Supreme Court liberals smack around the Obama Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), even as they hand a win to a pregnancy-bias plaintiff. I’ve got a write-up at Cato at Liberty. More: Josh Blackman.
Archive for 2015
Target data breach class settlement
The Target Corporation’s settlement of class action litigation over a major consumer data security breach is not as groundbreaking as all that, and in particular falls far short of the enormous liability payouts that were being talked of for a while [Paul Karlsgodt; Minnesota Public Radio] It does however feature attorney’s fee payouts “not to exceed $6.75 million, which is on the high end of the historical range” [Paul Bond, Lisa Kim, and Christine Czuprynski, Reed Smith] Earlier here. More: Randy Maniloff, Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
Best blogs for conservatives
Thanks to Theodore Kettle for naming Overlawyered as number 14 of his list of 50, and Cato at Liberty, where my work appears regularly, as number 25.
Likelihood of Moose confusion?
Outdoorsy Lake George, N.Y., has several local businesses with moose-related names. So “when John Carr, the owner of the local Adirondack Pub & Brewery, wanted to come up with a fun name several years ago for his home-crafted root beer, he settled on — what else? — Moose Wizz.” When he tried to register the name as a trademark, however, he drew a lawsuit from Canadian brewer Moosehead, which says the soft drink’s name and label of a grinning cartoon-like moose creates likelihood of confusion. [National Post]
Law-school-related opinion pieces that left me unconvinced
From a Harvard lawprof: were today’s abundance of law schools to give way in part to a revived clerkship/apprentice model, American law would develop more slowly and organically than it does now, besides which where’d we train our philosopher-monarchs? [Noah Feldman, Bloomberg View] You can buy my recent book Schools for Misrule (including a Kindle download version) here.
March 25 roundup
- Yikes: Nevada supreme court is nearly broke because it relies on traffic ticket revenue and cops are writing fewer [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
- Forced marriage in immigrant communities happening not just in places like English Midlands, but in U.S. as well; those who assist resistant teenage girls risk “aiding delinquent minor” charges [Washington Post]
- “Posner informs pro se litigant that the queen of England did not absolve him of need to pay taxes” [ABA Journal]
- Panel at Federalist Society on president’s power not to enforce the law [Randy Barnett, background on panel]
- Inside grand jury’s investigation of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane [Philadelphia Inquirer] “Referral fees paid to wife of former Pa. Supreme Court justice questioned” [Harrisburg Patriot-News]
- Have you or a loved one been attacked by a Zebra? [Arkansas Matters] “Louisiana Man on Trial for Murder Says He Thought the Victim Was an Alligator” [People]
- Sneaky Oregon law will divert unclaimed class action dollars to legal aid and not incidentally boost legal fees [Sen. Betsy Johnson, East Oregonian]
Mark Calabria on publicly owned banks
Ideas for publicly owned banks are back in circulation in Colorado, Seattle, and elsewhere, and they remain bad ideas [Mark Calabria, American Banker]
“When your $1.4 billion case rests on six documents…”
The road to Overlawyered
Searches that have brought visitors to Overlawyered.com over the past week: “spanking for insurance fraud” “i feel guilty as i got a item free as cashier did not scan it in” “what good is a low flow toilet that’s not high performance?” and “having trouble with cant believe its not butter melting.”
International law roundup
- Coming up this Friday and Saturday Mar. 27-28 in D.C., Federalist Society holds star-filled conference on Treaties and National Sovereignty at George Washington University [Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz]
- Trade agreements are being promoted as extending progressive labor and environmental policies around the globe, hmmm [Simon Lester, related] Courts in European nations urged to use Charter to promote affirmative welfare rights, strike down laws liberalizing labor markets [Council of Europe]
- “Croatian-Serb war offenses litigated under Illinois and Virginia conversion/trespass tort law” [Volokh]
- “Did the Supreme Court Implicitly Reverse Kiobel’s Corporate Liability Holding?” [Julian Ku]
- “There Is No National Home for Art” (Kwame Anthony Appiah on cultural patrimony and antiquities repatriation, NYT “Room for Debate”, related Ku on Elgin Marbles; my take on the collectible-coin angle; earlier here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.]
- British government alleges human rights lawyers continued to pursue claims against British military over Iraq even after evidence of probable falsity emerged [Telegraph]
- Treaties the Senate has blocked tend to be aspirational fantasies [Ted Bromund]