The Philadelphia officers’ excuse for their raid on Jose Duran’s bodega was the same as their excuse for other bodega raids: he was selling grocery zip-lock bags, and Pennsylvania law makes it unlawful to sell containers that a seller reasonably knew or should have known will be used to store drugs. The cops methodically snipped the wires to seven or eight security cameras around the store, and Duran said nearly $10,000 in cash, cigarettes, batteries and other goods then mysteriously vanished from the store. [Philadelphia Daily News and more via Metafilter; earlier] More: Radley Balko.
Archive for April, 2009
Household hazard causes estimated 86,000 injuries/year
Shouldn’t the government be considering a ban? (H/t: reader D.W.). More: TYWKIWDBI.
“DUI Charge for Driver of Motorized Bar Stool”
Maybe the “bar stool” aspect served as a giveaway.
First Circuit on “family responsibility discrimination”
The federal appeals court has ruled that a mom-of-triplets can proceed with her discrimination suit against an employer she says passed her over in favor of another applicant who was also a mom — but not of triplets. [Michael Fox; Chadwick v. Wellpoint]
The Marc Dreier scam
In a year of frauds, Roger Parloff at Fortune finds that for “brazen theatricality” the New York lawyer’s may qualify as the gaudiest of all. More: Metafilter.
“Scariest Monster of All Sues for Trademark Infringement”
The WSJ’s page one is on the Monster Cable story, covered here a while back.
Blogger makes himself pest to Phoenix police
And gets raided by them. More: Instapundit.
“Why Congress Won’t Fix the CPSIA”
Some thoughts from Mark Riffey on why lawmakers in the capital continue to fiddle, fiddle, fiddle.
April 4 roundup
- The wages of addiction: former basketball star Roy Tarpley settles his $6.5 million ADA lawsuit against NBA and Dallas Mavericks [Randy Galloway, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Sports Law Blog]
- One result of litigation-fed “vaccines cause autism” scare: parents turn to dangerous quack treatments [Arthur Allen, Slate; in-depth coverage at Kathleen Seidel’s and Orac’s sites]
- Julie Hilden on First Circuit “true statements can be defamatory” ruling [FindLaw, earlier here and here]
- More coverage of conviction of Kentucky lawyers for grabbing much of fen-phen settlement [Louisville Courier-Journal, earlier]
- Judge dismisses most counts in lawsuit against Richard Laminack of Texas’s O’Quinn law firm [Texas Lawyer, earlier; FLSA overtime claims remain]
- All but three of the outstanding 9/11 airline suits due to settle for $500 million [AP/NorthJersey.com]
- One needn’t make the Community Reinvestment Act a scapegoat for unrelated credit woes to recognize it as an ill-conceived law [Bank Lawyer’s Blog]
- U.K.: Woman who plays classical music to soothe horses told she must pay for public performance license [Telegraph]
U.K.: “Lawyers use NHS as £100m cash cow”
Some in Britain are not happy about the combination of no-fee, no win lawyering (relatively recently legalized over there) and a taxpayer compensation scheme for medical negligence. [Times Online]. More: GruntDoc headlines his post, “In case you thought Nationalized Health would take the lawyers out of it…”.