Scott Greenfield calls to our attention a Rochester lawyer whose criminal defense clients are not only grateful, but rather more articulate than one might have expected.
Archive for 2011
$6.7 million awarded after drunk student’s fall
“A judge has awarded more than $6.7 million to the family of a Northeastern University student who fell down a set of stairs at a Boston bar in 2007 and died after a night of drinking. The judge’s award comes about three months after a jury ruled the bar violated the city building code but was not liable for the 21-year-old man’s death.” [Boston Globe; Herald; MyFoxBoston]
SCOTUS, 6-2: vaccine suits preempted
James Beck explains and Orac has some strong views as well (“I’m afraid Justice Sotomayor borders on the delusional when she blithely proclaims that courts are so good at efficiently disposing of meritless product liability claims.”) More: Kathleen Seidel and footnotes.
P.S. But preemption does not carry the day in an automotive case, Williamson v. Mazda.
Wisconsin: a frisky-union vignette
Headline from last August, recalled by James Taranto: “Milwaukee teachers union files suit over lack of Viagra coverage.” The lack of coverage for erectile dysfunction drugs amounted to sex discrimination, according to the complaint. [Journal-Sentinel]
More on the Wisconsin union showdown from Cato Institute scholars Chris Edwards (Virginia has much sharper restrictions on public-employee unionism than what Gov. Scott Walker is proposing), Neal McCluskey (for the kids? really?), David Boaz (president, with his entire political machine, “is inserting himself into a medium-sized state’s battle over how to balance its budget,” Roger Pilon (unions’ quarrel is with voters) — and see also this 2009 background paper on the unsustainable costs of some union victories.
Canada: “fatally flawed” human rights proceedings
They trampled an Ontario businesswoman’s rights, a higher court finds. Maxcine Telfer of Mississauga, Ont., “whose home was ordered seized to pay an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal award to a former employee[,] can keep her house — for now.” [Toronto Star]
“Tobacco tax hike was a backroom deal”
The Supreme Court should strike down the multistate compact by which state attorneys general carried out the Great Tobacco Heist of a decade ago, argues Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute [Washington Times and CEI; earlier here, here]. I’ve discussed the MSA at chapter length in my book The Rule of Lawyers as well as in shorter form here and elsewhere.
P.S. AEI’s Michael Greve analyzes the legal background at Balkinization.
Rise and fall of a “dropsy” epidemic
Scott Greenfield on curiously convenient cop testimony.
Cracking the California tow-suit scam
A local NBC affiliate covers the extraordinary lawsuit-abuse ring run by a tow-operator-gone-wrong in San Benito, Santa Clara and Monterey counties. Attorney Greg Adler deserves credit for cracking the scheme (via Legal Ethics Forum; earlier here and here).
MindingTheCampus.com excerpts Schools for Misrule
The Manhattan Institute publication Minding the Campus, which monitors higher education and its reform, is out with an excerpt from my forthcoming book Schools for Misrule. You can check it out here.
If Ms. Calvo-Goller is really worried about her reputation….
Stewart Baker has some advice for the complainant in a criminal (!) defamation proceeding filed in France against NYU law professor Joseph Weiler. Adam Liptak covers the case in the NYT here; earlier here, etc. More: Dan Markel, Prawfs.