Taco Bell finds itself at odds with the EEOC. [Jon Hyman]
Archive for 2011
August 4 roundup
- Burning Man, risk, and self-reliance [Claire Gordon, related]
- Jacob Sullum challenges Mark “tax-the-snacks” Bittman [Reason; related, Rick Esenberg] “Fat tax” would be hard to target, hard to enforce, disliked by voters [David Gratzer]
- “CSX claims racketeering in Pittsburgh law firm’s legal tactics” [Post-Gazette; earlier here, here, here, etc.] A different view: Max Kennerly.
- Complaints over new class-action law in Canada [Reuters]
- Minnesota preacher sues Rachel Maddow [TVNewser, Mother Jones]
- Does the new Texas loser-pays bill go far enough? [Kyle Baum, WLF, earlier]
- Tell us about it: “Why the Right to Criticize Lawyers is Vital” [Hans Bader, CEI]
Laws against being a drunken car passenger
At least when enforced, they send dubious signals to revelers [Scott Greenfield]
California: “Lawmakers kill fix for disability access suits”
Democrats in Sacramento are unswayed by continuing reports that Unruh Act complaint mills are extracting millions from the state’s small businesses on accessibility claims, and throttle a bill that would require notice and a chance to fix problems before suing. [Legal Pad, The Recorder, CJAC] Opponents of the fix include the trial-lawyers’ lobby, Consumer Attorneys of California. Background here; the perennially doomed equivalent bill in the U.S. Congress is discussed here. I discussed the issue on the John Stossel show last year.
Who’s suing whom in the mobile business
A pretty graphic depicting a not-so-pretty situation [Design Language News; more, FlowingData] Related: “When Patents Attack,” NPR; Will Wilkinson, “Patents Against Prosperity”, The Economist; “Good Defensive Patents Are Bad Patents,” Julian Sanchez.
“Litigating One’s Way to a Faculty Appointment”
Former North Dakota Attorney General Nicholas Spaeth may face an uphill fight in a newly filed action alleging age discrimination in law faculty hiring, predicts Jeff Lipshaw [PrawfsBlawg, with comments]. Spaeth believes “more than 100 law schools discriminated against him by refusing to consider him for teaching jobs because of his age” despite an impressive earlier career in the law [ABA Journal]. Represented by attorney Lynne Bernabei, Spaeth has sued Michigan State and expects to add other schools as defendants. As Prawfsblawg commenters note, Spaeth’s underlying gripe may be with the overwhelmingly dominant model of law faculty hiring (reinforced by accreditation and rating pressures) in which expected future scholarly output, as opposed to, say, teaching excellence or even adequacy, tends to dominate hiring for tenured positions.
August 3 roundup
- Central Falls, R.I. lands in bankruptcy court [NYT; my Cato take]
- Less efficient patdowns? Man with one arm files complaint after being turned down as TSA inspector [MSNBC via Hyman]
- Don’t join the Mommy Mob [Ken at Popehat]
- Montana high court upholds failure-to-warn verdict against maker of aluminum baseball bat [PoL link roundup, Russell Jackson; earlier here and here]
- Finally some good news from Connecticut: state enacts law protecting municipalities from lawsuits over recreational land use [BikeRag; earlier here, etc.]
- Claim: climate-change tort suits will require radical changes in tort law and that’s a good thing [Douglas Kysar (Yale), SSRN]
- Attorney keen to go on TV, will take any case, either side [Balko]
Don’t rescue that bird
I’ve got a few thoughts up at Cato on the case of the 11-year-old Virginia girl who tried to rescue a baby woodpecker in the back yard only to learn that possessing and transporting a migratory bird is a federal offense that carries a $500 fine and possible jail term. (& Henry Joel Simmons, Right on Crime)
Good Samaritans sue woman they saved
Ohio: Two men who stopped to save a woman’s life by pulling her from a flaming car are now suing her for compensation for the injuries sustained in doing so. Isn’t litigation inspiring? Doesn’t it just make you feel better about human nature? [Columbus Dispatch via Mystal/AtL]
Class action: I thought USA Today at my hotel was free
“A guest at a Hilton hotel in Santa Rosa who was upset that he was billed 75 cents for a newspaper he assumed was free has filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the hotel chain, saying he was deceived by a scheme that also hurts the environment.” [San Francisco Chronicle] More: Jeff Bercovici, Forbes.