impact guidelines [Roger Clegg]
- Not great for Law dot com’s credibility: Corp Counsel mag throws in with “sudden acceleration” goofery; and here’s an effort to gear up acceleration claims against Ford too.
- Ethanol group menaces Phillips with antitrust charge unless it alters franchiser rule [Alexander Cohen, Atlas]
- “Two researchers call for installing technology to disable cellphones in moving cars” [L.A.Times via Fair Warning]
Tagged as:
antitrust,
autos,
cellphones,
Ford Motor,
forfeiture,
oil industry,
sudden acceleration,
Tennessee
- Press accounts have exposed a pattern of police stops of out of state motorists in rural Tennessee, in which police search motorists’ cars and then confiscate large sums of money they find on the presumption that it is criminal-related. Now, in Henry, Tennessee — named after Patrick Henry, of “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” fame — the police chief has told the town he needs a police dog because “the city is missing out on possible revenues” [dog testimonials; more Tennessee, via Eapen Thampy of Americans for Forfeiture Reform, guestblogging last month at Radley Balko's Agitator site]
- Also via Thampy, economically hard-hit Butte County, California, north of Sacramento, has been filling its budget hole through pot-grower busts accompanied by aggressive forfeitures; in a perhaps not unrelated phenomenon, the county snatches kids from parents at an exceedingly high rate. More on child protective services in Butte County at the Chico News & Review (& more: Angela Bacca, SKUNK).
- Via Ilya Somin, this from a Steven Greenhut column:
Few groups of “sinners” were singled out in biblical accounts more than “tax collectors,” who were not merely state agents collecting revenues that taxpayers rightfully owed to the government. They were the source of particular loathing because they were extortionists, who profited personally by shaking down as much money from citizens as possible…
The Gospel accounts provide an early lesson in the danger of marrying the profit motive with governmental power. The possibility for abuse is great. Yet throughout the United States, government agencies increasingly rely on “civil forfeiture” to bolster their strained budgets. The more assets these modern-day tax collectors seize, the more money they have for new equipment and other things….
- From reader John Brewer, on an Ohio gardening-equipment seizure: “Structurally, it seems even worse to have the judge who originally signed the search warrant have a say in what gets done with the confiscated stuff than it does for the cops/DA to get it, despite the cute-and-cuddly outcome here.”
- Tomorrow’s abuses today: the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms [BATF] has just been given a major enhancement to its forfeiture powers. [David Kopel/Volokh]
- For more information on this subject, check out the many online resources offered by the Cato Institute; Cato scholars took an early interest in exposing the problems of civil and criminal asset forfeiture, and our focus on the issue continues to this day. More: Scott Greenfield. (& Tim Lynch, PoliceMisconduct.net)
Tagged as:
California,
Child Protective Services,
forfeiture,
Ohio,
Tennessee
- Congress, HUD face off on “disparate impact” in housing and housing finance [WSJ edit, Clegg/NRO] Wells Fargo says it didn’t base loans on race but will pay $175 million to end federal probe [Reuters]
- Maryland vs. Virginia: if only there were a government that was consistent about favoring liberty [John Walters, Maryland Public Policy Institute]
- British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal levies $3000 against husband-and-wife owners of bed-and-breakfast who canceled reservation of gay couple based on religious objections [Religion Clause, The Province] UK: “‘Gay flatmate wanted’ ads break equality laws” [Telegraph] See our earlier coverage of the Ninth Circuit Roommate.com case here and here.
- “Lifeguard fired for saving drowning person — outside his designated zone.” [NBC Miami via @commongood]
- “Do you want to be informed about the constant, infuriating corporate welfare for professional sports owners? Follow FieldOfSchemes.com” [Matt Welch]
- Negligent entrustment lawsuit against parents who let 33 year old daughter drive car yields $1.2 million in Tennessee [Knoxville News]
- Pretrial and discovery: “New York state bar recommends federal litigation reforms” [Reuters]
Tagged as:
banks,
discovery,
fair housing,
Maryland,
mortgages,
New York,
procedure,
sports,
Tennessee,
Virginia
- Appalling: localities partner with tax-farming “probation” firms to run up routine misdemeanor fines into crushing debts for citizenry [NYT, Tuccille/Reason] “Pay Up: Criminal Justice Debt in Philadelphia” [Penn Law/YouTube, Brennan Center]
- “The institute estimates a wrongful conviction rate in sex assault cases of between 8-15%” [Richmond Times-Dispatch; Urban Institute via Balko] For the guilty, marginalization may worsen recidivism: “Do Sex Offender Registries Make Us Less Safe?” [Prescott, Regulation mag, PDF] Sex-offense detention for dollars [Greenfield]
- Majority of Florida voters support Stand Your Ground [Quinnipiac; Glyn/NRO; earlier, Sun-Sentinel] Collection of cases in which Florida SYG defense was asserted [Tampa Bay Times; Ta-Nehisi Coates; Jacob Sullum on TBT's slant, related by Sullum here and here] Bipartisan origins of Florida SYG statute differ greatly from what you may have heard [Daily Caller, auto-plays video] “Two studies on Stand Your Ground” [Robert VerBruggen/NRO] Florida lawyer Troy Webber’s analysis of law [Hussein & Webber] Related: Jeralyn Merritt.
- Problems with police dogs as evidence [Balko, Greenfield]
- Tennessee: “Mom jailed for letting kids play at park” [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids, related]
- Tenth Circuit adopts broad view of already-broad federal wire fraud statute [Paul Enzinna/PoL]
- New Gotham law will fine taxi drivers up to $10K for giving ride to a prostitute, drivers will have to take a course on recognizing what hookers look like [Amy Alkon]
Tagged as:
animals,
Florida,
NYC,
Philadelphia,
police,
prosecution,
self-defense,
Tennessee,
Tenth Circuit
Nice $22,000 you’re carrying, Mister Motorist, but I think it would look nicer in the police department’s bank account [News Channel 5 Nashville via Radley Balko]. Driver George Reby, a professional insurance adjuster from New Jersey, was then permitted to go on his way since he “hadn’t committed a criminal law [violation],” as the police officer later explained to a reporter. It happened in Monterey, Tenn., not Monterrey, Mexico.
Tagged as:
forfeiture,
Tennessee
Tomorrow, Wednesday, I’ll be giving a lunchtime talk on Schools for Misrule in Nashville at Vanderbilt Law School, hosted by the student Federalist Society chapter there. It’s open to the public, so drop by and say hello.
Tagged as:
live in person,
Tennessee
Murfreesboro: “A former MTSU student accused of stabbing a Lady Raider basketball player to death at Raiders Crossing Apartments in 2011 is suing the complex and its management company for failing to separate the two despite knowing they had problems with one another. … The attorney [Joe Brandon Jr.] included Twitter postings by Stewart as supporting evidence of a negative and deteriorating relationship between the two women.” [The Tennessean]
Tagged as:
criminals who sue,
Tennessee,
third party liability for crime,
Twitter
Sinking deeper into substance abuse, a prominent Tennessee judge spins ever further out of control. How long does it take before he’s removed and the public alerted to his problem? Way too long for comfort [Knoxville News Sentinel]
Tagged as:
judges,
Tennessee
- Bizarrely overbroad: “Tennessee law bans posting images that ’cause emotional distress’” [Tim Lee, Ars Technica]
- “Superlawyer Stanley Chesley Faces Reckoning Tuesday” [Dan Fisher, Forbes, Cincinnati Enquirer, reporter Jim Hannah, earlier]
- More on record run-up in used car prices [Perry; my Cato take]
- Winkler County, Texas nurses case illuminates evils of prosecution-as-weapon [Texas Observer via PoL; earlier here, here, and here]
- Not a parody: claim that litigious celebs should be doing more to support Litigation Lobby [CJD]
- “Feminism by Treaty: Why CEDAW is Still a Bad Idea” [Christina Sommers, Policy Review]
- Why do agents of so many miscellaneous government agencies pack guns? [Quin Hillyer last year]
- New idea for who to sue over sex scandals [Conan show lawyer ad parody, adult content]
Tagged as:
autos,
emotional distress,
international human rights,
Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud,
litigation lobby,
online speech,
Stan Chesley,
Tennessee
Recent clips on a subject treated in much more detail in Schools for Misrule:
- Claim: Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s reforms to public sector labor law violate international human rights [HRW, Mirer/Cohn, FoxBusiness (views of Marquette lawprof Paul Secunda)] Related: UAW threatens charges against automakers [ShopFloor]
- Per some advocates, “right to health” has emerged as an “established international legal precept” even if it is “still to be fully embraced in the United States” [Friedman/Adashi, JAMA]
- GWB at risk of arrest if he visits Europe? Or are some of his enemies just posturing? “Bush trip to Switzerland called off amid threats of protests, legal action” [Atlantic Wire, WaPo, Daily Dish and more, Frum Forum, more and yet more]
- Oh, good grief: Tennessee solon “proposes law to make following Shariah law a felony” [Tennesseean] More states prepare to join unsound “ban all recogition of international law” movement [Ku, OJ] Background: Volokh.
- For those interested in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recently given a favorable nod by the Obama administration, a copy of the text is available here [CWB]
- “Conceptualizing Accountability in International Law and Institutions” [Anderson, OJ]
- Human rights initiative in UK: “Rapists and killers demand right to benefits” [Telegraph] European Court of Human Rights, Human Rights Acts “merely pretexts for judicial activism, argues Alasdair Palmer” [Telegraph]
- Claim: U.S. is odd-country-out in international law. Reality check please [Bradford, Posner et al, OJ]
- Opponents charge trying Pennsylvania 13 year old for murder as adult could violate international law [AI]
Tagged as:
George W. Bush,
Indian tribes,
international human rights,
international law,
labor unions,
medical,
Tennessee,
United Nations,
Wisconsin
- Annals of discrimination lawsuits: a Tennessee cop contests his firing [Chattanooga Pulse]
- New book on lawsuits against universities: Amy Gajda, “The Trials of Academe: The New Era of Campus Litigation” [Harvard University Press via Stanley Fish, NYT]
- Bernard Kerik’s bail revoked because he used Twitter to promote a website put up by his friends flaying the prosecution? [Scott Greenfield] Plus: More complicated than that, says Bill Poser in comments;
- Another big setback for birther litigation [Wasserman/ Prawfsblawg, Little Green Footballs, earlier]
- “I won’t be able to function,” says Missouri woman after judge rules her monkey is not a service animal [On Point News, Molly DiBianca] More: service ferret gets owner kicked out of North Carolina mall [DigTriad]
- Eleventh Circuit agrees that U.S. cannot prosecute criminal defense lawyer Ben Kuehne for money laundering charges for having written opinion letter saying untainted money was available for legal fees [WSJ Law Blog, coverage (and update) at Scott Greenfield's site, Miami Herald]
- One for the Coase Theorem literature? Cranky neighbor forces closure of famed South Carolina recording venue [Ribstein]
- Hallowe’en is safe [BoingBoing, earlier on Pennsylvania town's trick-or-treating ban] “Toronto schools: Hallowe’en insensitive to witches” [four years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Barack Obama,
child protection,
colleges and universities,
defense lawyers,
Missouri,
music and musicians,
police,
prosecution,
service animals,
South Carolina,
Tennessee
Add another to our list of tavern patrons who discovered that dancing on the bar was not as safe a pastime as they initially assumed. This time the scene of the accident, and target of the resulting lawsuit, is Nashville’s Coyote Ugly Saloon. Her attorney says Ms. Barnes “‘had had a few drinks’ but was not drunk.” [Tennessean via Day]
Tagged as:
alcohol,
assumption of risk,
restaurants,
Tennessee
Update to the Hamilton County medical malpractice case we discussed in May. Four jurors have signed affidavits claiming that they were “coerced” by the judges’ instructions demanding a verdict into finding for the plaintiff rather than deadlocking the jury; one or two others deny that this happened. (Chattanooga Free Press, Jun. 14, Jun. 24, and Jun. 28; h/t J.T.)
While the “Allen charge” the judge gave appears to violate Tennessee law (which, unlike federal law, disapproves of such instructions), reading between the lines of the news stories, it seems that the defendants sandbagged any objection. As one can see, the journalist did not know enough law to ask the follow-up question “Did you object at the time to the jury instruction?”, which would be the critical inquiry. (Though it is possible that she did know, but had that part of her story cut by editors.) If this is the best grounds of appeal for the defendants, and plaintiff’s lawyers are correct that there was no objection at the time, the defendant is facing a steep uphill battle. Generally, courts don’t like to go wading elbows deep to scrutinize the jury deliberations; otherwise, every trial would be followed by a collateral trial into the claims of jurors, and losing parties would have the incentive to lobby jurors to testify against their verdict. (I learned this the hard way in my first appellate briefing as a junior associate.)
Tagged as:
defensive medicine,
juries,
medical malpractice,
Tennessee
I expressed skepticism this summer that the Exxon Shipping v. Baker decision was a positive sign for the Court’s punitive damages jurisprudence. After the replay of Philip Morris v. Williams and, now, the Court’s denial of certiorari in DaimlerChrysler v. Flax this week, I can say I was right.
As readers of Overlawyered know, the Tennessee Supreme Court reinstated $13.3 million of punitive damages over a good-faith dispute over a van’s seat back design (in an accident caused by a drunk driver), giving no credit to the fact that the design in question was safer than federal safety standards, or to Exxon Shipping’s suggestion that punitive damages greater than a 1:1 ratio were possibly constitutionally inappropriate where compensatory damages were substantial and the defendant’s actions were not intentional or done for profit. As I described the case back then:
In 2001, Louis Stockell, driving his pickup at 70 mph, twice the speed limit, rear-ended a Chrysler minivan. Physics being what they are, the front passenger seat in the van collapsed backwards and the passenger’s head struck and fatally injured 8-month old Joshua Flax. The rest of the family walked away from the horrific accident. Plaintiffs’ attorney Jim Butler argued that Chrysler, which already designed its seats above federal standards, should be punished for not making the seats stronger — never mind that a stronger and stiffer seat would result in more injuries from other kinds of crashes because it wouldn’t absorb any energy from the crash. (Rear-end collisions are responsible for only 3% of auto fatalities.) Apparently car companies are expected to anticipate which type of crash a particular vehicle will encounter, and design accordingly.
(h/t Cutting)
Tagged as:
autos,
Chrysler,
punitive damages,
seat backs,
Supreme Court,
Tennessee
