http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-16-roundup-3/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-16-roundup-3/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:19:06 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25597

Sure, let’s subvert sound mortgage accounting in the name of energy efficiency. What could go wrong? [Mark Calabria, Kevin Funnell]

California: fireworks shows are “development” and coastal commission can ban ‘em [Laer Pearce, Daily Caller]

Trial lawyers’ lobbyist: I got Cuomo to bash Chevron in Ecuador case [John Schwartz, NYT]

Politics of intimidation: “jobs bill” advocates occupy office of Sen. Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) [ABC News] Union protesters invade Sotheby’s during big auction [NYObserver] “Occupy Denver protesters try to storm conference of conservative bloggers” [Denver Post] “What’s the matter with Oakland?” [Megan McArdle] Post-’08 downturn, not wealth of the few, at root of economic woes [Steve Chapman] “Bohm-Bawerk forget to include [Ms. Katchpole] in his commentaries on sundry theories of interest.” [Tyler Cowen]

New breakthroughs in abundant energy aren’t welcome to some [NYT "Room for Debate"] Is GOP wrong to make EPA an issue? [Michael Barone]

After extracting $450,000 settlement, employee admits falsifying whistleblower evidence in oil filter antitrust case; class action suits continue [Bloomberg, Abby Schachter/NYPost via PoL]

Least surprising Washington-DC-datelined story of year: “Medical malpractice reform efforts stalled” [Politico]

Tags: Andrew Cuomo, antitrust, California, Chevron, environment, labor unions, mortgages, whistleblowers

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-16-roundup-3/feed/ 1 http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-11-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-11-roundup/#comments Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:56:20 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25363

Manhattan Institute’s “Trial Lawyers Inc.” series looks at cozy relations between state attorneys general and plaintiff’s bar [report, related featured discussion, Copland, Examiner] Report comes down hard on Ohio’s Richard Cordray, nominee to head CFPB [Copland, Gorodetski/PoL] Judge tosses Cordray suit against credit rating agencies [O'Brien/LNL, Krauss/American Thinker] Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller denounces report [IowaPolitics.com]

“The Tort of Internet Mobbing Is Perfect For Suing The Internet” [Popehat]

Canada faces challenge to hate speech law [Arthur Bright, Citizen Media Law] Do not put a frog down Her Majesty’s back at the county fair [Lowering the Bar]

“Markopolos eyes a fortune from BNY whistleblowing” [Felix Salmon] “Bounty hunters in Korea” and closer to home [Alex Tabarrok] “Developments in Whistleblower Laws: Advantage Whistleblower” [Larry Wood & Richard William Diaz, Federalist Society "Engage"]

As third party liability for crime anecdotes go, the case of Bonilla v. Motel 6 is on the lurid side [Point of Law]

Prospect of cyberwar: official U.S. response is commando lawyering [Stewart Baker, Foreign Policy]

Why it’s hard to stimulate manufacturing through product liability reform in one state [Rick Esenberg]

Tags: attorneys general, free speech in Canada, Iowa, Manhattan Institute, Ohio, product liability, third party liability for crime, whistleblowers

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/november-11-roundup/feed/ 0 http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-2-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-2-roundup/#comments Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:17:02 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=23209

“Italian Seismologists Charged With Manslaughter for Not Predicting 2009 Quake” [Fox, earlier]

“With context in place, it appears the WHO isn’t saying cell phones are dangerous” [BoingBoing, Atlantic Wire, Orac]

Wrongful convictions and how they happen — new book “Convicting the Innocent” by Brandon Garrett [Jeff Rosen, NY Times]

SEC to Dodd-Frank whistleblowers: no need to go through company’s internal complaint route [D&O Diary, WSJ Law Blog]

“British Press Laws Facing Twitter Challenge” [AW]

Despite legislated damages cap, jackpot awards continue in Mississippi [Jackson Clarion-Ledger] More problems with that $322 million Mississippi asbestosis verdict [PoL, earlier]

Golf club erects large net to comply with legal demands to prevent escape of errant balls, is promptly sued by neighbors who consider net too ugly [five years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: cellphones, Italy, Mississippi, prosecution, Twitter, whistleblowers

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/06/june-2-roundup/feed/ 3 http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/ceci-nest-pas-une-whistleblower/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/ceci-nest-pas-une-whistleblower/#comments Wed, 11 May 2011 05:02:08 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22933 Imagine how puzzling it must be to be an employee of the city of Montreal: the city “has set up a whistleblower hotline to encourage you to expose wrongdoings by colleagues but has also created an explicit policy forbidding you to blow the whistle and is threatening severe penalties if you do.” [Montreal Gazette]

Tags: Canada, whistleblowers

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/ceci-nest-pas-une-whistleblower/feed/ 2 http://overlawyered.com/2011/01/january-12-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/01/january-12-roundup-2/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:09:03 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=20918

Merger objections: “First Comes the Deal Announcement, Then Comes the Lawsuit” [WSJ Law Blog]

Harvey Silverglate on campus “anti-bullying” bill [Forbes]

Anna Nicole Smith case could empower bankruptcy judges, encourage forum-shoppers [Michael J. Wade, Examiner]

“Family Business Wins Same Lawsuit Twice, Now Faces It For the Third Time” [Mike LePage, U.S. Chamber ILR]

“I’ll Never File Another Asbestos Case in Texas” [Oliver]

Financial whistleblowing rules a potential “gold mine”? [WSJ Law Blog, Wood/PoL, Robert Shattuck on SEC comment process]

“Device lag at the FDA” [Tabarrok]

Cheyenne-Arapahoe tribes file land claim that includes city of Denver, but they’ll trade it for casino rights [five years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: bankruptcy, bullying, FDA, forum shopping, securities litigation, Texas, whistleblowers

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/01/january-12-roundup-2/feed/ 1 http://overlawyered.com/2010/10/d-a-r-e-ripping-families-apart-since-1983/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/10/d-a-r-e-ripping-families-apart-since-1983/#comments Mon, 25 Oct 2010 05:12:39 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=19838 Children inform on their parents. [Radley Balko]

Tags: illegal drugs, whistleblowers

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2010/10/d-a-r-e-ripping-families-apart-since-1983/feed/ 5 http://overlawyered.com/2010/09/new-frontiers-in-whistleblower-recruitment/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/09/new-frontiers-in-whistleblower-recruitment/#comments Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:24:16 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=19444 A securities lawyer has been advertising for snitches at screenings of Oliver Stone’s new Wall-Street-bashing movie. [NYPost]

Tags: chasing clients, whistleblowers

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2010/09/new-frontiers-in-whistleblower-recruitment/feed/ 1 http://overlawyered.com/2010/09/september-20-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/09/september-20-roundup/#comments Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:46:23 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=19305

“Family sues for $25 million over death of Virginia Beach homeless man” [Pilot Online]

New paper proposes voucherizing indigent criminal defense [Stephen Schulhofer and David Friedman, Cato Institute, more]

“Why the Employee Free Choice Act Has, and Should, Fail” [Richard Epstein, SSRN]

Free-market lawprofs file brief in class action arbitration case, Concepcion v. AT&T [PoL]

Enactment of Dodd-Frank law results in flood of whistleblower-suit leads for plaintiff’s bar [Corporate Counsel, ABA Journal] “Will Whistle-Blowing Be Millions Well Spent?” [Perlis/Chais, Forbes]

Sept. 28 in House: “Congressional Hearing on the Problems of Overcriminalization” [NACDL]

Abusive-litigation angle seen in NYC mosque controversy [Painter, Legal Ethics Forum]

Snark alert: Mr. Soros does something nice for Human Rights, and Human Rights does something nice for him [Stoll]

Tags: arbitration, card check, class actions, Employee Free Choice Act, international human rights, NYC, whistleblowers

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2010/09/september-20-roundup/feed/ 8 http://overlawyered.com/2010/08/messy-divorce-leads-to-whistleblower-bounty-in-pequot-capital-case/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/08/messy-divorce-leads-to-whistleblower-bounty-in-pequot-capital-case/#comments Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:17:05 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=19035 Because even if the government can’t maintain a paid informer on every street corner, it can at least try to maintain one in every family. [Connecticut Law Tribune]

Tags: taxes, whistleblowers

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2010/08/messy-divorce-leads-to-whistleblower-bounty-in-pequot-capital-case/feed/ 1 http://overlawyered.com/2010/08/august-2-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/08/august-2-roundup/#comments Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:39:01 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=18673

“Why Do Employers Use FICO Scores?” Maybe one reason is that government places off limits so many of the other ways they might evaluate job applicants [McArdle, Coyote]

Michael Fumento on $671 million verdict against nursing home in California [Forbes]

Ted Frank is looking for a pro bono economics expert [CCAF]

Lester Brickman, “Anatomy of an Aggregate Settlement: The Triumph of Temptation Over Ethics” [Phillips Petroleum explosion; SSRN via Legal Ethics Forum]

Ice cream trucks return to Niskayuna, N.Y. 34 years after a panic-occasioned ban [Free-Range Kids, Mangu-Ward]

Galloping trend toward “whistleblower” enactments: this time lawmakers are rushing one on oil workers [Smith/ShopFloor, more, earlier]

Class action lawsuit filed against Trident Xtra Care gum, marketed as good for one’s teeth [Hoffman/ConcurOp; compare Russell Jackson on Wrigley's settlement of a class action over Eclipse chewing gum]

EEOC officials urge employers to ban foul language and swearing in workplace [seven years ago at Overlawyered]

Tags: class actions, Lester Brickman, nursing homes, settlement, whistleblowers, workplace

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