If you’re suing over the collapse of a chair under your client at a local Kmart, try to sue the correct manufacturer, devote some thought to what your theory of liability is going to be, vet your client carefully, and other tips. [Abnormal Use]
Archive for 2011
Yale adopts submissive posture in Title-IX-vs.-speech case
A fraternity has already apologized for its role in loutish public expressions, but that isn’t nearly enough for some complainants who’ve initiated an investigation by the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights that puts Yale at risk of losing its $500 million in federal funding if it isn’t sufficiently cooperative. Peter Berkowitz in the Wall Street Journal:
That Yale finds itself under pressure from the government, in the face of stupid frat-boy initiation rituals obviously designed to humiliate the pledges themselves, dramatizes how far government and higher education have drifted from the principles of freedom. … What is really at stake in the current investigation of Yale is the proper mission of the university. The complainants, not a few university administrators and faculty, and powerful forces at work in the Department of Education seem to think that one of a university’s top priorities is policing students’ opinions and utterances to ensure that they adopt government-approved ideas about sexual relations. That priority can’t be reconciled with the imperatives of a liberal education.
If a letter just sent to alumni by Yale President Richard Levin is any indication, the university may not intend to put up much of a public stand on behalf of its autonomy of governance, the toleration granted even some offensive utterances in a community of unbridled expression, or the importance of due process for students accused of wrongdoing. Indeed, Levin’s letter does not make even the tamest and most tentative attempt to argue that anything about the OCR complaint is legally erroneous or worth resisting. The full text of the letter follows: Read On…
CPSIA: “Toy lead ban puts kids on ATVs at risk”
In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, cycle shop owner Mike Larson explains how CPSIA’s irrationality actually increases risk: “Kids aren’t licking or eating their ATVs, but they just might ride adult-sized ATVs thanks to this ban. Congress is putting kids in danger by refusing to address this problem.”
“The hungry judges soon the sentence sign…”
“…And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.” And now there’s even empirical evidence. (h/t Sam S.)
“US News Weighs Request to Add Diversity Measure to Law School Rankings”
The state bar of California is described as being the main proponent of the idea. [ABA Journal] Ann Althouse regards the measure of “diversity” as something “freakishly manipulable.”
Alleged sexual assault on second date
In Los Angeles, a woman “who wants to remain anonymous” has sued Match.com saying that a man she met on the service raped her on their second date and that it has a legal responsibility to screen participants more carefully. The man in the case, who is awaiting trial, has implied through a lawyer that contact was consensual. [NBC Los Angeles via TortsProf, Amy Alkon]
Ban on smoking by renters
The Bay Area town of Larkspur plans to forbid most apartment and condominium tenants from smoking in their own units. [Marin Independent Journal; related]
Wal-Mart v. Dukes symposium at Point of Law
The distinguished panel includes Lester Brickman and Myriam Gilles (Cardozo), Richard Epstein (NYU), Jim Copland and Ted Frank (Manhattan Institute), R. Matthew Cairns (Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell and the 2011 president of the Defense Research Institute), Russell Jackson (Skadden), and Andrew Trask (McGuire Woods). You can follow the discussion here.
Great moments in school-speech litigation
Ohio: “A family with an extensive history of legal action against a number of school districts and municipalities has filed a $1 million civil lawsuit against Middletown City Schools. Orlando Bethel — who refers to himself as a fire and brimstone preacher in court documents, and his wife, Glynis — filed the action Friday in Cincinnati federal court after one of their three children, Zoe, wore a T-shirt at the high school proclaiming ‘god hates (expletive)’ and ‘repent or burn in hell.'” [Dayton Daily News]
U.K. auto insurance rates soar
A House of Commons select committee “identified the principal cause as ‘a rapid growth in the number of personal injury claims management firms, which are using direct cold-call marketing techniques to encourage people to make claims who otherwise would not have done so'”. [Philip Johnston, Telegraph]