Law.com/The Recorder on the movement to curb venue-shopping in intellectual property litigation, a reaction in part to the rise of the plaintiff-friendly little jurisdiction of Marshall, Texas, as noted in our posts of Jan. 14 and Dec. 21, 2005. (Xenia P. Kobylarz, The Recorder, May 9).
Archive for 2006
“Right-wing P.C.”
Oh, great, just what we needed: conservatives learn how to play the victimization game (Jesse Walker, Reason, May 8).
Where’s his Mother’s Day present?
More entrepreneurial lawyering in California:
A Los Angeles psychologist who was denied a tote bag during a Mother’s Day giveaway at an Angel game is suing the baseball team, alleging sex and age discrimination.
Michael Cohn’s class-action claim in Orange County Superior Court alleges that thousands of males and fans under 18 were “treated unequally” at a “Family Sunday” promotion last May and are entitled to $4,000 each in damages.
(Dave McKibben, “L.A. Psychologist Who Didn’t Get Tote Bag at Mother’s Day Angel Game Files Lawsuit”, Los Angeles Times, May 11). Cohn’s attorney is Alfred Rava, who (as the L.A. Times really should have found out by Googling Overlawyered, if not its own archives) was among the key figures in the 2003 spree by which owners of San Diego nightspots were hit up for handsome cash settlements for having held “Ladies’ Night” promotions. The Unruh Act, California’s distinctively liberal civil rights statute, allows complainants to demand $4,000 a pop for such misdeeds, and it’s no defense to suggest that the customer’s primary reason for getting involved in the underlying transaction may have been to set up the $4,000 entitlement. More: “Lex Icon” wishes to make clear that he’s not the kind of lawyer who files cases like this (May 13).
UK: menace of ice-cream vans
Campaigners for compulsory health in Great Britain are pressing for new laws that could largely spell an end to old-fashioned roving ice-cream vans (which in that country, rather charmingly, are said to play “Greensleeves” or “O Sole Mio” as their jingles). (Rajeev Syal and David Sanderson, “Why ice-cream vans face total meltdown”, The Times (UK), May 8)(via A&LDaily).
Nor are grown-ups to be trusted with their own dietary choices any more than kids, at least not in Scotland:
Bar owners have warned they could be forced to stop serving chips and traditional pub meals under proposals by the Scottish Executive.
Under regulations being considered by the Executive, landlords – many of whom are still unhappy at the smoking ban – would be required to have policies to promote “sensible eating” as a condition of their licenses.
(Russell Jackson, “Publicans fear Executive wants ‘unhealthy’ bar meals banned”, The Scotsman, May 5)(via Stuttaford)(& welcome Andrew Sullivan, Stephen Bainbridge readers). Our UK page is here, and our page on food and beverage nannyism, regulation and litigation is here.
Litigious animal rightsers
San Antonio:
An animal rights group has filed a lawsuit on behalf of seven chimpanzees and two monkeys, claiming the primates are not properly cared for at a Leon Springs sanctuary.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants a state district judge in Bexar County to appoint a guardian to oversee more than $235,000 provided for the animals’ care at Primarily Primates.
(“PETA Sues Local Primate Sanctuary “, KSAT, May 8)(via Strange in San Antonio).
Meanwhile, Dan McLaughlin at Baseball Crank reports (Apr. 19) on a Ninth Circuit decision (PDF) which “permitted an animal rights activist’s qui tam suit to go forward under the False Claims Act against a cancer researcher, principally on the theory that the researcher misrepresented the efficacy of his research.” McLaughlin does not pass judgment on whether the research project in question was a good use of public funds:
But I do know that allowing animal rights zealots an opening to use private litigation to harass medical researchers is a horrifying development. You will note, if you review the allegations on pages 6-7 of the slip opinion, that there are no allegations of the kind of things the False Claims Act is intended to protect against, i.e., personal enrichment, bill padding, and/or cost overruns by government contractors. Instead, there are a series of charges mainly relating to the medical merits of the research – a subject that will often be difficult for a judge without medical expertise to resolve on a motion to dismiss (where you assume the truth of the plaintiff’s allegations) or even on summary judgment (where the defendant only wins if it can show that there are no material factual disputes). Result: protracted and expensive litigation whenever anti-animal-research fanatics can gin up a factual dispute and hire an expert to bicker over anything said in a research application, with the attendant chilling effect on life-saving research. Indeed, from the docket numbers on the caption it appears that this particular case has already dragged on for five years just on the dispute over the legal merits.
Of course, harassment via legal process may compare favorably with some of the ways animal rights zealots have been known to harass researchers.
Manhattan Institute press officer vacancy
The Manhattan Institute is recruiting a new press officer and has asked me to help spread the word.
Paternity fraud
National Law Journal takes a look at one of the hot issues in family law: whether a man can terminate child support payments if DNA testing reveals that he is not in fact the father of the child he has been supporting. Or should he perhaps be given some legal remedy against the mother other than the right to suspend support? (Tresa Baldas, “Parent Trap? Litigation Explodes Over Paternity Fraud”, Apr. 10).
Fined for displaying live lobsters on ice
Animal rights campaigners win a victory against a hapless restaurateur in Vicenza, Italy (van Bakel, Apr. 28).
Warning label demanded: TVs subject to gravity
Following three accidents in New York City, some grieving parents are asking for legislation mandating that TV sets carry warning labels that they’re heavy and can kill or injure you if you have the bad fortune to be underneath them when they topple over. (“Children killed by falling TVs”, AP/Newsday, Apr. 30).
“Is litigation taking the ‘play’ out of kids’ playgrounds?”
This time the dateline is Portland, Ore., where the school system has removed all swing sets from elementary school playgrounds. Another casualty: tube slides. (Susan Harding, KATU, May 8). See Jul. 18, 2005, etc.