If I took advertising here at Overlawyered, I might worry more about how and whether to pursue higher traffic. In the mean time, columnist Alex Beam got me to come clean about what kind of subject matter seems to work best in getting droves of new visitors to notice the site. (It’s not class-action reform). [Boston Globe] (& welcome Virginia Postrel, Bob Trebilcock/Modern Materials Handling readers).
Archive for 2009
Towable toilet “not for use on moving vehicles”
Yes, it’s Bob Dorigo Jones’ annual Wacky Warning Label contest. Aside from the year’s winner, mentioned in the headline, other top entries included “Do not use if you cannot see clearly to read the information in the information booklet” (on a wart-removal product), “Always use this product with adult supervision” on a cereal bowl, and a bag of livestock castration rings cautioning, “For animal use only.” [AP/Times & Transcript (New Brunswick, Canada); Foundation for Fair Civil Justice] (more on wacky warnings)
Teacher’s ordeal began when cops found two pills in her car
59-year-old Melinda Herrick, an art teacher who had been a Teacher of the Year honoree in the Houston schools, was charged with violating the “drug-free zone” law after cops found two Xanax pills in her car; the drug is often prescribed for panic disorder. Herrick protested that the car had been in the shop for repairs for more than a month before the incident; her daughter also drove the car. Students rallied on her behalf and the charges were finally dropped after she underwent a drug test which indicated that she did not use drugs. [Houston Chronicle via Obscure Store]
Causing emotional distress through online postings
A bill sponsored by Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) would criminalize a wide swath of controversial and impassioned speech on the internet, in everything from blogs to forums to email. Incredibly, it has fifteen sponsors. Eugene Volokh has details, and Hans Bader in the Examiner explores some of the implications.
“TuberculEsq” sues CDC
Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker says the Centers for Disease Control invaded his privacy during the 2007 cause celebre over Speaker’s having taken an international flight while suffering an unusually dangerous form of tuberculosis. [CNN; earlier here, etc.; Patrick @ Popehat]
TARP money to settle shareholder class actions
Freelance journalist Dan Slater in the NYT’s “Dealbook” (via Above the Law) spies a “bailout for the plaintiff’s bar”:
…settlements resulting from the scores of shareholder suits against TARP entities will stretch into the stratosphere.
Sure, through TARP, taxpayer money may be used to pay off mortgages and fund bonus pools. But, in what will amount to a far more expensive proposition, TARP money will also be used to line the pockets of allegedly aggrieved shareholders and the lawyers who, wrapped smugly in the flag of corporate governance, are in the process of making a billion-dollar cottage industry out of filing strike suits.
Paul Minor appeal
Weapons-on-school-property statutes
Eugene Volokh discovers a Mississippi statute that appears to criminalize students’ possession of scissors in many instances, and a South Carolina statute that goes even further.
Want class-action benefits? Save those minor receipts, indefinitely
Paul Karlsgodt wonders how we arrived at a system in which consumer behavior that would ordinarily be considered eccentric at a near-Grey-Gardens level — such as saving receipts from the purchase of supermarket chicken years in the past — becomes an important determinant for entitlement to compensation. More on water-in-chicken class action: March 15 (cross-posted from Point of Law).
Judge hands down 2,643-page judgment
It’s thought to be the longest judgment ever handed down in Australia [Andrew Main, “Banks must pay $1.58bn in compensation for Bell asset grab”, The Australian, Apr. 30]