Eugene Volokh explains some legally driven reasons your employer might hold your Facebook posts against you.
Archive for April, 2010
Update: Australian court throws out libel suit against game critic
April 2 roundup
- What? You mean it wasn’t real?
- Nothing special at Lowering the Bar for April Fool’s Day since the site’s regular fare was unbelievable enough;
- “Steve Cohen’s Wife Was So Excited To Sue Him, She ‘Could Hardly Contain Herself'” [Business Insider]
- John Stossel, quoting Cato’s Jerry Taylor, on energy independence and wishful science;
- Senior Church of England bishop warns of “victim culture” and “blame society” [Telegraph via Alkon]
- Landlord didn’t care for tenant’s display: “Peeps Eviction Trial Postponed” [Lowering the Bar, Legal Blog Watch]
- Great mileage, clean reputation, too bad the EPA’s holding up their importation [Coyote]
- YouTube, copyright infringement, and the Viacom lawsuit [Manjoo, Slate]
Court rules for Simon Singh in UK libel suit
A big day for the free pursuit of truth [Guardian]:
Singh was accused of libel by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) over an opinion piece he wrote in the Guardian in April 2008. In the article, he criticised the BCA for claiming its members could use spinal manipulation to treat children with colic, ear infections, asthma, sleeping and feeding conditions and prolonged crying. He described the treatments as “bogus” and based on insufficient evidence and criticised the BCA for “happily promoting” them. The BCA denies these criticisms.
And a less happy angle [BBC]:
Dr Singh described the ruling as “brilliant”, but added that the action had cost £200,000 “just to define the meaning of a few words”.
Village Voice gets Martin Singer nastygram
And prints a saucy response. Earlier here, here, etc.
Federal calorie labeling mandate, cont’d
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air checks out what it will mean for Davanni’s, a 21-outlet pizza chain in the Twin Cities. Earlier here, etc.
Lawyer ads that look like VA hospital sites
The sleaziest asbestos-suit-marketing practice yet? You decide. In what is unfortunately not an April Fool’s joke, Roger Parloff at Fortune exposes a network of client recruitment sites that would fool many casual visitors into thinking they are sponsored by the federal government’s Veteran’s Administration, under headings like “VA Medical Center Palo Alto” and corresponding domain names. A founding partner of well-known New York plaintiff’s firm Seeger Weiss expressed regret about his firm’s listing as a sponsor of the site. The full story is here (& welcome Legal Blog Watch readers).
Answering constituent mail, in the old days
“One of the countless drawbacks of being in Congress is that I am compelled to receive impertinent letters from a jackass like you in which you say I promised to have the Sierra Madre mountains reforested and I have been in Congress two months and haven’t done it. Will you please take two running jumps and go to hell.”
— Congressman John McGroarty, engaged in constituent service (1934).
(via Magliocca/Concur Op).
“How a pit bull is like a Prius”
Michael Fumento on “misinformation cascades” [Philadelphia Inquirer]