- Following vindication, Mark Cuban begins transcribing transcripts of other SEC trials on his blog [Blog Maverick, background] “Why Settling With The SEC Can Be Worse Than Losing At Trial” [John J. Carney, David Choi and Francesca Harker]
- Congress needs to investigate whether administration browbeat Standard & Poor’s over sovereign debt rating [John McGinnis]
- As regs squeeze banks out of small business lending, will we like non-bank alternatives as well? [John Cochrane] More: Kevin Funnell;
- Cash business can’t bank its proceeds: “Robber gangs terrorize Colorado pot shops” [NBC News]
- “Will Plaintiff Lawyers Cut Down On The Choices In Your 401(k)?” [Daniel Fisher]
- Does Delaware have an incentive to keep securities lawyers happy with big fees? [Bainbridge]
- “It’s Time To Grill the Federal Reserve About Bitcoin” [Ira Stoll]
Archive for February, 2014
Taxpayer trips over IRS phone cord, cont’d
Lowering the Bar has a closer look at the medical basis of that $862,000 judgment on Long Island. “Did the judge add a zero by mistake?”
“At some campuses the accuser’s having had one drink…”
“…is sufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt” [James Taranto on campus assault regulations, the federal influence on which we have discussed often in this space, e.g. here, here, and here] More: Greenfield.
Related: “More grotesque sex hearings at Yale” [KC Johnson, Minding the Campus]
Nanny state roundup
- Sock puppets: U.K. and E.U. governments both fund public advocacy campaigns on paternalism themes, effectively lobbying themselves at taxpayer expense. Sounds kinda familiar [Christopher Snowdon on Institute for Economic Affairs studies]
- Federal government, in the form of the CDC, wishes your doctor would nag you more about your drinking [Jacob Sullum, more]
- “$10m look into games and gun violence a bust” [Rob Beschizza; Mike Rose, Gamasutra; related, Scott Shackford]
- Assumption of risk won a round at the California Supreme Court a year ago in a case on amusement park bumper cars [S.F. Chronicle, ABA Journal, related on Disneyland teacups] J.D. Tuccille on motorcycle risks [Reason]
- As a country Australia is known for freedom, so why’s it a leader in enacting bans? [Vivienne Crompton, IPA “Freedom Watch”]
- “Maine’s unwise and unconstitutional ban on disclosing the alcohol content of beers” [Jonathan Adler]
- FDA mandate on removal of nicotine could benefit head regulator’s former client [Jacob Grier] Glaxo SmithKline, Johnson & Johnson also push bans on e-cigarettes, which compete with their nicotine therapies [Tim Carney] AGs from 24 states (AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, ME, MD, MS, MT, NH, NM, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, VT, WA) write FDA urging ban on menthol in cigarettes [CSPNet] “Cigarette Sin-Tax Hike Could Boost Black Markets” [Steven Greenhut] Brendan O’Neill on secondhand smoke [Reason]
D.C. Circuit strikes down IRS attempt to license tax preparers
It’s a win for small tax return preparers and a loss both for unilateral assertions of agency power (Congress had never given the Internal Revenue Service the power it claimed here) and for big national tax-prep chains, which had supported the regulation with a view to suppressing “kitchen table” competitors. Andrew Grossman analyzes for Cato, and the Institute for Justice, representing independent tax preparers, can take due credit for a big legal win.
More: H & R Block’s CEO — of course! — is unhappy. And John Steele Gordon explains the role of the Horse Act of 1884.
Speech to ABA on nanny state and Bloomberg soda ban
You can watch here (earlier). Related videos, including those of the other panelists, at the American Bar Association site.
Meanwhile, even former enthusiasts are beginning to give up on the “food desert” theory — opening a supermarket nearby does little to change unhealthy diet habits. So guess what’s next? Yep, calls for more and stronger intervention [Ann Althouse].
Feds to extract $1 billion from Toyota over non-runaway cars
Imagine how much they might have gotten if the cars had actually been suddenly accelerating! “Do We Really Want To Regulate This Way?” asks Daniel Fisher [Forbes]
February 11 roundup
- If you’ve answered a consumer survey about which pharmaceuticals you take, you may be hearing from this guy’s staff [Paul Barrett, Business Week on mass tort “lead generator”]
- Jury awards $9 million to Vancouver, Wash. man imprisoned for 20 years after wrongful child abuse conviction [Insurance Journal; The Columbian/Seattle Times 2009]
- Product liability: jury awards $18 million in fatal fire attributed to altered space heater [Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, outcome subject to confidential agreement]
- $500 million California verdict in competition case between two drug companies [Kyle White, Abnormal Use, Daniel Fisher (Actelion case)]
- Short film tackles city of Detroit’s decline, GM bailout, with commentary from bank economist David Littmann, Todd Zywicki [“Bankrupt”]
- Hardee’s CEO: Easier to open a new restaurant in Shanghai than in Los Angeles [Legal NewsLine]
- Fooled ya! “I intend to reverse” trend of President bypassing Congress to bring power into executive branch, said Obama in 2008 [Tom Rogan/The Week, Jim Powell/Forbes] Constitutional issues of federal contractor minimum wage executive order [Eugene Kontorovich and followup, On Labor, Gene Healy, Peter Kirsanow]
Judge flays California fire agency for lawsuit conduct
“In a blistering ruling against Cal Fire, a judge in Plumas County has found the agency guilty of ‘egregious and reprehensible conduct’ in its response to the 2007 Moonlight fire and ordered it to pay more than $30 million in penalties, legal fees and costs to Sierra Pacific Industries and others accused in a Cal Fire lawsuit of causing the fire. … Sierra Pacific, the largest private landowner in California, was blamed by state and federal officials for the blaze, with a key report finding it was started by a spark from the blade of a bulldozer belonging to a company working under contract for Sierra Pacific.” The company has contended that the cause determination was reached in haste and pursued with an eye to extracting legal proceeds for an agency-run settlement fund later found to be illegal. [Sacramento Bee; Robert Hilson, Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists]
“New car smell” blamed for fatal accident
Police in Santa Cruz, Calif. say the driver of a new Tesla had fallen asleep at the wheel last November when his car struck and killed a bicyclist. 63-year-old retired tech executive Navindra Kumar Jain told police that “new car smell” had caused him to nod off and that there were no other mechanical problems with the vehicle. A lawsuit filed by the victim’s family names both Tesla and Jain as defendants. [Santa Cruz Sentinel, San Jose Mercury-News, San Francisco Chronicle]