Direct from prohibited to protected-class status, making no local stops: “The idea that the government should just stay out of the matter and leave both private employers and medical marijuana users alone is apparently beyond the comprehension of most California legislators, who think that everything permitted must be made mandatory,” notes Hans Bader. Apparently a narrow exception will be allowed “for ‘safety-sensitive’ positions that employers can prove would ‘clearly’ be highly risky.” (CEI OpenMarket.org, Sept. 8).
Archive for 2008
Lompoc charge could mean hard time for Lerach
Old Master-of-the-Universe habits die hard? According to Law.com’s The Recorder, felonious class-actioneer Bill Lerach “was placed in administrative segregation — locked down for 23 hours a day — after he allegedly offered a corrections officer the use of his San Diego Chargers season tickets, say three people familiar with the situation. Should a formal administrative proceeding go against him, Lerach would likely be forbidden from returning to the [minimum-security Lompoc] camp, and would instead be placed in a higher-security facility. …Offering a staff member anything of value is considered a ‘high category’ offense for an inmate, according to [Bureau of Prisons] guidelines.” (Dan Levine, “Going Gets Rough for Lerach”, The Recorder, Sept. 9).
More: Karen Donovan at Portfolio recalls a Lerach comment about sports sections as currency in prison, perhaps more meaningful in retrospect.
Massachusetts gun control law strikes again
The Bay State’s notoriously draconian laws have tripped up author Peter Manso, a 67-year-old Cape Cod resident. Manso claims the prosecution is retaliation for his writing on highly publicized crimes, but whether or not that premise is borne out, the story is an unnerving one: ten years ago the state changed an earlier provision making firearm identification cards valid for life to one requiring four-year renewals, and since then old holders who failed to get with the program have been getting tripped up, facing the prospect of long prison terms even over their protest that they never had the change called to their attention. (Jonathan Saltzman, “Writer on Cape slaying indicted on gun charges”, Boston Globe, Aug. 23; J.D. Tuccille/Examiner) (via Never Yet Melted).
Facebook “BlogNetworks”
If you’re on Facebook, we’ve already pestered you to sign up as a “Fan” of Overlawyered. If you’re also on the BlogNetworks application, we’d like to pester you to take an additional step: visit the Overlawyered page there, become a reader, and confirm that I am indeed the owner/proprietor. Once a relatively small number of readers do these things, the system will pick us up and we’ll have a new avenue of distribution.
Birthday surprise doesn’t work out
This much seems to be agreed: Itzamargrid Ramos took her friend Clarissa Marino to scenic but hazardous Kaaterskill Falls in the Catskills as a surprise for her 20th birthday. The two were hiking when Marino slipped on a rock — her footwear at the time was “flat, rubber-soled slip-on shoes with no tread” — and fell into a stream from which it took ninety minutes to rescue her. She sued the state of New York for failure to warn, but just lost her case in the state Court of Claims, which hears cases against the state government.
The two friends are now described as estranged, which may put in perspective a noteworthy discrepancy between their respective testimony. Marino “said she was never blindfolded at any point during the day”, while Ramos “told the court Marino was blindfolded for the entire two-hour car ride and even as they traversed most of the trail until just before the top of the falls. … In the end, the court said it found Ramos’ version more credible and that the ‘profound danger posed by the Kaaterskill Falls was open and obvious to anyone employing the reasonable use of her senses.'” (Paul Nelson, “Court rules against fall victim”, Albany Times-Union, Sept. 7).
Judge reluctant to dismiss MySpace suicide case
“The use of the anti-hacking law to charge [Lori] Drew [in a notorious case of identity-hoax cruelty whose target committed suicide] was criticized by experts who said it set a dangerous precedent that could potentially make a felon out of anyone who violated the terms of service of any website — a prospect that is particularly troubling, they said, because terms-of-service agreements sometimes contain onerous provisions, are often arbitrarily and unilaterally changed by companies, and are rarely read by users.” (Kim Zetter, Wired News, Sept. 5). Earlier: May 16.
White House race roundup
- High-profile trial lawyer and Hillary fundraiser John Coale now backing McCain, believes plaintiff-friendly Sen. Lindsey Graham, a confidant of the GOP candidate, will sway him on liability issues [Gerstein, NY Sun, Tapper/ABC, Haddad/Newsweek] More on McCain-Graham friendship [New Republic]
- Reasonably neutral evaluation of contrasting McCain and Obama positions [Chris Nichols, NC Trial Law Blog]
- No Naderite he? Sen. Biden has generally taken a “protect the golden goose” approach toward his state’s niche as provider of corporate law [Pileggi, Bainbridge]
- Palin’s views on legal reform mostly unknown; Alaska (like Delaware) has one of the most highly regarded state legal systems, and wouldn’t it be fun if the state’s distinctive and longstanding (if somewhat attenuated) loser-pays rule got mentioned in the campaign?
- Lending spice to campaign: prospect that victorious Dems might criminally prosecute Bush officials [Guardian (U.K.), Memeorandum, OpenLeft (“we’ll put people in prison” vows whistleblower trial lawyer/Democratic Florida Congressional candidate Alan Grayson)] Some differences of opinion among Obama backers on war crimes trials [Turley (Cass Sunstein flayed for go-slow approach); Kerr @ Volokh (Dahlia Lithwick doesn’t think it has to be Nuremberg or nothing); earlier]
- If anyone’s keeping track of these things, co-blogger Ted is much involved with the McCain campaign this fall, I am not involved with anyone’s, so discount (or don’t discount) accordingly.
Corporate archaeology and the “insanity of retention policies”
Pete Warden (Aug. 14) is reminded of Dickens’ line about the great purpose of the law being to make business for itself, even as it gives everyone else reason to vandalize potentially invaluable data:
…Retention policy is a euphemism for deletion policy. Emails over a certain age are deleted, even from backups, usually after 6 or 12 months. The sole reason for this is so that if you’re sued, you aren’t able to hand over older documents, and there’s no question that you deleted them specifically out of a guilty conscience, it’s just your blanket policy. …
There’s no good technical reason for deleting old emails. You’ve made those backup tapes, it’s actually more work to make sure that old ones are destroyed. …
Email is the collective memory of an organization, and removing old emails is deliberate corporate amnesia. It’s needed because so many recent court cases have hinged on ‘incriminating’ memos, and with thousands of messages written every day, it’s almost certain that somebody’s dry sarcasm could be painted as deadly serious in front of a jury.
Why does this matter? You’re losing the history of the company. Unless you have explicitly copied them, all those old conversations and attachments you might need to refer back to one day are gone. It’s like putting a back-hoe through an archaeological site, you can never get that information back. Just like archeology, I’m convinced that there will be new techniques in the future that can pull more information out of that data than we can today. Old email should be an asset, not a liability. Unfortunately as long as the legal climate keeps companies terrified of losing the litigation lottery, they’ll keep deleting.
“EU wants to ban ‘sexist’ TV commercials”
Members of the European Parliament “want TV regulators in the EU to set guidelines which would see the end of anything deemed to portray women as sex objects or reinforce gender stereotypes. This could potentially mean an end to attractive women advertising perfume, housewives in the kitchen or men doing DIY [do-it-yourself].” (Chris Irvine, Daily Telegraph, Sept. 5).
Get shot, sue Craigslist
“A Manhattan boutique owner is suing craigslist.com for $10 million, claiming he was shot with a gun purchased on the popular Web site.” Police say Jesus Ortiz, described as a schizophrenic resident of Calvin Gibson’s East Village neighborhood, shot Gibson in an apparently random attack. Gibson “claims Ortiz told the cops that he bought the gun on craigslist, and that the suspect’s mother told others the same story.” (Jennifer Fermino and Philip Messing, “Man Shot by ‘Craigslist’ Gun Takes Aim at Site”, New York Post, Sept. 5).