“[District of Columbia Ward 4 ANC Commissioner Brenda] Speaks said young people would get criminal records when they couldn’t resist the temptation to steal.” [Robert McCartney, Washington Post via Michael Cannon, Cato at Liberty]
Archive for February, 2011
UK: “Shed owners warned wire on windows could hurt burglars”
Kent and Surrey, England: “Police have told residents to stop putting wire mesh on their garden shed windows – because they could be sued if a burglar is injured.” [Telegraph]
Suit charges slow evacuation of broken Disneyland ride
A quadriplegic man says Disney took 40 minutes to evacuate him from a stalled ride at its California theme park, prompting dangerous high blood pressure, and that had it followed Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards it would have gotten his wheelchair out more quickly. The pain and suffering were exacerbated, the plaintiff says, by “the continuous, ‘small world’ music in the background.” [Orange County Register]
“Toyota: The Media Owe You an Apology”
Ed Wallace at Bloomberg Business Week tells why the Toyota sudden-acceleration debacle merely replays a long and sad history:
I don’t mean to single out CBS for criticism. Plenty of other media outlets share the blame. For 30 years they have treated us to Jeep, Suzuki, and Isuzu Trooper rollovers, Audi unintended acceleration, side-saddle gas tanks exploding, police cars catching on fire, Firestone tires blowing out, and then the Toyota case. And each time the media took the word of those with a vested financial interest in the outcome—and every time they got burned for doing so.
I wrote about this in my article “It Didn’t Start With Dateline NBC” and in the chapter “Trial Lawyer TV” of my book The Rule of Lawyers.
Plus: For comic relief, here’s a New York Times editorial claiming the findings “did nothing to dispel concerns” about safety. And welcome listeners of Ray Dunaway’s morning show on WTIC (Hartford).
Pro-traffic-camera study: case closed?
The Washington Post thinks a new Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study favorable to the cause of traffic cameras should end debate about whether the cameras are a good thing. Radley Balko isn’t ready to buy it.
Sallie Mae robocall settlement
It includes a provision in which the class lawyers agree not to disparage the student lender. John Frith of the Civil Justice Association of California says that in exchange for the chance to split $4.875 million in fees, he’d probably agree to keep quiet too.
“Barminess” of UK employment tribunals
According to London Mayor Boris Johnson, writing in the Telegraph, the recent case of a man who is charging a 68-year-old female colleague with unconsented rump-slapping shows that Britain’s employment tribunal system leaves much to be desired:
This could turn out to be a ground-breaking case in the advancement of workers’ rights against the unfeeling boss class. But I sincerely doubt it. It sounds to me like a perfect indication of the levels of barminess now being attained by our system of employment tribunals. The hearing continues, it says at the bottom of the reports, and my first thought is how mad, how incredible it is that this poor man’s grievance – whatever it really is – has come to court.
The hearing continues, while across the country thousands of similar hearings drag their weary length before the matchstick-eyelid tribunals of Britain. Millions of man-hours are wasted, as business people are obliged to give evidence rather than getting on with their jobs. Huge fees are racked up by lawyers and “expert witnesses”, who are called on to pronounce on the exact meaning of an insult, and on all the unverifiable aches and pains and stresses that may constitute a disability.
The total cost of the system has been put at £1 billion for British business, and it is rising the whole time. …
Last month Prime Minister David Cameron proposed relaxing — though only slightly — the tribunals’ grip over firing, hiring, claims of harassment and other workplace matters.
“Japanese Anime Pokes Fun at America’s Legal System”
A recent anime (Japanese cartoon) portrays America as a land where pretty much any misadventure can be turned into grounds for a lawsuit. Siouxsie Law has the (funny? horrifying?) video clip, the plot line of which involves the catastrophic misuse of a microwave oven and its fictional legal consequences.
What judges do and how it’s misunderstood
Justice Samuel Alito’s Wriston Lecture before the Manhattan Institute last fall is now online.
Update: USDA overrides court’s ban on sugar-beet planting
“The Department of Agriculture said on Friday that American farmers could resume growing genetically engineered sugar beets that had been barred by a federal judge.” The ban had led to fears of sugar shortages and steep price hikes. [New York Times, earlier]