Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2015

Obama nears final overtime decree

The unilateral measure, which does not require Congressional approval, will raise “from $23,660 to as much as $52,000 the threshold below which workers must be paid overtime.” Don’t expect low-wage workers to benefit: “[B]usinesses offset new overtime costs with lower base wages. One recent study found that workers pay for 80 percent of overtime costs through such base wage cuts.” That doesn’t mean it’s a wash, though: “The change will kill flexible schedules for entry- and mid-level salaried employees.” [James Sherk, Daily Signal] And the measure’s true target, as with so much union-backed labor regulation, is the upwardly mobile job seeker: “Ambitious workers intent on proving their value by taking on extra responsibilities will be severely hobbled in their ability to do so, and instead be reduced to time-clock punchers.” [J.C. Tuccille, Reason]

We covered this truly awful idea at some length last year.

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Orange County lowers the boom on Axe

“Recently, the consumer protection unit of the Orange County (CA) District Attorney’s Office filed suit against Unilever, parent company of AXE, accusing the company of fudging the packaging of its male grooming products.” The charges, which were filed concomitantly with a proposed settlement the same day, do not claim that Axe misstated the quantity of product contained by weight, but say its packaging employed “false bottoms, false sidewalls, false lids or false coverings” which “serve no legitimate purpose and mislead consumers as to the amount of product contained in the containers. …Apparently, the DA has never purchased a bag of potato chips.” It is unclear from the coverage whether Orange County consumers were constrained from ascertaining how much product was in one of the packages by, say, lifting it to see how heavy it was, or looking at the number of ounces on the label. In settlement (the same day) of the charges, the company agreed to pay $750,000 to Orange County and $24,000 to its D.A.’s office, and to take out ads in various California newspapers with $3 coupons good off a consumer purchase of Axe. [Nick Farr, Abnormal Use; Orange County Register]

The Orange County district attorney’s office under Tony Rackauckas is emerging as an Overlawyered favorite, having knocked an impressive $16 million out of Toyota in the sudden-acceleration affair even though the cars in question do not suddenly accelerate, of which $4 million went to a locally influential tort attorney; the office has also kept mum about arrangements it has with tort attorneys. And of course Rackauckas’s office has lately been embroiled in one of the nation’s most prominent scandals of prosecutorial abuse (with retaliation angle).

P.S. Oh, and here is coverage of “slack fill” class action suits organized by private lawyers against both Unilever/Axe and competitor Procter & Gamble, confirming that this wasn’t exactly a solitary frolic on the county’s part. More: Amy Alkon.

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A shared-driveway neighbor war

“Thus passed another tense moment in what local officials say has become the town of Chevy Chase’s lengthiest, costliest, and most litigious neighborhood spat in recent memory. What began as a contested building permit six years ago has spiraled into a clash of wills, spawning five lawsuits, two misdemeanor convictions, arrests, anger-management classes, and a [no-contact] court order.” [Terrence McCoy, Washington Post] Last month we noted what one resident called the “farcically overregulated” state of land use controls in the affluent Maryland community, which is located just over the border from Northwest D.C.

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Disabled rights roundup

  • Per The Economist, long-awaited Justice Department rules decreeing ADA accessibility for websites (earlier here, here, etc.) expected any day now, “in June. For example, each picture must have text describing it, so that screen-reader programs can tell blind people what is there.” Individual enforcement actions, as against Peapod, aren’t waiting [DoJ press release] Settlement with MOOC firm signals DOJ plans to deal with online education providers [Cooley] Contributor believes it’s a snap to include online captioning in all online Harvard and MIT courses, so what’re they waiting for? [Time]
  • Rest of the Economist article is of interest too, especially on ADA filing mills in Florida and elsewhere;
  • In Sheehan v. San Francisco, Ninth Circuit created right to ADA accommodation in confrontations with law enforcers, SCOTUS reversed on other (qualified immunity) grounds [Mark Pulliam, City Journal; Richard Re, Prawfs]
  • Commemorations of 25th anniversary of the ADA — here’s what I had to say about the 20th — include plans “to hold [various Chicago institutions] publicly accountable for their commitments” to, inter alia, “increase civic engagement around disability issues” [Michael Waterstone, Prawfs]
  • Sacramento: “Squeeze Inn owner joins fight against costly ADA lawsuits” [KCRA]
  • Spread of fake service dog paraphernalia alarms groups that work with actual service dogs [BBC]
  • Intended class-action plaintiff sues McDonald’s over new style Coca-Cola Freestyle dispensers, saying touchscreen format unfair to disabled users [BigClassAction.com]

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143 Texas bikers in jail

Some of the 143 jailed bikers no doubt played a guilty role in a spectacular motorcycle club shootout that left nine dead at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. Some say they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, including a 30 year old volunteer firefighter who says he has no criminal record and tried to hide during the violence. In either event, no one important seems to care, although some defense-lawyer and civil-liberties types grouse about an “unprecedented…wholesale roundup of people” for “being at the scene of a crime” under a principle of “Let’s arrest them all and sort it out later.” Bail for many has been set at a prohibitive $1 million apiece, and no formal charges have been brought. “Under Texas law, a grand jury has 90 days to indict those in custody before they are entitled to reduced bonds.” Police say they consider the matter to be one of organized crime and that an investigation is ongoing. [Molly Hennessy-Fiske, L.A. Times] More: Scott Greenfield. Update: Texas Tribune (bail process crawls forward, more commentators raising questions about process).

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June 10 roundup

  • Alan Dershowitz, Harvard lawprof, suing TD Garden over slip and fall in bathroom three years back [Boston Globe]
  • “Harsh Sanction Proposed For Attorney Who Blogged About Probate Case” [Mike Frisch, Legal Profession Blog]
  • Maryland veto sets back reform: “Governor Hogan, Civil Asset Forfeiture Is Inherently Abusive” [Adam Bates, Cato]
  • “‘Vape’ bans have little to do with public health” [Jacob Grier, Oregonian in February]
  • Academics prosper through expert witness work, part one zillion [Ira Stoll]
  • Sounds good: call for civil procedure reform includes fact-based pleading, strict discovery limits, case-specific rules, and more [Jordy Singer, Prawfs, on recommendations from American College of Trial Lawyers Task Force on Discovery and Civil Justice and Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System]
  • Draft plan would arm FTC with vast power over data practices [James C. Cooper, Morning Consult, via @geoffmanne]

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Paid leave laws often backfire

Laws prescribing maternal and child care leave and benefits often backfire on their intended beneficiaries, reducing employer willingness to hire workers expected to take the benefits. That’s not exactly news to those familiar with the economic way of thinking; what’s noteworthy is that it’s something being reported in the New York Times, which cites a law in Spain that entitles parents to ask for reduced hours and has led to a reduced willingness to employ mothers, and a child-care mandate in Chile that has been followed by a decline in starting wages for women, as well as much noncompliance. “A broader analysis of 22 countries found that women were more likely to work when these types of policies are in place, but their jobs more likely to be ‘dead-end’ positions and less likely to be managerial posts.” America’s own Family and Medical Leave Act, often thought to be less burdensome because leave is unpaid, has not been exempt from the logic: “Women are slightly more likely to stay employed, but receive fewer promotions because of the law, according to research cited by the New York Times.” The Times says the “three American states — California, New Jersey and Rhode Island — that offer paid family leave finance it through employee payroll taxes,” which tends to make it a little more explicit that the cost of the benefits is coming largely out of compensation packages. [Nicole Kaeding, Cato; Claire Cain Miller, “The Upshot,” New York Times]

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