The driverless car, it’s increasingly clear, is a technology with transformative potential, and among its key advantages would be its promise in reducing accident rates. Yet without attention to liability reform the progress could stall, according to Megan McArdle. “Even if the overall number of accidents drops, the number of accidents where the automaker is perceived to be at fault will approach 100 percent.” Would a massive, New Zealand-style effort to replace the whole tort system do better? [Bloomberg; more on New Zealand no-fault compensation here, here; the original 1967 Woodhouse report here]
Archive for September, 2013
Gun permits for the blind
Assuming gun ownership should be licensed at all — a big if — there are imaginable scenarios in which a legally blind person might legitimately fire a gun in self-defense or participate in target shooting at a range. Wisconsin is even said to smile officially on hunting by blind persons, presumably to the benefit of those visually impaired who can distinguish partridge sounds in the underbrush from people sounds. To officials in Iowa, however, the issue is pre-decided: “State law bans officials from discriminating against the blind on the basis of their disability, and hence a gun permit cannot be denied solely on that basis, officials tell the [Des Moines Register].” [ABA Journal, Daily Caller [Wisconsin], Lowering the Bar]
Labor and employment roundup
- “Will banning tips prevent lawsuits? Some restaurants give it a try” [ABA Journal]
- “CEOs Beware: You’re Now in the Crosshairs of a Wage and Hour Complaint Under FLSA” [Connecticut Employment Law Blog/Daniel Schwartz, who’s just switched law firms]
- “Court: First Amendment protections don’t allow unions to engage in nuisance lawsuits” [Sean Higgins, D.C. Examiner]
- Judge rules strippers at club are employees, not independent contractors as management claimed [NY Times]
- Judge strikes down new Indiana right-to-work law, appeal to Indiana Supreme Court expected [WXIN] Court (again) upholds Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 on public sector union bargaining [Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Business Journal]
- 1973 SCOTUS case of U.S. v. Enmons carves out convenient exception in federal extortion law for labor unions [Mark Mix; David Kendrick, Cato 1998]
- “State Department Says Unionizing Its Foreign National Workers Would Threaten Security” [Government Executive]
Licensed to grill
CBS New York reports breathlessly on underground dinner parties in New York — people invite strangers into their homes! And charge them money! — and quotes an ex-official who says it should be illegal unless they get a restaurant-type license. [CBS New York (auto-plays video ad), Shackford] Radley Balko, on Twitter: “Reporter astonished that New Yorkers invite people into their homes for dinner without notifying the local politburo.” More: J.D. Tuccille.
Just to be maximally unhelpful
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, who is also a University of Arizona law professor, weighs in on the tribal side in Baby Veronica case [Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, earlier] Last year we discussed Mr. Anaya’s scolding of the U.S. government on Indian land claim issues. Just last week another official in the U.N. human rights apparatus upbraided the United States for hesitating to expose acquitted George Zimmerman to double jeopardy in the Trayvon Martin shooting.
“Is Money Speech?”
Eugene Volokh in a Federalist Society video on campaign regulation and the First Amendment. A dissent: Scott Greenfield.
P.S. Beware of setting up a state-level group to promote controversial views on issues, even if promoting candidates is not your primary purpose [Adler on cert petition in Corsi v. Ohio Elections Commission]
Speaking on the nanny state and food policy
I’m back from a speaking swing through Nebraska. At the University of Nebraska College of Law in Lincoln, I spoke about food and drink paternalism as exemplified by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s initiatives in New York, with Prof. Steven Willborn providing a counterpoint from a more liberal perspective. At Creighton University Law School in Omaha, I spoke (as I often do) on the ideological state of the law schools, drawing on my 2011 book Schools for Misrule, with commentary from Profs. Ralph Whitten and Sara Stadler.
Both events were well attended but I was especially pleased at the strong turnout for the talk in Lincoln on food and the nanny state, a new speech I hadn’t tried out before on a general audience. Here’s a description:
The public is increasingly in revolt against “nanny state” interventions, from Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt to limit soda sizes in New York, to efforts to ban Happy Meals in San Francisco. Some thinkers dismiss concern about paternalism as merely trivial and personal, not on a par with issues acknowledged as “serious” such as police abuse, free speech, surveillance, and the proper functioning of the legal system. Left unchecked, however, the project of paternalism quickly generates very serious problems in each of those other areas: it gives police and enforcers great arbitrary power, hands a special government megaphone to some speakers while stifling others, funnels uncomfortably personal information into government hands, and fuels abusive litigation. No matter what you think of potato chips, if your interests are in liberty and good government, you should be paying attention.
I’m next scheduled to speak on the food police Sept. 23 at a Heritage Foundation panel discussion with Baylen Linnekin, Nita Ghei, and J. Justin Wilson, hosted by Daren Bakst. Details here. More on my fall speaking schedule here.
Procedure roundup
- How procedural improvements could help curb speculative and abusive lawsuits [Stuart Taylor, Jr., American Spectator, recommending Prof. Donald Elliott’s plan for judicial pre-screening of complaints; Richard Reinsch]
- Proposed revisions to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure would curtail depositions, interrogatories [ABA Journal, more; Wajert] Better use of incentives could reduce costs of discovery [Rebecca Womeldorf, WLF]
- “The ‘e’ in e-mail might as well stand for evidence” — Bloomberg’s Norm Pearlstine at Google Big Tent DC [@jeffjohnroberts]
- Contracting around litigation rules: “Why Is Privatized Procedure So Rare?” [Dave Hoffman]
- Walden v. Fiore: “Cert grant for civ pro buffs” [Ann Althouse; more on constitutional limits on personal jurisdiction from Stephen Sachs via Linda Mullenix, Jotwell via Will Baude]
- California, Wisconsin toughen up lax rules on expert witness admissibility [Bernstein, more] Florida moves to adopt Daubert gatekeeping standard [Maggie Tamburro, Bullseye, William Bissett/Lauren Soble]
- Lawyer disciplinary proceedings make good occasion for noticing that vague notice pleading can trample defendants’ due process interest, but will anyone apply the lesson beyond lawyers? [John Steele, Legal Ethics Forum]
Liability and ride-sharing services
After a road collision, what happens when plaintiffs begin adding ride-matchmakers Uber or Lyft or RelayRides as a defendant, on grounds of inadequate screening or some other theory? [Emily Badger, Atlantic Cities]
Colorado recalls; NYC voters spurn Eliot Spitzer
Next time someone says big money calls all the shots in American politics, remember that an 8-1 money advantage fueled by Michael Bloomberg and other national donors wasn’t enough to save the seats of two lawmakers who’d helped push a gun-control package through the Colorado Senate, thus infuriating constituents in a marginal Colorado Springs district and in the blue-collar Democratic stronghold of Pueblo. [Denver Post, David Kopel, Volokh Conspiracy, The Denver Channel]
Meanwhile, New York City Democratic primary voters decided against nominating whited sepulcher Eliot Spitzer as the city’s next comptroller, thus foiling Spitzer’s plan to get his hands on billions of pension fund dollars with which to engage in grandstanding and litigation [WABC, Lawrence Cunningham]
P.S. Less happily, voters in Richmond, Calif. are going to let the city administration proceed with a scheme to seize underwater mortgages by use of eminent domain [Daniel Fisher, more, earlier]