Things to blame: the killer, jihadist ideology. Things not to blame: America and its attitudes on gays. My new post at Ricochet. Earlier on the Orlando Pulse nightclub attack here.
Archive for June, 2016
Fear of Thiel and the case for litigation reform
“Angry about Peter Thiel’s pursuit of Gawker? Tort reform is the best solution.” Sonny Bunch of the Free Beacon is kind enough to quote me at length (and quote my debut book, The Litigation Explosion, at length too) in this Washington Post opinion piece.
…members of the media are finally starting to realize something that conservatives have been arguing for quite some time with regard to our litigious culture, namely that the process itself is the punishment….
One of the causes that Olson argued most strenuously for in his book [The Litigation Explosion] was a more aggressive regime of fee shifting — that is, crafting and enforcing “loser-pays” laws common in other countries. Given that he literally wrote the book on the topic, I emailed him and asked how news outlets could work to avoid ruin at the hands of the vengeful wealthy….
If you wonder how loser-pays might have helped Gawker even though Hulk Hogan’s case was a winner, you need to read the link. More: Andrew Kloster and Jessica Higa, Daily Signal.
“Dropping pine cones, proceed at your own risk”
Secret Service employees illegally accessed lawmaker’s private data in hopes of discrediting him
41 (!) Secret Service employees have been disciplined following revelations that agency insiders illegally accessed private data on Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who had been critical of the service, in hopes of embarrassing or discrediting him. [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]
Thought for the day: A nation of laws
“We live in a nation of laws, in the same way people on “Hoarders” live in houses of cat food boxes” — David Burge on Twitter
Roy Pearson, pants judge, could face ethics charges — seven years later
“A former D.C. administrative judge who in 2005 filed a $54 million lawsuit against a dry-cleaning business over a pair of missing pants, becoming a national symbol for frivolous litigation, could face disciplinary action by the D.C. Court of Appeals for alleged misconduct in the case.” [Washington Post, Kelly Phillips Erb/Forbes, earlier] “As to the seven year delay in prosecution, the usual response: No harm, no foul” [Mike Frisch, Legal Profession Blog] More: Lowering the Bar.
Court tosses Paul Brodeur suit over American Hustle microwave scene
Some Overlawyered readers may be familiar with the work of longtime New York writer Paul Brodeur, whose best known book was a critique of the asbestos industry and who went on to write books about what were in some cases less widely accepted public health risks, such as electrical transmission lines. Now an appeals court in California has dismissed a lawsuit Brodeur brought “over a scene in the 2013 film, American Hustle, where defending the notion that microwaves take the nutrition out of food, Jennifer Lawrence comments, ‘It’s not [B.S.]. I read it in an article. Look, by Paul Brodeur.'” Defendants portrayed the film as a “screwball comedy” which explicitly added fictional elements to the real-world ABSCAM scandal, and Lawrence’s character as one whose statements were portrayed as unreliable. The judge cited a number of other factors, including Brodeur’s legal status as a public figure and well-known commentator in the 1970s. [Hollywood Reporter]
Wage and hour roundup
- “President Obama says there is ‘no solid evidence’ [that higher minimum wages kill jobs]. Yes there is — lots of it.” [Tyler Cowen channeling David Neumark etc.] “The minimum wage arose in the early 20th century as a Progressive policy designed to [harm] low-wage workers,” and it worked [Deirdre McCloskey]
- “The car wash industry: a case study of how the $15 minimum wage will destroy immigrant jobs” [Jim Epstein, Reason] “Weak Enforcement Will Blunt the Impact of New York’s $15 Minimum Wage” [same] District of Columbia jumps with its own $15 law [Charles Hughes, Cato]
- Ugly Betty, stranded in Queens? New overtime edict could cut off entry-level jobs in fields like fashion journalism [New York Times] New overtime regs draw fire from one left-leaning group whose own paid canvassing operations are affected, PIRG (Public Interest Research Group);
- New York attorney general, in legal action, seeks to hold Domino’s liable for franchisees’ alleged wage underpayment [Reuters]
- Millions of workers had better get used to time sheets or corresponding apps from now on [Bill Pokorny, SHRM via Steve Miller on Twitter] Travel time will make an added complication [Daniel Schwartz] A “‘deer-in-the-headlights moment’ for small businesses” [Akin Oyedele, Business Insider]
- Will Republicans in Congress block the overtime rule? [Connor Wolf, Daily Caller] Or will Congress take the less principled step of merely exempting itself? [Veronique de Rugy, earlier]
Will right to work laws survive in a post-Scalia Court?
“Organized labor is laying the groundwork for an aggressive legal challenge to right-to-work laws, one that essentially would invalidate most state versions of the law.” When unions sought to overturn Indiana’s newly enacted right to work law, the Seventh Circuit upheld it but split 5-5 over rehearing of the case, a surprisingly close outcome. [Sean Higgins, Washington Examiner]
The Orlando Pulse nightclub attack
Following the most lethal terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, I will set law and policy aside for this post.
Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce, Fla., known to the FBI as an Islamic State sympathizer and twice the subject of previous investigations, entered Orlando gay nightclub Pulse around 2 a.m. Sunday morning heavily armed and killed 50 persons after taking hostages. Authorities called his attack “well organized and well prepared”; Mateen had firearms training and according to reports had been scoping out gay clubs in the area before the attack.
As in two earlier attacks on American soil — those against a cartoon exhibition in Garland, Texas, and in San Bernardino, California — Mateen used contemporaneous public media (in this case, a 911 call) to pledge his allegiance to the leadership of Islamic State. As Rukmini Callimachi notes in today’s New York Times, this follows a protocol announced by Islamic State for independent fighters acting in sympathy with IS. A few hours later an Islamic State news agency hailed Mateen as an IS fighter, effectively accepting his pledge of allegiance.
The group’s head has urged followers in the West to act without prompting or coordination, selecting targets and employing attack methods in line with instructions published by IS. For example, IS has recommended capturing hostages and holding them in a sealed off space, which makes it likely that a prolonged siege situation will develop for maximum media interest, and that the attacker will die in an eventual police operation, reducing the likelihood of intelligence debriefing following a capture. As at the Bataclan in Paris, the passage of a long period before police rescue arrives tends to augur poorly for victims’ chances of survival.
The instructions-for-lone-wolves model is intended precisely to obviate the need for IS to know of or direct its supporters’ actions in advance. “The fact that there is no link back to the core is *by design* and is intended to protect the organization in an age of surveillance,” writes Callimachi on Twitter.
If you weren’t thinking of Gay Pride Month in a major American tourism city as a likely target for murderous jihadist attack, you should be. As Karol Markowicz writes on Twitter, “Just like it wasn’t a random ‘bunch of folks in a deli in Paris’, let’s not pretend it was a random bunch of folks in a club in Orlando.” If you’re gay, Islamic State’s ideology wants to kill you, even more than it wants to kill unbelieving Westerners in general. For us in America after today, that’s no longer the stuff of distant headlines.
More: I’ve set down some thoughts at Ricochet.