- Many of our readers liked the ruling, but someone didn’t: “Judge censured for ordering class-action lawyer to take pay in $125,000 worth of gift-cards” [BoingBoing, ABA Journal, Leonard/L.A. Times, Lowering the Bar]
- “NFL Concedes In Who Dat Battle” [Lowering the Bar, more, earlier; here’s a protest t-shirt, and more on those]
- Some plaintiff’s lawyers give their side of the story, disputing fraud allegations in Dole banana-worker pesticide cases [Bronstad, NLJ, earlier]
- “Google Blog Bundle — 42 criminal defense blogs” [Mark Bennett] And while you’re at it, why not take a moment right now to put Overlawyered in your RSS blog reader?
- Massachusetts hardball: state lawmaker says private law schools might be breaking antitrust laws in working to oppose state school proposed in his district [ABA Journal via Above the Law; public law school plan OK’d]
- Making the rounds: why medieval trial by ordeal may not have been so crazy after all [Peter Leeson, Boston Globe and full paper (PDF) via Volokh]
- “Rothstein E-Mails Reveal Role of Former Plaintiffs’ Lawyer” [Brian Baxter, AmLaw Litigation Daily]
- Obama: I tried to reach across aisle on medical liability reform but GOP wasn’t nibbling. Fact check please [Wood, PoL]
Archive for February, 2010
Hundreds of California lawyers investigated over alleged loan modification abuses
It would appear that a lot of bad practices went on, but San Diego discipline-defense attorney David Cameron Carr at his nicely named blog KafkaEsq cautions against rushing to judgment.
“How patient privacy laws impede electronic communication with doctors”
Staying in touch with your doctor via IM? It’s more likely to happen in Mexico than here. Kevin MD quotes one doctor who “suspects that the demand that patients have to electronically talk to their doctors will force a change in privacy laws. We can only hope.”
Poutine injuries in Canada
Canadian health officials require poutine—a Canadian dish of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy—to be heated to 140 to 165 degrees for health reasons, a temperature somewhat that below of hot coffee. Alas, this is a temperature that can cause second-degree burns if a consumer happens to suffer an epileptic fit and fall face-first into their poutine, as happened to an Ontario teenager dining alone at a local KFC. No lawsuit appears to be planned, though her father seems to be demanding warnings of some sort. (Don Peat, “Teen burned in KFC poutine mishap”, canoe.ca, Jan. 19 (h/t Bumper)). Of course, given that warnings cannot deter epileptic seizures, it’s not clear why this would have made a difference. And as the Mocking Words blog points out:
What if instead she ended up falling down and hitting her head on the concrete floor? Are you going to go around warning people that concrete is a very solid material and that people should be aware that if you fall and hit your head on the floor that it’s going to hurt and is possibly going to injure you?
Lancet repudiates MMR vaccine study
It only took twelve years, but Lancet, which oft publishes politically motivated papers masquerading as medicine, has conceded that the 1998 paper criticizing MMR vaccines was simply “false.” [Lancet; BBC]
No telling how many children died in the meantime, all so trial lawyers could line their pockets attacking vaccine manufacturers.
“Cyber-harassment” and speech codes
Eugene Volokh and Scott Greenfield worry that free speech could be the loser from a buzz of law school interest in the topic of “cyber-stalking” or “cyber-harassment” — rather broadly couched in one description to include law students’ “using websites to make outrageous gender– or race-specific comments.” Volokh:
I’m sure that most backers of these restrictions would stress that of course they’re not trying to shut down substantive debate, only incivility. But once viewpoint-based restrictions are accepted, once speech can be suppressed because it’s “outrageous” or “smearing,” it’s pretty hard to have much confidence that substantive (but to some “outrageous”) discussion of ideas will remain untouched; and even if actual punishments for such speech are rare, the risk of punishment may powerfully deter the substantive debate as well as the nonsubstantive smears (of which I agree there is plenty). That has certainly been the experience with “civility codes” at university campuses, and governmentally coerced restrictions on “harassment” in workplaces.
New Orleans coroner’s race ad
One for the hardball-campaign-ad Hall of Fame. Background: Times-Picayune (incumbent Minyard says ad is so over-the-top that it may actually be helping him), ProPublica.
NFL enforcement of “Super Bowl” trademark
Every year it seems to get worse, or better, depending on your perspective, notes Ron Coleman. Earlier years here, here, here, etc., as well as “Who Dat?”
New frontiers in climate change policy
Not a satire: a study suggests ditching school choice would reduce carbon emissions from bus rides [Caleb Brown]
Our growing government
Notwithstanding Barack Obama’s claim of a spending freeze on discretionary spending, Roger Clegg finds that the Obama Justice Department’s proposed budget calls for 22 new attorneys to bring “disparate-impact” cases—presumably the ones too weak to find a trial lawyer willing to take it on. And we can be quite confident that there won’t be any disparate impact against Federalist Society members when they do that hiring, right?