“There has been a growing effort over the past decade from groups such as Smoke Free Movies and SceneSmoking.org, which hosts the annual Hackademy Awards, to pressure Hollywood into cutting back the amount of smoking in films. Now those groups are getting government support for their cause from US Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) and Joseph Pitts (R-PA) and from a group of health organizations, including Legacy, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization.” [Washington Post] Legacy, incidentally, is a group created as a result of the $246-billion state-Medicaid tobacco settlement whose purposes include pushing for further “tobacco control” — one of many examples in this area in which government-driven funding is employed to further advocacy on one side of controversial issues.
Tagged as:
movies film and videos,
tobacco,
tobacco settlement
“A Dallas woman has filed a lawsuit seeking six figures from a former neighbor and landlord for damage she says was caused by cigarette smoke wafting through adjoining walls of her high-end townhome. ‘Smoking is not a right, it’s a privilege,’ said Chris Daniel, a retired nurse.” [Dallas Morning News]
Tagged as:
tobacco
The Barclay Rex smoking shop must seek a permit as a “food establishment” even if it gives away the brew for free, the city says [Sullum, Reason "Hit and Run"] Readers wonder (h/t Jeff Stier) whether the city is also going to start picking on car dealerships, bookshops and even police stations that offer free coffee, a question to which I think we know the answer.
Tagged as:
food safety,
NYC,
tobacco
The Pentagon is putting out word, though, that soldiers would not be expected to go cold turkey in actual war zones. [Gregg Zoroya, "Ban on tobacco urged in military", USA Today, Jul. 9; "U.S. will not ban war zone smoking", AP/USA Today, Jul. 15]
Tagged as:
military,
tobacco
- Pennsylvania Department of Labor launches probe on whether reality-TV show “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ violates child labor laws [Pennsylvania Labor & Employment Blog, Hirsch/Workplace Law Prof via Ohio Employer's Law]
- Dispute over termination of Navy aircraft contract called “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce of U.S. legal system” [WSJ Law Blog]
- Medical tourism, cont’d: “It appears that ‘we’re easier to sue’ is the uniquely American defense to medicine outsourcing.” [KevinMD]
- New Oklahoma law protects farmers from neighbors’ suits complaining of nuisance from farm activity [Enid, Okla., News]
- For unusually bad advice on how to save GM and Detroit, Michael Moore as usual comes through [Popehat]
- Lawyer reprimanded for telling party she should be cut up, shipped overseas [NJLJ, ABA Journal]
- Call for reform of UK laws banning press interviews of jurors after verdict [Times Online first, second articles and commentary]
- Coming soon: campaign against depiction of smoking in Raymond Chandler books, Edward Hopper paintings [CEI "Open Market"]
Tagged as:
agriculture and farming,
Detroit,
don't,
medical,
Michael Moore,
nuisance,
Oklahoma,
Pennsylvania,
tobacco,
United Kingdom
Dismissing a suit claiming that cigarettes and upholstery should have been flameproof, a Kentucky federal judge last month had this to say:
No court has found that there is a duty to make our world fool-proof or risk free. Nor is there a duty to warn of obvious consequences of foolish behavior.
In this case, we will reject the opportunity to hold that just because something could happen, failure to prevent it is unreasonable….
Nothing this court can do will change what happened. But we are obliged to ensure that the law is applied dispassionately, and in a principled way.
[Patrick at Popehat]
Tagged as:
fire,
personal responsibility,
tobacco
- Surprising origins of federal corruption probe that tripped up Luzerne County, Pa. judges who were getting kickbacks on juvenile detention referrals: insurers had noted local pattern of high car-crash arbitration sums and sniffed collusion between judges and plaintiff’s counsel [Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Legal Intelligencer] Court administrator pleads to theft [Times Leader] Judge Ciavarella had secret probation parole program [PAHomepage]
- We get accolades: “Overlawyered.com has a new look. Great new format, same good stuff,” writes ex-securities lawyer Christopher Fountain, whose real estate blog I’m always recommending to people even if they live nowhere near his turf of Greenwich, Ct. [For What It's Worth]
- “Fla. Jury Awards $8M to Family of Dead Smoker in Philip Morris Case” [ABA Journal; for more on the complicated background of the Engle case, which renders Florida a unique environment for tobacco litigation, start here]
- Scott Greenfield vs. Ann Bartow vs. Marc Randazza on the AutoAdmit online-bathroom-scrawl litigation, all in turn playing off a David Margolick piece in Portfolio;
- Eric Turkewitz continues his investigations of online solicitation by lawyers following the Buffalo crash of Continental Flight #3407 [NY Personal Injury Law Blog, Mon. and Tues. posts; earlier]
- One vital element of trial management: keep track of how many jurors there are [Anne Reed, Deliberations]
- Public Citizen vs. public health: Sidney Wolfe may succeed in getting the FDA to ban Darvon, and the bone marrow transplant nurse isn’t happy about that [Dr. Wes, KevinMD, more on Wolfe here]
- “Baseball Star’s [uninfected] Ex Seeks $15M for Fear of AIDS” [OnPoint News, WaPo, New York Mets star Roberto Alomar]
Tagged as:
accolades,
arbitration,
AutoAdmit,
baseball,
chasing clients,
Connecticut,
FDA,
Florida,
juries,
Luzerne County judicial scandal,
online speech,
Pennsylvania,
Public Citizen,
real estate,
tobacco
- Tons and tons of favorable reaction to my Forbes piece on CPSIA: commenters there, Etsy thread, sampling of blogs: Polka Dot Patch, Heartkeeper’s Common Room, Colby Lane Designs, Baby Gardner’s (aw), Tristan Benz (double aw). Others who’ve gotten into the act: Iain Murray/Open Market, Jeff Nolan, Patrick @ Popehat (SSFC). New: Superblogger Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, John Schwenkler, Carter Wood at ShopFloor, Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review “Corner”.
- “California Lawmakers Rush to Rescue Good Samaritans in Wake of Court Ruling” [The Recorder, Calif. Civil Justice Blog, earlier]
- “America needs a tax code simple enough for the Treasury secretary to figure out” [Taranto, WSJ]
- “Federal judge might ax $2M legal fee in Seattle ‘pro bono’ case” [ABA Journal, earlier here and here]
- Indictment of Long Island attorney Felix Vinluan dismissed; charged for advising nurses it was okay to quit their jobs [Cernovich, Volokh, Greenfield, Mitchell Rubinstein]
- “Apartment owner sued for common area second hand smoke” [Womble Carlyle]
- “Tulsa World sues alt-weekly over circulation story” [Romenesko and more, Shafer, BatesLine with many links] Update: drops suit against publication, leaving suit against columnist [Romenesko]
- “No evidence of a causal link between restaurants and obesity”. Hey, that could derail some lawsuits [Pethokoukis, U.S. News, on Northwestern/Berkeley study]
Tagged as:
CPSIA,
Good Samaritan,
newspapers,
obesity,
tobacco
- “You’ve got to be alive to be inconvenienced”: some thoughts on the withdrawal of an emergency battlefield therapy [GruntDoc]
- Yes, let’s all have a nice scare over “third-hand” tobacco smoke, or actually let’s not [Sullum, Siegel, Greenfield] And you knew they were coming: “smokeasies” [Tuccille, Examiner]
- “We are fully cooperating with the government in its investigations” (Hey, I never said “we” included my client) [WSJ Law Blog on Madoff case]
- Speech so precious it must be rationed: Yale Law Journal author proposes “Tort Liability on Websites for Cyber-Harassment” [via TortsProf]
- Rick Hills on Richardson probe: federally criminalizing state-level pay-to-play is a bad idea [Prawfs]
- Paul Alan Levy: Martin Luther King Jr. estate, much criticized for its aggressive trademark assertions in the past, deserves due credit for its handling of a case where free speech was implicated [CL&P]
- Lawyers on Craigslist: “If you practice as well as you spell, we’re golden” [Nicole Black, Legal Antics]
- Yes, I’m overhauling Overlawyered’s look and feel with the aid of Thesis, a powerful “theme” (way of changing presentation) for WordPress. Expect my tinkering to go on for a while.
Tagged as:
chasing clients,
Craigslist,
Martin Luther King,
medical,
military,
online speech,
safety,
smoking bans,
tobacco,
trademarks
- “The Boston Public Health Commission has just banned the sale of all tobacco products at colleges. Not high schools. Colleges.” [Saletan, Slate]
- Sometimes the case caption seems to tell a little story all by itself [Lorraine Hodges v. Mt. Zion Temple d/b/a Zero Gravity Skatepark Oakland County, Mich., 12/1/2008 08-096435 NI Chabot (Pontiac), slip-fall on snow and ice]
- Consumer complaint site Ripoff Report is magnet for lawsuits [Citizen Media Law, Eric Goldman and again]
- EEOC hearing on English-in-the-workplace issues [Clegg, NRO "Corner"]
- Wiretapper Anthony Pellicano, helpful gnome behind the scenes for many powerful Hollywood lawyers, sentenced to 15 years behind bars [CNN, Patterico]
- “Hungary’s Constitutional Court says it has annulled a law giving rights to domestic partners because it would diminish the importance of marriage”; now just watch how many folks on both sides flip their opinion of judicial activism [AP/WHEC]
- No teaser rates for you! Harvard’s Elizabeth Warren wants new law empowering federal government to order withdrawal of “too-risky” consumer credit products [Consumer Law & Policy]
- Major new study of defensive medicine, conservatively estimated to waste $1.4 billion in Massachusetts alone [KevinMD, Boston Globe; Massachusetts Medical Society]
Tagged as:
Anthony Pellicano,
banks,
Boston,
defensive medicine,
domestic partners,
language bias,
Massachusetts,
tobacco
The Supreme Court rejected (h/t Beck/Herrmann) tobacco companies’ argument that the FTC’s use of the Cambridge Filter Method standard of measuring tar and nicotine impliedly preempted lawsuits against the tobacco companies for advertising their cigarettes using data from the Cambridge Filter Method standard of measuring tar and nicotine. The fact that the federal government disavowed preemption lends another data point in support of Professor Catherine Sharkey’s argument that the Court tends to defer to the Solicitor General’s position on preemption disputes. Justice Thomas’s dissent, which would undo the unworkable Cipollone plurality, appears to me to be the stronger argument, but it didn’t carry the Kennedy Five.
The fact pattern is the subject of numerous multi-billion dollar lawsuits against tobacco companies alleging that their sales of light cigarettes are fraudulent. The light-cigarette consumer fraud litigation still suffers from constitutional flaws relating to due process in aggregate litigation, but these remain to be resolved.
Tagged as:
class actions,
light cigarettes,
preemption,
sued if you do,
Supreme Court,
tobacco
The courts have been unwilling to treat dependence on smoking as a disability requiring reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disability Act. Some are wondering whether that will change, however, with the new expansion of protected categories under the ADA Amendments Act. (Michael Moore, Pennsylvania Labor and Employment Blog, Oct. 29; Jon Hyman, Ohio Employment Law, Oct. 30).
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
tobacco
The British government is apparently paying out money for the purpose of lobbying itself on tobacco issues. (The Debatable Land, Oct. 17).
Tagged as:
tobacco,
United Kingdom
