“A New Hampshire family who witnessed the Feb. 24 death of a killer-whale trainer at SeaWorld Orlando has sued the company in state court in Orlando, claiming their child was traumatized by the event.” [Orlando Sentinel]
Archive for 2010
Demand for $38 quadrillion, cont’d
Kevin at Lowering the Bar points out that the suit we reported on yesterday doesn’t actually carry the highest damages demand ever; it is topped by one man’s suit last year against Bank of America for 1.7 septillion dollars. In third place — maybe — is “a claim for three quadrillion and change filed by someone against the federal government after Hurricane Katrina.”
Meanwhile, the story of the $38 quadrillion lawsuit moves Adam Freedman at Ricochet to consider some perhaps drastic legal reform remedies.
Annals of paternalism
Most states now require seat belt use by adults riding in the back of the car [USA Today]
August 26 roundup
- Eugene Volokh on Lineage II “addictive videogame” lawsuit [Volokh Conspiracy, earlier]
- New “Trial Lawyers Inc.” report on environmental litigation [Manhattan Institute, related from Jim Copland on a Richard Blumenthal suit]
- Furor continues over Philadelphia’s $300 “business privilege tax” on bloggers and other low-revenue businesses [City Paper, Instapundit, Atlantic Wire, Kennerly]
- “DoJ seeks Ebonics translators” story affords glimpse of oft-abused market for prosecution experts [Ken at Popehat]
- Much more on FASB show-the-adversary-your-cards litigation accounting proposals [Cal Biz Lit and more, Beck, Hartley, ShopFloor, PoL (with Chamber views), earlier]
- “The Many Ways In Which Fashion Copyrights Will Harm The Fashion Industry” [Masnick, TechDirt, on the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act, earlier links here]
- Denmark carries out a real-world experiment in the incentive effects of unemployment compensation [Stossel]
- “Junk fax” suit demands $2 trillion [eight years ago at Overlawyered]
McKenna on Washington sovereign immunity
Attorney General Rob McKenna of Washington discusses the need to roll back a combination of legislation and judicially created doctrine that leaves the state uniquely exposed to liability lawsuits. “Calls to attorneys general offices in other states reveal we pay much more than states with similar-sized populations: eight times more than Tennessee, five times more than Arizona and at least three times more than Massachusetts. These disparities date back at least 15 years.” [Seattle Times; my 2005 take]
Politico (the website) vs. “College Politico”
Ron Coleman examines a trademark brouhaha that has roused blogosphere interest.
“California Town Abandons Facebook Page Amid Legal Concerns”
“The city of Redondo Beach, Calif., is abandoning its Facebook page after hearing about potential legal problems.” [ABA Journal, Daily Breeze]
The egg and I
The New York Times invited me to contribute to its “Room for Debate” feature on the big egg recall and here is an excerpt from my reply:
…Advocates cite the current outbreak, at last report limited to two related Iowa egg farms, as reason to enact pending legislation that would intensify federal regulation of food-making in the name of safety. Large food and agribusiness companies have generally signed off on most of the new proposals as acceptable. Many smaller producers, on the other hand, suspect there will be less room for them, and for local variety generally, in this reassuring new world of business and government cooperation.
I go on to cite the CPSIA debacle, in which a safety enactment devastated small producers of children’s goods while entrenching some of the dominant industry players. Read the full post here. Some other perspectives worth checking out: Ronald Bailey, Ira Stoll, Ann Althouse. (cross-posted from Cato at Liberty; and welcome Nick Gillespie/Reason “Hit and Run” readers).
“Felony charges dropped in fire-breathing bartenders case”
Fairfax County, Virginia prosecutors had charged two bartenders at Jimmy’s Old Town Tavern in Herndon over the trick, which (the report suggests) resulted in no mishap or injuries and which the tavern owner said they had done hundreds of times previously. They still face misdemeanor charges. [Fairfax Times] Scott Greenfield discusses the case (with a mention of yours truly) and proposes a “bartender flambé” rule for knowing when the bubble-ization of everyday life has gone too far.
Ready, set, cringe
“US admits human rights shortcomings in UN report” [AP] Not to get too far ahead of the game, but the enthusiasm of legal academia for the international human rights movement is one of the major themes of my forthcoming Schools for Misrule, and the fruits of that movement — including the United Nations’ new “periodic review” procedure, by which it scrutinizes ours and other nations’ human rights records — figure prominently in the narrative.
More: Michael Cannon at Cato notes that the Obama administration cited, as evidence of the nation’s human rights progress, its enactment of “legislation that threatens U.S. residents with prison if they fail to purchase health insurance.”