The legal hassles that face landlords in New York City and California are well known, but saying goodbye to an unwelcome tenant can bring its share of drama in Ohio, too, given all the different grounds for complaint [Bert Stratton, City Journal]
Archive for February, 2017
Liability roundup
- In the just-out eighth edition of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers, I helped revise and add to the chapter on tort and class action reform, joining Robert A. Levy and Mark Moller as authors;
- Baron & Budd “Preparing For Your Deposition” asbestos memo still being fought over in court 20 years later [David Yates/Southeast Texas Record, my piece back when]
- “Wanted in Kentucky, seemingly immune to arrest in Ohio” [James McNair, CityBeat on Stan Chesley]
- Congress needs to rewrite the law on multi-district litigation or else the lawyerly gamesmanship will continue [James Beck, Drug and Device Law]
- While generally critical of class action reform proposals in Congress, Alison Frankel does find one idea in it — accounting for class action payouts — to be intriguing [Reuters]
- “New Jersey, Allstate sue chiropractors convicted of running ‘personal injury mill'” [Susan K. Livio, NJ.com]
More federalization of crime? No thanks
On “Blue Lives Matter” sentence enhancement, floated as a national idea in one of President Donald Trump’s three executive orders last week on crime, the feds really have no business meddling when local legal systems are appropriately vigorous in prosecuting and punishing a category of offense, as is ordinarily true of injuries to police [Jonathan Blanks, Cato] More views on the executive orders: Tim Lynch/Cato, Harvey Silverglate via Anthony Fisher.
P.S. Some reasons conservatives who favor enhanced penalties for attacks on first responders should oppose using “hate crime” dodge to do so [John Bicknell/Washington Examiner, thanks for quote]
Environment roundup
- How regulators dismiss economists’ advice: the case of CAFE fuel economy regs [David Henderson]
- Other auto manufacturers appear to have an emissions cheating problem, raise your hand if you’re surprised [Coyote]
- “You can end up getting a platinum LEED certification and still have the highest energy consumption density in the city of Chicago, as it turns out.” [same, sequel]
- “The Disconnect Between Liberal Aspirations And Liberal Housing Policy Is Killing Coastal U.S. Cities” [Shane D. Phillips] “California Housing Crunch Prompts Push to Allow Building” [Chris Kirkham, WSJ]
- Tyler Cowen takes a look at the stream protection rule;
- Well, natch: staff of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was in touch with Rockefeller Family Fund campaigners before he launched climate advocacy subpoenas [New York Post]
“Forcing Apple to Shut Down Drivers’ Phones Is a Terrible Idea”
What could go wrong? [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason; Nick Farr, Abnormal Use]
February 15 roundup
- Federal judge Wolf mulls appointing special master to investigate possible fee fraud in class action against State Street Bank [Boston Globe]
- Two lawyers start fighting on an airplane over a shared armrest, and it makes the papers [New York Post]
- Philly proposes mandatory sensitivity training for owners, employees of 11 gay bars [Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations report via Heat Street]
- Finally, some constraints on Mississippi Attorney General and longtime Overlawyered favorite Jim Hood? [Mississippi Business]
- One view of emergent controversy: “The Case Against National Injunctions, No Matter Who Is President” [Samuel Bray, LawFare, more from same author]
- “Court To Review Target’s $10M Customer Data Breach Settlement” [Consumerist; Minneapolis Star-Tribune; Ted Frank’s Center for Class Action Fairness is objecting]
- In or near Kansas? I’m speaking next week in Topeka at a Washburn University School of Law conference on the future of employment law [Feb. 23, details]
Secondhand smoke: the haze clears
Remember those studies finding secondhand smoke a major cause of heart attacks? Influential, and we now know wrong [Jacob Grier, Slate; earlier on Helena miracle here, etc.]
Former crime boss wants $10 million over prison ping-pong slip-fall
A former crime family boss convicted of racketeering but acquitted on murder charges is “suing the federal government for $10 million over injuries from a game of prison ping-pong. The table tennis tumble happened Aug. 29, 2013, while Gioeli was being held at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.” [NY Daily News]
State AG/contingency-fee lawyer joint ventures
Joint ventures between state attorneys general and contingency-fee private lawyers are an ethical disaster area — and unconstitutional to boot. Peggy Little explains in a new white paper [Competitive Enterprise Institute: paper, press release, related blog post]
Trump’s regulatory reform
Cass Sunstein, who headed up regulatory review under President Obama, is favorably impressed with the attention to detail of a document that helped flesh out President Trump’s recent executive order on regulation. [Bloomberg] “Other countries have gone much further than Trump’s ‘two-for-one’ order, without any ill effect.” [Hans Bader, CEI; Ryan Bourne, Cato] For 2-for-1 deregulation to work, maybe agencies should get transferable reduction credits to sell to each other [Daniel Takash and Nick Zaiac, The Hill] “Regulatory Reform: A new approach for the Trump era” [Christopher DeMuth Sr., The Weekly Standard via Michael Greve]
More on the fast Trump pace on deregulation in this new Cato podcast in which Caleb Brown interviews Susan Dudley and Peter Van Doren: