- Judge vacates $1.2 billion default judgment against PepsiCo [Watertown, Wisc. Daily Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, earlier]
- “Democrats’ first spokesman on medical malpractice: former head of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association.” [Ponnuru, NRO, on Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley] Related: Carter Wood at Point of Law, Washington Times, David Frum, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (on provision in health bill discouraging states from adopting limits on lawyers’ fees or awards).
- Doubts about “scent lineups” in which police dogs are supposed to sniff out perps [Schwartz, NYT]
- Claimant in Staten Island Ferry crash ran into trouble when he couldn’t prove he was on the boat [NYLJ]
- New York courts strike out baseball injury claims on assumption of risk grounds [Hochfelder first, second, third posts; NYLJ]
- “Microsoft frowned on for smiley patent” [Slashdot via Coleman]
- “Step out of the loop, do something unusual” and run into an army of drones “whose sole job is to prevent their bosses from being sued.” [Never Yet Melted quoting British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson on the U.S.]
- “A veterinarian’s view on ‘defensive medicine'” [Patty Khuly, USA Today]
Archive for November, 2009
Business method patents at the Supreme Court
Encouragingly, the Justices appear to be skeptical. [Steele, Legal Ethics Forum; Mullin, IP Law and Business]
Judge: bankruptcy lawyer’s conduct “inexcusable”
“U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Joan Lloyd ruled Friday that attorney Bruce Atherton and [financier] Randall Scott Waldman ‘blatantly breached’ their duty to the owner of a Louisville tool machinery company by forcing him out of business and seizing his assets. …Atherton was suspended from practicing law last month by the Kentucky Supreme Court based on his guilty plea in September in Pennsylvania federal court to charges that he aided a scheme in which other defendants allegedly ‘busted out’ small businesses by pretending to buy them, then draining their assets before the deals were completed.” [Louisville Courier-Journal via ABA Journal]
Blind gamer sues Sony demanding ADA accommodation
Alexander Stern has sued Sony Online Entertainment and various affiliated entities involved in online videogaming, saying the company “is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to implement features to make its games accessible to visually impaired gamers.” [Gamespot, Kotaku, The Register via Siouxsie Law]
“Lawyer Says Televangelist’s No-Divorce Policy May Have Led to Killing”
A stretch? The security chief for Missouri-based Joyce Meyer Ministries has been charged with the murder of his wife and family, and lawyers pursuing a wrongful-death case now say they want to include the financially successful ministry as a defendant. [ABA Journal, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, UPI]
“I’ve always thought people would be very concerned if they knew what we were doing”
A Texas DWI lawyer speaks incautiously to the press, and fun ensues [Houston Press, Above the Law, Defending People and more]
CPSIA’s ban on brass
By a 3-2 vote, the CPSC has confirmed that the absurd and inflexible Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act bans the sale of children’s products which contain components of conventional (leaded) brass. The vote drew dissents from commissioners Anne Northup (statement) and Nancy Nord (official comments, PDF; further statement at her blog). From the latter:
…The Commission has now very clearly determined that we do not have the flexibility under the law to make common sense decisions with respect to lead.
…I am especially concerned about what this decision means for our schools, where brass is found on desk hinges, coat hooks, locker pulls and many other items. Are schools now going to be forced to remove all brass and if so, who will bear this financial burden?…brass is found throughout a home and removing it from toys does little in terms of removing it from a child’s environment. If brass were really harmful to children, we would be taking action to remove it from the home but no one is suggesting that there is a safety issue that needs to be addressed in this way.
Evidence of actual health risks from brass in the everyday environments of American children is, of course, anything but compelling. Rick Woldenberg has been covering the story here, here, here, and here. Greco Woodcrafting predicts rough times ahead for school bands, as well. And the WSJ editorializes today.
More: this summer the CPSC issued guidance on the closely related topic of ballpoint pens (the roller balls of which include lead alloy); the upshot was so long as manufacturers don’t primarily market any given pen design as being for kids, they’re in the clear, even if large numbers of children are among the pens’ users. (Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association petition and response, both PDF; earlier here, here, etc.) For more on that episode, see 3 Green Angels, NAM “Shop Floor” and more, Rick Woldenberg and more, and Whimsical Walney.
PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGES from Elise Bake, Der Ball Der Tiere (“The Animals’ Ball”, German, 1891), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.
“Spano’s Suicide: Housing Plan Doomed County Exec”
The New York Post has now picked up a slightly shortened version of my City Journal piece on the housing lawsuit that contributed to a voter revolt in Westchester (cross-posted from Point of Law).
P.S. The Weekly Standard “Scrapbook” feature discusses the piece, as do John Derbyshire and Ron Coleman. And reader Paul Rath writes: “We face the same issue at the other end of the state, near Buffalo. Unfortunately, we have the same race-baiting and over-simplified arguments in our press here as well.” For more on how towns expose themselves to litigation if they attempt to earmark sub-market-rate housing for local residents or workers, see this Oct. 23 New York Times report on Connecticut.
November 6 roundup
- Shop worker prevails in U.K.: no need to pay music royalty fees for singing while stacking shelves [BBC]
- Word arrives that Eric Turkewitz has been named a New York Super Lawyer, but he manages to control his enthusiasm [New York Personal Injury]
- In which a columnist criticizes a post-election Tweet of mine, labels me “socially liberal libertarian” [Carney, DC Examiner; Roger Simon, “The Strange Case of NY-23”]
- Plaintiff’s lawyers may bag $28 million in Wal-Mart wage/hour class actions [ABA Journal]
- Contestant’s million-dollar suit against California pageant ends abruptly after surfacing of too-racy-to-post video [TMZ; irony-fraught background at Brayton and Good As You]
- News bulletin: lawyers shouldn’t trade on inside information [Cunningham, Concur Op]
- Possession, not just wrongful use: “L.A. Halloween Silly String Ban” [Volokh]
- Video of man who runs giant soda pop store in L.A., includes his thoughts on recycling law and the way regulation often works to big businesses’ advantage against small [Boing Boing]
Brooklyn: “Disbarred Attorney Pleads Guilty to Guardian Account Thefts”
“A former Brooklyn, N.Y., lawyer has pleaded guilty to fleecing millions of dollars from guardianship accounts he oversaw for incapacitated seniors and children. … at least 16 court examiners who oversaw Rondos [Steven T. Rondos] had signed off on his reports without detecting any red flags.” [NYLJ]