“What Jaycee Dugard endured is beyond comprehension, but it should be patently obvious that California taxpayers weren’t responsible for what happened to her. …This is all about money and saving face; nothing about responsibility.” [Bruce Maiman, Sacramento Bee]
Archive for July, 2010
Mean-girl YouTube video
The New York Times tells of a Beverly Hills, Calif. student who
videotaped friends at a cafe, egging them on as they laughed and made mean-spirited, sexual comments about another eighth-grade girl, C. C., calling her “ugly,” “spoiled,” a “brat” and a “slut.” J. C. posted the video on YouTube. The next day, the school suspended her for two days.
Now, before clicking the link, guess who collected the resulting $107,150.80. Right. Ken at Popehat thinks the judge decided the case in favor of the right party, more or less, which doesn’t keep the right party from also being a deplorably wrong party (strong language, invective, etc.)
Tom Goldstein on Supreme Court misconceptions
The publisher of SCOTUSBlog on why most of the quick ideological readings of the current Supreme Court are at best caricatures, and in particular why “it is inaccurate to describe the Court as methodically on the march to the right.” (via Adler/Volokh).
“Brooklyn Man Suing Yoo-Hoo For False Advertising”
“Timothy Dahl, 35, is suing Yoo-Hoo’s parent company, the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, in federal court because he claims the product’s ‘good for you’ ad slogan is simply not truthful.” The suit is an intended class action. [Gothamist, New York Post, Legal Blog Watch] We’ve covered the many “froot” class action suits alleging that CrunchBerries, Froot Loops, etc. are not particularly healthy things to eat; at least one suit has similarly assailed Cocoa Puffs.
Whoops, there goes another Spitzer prosecution
“A New York state judge has thrown out the convictions of two former Marsh Inc. executives previously found guilty of bid-rigging charges. …The motion was based on ‘multiple forms of exculpatory evidence’ that prosecutors failed to produce during the trial of Messrs. Gilman and McNenney, but did disclose it in a later trial against three other Marsh executives, all of whom were acquitted, according to documents.” Smurfing expert and longer-sentences-for-johns advocate Eliot Spitzer is now attempting to reengineer a return to public life via a CNN talk show gig [David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun] [Business Insurance]
Oz: “Letter bomber Colin Dunstan wins compensation”
Australia: “A man who held the nation to ransom with a letter-bomb campaign has won compensation linked to the failed workplace love affair that sparked the terror reign.” [Herald-Sun] In other Antipodean workplace news, a man currently jailed on child porn charges has won an unfair dismissal case against his former employer, food company Nestle, notwithstanding “allegations that he had routinely harassed women in the workplace, and even attempted sabotage” by placing a sexual drawing into a box of the company’s products. [Herald-Sun]
Extraterritorial application of securities law
Someone must think there’s a big emergency, because Capitol Hill lawmakers are moving remarkably quickly on a partial overturn of the Supreme Court’s new 8-0 Morrison ruling, which was handed down less than two weeks ago. [Julian Ku, Opinio Juris] (& welcome Daniel Fisher, Forbes readers).
Preferring one judge’s courtroom to another
Ken at Popehat cops to an unworthy (but realistic-sounding) reason.
The joys of CPSIA testing
And testing and testing and testing: “This item has been tested I don’t know how many times. Many times in many forms. Every test was a pass. This latest $4,000 test told us NOTHING we didn’t already know.” [Rick Woldenberg] Plus: “It’s raining paper… again,” and who is CPSC going to get to test the test testing testers?
And then went back to “access to justice” chatter
Lawyers in a class action seek a high appeal bond to insulate their fee award. [CCAF]