Disparate impact by way of location? “Four environmental groups announced a federal complaint Thursday alleging that North Carolina’s hog farms discriminate against ethnic minorities because the stench and pollution from the swine operations disproportionately affect African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans who live nearby.” [Raleigh News & Observer]
Archive for September, 2014
“Former intern drops lawsuit against David Letterman”
Mallory Musallam had been a plaintiff in a class-action suit seeking minimum wage and overtime against the talk-show host on behalf of former interns. Now she has apologized and withdrawn her name, saying “lawsuit-hungry attorneys” had approached her at “a weak vulnerable time, facing student debt” and talked her into taking part in an action whose exact nature she didn’t recognize. “I cannot apologize enough for this debacle. I do not believe in getting something for nothing — that’s not how I was raised.” Her “now-former lawyer, Lloyd Ambinder, did not return a call for comment.” [N.Y. Daily News]
Next Wednesday: Cato Constitution Day event
Registration is open only until Monday for one of the Cato Institute’s premier annual events, the annual Supreme Court symposium celebrating Constitution Day and the publication of what will be the thirteenth annual Cato Supreme Court Review. The theme of the all-day event is “Past and Prologue,” looking back to the 2013 term and forward to the next, and panelists include Nadine Strossen, Tom Goldstein, Michael Carvin, and Eric Rassbach, as well as familiar Cato names like Roger Pilon, Ilya Shapiro, and Trevor Burrus. The program concludes with the annual B. Kenneth Simon Lecture, this year given by the Hon. Diane Sykes, judge on the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, who will discuss “Judicial Minimalism and Its Limits.” A reception follows. Register here.
September 12 roundup
- ObamaCare, Common Core, EPA policy all raise specter of federal commandeering of state governments [Richard Epstein and Mario Loyola, The Atlantic] Vocally supporting Common Core, William Bennett provides new reasons to be queasy about it [Neal McCluskey, Cato]
- Mom lets six-year-old play within sight of his own front door. Then Child Protective Services arrives [Haiku of the Day]
- Study finds no evidence California cellphone ban reduced accidents [The Newspaper]
- Or maybe if you’ve been in good health for 13 years it’s okay to let the grievance slide: pols, union leaders urge unimpaired WTC rescuers to enroll for possible future compensation [AP/WCBS]
- “Thomson Reuters Thinks Not Responding To Their Email Means You’ve Freely Licensed All Your Content” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- New frontiers in urban expropriation: San Francisco imposes crushing new “relocation assistance” burden on rental owners [Pacific Legal Foundation]
- A lesson in standing up for individual liberty, and not being discouraged by setbacks [my Cato Institute piece on Lillian Gobitis Klose’s flag-pledge case, Donald Boudreaux/Cafe Hayek]
Much more than Citizens United
This week forty-eight senators are seeking to amend the Bill of Rights so as to give the government more power to control campaign speech. While some advocates pretend that the effect of the amendment would “only” be to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, it would actually go a good bit farther than that. [Jacob Sullum, Reason; George Will; Trevor Burrus at Forbes (“political stunt,” yet “terrifying”); related, David Boaz]
Michael Krauss on Chevron/Ecuador
The George Mason law professor favorably reviews one of the two new books on the case, Michael Goldhaber’s Crude Awakening. After Prof. Krauss wrote on the litigation in March, he says, the government of Ecuador unsuccessfully tried to pressure Forbes to retract the piece. Earlier (Glenn Garvin on the William Langewiesche Vanity Fair piece), generally, and related (takedown attempts).
Police and prosecution roundup
- Enviro activists unlawfully block coal ship, Massachusetts prosecutor expresses approval by dropping charges [James Taranto, Jacob Gershman/WSJ Law Blog, ABA Journal]
- Unfortunately-named Mr. Threatt charged with “robbery that happened while he was in jail” [Baltimore Sun via @amyalkon]
- “How conservative, tough-on-crime Utah reined in police militarization” [Evan McMorris-Santoro, BuzzFeed] More: What if we needed it someday? San Diego Unified School District defends acquisition of armored vehicle [inewsource.org] And Senate hearing [AP]
- “Machine-based traffic-ticketing systems are running amok” [David Kravets, ArsTechnica]
- Thanks, Fraternal Order of Police, for protecting jobs of rogue Philadelphia cops who could cost taxpayers millions [Ed Krayewski; related earlier]
- Study: returning from 6- to 12-person juries could iron out many racial anomalies at trial [Anwar et al, Tabarrok]
- Courts can help curb overcriminalization by revitalizing rule of lenity, mens rea requirement [Steven Smith]
Stuart Taylor, Jr. on the Wisconsin John Doe probe
For those of you following the politicized Wisconsin John Doe prosecution — which basically is premised on the idea that even issue advocacy is criminal if coordinated among the wrong people — this report from veteran legal analyst Stuart Taylor, Jr. is pretty amazing. [Legal NewsLine, my two cents from May, more]
More: Ann Althouse parses the response of John Chisholm’s lawyer.
“But the Supreme Court has its own buffer zone…”
Whichever way you come down on the sidewalk-buffer-zone series of cases, it’s time to retire the wheeze about how the U.S. Supreme Court is supposedly being inconsistent by not inviting protesters up really close to its entrance doors — though the taunt does conceal something of a genuine point about how smaller, poorer organizations are more likely to have to put up with the annoyances and inconveniences of public space and its concomitant public forum doctrine, as they also do when the forums involved are public parks or schools [Eugene Volokh, earlier]
Medical roundup
- ObamaCare challenge: D.C. Circuit vacates Halbig decision for en banc rehearing [Roger Pilon, earlier]
- ACLU and SEIU California affiliates oppose trial lawyers’ higher-damages-plus-drug-testing Proposition 46 [No On 46, earlier] As does Sacramento Bee in an editorial;
- Rethinking the use of patient restraints in hospitals [Ravi Parikh, Atlantic; legal fears not mentioned, however]
- Certificate of need regulation: “I didn’t know the state of Illinois had a standard for the maximum permissible size of a hospital room.” [John Cochrane]
- In China, according to a study by Benjamin Liebman of Columbia Law School, hired malpractice mobs “consistently extract more money from hospitals than legal proceedings do” [Christopher Beam, The New Yorker]
- Overview of (private-lawyer-driven) municipal suits on painkiller marketing [John Schwartz, New York Times, earlier] More: Chicago’s contingency deal with Cohen Milstein on opioid lawsuit [LNL] More: Rob Green, Abnormal Use.
- “So In The End, The VA Was Rewarded, Not Punished” [Coyote]