- Illinois now requires showing of ID, signing of log to buy drain cleaner. So long as you’re not trying to vote! [Consumerist via @amyalkon]
- Tribute to no-longer-anonymous Ken White of Popehat and his work defending bloggers from legal threats [Scott Greenfield; earlier; Ken's defense in Maryland of blogger Aaron Worthing; new case of science blogger in Texas]
- Politicos mobilize against risk that Wal-Mart will bring fresh produce choices to Harlem [Greg Beato] India frets about whether to allow chain stores, recapitulating a debate U.S. once went through [Tabarrok, MR]
- Colorado legislators honored at a luncheon where I spoke [CCJL]
- HHS launches initiative to audit health providers for compliance with HIPAA data privacy law, and many are unprepared [American Medical News, Dana Thrasher, Dom Nicastro/HealthLeaders Media]
- New scholarship on effects of Twombly/Iqbal [Drug and Device Law series first, second, third, CL&P]
- Congratulations to the outstanding Abnormal Use for winning the ABA’s “Blawg 100” vote for best torts blog; we feel pretty good about placing third without mounting a campaign. While exploring that site, don’t miss its stellar coverage of the tendentious documentary “Hot Coffee”.
Tagged as:
bloggers and the law,
Colorado,
HIPAA,
hot coffee,
Illinois,
India,
legal blogs,
pleading,
Wal-Mart
The Washington Post offers an editorial caution to lawmakers in Montgomery County, the famously liberal slice of Maryland suburbia:
A bill before the Montgomery County Council would force big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Target to negotiate with neighborhood groups as a condition for getting their new stores approved. This is such a spectacularly bad idea, on so many levels, that it’s hard to imagine how it came to be taken seriously in the first place.
By contrast, the nearby District of Columbia, often seen as a challenging place to do business, seems to be making its peace with Wal-Mart, which has announced plans to open six new stores there.
Tagged as:
land use and zoning,
Maryland,
Wal-Mart,
Washington D.C.
At Paid Content, Jeff Roberts reports that Wal-Mart may have found a clever way to pitch its services at Netflix’s streaming subscribers, namely by settling a class action lawsuit to which they are party:
A federal court in California late last week approved a class-action settlement that requires Wal-Mart to pay out $27.5 million. But here’s the key element of the ruling: Wal-Mart will be allowed to pay the 40 million Netflix subscribers in the form of gift cards for Wal-Mart.com—where there is prominent advertising for Vudu, which rents and sells movies a la carte.
The court ruling is a blow to Netflix, which had earlier blasted the settlement as “the equivalent of a marketing campaign that costs Walmart only 68 cents per potential customer.”
Tagged as:
class action settlements,
movies film and videos,
Wal-Mart
I’ve got an instant analysis up at Cato at Liberty of the retailer’s big Supreme Court win today in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the class action certification case. The Court ruled unanimously that the Ninth Circuit had jumped the gun in certifying the case as a class action, and 5-to-4 (Scalia writing) that plaintiffs had failed to assemble the evidence needed for certification. (& welcome Real Clear Politics “Best of the Blogs”, Atlantic Wire, Nicole Neily/Daily Caller, Jon Hyman, SCOTUSBlog)
More: Josh Blackman (with a comment on the Court’s recognition of the work of the late Richard Nagareda), Hans Bader, Jim Copland, John Steele Gordon. Spot-the-errors dept.: Dahlia Lithwick. Briefs and other resources on the case at SCOTUSBlog.
Tagged as:
class actions,
Ninth Circuit,
sex discrimination,
Supreme Court,
Wal-Mart,
Wal-Mart v. Dukes,
WO writings
- Law firm settles with employee who said required high heels led to back injury [ABA Journal]
- Stock listings fleeing U.S. for overseas, legal environment a factor [Ribstein, TotM]
- Partial solution to above? Ted Frank places a stock bet on the Wal-Mart case [PoL, more]
- Wider press coverage of hospital drug shortage [AP, Reuters, my March post]
- Trial judge up north supports certifying as class action unusual suit blaming Newfoundland for moose collisions [Canadian Press via Karlsgodt, earlier here and here]
- Academic revolt against copyright overreach [Chron of Higher Ed]
- Sues deceased grandmother over trampoline injury [Madison County Record]
Tagged as:
animals,
Canada,
colleges and universities,
copyright,
hospitals,
pharmaceuticals,
Securities and Exchange Commission,
Ted Frank,
Wal-Mart
“D.C. Mayor Vincent D. Gray delivered an ultimatum in a face-to-face meeting with Wal-Mart officials at a real estate convention Monday: If the chain wants to enter the District at all, it had better commit to opening at Skyland Shopping Center, the long-delayed redevelopment project in Gray’s home ward…. Gray indicated he would be willing to go so far as to nix the company’s requests for building permits on privately owned sites, even for neighborhoods where residents favored Wal-Mart’s opening.” [Washington Post, earlier]
Tagged as:
land use and zoning,
Wal-Mart,
Washington D.C.
Washington Business Journal brings word of the list of demands by a “community group” to drop its opposition to the opening of Wal-Mart stores in Washington, D.C. Given such a welcoming attitude, isn’t it strange that so many major retailers have opened stores in suburban Maryland and Virginia, but not in the District?
Tagged as:
Wal-Mart,
Washington D.C.
Don’t know whether to laugh or weep: why one local activist thinks Washington, D.C. would be better off without Wal-Mart [Mark Perry]
Tagged as:
Wal-Mart,
Washington D.C.
- Judge Ciavarella defiant after racketeering conviction in Pennsylvania cash-for-kids horror [TheLegalIntel, Sullum and more, WSJ Law Blog, Greenfield, earlier]
- Widener lawprof Lawrence Connell facing discipline over hypotheticals in class [Orin Kerr, NLJ, interview at NAS]
- “Do we even want to remain a child care center if we have to eliminate all the parts we love?” [Free-Range Kids] Lawsuit fears tame a Frederick, Md. ice playground [same]
- Marquette lawprof Rick Esenberg on Wisconsin showdown [first, second, third posts]
- A patent owner, the Chicago Tribune and Sen. Durbin: Anatomy of a pool drain scare story [Woldenberg, AmendTheCPSIA.com]
- Mayor Thomas Menino vows to save Boston from scourge of everyday low prices [Mark Perry]
- “Comp Hearing Scheduled ‘On the Sly’ for Texting Cop Who Caused Fatal Accident” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] “Paying for bad cops” [Balko]
- Demand for shaker abstinence: nosy, hectoring CSPI files suit asking that salt in food be subjected to FDA regulation [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Boston,
Chicago,
law schools,
Luzerne County judicial scandal,
police,
pools,
Wal-Mart,
Wisconsin,
workers' compensation
I’ve got a food policy roundup at Cato that tries to answer such questions as:
* Has FDA’s regulatory zeal finally met its match in the foodie zeal of cheese-makers and -fanciers who are beginning to insist on their right to make and enjoy cheeses similar to those in France, even if they pose a nonzero though tiny bacterial risk?
* How annoying is it that Mark Bittman would stop writing a great food column in the NYT in order to start writing an inevitably wrongheaded politics-of-food column?
* Is Wal-Mart secretly smiling after First Lady Michelle Obama publicly twisted its arm to do various things it was probably considering anyway, along with some things it definitely wanted to do, such as opening more stores in poor urban neighborhoods?
Related: Led by past Overlawyered guest-blogger Baylen Linnekin, Keep Food Legal bills itself as “The first and only nationwide membership organization devoted to culinary freedom.” 11 Points has compiled a list of “11 Foods and Drinks Banned in the United States.” And GetReligion.org has more on the “shadowy community of outlaw Amish and Mennonite dairy farmers” portrayed in several recent press reports.
Tagged as:
FDA,
food safety,
France,
New York Times,
obesity,
small business,
Wal-Mart
It’s disturbing to think of the federal government’s pressuring and jawboning a private business to reformulate perfectly lawful products, cut prices on some lines of goods, and so forth. In this case, however, as I told the Washington Times, there’s reason to think the nation’s largest retailer might have wanted to proceed with a “healthy-eating” remake anyway, and this way it can get Michelle Obama’s valuable endorsement with all the attendant publicity. Bonus: Ms. Obama has now vocally backed the idea of opening Wal-Marts in more “underserved areas” such as urban neighborhoods without full-line supermarkets; in the past union and local-merchant opposition has often stymied Wal-Mart’s wish to enter such neighborhoods.
P.S. Coincident news story: creepy pro-union group pickets home of developer who hopes to bring Wal-Mart to the District of Columbia. And Ira Stoll has covered the sometimes-exaggerated extent of “food deserts”.
Tagged as:
obesity,
Wal-Mart
- EPA considers petition to ban lead sporting ammunition and fishing sinkers [National Shooting Sports Federation via Zincavage]
- Claremont-McKenna economist Eric Helland, known for his work on litigation policy, joins the group blog Truth on the Market;
- European Union expresses concern about provisions of Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act [Sidley Austin, PDF letter courtesy Learning Resources]
- Michigan judge rules two waitresses can proceed with weight discrimination claim against Hooters [WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
- San Francisco prosecutors charge former MoFo partner and wife with misappropriating nearly $400,000 from funds earmarked for autistic son’s services [The Recorder]
- When litigants demand to depose the opponent’s CEO [Ted at PoL]
- Wal-Mart seeks Supreme Court review of billion-dollar job-bias class action [Ohio Employer's Law]
- If you want to hire a home attendant to keep grandma from needing a nursing home, better hope you’re not in California [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Environmental Protection Agency,
guns,
obesity,
on other blogs,
Wal-Mart
Tagged as:
Canada,
cy pres,
failure to warn,
mortgages,
New Jersey,
OSHA,
product liability,
prosecution,
recreation,
Supreme Court,
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart stores in many parts of the country are famous for letting motor-home travelers park overnight in their lots for free. One wonders whether that policy will last: a Florida couple is now suing the retailer over an incident in the parking lot of its Cedar City, Utah store, in which the family shot and killed a man who intruded in their parked home. They say they have suffered emotional distress and medical problems and that “store officials knew the man was loitering in the lot” but failed to act. [Salt Lake Tribune via Consumerist, where commenters haven't been conspicuously sympathetic to the plaintiffs]
Tagged as:
premises liability,
recreation,
third party liability for crime,
Utah,
Wal-Mart
- Wal-Mart spending millions to fight $7,000 OSHA fine? Not so paradoxical when you think about it [Coyote]
- Proliferation of product recalls, as with warnings, can result in consumer fatigue and inattention [WaPo via PoL]
- Settlement said to be near between casino and gambler who lost $127 million [WSJ, UPI, earlier]
- “Think Globally, Sue Locally: Out-of-Court Tactics Employed by Plaintiffs, Their Lawyers, and Their Advocates in Transnational Tort Cases” [study, PDF and press release; Jonathan Drimmer for US Chamber, related WSJ]
- “End of an Era? Another Crunch Berries Case Dismissed” [Lowering the Bar, California Civil Justice, earlier on "froot" cases here, here, etc.]
- New Jersey: “School legal costs are a killer” [Rayner, Daily Record]
- ABA Journal profiles Ted Frank;
- We’re the ones who write the laws around here, not you legislators: Washington Supreme Court strikes down med-mal notice law [SeattlePI.com]
Tagged as:
advertising,
Alien Tort Claims Act,
class actions,
compulsive gambling,
CPSC,
forum shopping,
medical malpractice,
New Jersey,
OSHA,
schools,
Ted Frank,
Wal-Mart,
Washington state
