Ugandans sue Britain over crimes during a 1893-1899 war [Telegraph]
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Posts tagged as:
United Kingdom
What some have labelled “a worst-case scenario” approach to daily life has even reached Whitehall, the seat of [British] government itself. In front of the magnificent horse guards who stand guard in rain and shine to the delight of tourists, someone has placed an official sign on the pavement explaining, just in case humanity hadn’t twigged the fact, that “these horses may kick or bite”.
[Michael Simkins, National (Emirates) via Legal Blog Watch]
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- U.K.: Recruitment firm told ad for “reliable workers” would discriminate against the unreliable [Telegraph]
- “Against Civil Gideon (and for Pro Se Court Reform)” [Benjamin Barton (Tennessee), SSRN, via Legal Ethics Forum]
- Sewn-in “Made in USA” suit-label figures in tell-all book by John Edwards aide [WSJ "Washington Wire", Hotline On Call] Did Edwards, great denouncer of M.D.s’ errors, propose getting a doc to fake DNA results? [Charles Hurt/N.Y. Post]
- Lucky cops! There just happened to be $672K in the car they stopped and they plan to keep it [Freeland] “The Forfeiture Racket: Police and prosecutors won’t give up their license to steal” [Radley Balko, Reason]
- Family and Medical Leave Act doesn’t cover faith-healing trips that include a vacation aspect [Michael Maslanka, Texas Lawyer]
- “Dangerism” — how society constructs what’s supposedly dangerous for kids [Free-Range Kids]
- This is one of those links buried deep in a roundup that hardly any readers will actually get around to clicking [Chris Clarke]
- Update: Landlord’s suit over critical Twitter post dismissed [Cit Media Law, AP/Chicago Tribune, Business Insider (court sides with defense argument that so much of it's just "pointless babble"); earlier here and here]
- And: Did the press jump the gun with its report that it’s now lawful to import haggis into the U.S.? A letter to Andrew Sullivan says nothing has been decided yet, though the ban seems to be under review.
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According to Simon Bucks at Sky News, “the crossword editor is planning to leave a gap when he publishes the puzzle’s answers, with a note blaming the omission on legal considerations.”
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P.S. Not unrelatedly, a haggis-related Blawg Review #248 at Scots Law Student. More: Alex Massie, Spectator (via Katherine Mangu-Ward).
P.P.S. Jumping the gun? An email to Andrew Sullivan from someone claiming to be with USDA says the ban is under review for revision but that no decision has been made yet. And more from Katherine Mangu-Ward.
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“An Iraqi immigrant who stabbed two doctors to death has won the right to stay in Britain after a judge ruled that he would pose a danger to the public in his homeland. … The Home Office wanted to deport him on his release to protect the British public,” but a tribunal ruled that a violation of international human rights because Laith Alani would pose a danger to the Iraqi public and himself. Presumably it’s better for the British public to face the dangers. [Telegraph]
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“…[T]he professional body that represents health and safety experts has issued a warning to businesses not to grit public paths – despite the fact that Britain is in the grip of its coldest winter for nearly half a century. … The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents expressed its disappointment that public safety was being neglected because of fears of possible litigation.” A past president of the British Orthopaedic Association said: “If people want to clear pavements, they should just do it. I would have thought it’s a public service and it is a shame we have ended up with a culture where if someone slips, they want to sue someone. People need a bit of grit, in both senses.” [Telegraph] Update: IOSH, the health and safety group, says newspapers misstated its position and that it is indeed in favor of businesses’ gritting public paths (h/t commenter Yossarian).
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No word about reconciliation coupons, though, in this promotion by a London law firm. [Ananova, The Lawyer]
Cheltenham, U.K.: “A businessman is facing a £300,000 legal bill after losing a boundary battle with his neighbour – over an area of land of just seven square yards.” About half of that represents the loser-pays bill that will be handed to Martin Charalambous and his partner for pursuing a legal campaign through appeal whose cost far exceeded the value of the land. [Daily Mail, Telegraph, This Is Gloucestershire]
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The High Timber restaurant in London is seeking to protect 
itself because it follows the traditional practice of including the occasional coin or silver charm for lucky diners to happen upon. [Zincavage] Similarly in this 2005 dispatch (supermarket pudding); for the parallel custom of baking figurines into New Orleans king cake, see these posts.
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The $22,800 fake one, though purportedly superior on health and safety grounds, was unpopular and got vandalized. [UPI, earlier; h/t reader VMS in comments]
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“Two former lawyers whose firm earned £136 million by handling compensation claims for sick miners lost their appeal yesterday against being struck off for dishonesty.” ["struck off" = disbarred] The firm secretly kicked back more than $1 million to a union official to get the work, and made improper deductions from the sums owed to clients. “Mr Beresford banked more than £30 million — which bought him a jet, Aston Martins and a Ferrari — from fees paid to his firm by the Government for its work on coal health claims.” [Times Online]
The new holiday decoration in the town of Poole, Dorset,
has no trunk so it won’t blow over, no branches to break off and land on someone’s head, no pine needles to poke a passer-by in the eye, no decorations for drunken teenagers to steal and no angel, presumably because it would need a dangerously long ladder to place it at the top.
One onlooker describes it as “horrible”. [Times Online via Free-Range Kids; & welcome Damon Root/Reason "Hit and Run" (calling us "the indispensable Overlawyered.com", Coyote, Ed Driscoll, Musing Minds readers]
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Reads like a parody: “Health and safety inspectors are to be given unprecedented access to family homes to ensure that parents are protecting their children from household accidents.” [Times Online]
Could such a sequence of events actually happen? It seems to have happened to Paul Clerke of Merstham, England. [ThisIsSurreyToday via Coyote]
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Having succeeded in winning a ruling that his beliefs in spiritualism and mediums qualify as a form of religious belief, Alan Power can proceed with his suit alleging that he was improperly dismissed because of them. His case “follows a landmark ruling last month that environmental views should be considered equivalent to religious and philosophical beliefs”. [Telegraph, Independent] (& welcome Popehat readers)
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