The idea of Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) programs in California and elsewhere is to skim off tiny sums from clients’ accounts, too small to be worth arguing about (isn’t that what class action theorists are always claiming defendants get away with?) to finance legal representation, sometimes for indigent clients, other times for “cause” litigation, the latter of which results in “a lot of unsuspecting clients funding things they may or may not have believed in.” With interest rates at prolonged lows, however, the sums raised by IOLTA have drooped, and California bar authorities have responded by burying new line items in dues renewals for voluntary levies — which have not, it seems, resulted in the hoped-for flood of lawyer contributions. [Charlotte Allen, L.A. Times](& Legal Ethics Forum)
Archive for January, 2013
Permission to link: the theory that won’t die
Now it’s newspapers in Ireland advancing the old, curious claim that online publishers have a right to order others not to link to their content. [McGarr Solicitors, earlier]
Mysteries of modern health care
“In the topsy-turvy world of health care, doctors and hospitals have a very powerful influence on how you are treated,” he [a university investigator] said. [San Jose Mercury-News] Topsy-turvy indeed — who would have guessed such a thing? (& InsureBlog)
Food roundup
- New thinner-isn’t-healthier study should give pause [Paul Campos, NYT]
- Inspectors order Minnesota soda shop to yank candy cigarettes, bubble gum cigars [Daily Caller]
- Cleveland might have its own version of Pike Place or Reading Terminal Market, if not for… [Nick Gillespie]
- Regulators took it down: “San Francisco’s Libertarian Food Market Is Closing” [Baylen Linnekin]
- How brutal is vegetarianism to animals? [Mike Archer via Tyler Cowen]
- Crazy: S.F. mulls zoning ban on new restaurants to protect existing ones [Linnekin] How Chicago suppresses food trucks [Katherine Mangu-Ward]
- Federal calorie labeling rules will burden restaurants [Wash. Times]
The “lurid, tragicomic” back story behind Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles
Roger Parloff at Fortune is out with a great piece on the Texarkana, Ark. shenanigans that led up to the Supreme Court’s decision to hear a case challenging evasion of the reformist Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). I discuss at Cato at Liberty.
Civil liberties roundup
- Drones in domestic policing a liberty danger, warns NYT [editorial, earlier]
- When prosecutors freeze bank accounts, high-level targets can’t hire the best lawyers to defend themselves. Regrettable unintended etc. [Silverglate]
- On criminalizing false statements to federal agents [Scott Greenfield vs. Bill Otis]
- “Congress Has Enough Time to Keep Spying on You, Forever” [Matt Welch; Cato video with Julian Sanchez]
- More on Philadelphia forfeiture [John K. Ross, Reason, earlier]
- Homeland Security program: “Public Buses Across Country Quietly Adding Microphones to Record Passenger Conversations” [Kim Zetter/Wired via Fountain]
- Does Brooklyn indictment signal U.S. claim of universal jurisdiction over acts hostile to its foreign policy, anywhere in world? [Eugene Kontorovich/Volokh]
The ASPCA’s lawsuit debacle
I’m in this morning’s New York Post with an opinion piece about the thoroughgoing debacle the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) got itself into with a decade-long lawsuit charging mistreatment of elephants at the Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Circuses (earlier). Last month ASPCA agreed to pay Ringling’s owner $9.3 million to settle charges of litigation abuse. Other defendants in the countersuit, including the Humane Society of the U.S., have declined to settle and remain in the litigation.
Later in the piece I draw a parallel to the recently dismissed Hudson Farm litigation in Maryland, in which a judge lambasted Waterkeeper Alliance for shoddy litigation conduct in a Clean Water Act suit. Is it worth rethinking the whole policy, which dates back to 1970, of broad tax deductibility for suing people in “cause litigation”? Related from Ted Frank at Point of Law.
P.S. The comments section on the Post piece is more substantive than most, and includes a statement from HSUS. (& response from ASPCA head)
January 6 roundup
- U.S. v. I.E.V.: “Annals of Tremendously Entertaining Alex Kozinski Opinions” [Kyle Graham] Judge Kozinski on video [Above the Law]
- FTC drops Google antitrust probe [Eric Goldman, James Grimmelmann, Geoffrey Manne, earlier here, here]
- Andrew Trask picks 2012’s ten most significant class action cases and interesting class action articles;
- “I’m quite certain no adults need Patrick Kennedy – of all people – dictating what substances they’re allowed to consume.” [Glenn Greenwald]
- U.S. Chamber annual worst-lawsuits list [and DC Examiner editorial] Family of Little League teen sued by spectator hit by ball is grateful for public support [Manchester, N.J. Patch, earlier]
- “Boy, 6, suspended from Silver Spring school for pointing finger like a gun” [WaPo, followup (school reverses), Tim Lynch/Cato] Lenore Skenazy nominates the craziest Free-Range stories of 2012;
- Toyota’s $1.1 B class action pact will encourage future shakedowns [Michael Krauss/PoL, Public Citizen]
N.J.: Red light ticket camera class action
“The expected amount left over for affected motorists is just $6” and if motorists don’t file a claim, reversions go to defendant American Traffic Solutions (ATS). “More than 81,000 citations worth $10.2 million were issued in New Jersey through red light camera programs that were not in compliance with state law.” Lawyers who filed the suit are in line to collect $800,000. [The Newspaper; AnnMarie McDonald, NJLRA]
“Former Law Student Sues Head Shops for Selling Him Nitrous Oxide”
“A former California law student who suffered a spinal cord injury he attributes to nitrous oxide has sued three head shops that sold him the substance.” Jason Starn says after two months of steadily abusing the gas he developed Vitamin B-12 depletion, a side effect of overexposure to the compound. [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal; Sacramento Bee]