- Trial lawyer push to weaken MICRA, the medical damages cap, could spark most expensive ballot measure struggle in California history [Legal NewsLine]
- Why the FDA should lay off 23andMe [Robert Green and Nita Farahany, Nature via Volokh, earlier]
- SEIU to West Coast hospitals: play ball with our organizers or we’ll arrange to cap your execs’ pay [Bloomberg]
- Video of panel discussion on new book A Conspiracy Against ObamaCare [Randy Barnett et al., more]
- Louisiana high court throws out $330 million award to state, federal governments over marketing of Risperdal [NOLA.com/Times-Picayune, Eric Alexander/Drug and Device Law]
- “If Obamacare Doesn’t Kill Small Medical Practices, Bureaucratic ICD-10 Coding Requirements Might” [Tuccille]
- FDA goes after antibacterial soap. Wisely? [White Coat]
Archive for February, 2014
U.K.: “Policeman who smashed up pensioner’s car receives £400,000 compensation”
“A police officer branded a ‘laughing stock’ for using a truncheon to smash a pensioner’s car window was awarded more than £400,000 compensation from his former force on Wednesday.” Mike Baillon, 42, says colleagues at Gwent Police teased and hazed him after a YouTube video went viral showing him battering a 74-year-old driver’s Range Rover, amounting to “constructive dismissal.” [Telegraph]
FTC flexes its data-privacy powers
And goodbye to an Atlanta-based lab services business [Ed Hudgins, Atlas Business Rights Center] Law-enforcement-for-profit sidelight: according to owner Michael Daugherty, allegations of data insecurity at LabMD emanated from a private firm that held a Homeland Security contract to roam the web sniffing out data privacy gaps at businesses, even as it simultaneously offered those same businesses high-priced services to plug the complained-of gaps.
Maryland roundup
- Hearing set for February 26 on bill to ban knives and other weapons from private school parking lots and other property [Maryland Legislative Watch]
- Bill would join Ohio in banning hidden compartments in cars, but one legislative sponsor withdraws it following public outcry [MLW]
- Minimum wage a poor way to support working families [Todd Eberly]
- Italian-based gunmaker Beretta: “Maryland disrespects us and gun owners, so we expand in Tennessee” [Ugo Gussalli Beretta, Washington Times]
- Would a per-bird environmental tax, as proposed by two Montgomery County lawmakers, drive chicken farming out of the state? [DelmarvaNow, followup (governor pledges veto)]
- “The Parallel Failures of the Oregon and Maryland Health Exchanges” [Peter Suderman, Reason]
- State has resisted general tide toward dramshop (alcohol server) liability for misdeeds of drunken patrons; bill in Annapolis would change that [MLW, earlier]
Can a nanny state improve on personal choices?
Stephanie Francis Ward at the ABA Journal covers the panel discussion I participated in yesterday on local paternalism at the ABA Midyear in Chicago. The other panelists were Prof. Sarah Conly of Bowdoin College, author of Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism, and Chicago Alderman George Cardenas, sponsor of a proposal to tax soft drink sales in the city. It was hosted by the ABA’s Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division and moderated by Hawaii land use lawyer Robert Thomas, who has much more at his Inverse Condemnation blog.
Bullet overflight
Does it violate your rights when someone’s flying bullet enters your property? Should the law attempt to prohibit that? Or does it depend on the setting and customary land uses in the community? [Insurance Journal on Fla. law]
The short yellow light
It’s a “cash cow” for some red-light camera operators, say critics [WTKR]
A flawed IDEA
Author Philip K. Howard, who’s begun more regular blogging in connection with his forthcoming book The Rule of Nobody, wonders where the Congressional leader can be found with the courage to take on the failings of IDEA, the special-education law. [Common Good]
Pennsylvania moves to adopt a “Correctional Officers’ Bill of Rights”
One would think the whole concept of the union-backed “correctional officers’ bill of rights” might have been thrown into disrepute by last year’s Maryland scandal, in which the statute was found to have entrenched problem guards even as the Baltimore jail descended into a scandalous state of gang-run corruption. But apparently not: the Pennsylvania House has unanimously (!) voted in favor of having that state adopt its own such “bill of rights,” weakening administrators’ power to investigate possible officer misconduct. Details of H.B. 976 here.
Who decides which distressing speech ought to be made illegal?
Once again, a law professor has stepped up to inform us that we need to join much of Europe in attaching legal penalties to hurtful speech. This time one patient refutation comes from Michael Moynihan [Daily Beast] The idea is about as fresh and new as sleeve garters, notes Jonathan Rauch [Volokh/WaPo] Further rebuttal from Ken at Popehat and Scott Greenfield.