The U.S. Department of Justice, taken all in all, is the most dangerous of the domestic agencies. Whichever presidential candidate won — in this case Donald J. Trump — stood to “inherit extremely broad powers that are subject to no meaningful oversight by the other two branches.” [Elias Groll, Foreign Policy]
Archive for 2016
November 16 roundup
- With U.S. international adoption already down 75 percent, proposed State Department regulations could choke off much of remainder [SaveAdoptions.org, Jayme Metzgar/Federalist, National Council for Adoption]
- Baltimore police surveillance, redistricting, teacher’s union holidays: after a hiatus I’ve resumed Maryland policy roundups at Free State Notes;
- Facebook potluck group was being monitored: “Single Mother Facing Prison for Selling Homemade Mexican Dish to Undercover Cop” [Robby Soave]
- Brad Avakian, tormentor of small businesspeople under Oregon discrimination law, loses Secretary of State bid [Victoria Taft, IJR]
- Shipping & Transit LLC: “America’s Biggest Filer of Patent Suits Wants You to Know It Invented Shipping Notification” [Ruth Simon and Loretta Chao, WSJ] “Stupid Patent of the Month: Changing the Channel” [Daniel Nazer, EFF]
Media law roundup
- In latest of string of courtroom losses for media, Raleigh News & Observer hit with nearly $6 million libel verdict [Corey Hutchins, CJR] Profile of Charles Harder, newly prominent attorney in suits against media [Hollywood Reporter]
- Following coverage of taco trademark dispute, lawyer demands takedown of image on news story [TechDirt] “California Supreme Court will decide: Can court order Yelp to take down defendant’s post, though Yelp wasn’t even a party to the lawsuit?” [Volokh]
- Theodore Boutrous: “I will represent pro bono anyone Trump sues for exercising their free speech rights. Many other lawyers have offered to join me.” [Ronald K.L. Collins, related chronology of Trump’s record of legal conflict with press]
- Familiar old war on porn re-outfits itself as new war on trafficking [Collins, Elizabeth Nolan Brown on so-called Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA)]
- Another where-are-they-now on copyright troll Prenda Law [Joe Mullin/ArsTechnica, see also on Hansmeier]
- “The ‘freedom of the press’ doesn’t give the media any special privileges — but it’s also not a redundancy” [Eugene Volokh]
Don’t expect Trump to roll back gay rights
Of reasons to worry about the Donald Trump administration, so far as I can see, anti-gay policies aren’t in the top 25. Or so I argue in an opinion piece in today’s New York Post. It was written before, but includes an updating reference to, the airing of a “60 Minutes” interview last night in which Trump said, of the Supreme Court’s marriage cases, “They’ve been settled, and I’m fine with that.”
Environment roundup
- Feinstein-Collins bill (“Personal Care Products Safety Act”) to regulate soap, lotions, and cosmetics is best left to swirl down drain [Eric Boehm/Reason, earlier, Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetics Guild and ICMAD (mid-sized and smaller companies), Modern Soapmaking, my appearance on KPCC “AirTalk”]
- Standing in the need of standing: federal judge denies motion to dismiss suit over global warming against federal government and business groups on behalf of 21 young persons and scientist James Hansen [Phuong Le, AP/ABC News]
- Seattle home buyers, it’s okay to choke a little at what your money could have bought in low-regulation Houston instead [Randal O’Toole, more] Land use regs impede economic mobility: you could have read it at Cato first [David Boaz]
- “Why Industrial Farms Are Good for the Environment” [Jayson Lusk]
- “Suit claiming air emissions that fall to the ground constitute hazardous waste under Superfund proves too ambitious even for the Ninth Circuit” [WLF’s summary of Kevin Haroff and Zachary Kearns, Marten Law]
- “State social justice groups did not feel consulted” in carbon tax proposal on Washington ballot, which failed [Coyote, AP/KIRO]
“Law firm ‘bonuses’ tied to political donations”
After initially resisting, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has agreed to return nearly $130,000 in donations she and her PAC received from the Boston-based Thornton Law Firm, known for asbestos plaintiff’s litigation. An investigation found the law firm paid $1.4 million in bonuses in patterns strongly suggesting they were being used to cover “straw donations” nominally from partners [co-published Boston Globe/Open Secrets story; New York Post]
From 2010 through 2014, Strouss and Bradley along with founding partner Michael Thornton and his wife donated nearly $1.6 million to Democratic party fundraising committees and a parade of politicians from Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada to Hawaii gubernatorial candidate David Ige to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Over the same span, the lawyers received $1.4 million listed as “bonuses” in Thornton Law Firm records; more than 280 of the contributions precisely matched bonuses that were paid within 10 days.
That payback system, which involved other partners as well, helped make Thornton the 11th-ranked law firm nationally for political contributions in 2014, according to data analyzed by the Center, even though the firm is not among the 100 biggest in Massachusetts, much less the U.S.
Capitol Hill recipients of Thornton money include many figures who have played a role in blocking asbestos litigation reform, including Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).
“Courts Should Stop Approving Unfair Class Action Settlements”
A “claims-made” class action settlement
allows the defendant to make a large amount of money “available” to class members, but in order for the members to collect, they must jump through the hoops of correctly filing claims. Because of the low response rate in such settlements, the defendants will end up paying much less than the funds made available. Indeed, of the $8.5 million made available to the class members [in an action over gym membership fees], Global Fitness only paid $1.6 million — a payout of approximately 10 percent of the settlement funds. Despite this low payout to plaintiffs, class counsel are still paid a certain rate based on the funds that were made available — not the funds that were actually paid out — in some instances giving them attorney fees larger than the class members’ damages award!
The class counsel here were paid $2.4 million, nearly $1 million more than the class members collected.
Josh Blackman, a Cato adjunct scholar and law professor, is a member of the class and raised objections to the settlement. [Ilya Shapiro and Frank Garrison, Cato, on Blackman v. Gascho]
International trade: don’t stop the music
“The reason so many Americans own guitars today is thanks, in large part, to past trade agreements” [Vincent Caruso, Reason]
President Donald Trump and… litigation reform?
Yes, he’s litigious. But that doesn’t mean his administration is going to be be pro-litigation. My new Cato piece ventures predictions on where Donald Trump might depart from previous Republican thinking on lawsuit reform, and where he’s likely to maintain continuity.
“CFPB seeks to silence investigation targets, drawing fire on free speech”
A proposal from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has drawn “unanimous fire from a broad coalition of financial companies, as well as from the American Bar Association and the American Civil Liberties Union, which called it unconstitutional. The plan would prohibit targets of civil investigative demands or notice and opportunity to respond and advise letters — CIDs and NORA letters — from disclosing the receipt of such notifications. Legal experts called the proposal a restraint on free speech and warned that it could run afoul of laws that require companies to disclose material information to shareholders.” A second element of the proposal would allow the CFPB to “share privileged information with any ‘federal, state, or foreign governmental authority, or an entity exercising governmental authority’ whenever ‘it is relevant to the exercise of the agency’s statutory or regulatory authority.'” The ABA has sharply criticized the provision as a weakening of attorney-client privilege. [Lorraine Woellert, Politico Pro, reprinted at House Financial Services Committee]