- Pennsylvania attorney general subpoenas Twitter in search of critics’ identities, then backs down [Volokh and more, Levy/CL&P, Romenesko, Wired “Threat Level”]
- Letting kids have unsupervised time in NYC park not actually against the law [Free-Range Kids on “Take Your Kids to the Park, and Leave Them There Day”] Related from Lenore Skenazy: Spiked Online and Salon, “The War on Children’s Playgrounds”
- Uh-oh: New York chief judge Jonathan Lippman endorses massive new Civil Gideon legal-aid entitlement [ABA Journal, and the NYT cheers]
- “Novartis Hit With $250 Million in Punitives in Gender Bias Case” [NYLJ, WSJ Law Blog (blaming bad defense trial strategy) and more, ABA Journal, Hyman]
- Med-mal law has done very well for two attorney brothers in Georgia [Atlanta Journal-Constitution via Pero]
- Kagan’s Oxford thesis revealed: judges shouldn’t make it up as they go along in quest of social justice. Sensation ensues! [WSJ Law Blog, related on political-branch deference] And were the SG’s judicial-restraint principles activated by Graham v. Florida? [Stuart Taylor, Jr., National Journal]
- Federal Elections Commission as net regulator: “How the DISCLOSE Act will restrict free speech” [Brad Smith/Jeff Patch, Reason]
- “Law Professor Confesses ‘I’m a Criminal’” [Tim Lynch, Cato]
- Argentina: “Parts of Anti-Plagiarism Bill Lifted from Wikipedia” [Lowering the Bar, TechDirt]
Filed under: civil gideon, crime and punishment, Elena Kagan, Georgia, medical malpractice, online speech, Pennsylvania, sex discrimination, Twitter, Wikipedia
2 Comments
You know, normally I think most gender discrimination suits are due to the incorrect notion that we should have equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity but that Novartis case makes me so angry I’m still seething about it.
Novartis’s Sales management, Human Resources, Legal Department and whoever had the final authority here acted in a phenomenally stupid, irresponsible and cruel manner.
Bah! Now I’m all angry again.
Sometimes I think about Mohammed Atta’s flying a jetliner into the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. Why didn’t he realize the insanity of his actions? Apparently he, and other fanatics like Timothy McVeigh, stew in their own juices and obsess about some injustice, real or imagined. Obsession affects many. At times Associate Justice Ginsburg stays into insanity with her woman’s lib outlook.
The problem with the Norvartis suit is that the ladies who testified had plenty of time and monetary incentive to work themselves into a frenzy. Their testimony has no value as real evidence. Unfortunately the tort of discrimination often rests on hurt feelings. Whether or not a manager is guilty is determined by the whim of his accuser accuser. The ladies may have had hurt feelings at times, but don’t we all. THEY HAD JOBS. They were employed.
A second phenomenon that has to be kept in mind is the power of suggestion. This is best illustrated in the little rascals case where every child claiming abuse was associated with Miss Judy. No child not helped by Miss Judy had any complaints. It looks to me that the plaintiff lawyer in the Norvartis case suggested a din of inequity and let the child-level minds of a jury do his work. His strategy worked for “Evil HR Lady” above.