Although balloon dogs existed long before artist Jeff Koons began doing showy steel replicas of them for museum installations, his lawyers have sent a cease and desist letter to a gallery over its sale of resin bookends in the form of the canine inflatables [L Magazine]
Archive for 2011
January 12 roundup
- Merger objections: “First Comes the Deal Announcement, Then Comes the Lawsuit” [WSJ Law Blog]
- Harvey Silverglate on campus “anti-bullying” bill [Forbes]
- Anna Nicole Smith case could empower bankruptcy judges, encourage forum-shoppers [Michael J. Wade, Examiner]
- “Family Business Wins Same Lawsuit Twice, Now Faces It For the Third Time” [Mike LePage, U.S. Chamber ILR]
- “I’ll Never File Another Asbestos Case in Texas” [Oliver]
- Financial whistleblowing rules a potential “gold mine”? [WSJ Law Blog, Wood/PoL, Robert Shattuck on SEC comment process]
- “Device lag at the FDA” [Tabarrok]
- Cheyenne-Arapahoe tribes file land claim that includes city of Denver, but they’ll trade it for casino rights [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Brits to make it easier to hire/fire workers
Hey, that might work here too! It’s the subject of my new Cato Institute post, which also mentions today’s news of a big jump (to record levels) in federal employment discrimination cases, fueled by the 2008 ADA Amendments Act.
California’s new online-impersonation ban
Liability is predicated on “intent to harm, intimidate, threaten, or defraud another person – not necessarily the person you are impersonating.” [Michael Arrington, TechCrunch] Despite talk of using the statute against stalkers, Choire Sicha predicts a somewhat different application: “harm as in ‘brand dilution’ — that is what will be prosecuted. Of course there is no carve-out for playful, political or non-murderous uses of online impersonation.” The bill’s text, notes Arrington, doesn’t address such free speech issues as satire and parody, though it does restrict itself to impersonations that are “credible.” Compare: much-demonized Koch Industries goes to court to identify originators (apparently political critics) of website imitating its own [Web Host Industry Review]
“If I notice an employee becoming increasingly unstable, what can I do about it?”
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to accommodate mentally disabled employees, but makes an exception for those who pose a “direct threat” to co-workers or others. Trouble is, to invoke the narrow “direct threat” exception, an employer may need to be prepared to prove that it has based its decision either on “a reasonable medical judgment that relies on the most current medical knowledge” or “on the best available objective evidence” — a much tougher evidentiary standard than is required for the making of many other workplace, governmental and medical decisions. [Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer’s Law Blog]
What could have been entering the public domain this month?
If not for the copyright extension bill that became effective in 1978, a wealth of significant work created in 1954 would have entered the public domain this January 1. [Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain]
Settlement consumed in fees
A man says that he secured a $900,000 settlement from the Roman Catholic church over his abuse by a priest, but “alleges that attorneys who represented him in the case managed to claim $877,000 of the settlement, leaving him with no more than $23,000.” The man switched attorneys 2 1/2 years into the case and subsequently lost a case filed by the first attorney saying he had been deprived of his rightful fee. His new suit contends that he was wrongly advised to fight the first lawyer’s suit every step of the way. [Oregonian]
Update: California tow-and-sue scam
In an elaborate scheme discussed in this space in May, a northern California towing operator towed cars without authority, then proceeded to sue the owners — and even some non-owners — for exaggerated storage and handling fees. The enterprise was eventually exposed by Greg Adler, a young lawyer who estimates that he spent 1,200 hours documenting the misdeeds. Two of the scammers are now headed to prison, with one receiving a 14-year sentence. [San Jose Mercury News via Legal Ethics Forum]
On the food safety bill
Despite the “government will finally protect you now” atmospherics, there’s little reason to think the recently signed food safety bill will make any dramatic change in what were already falling rates of food poisoning. Bacteria will still be around, and you’ll still want to remember grandma’s advice about washing fresh produce and taking care with raw eggs. I explain in a brief interview with Hearst-Argyle Television.
Separately: Food-safety bill provided a feast for lobbyists [Washington Post]
Toyota theories shift
Unable to show any electronic flaw in the vehicles, plaintiff’s lawyers switch to the theory that the automaker should have embraced “brake override” technology that disengages the throttle when the brake is applied. That technology doesn’t work, of course, if the driver is in fact mistakenly hitting the accelerator when intending to hit the brake — which was what happened in earlier sudden-acceleration scares, and looks likely to be the cause of most of the Toyota incidents as well. [L.A. Times]