Today (Monday) at Cato, NYLS constitutional law professor and ACLU past president Nadine Strossen will speak on her new book “Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship” with Prof. Louis Seidman of Georgetown Law and John Samples commenting and Roger Pilon moderating. You can watch here.
Archive for May, 2018
Un-forthcoming Schneiderman loses another round to CEI
A New York appellate court has upheld an order that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman pay counsel fees to the Competitive Enterprise Institute for having resisted required disclosure of the “AGs United for Clean Energy” secrecy agreement [Anna St. John, CEI; Chris White, Daily Caller]
Attorneys general began tangling with CEI in April of 2016, and have experienced repeated setbacks in courtroom battles since then.
Don’t
Don’t claim, when you’ve missed a filing deadline in a wage and hour class action certification, that you had a family emergency in Mexico City when Instagram photos show you to be in New York at the time [ABA Journal; Lina Franco, sanctioned $10,000 by a U.S. magistrate judge, sought to withdraw untimely certification motion “first with prejudice and then without prejudice”]
Cross-jurisdictional class action tolling
Here is your primer on that subject, in case you needed one, jumping off from the Supreme Court’s American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah (1974) [Jim Beck, Drug & Device Law] Related on China Agri-Tech v. Resh: Richard Samp, WLF.
An elevator joke and an academic career
Recycling a joke that was already old when I was a teenager, academic conference-goer on elevator calls out “Ladies’ lingerie” in reference to a floor stop. Then begins the acrimonious process in which he must defend his career against the complaint filed by a women’s and gender studies professor who was present and took offense. [Ruth Marcus, syndicated/Houston Chronicle] More: Katherine Mangan, Chronicle of Higher Education.
Schools roundup
- Thread on Broward County, Fla. discipline policies and blame-shifting after Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting [Max Eden on Twitter]
- Nothing wrong with Kansas making clear that school finance is province of elected legislature, not courts [Gavel to Gavel] Study finds that successful school finance lawsuits do redistribute funds, even after public agencies adjust [Zachary Liscow via Caron/TaxProf]
- “Why the Federal Government Can’t Mandate an Ideal School Suspension Rate” [Robby Soave, Reason] “School Discipline: Don’t Make a Federal Case Out of It” [Gail Heriot]
- Teacher strikes might have begun backfiring [Jessica R. Towhey, Inside Sources] Are teachers underpaid as a group? [Andrew G. Biggs and Jason Richwine, City Journal] Opponents of school choice embrace a logic that might lead to overturning the landmark liberty case Pierce v. Society of Sisters [Caleb Brown, Kentucky]
- Judge dismisses remaining “clock boy” claims against Texas school district [Elvia Limón, Dallas News, earlier here and here]
- Kent, Wash.: “Parents sue school district after son killed in car-surfing accident” [Amy Clancy, KIRO]
Claim: “international human rights” requires gun bans
So many power grabs now get packed into an international human rights mold: here come claims that IHR requires laws aimed at restricting private access to guns in the U.S. [Leila Nadya Sadat and Madaline George on Harris Institute initiative at Washington U. Law; Patricia Illingworth; Jeremiah Ho] I wrote about the proliferation of international human rights claims in my 2011 book Schools for Misrule, and this site has previously covered efforts to invoke international human rights law against such practices as cultural appropriation, financial privacy and national fiscal austerity, gender-stereotypical speech, liberalization of labor markets, making city dwellers pay for water, failure to return land to long-displaced Indian tribes, disconnecting people from Internet service, lack of hate speech laws (and more and also see), non-recognition of a right to health care, Stand Your Ground rules on self-defense, videogames about war and depiction of rights violations in popular entertainment, evicting homeless encampments, “atrocity speech,” lack of affordable-housing programs, factory livestock farming, and foundling baby boxes. On the gun angle, see also the controversy over the small arms treaty.
Banking and finance roundup
- Using regulation to stomp political adversaries endangers rule of law: Gov. Cuomo directs New York financial regulators to pressure banks, insurers to break ties with National Rifle Association (NRA) [J.D. Tuccille, Reason]
- My opinion piece on New Jersey governor’s scheme for a state bank has now escaped its WSJ paywall; WSJ readers respond [letters] And Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D-N.Y.] has now introduced a plan to get the federal government into retail banking via the post office [Daniel Marans, Huffington Post, quoting Gillibrand’s interesting claim that “Literally the only person who is going to be against this is somebody who wants to protect payday lender profits.”] More: Nick Zaiac on postal banking;
- “From Kelo to Starr: Not Merely an Unlawful Taking but an Illegal Exaction” [Philip Hamburger on federal government’s acquisition of a dominant equity stake in AIG]
- Court’s opinion on consumer debt contract formed in New York specifying Delaware law undermines “valid-when-made” doctrine that promotes liquidity of secondary debt market [Diego Zuluaga, Cato]
- “Some blockchains, as currently designed, are incompatible with” the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation [Olga Kharif, Bloomberg via Tyler Cowen]
- And if you’re interested in the legal constraints holding back the extension of banking services to the cannabis industry, tune in to a Cato conference on that subject May 10.
Pool worker who nearly drowned in pool sues rescuers who saved him
“A man who couldn’t swim, but came to Fairfax County to work at a pool in 2016 and almost drowned himself, has filed a federal lawsuit against the lifeguard who pulled him out of the water and the county police officers who resuscitated him.” On his third day on the job, witnesses said the plaintiff began acting strangely in what was later deemed a bipolar episode and jumped into the pool. “It’s a frivolous lawsuit — we saved a young man’s life,” Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler told a reporter. “He was trying to commit suicide by drowning himself.” [Neal Augenstein, WTOP]
May 2 roundup
- Celebrity political defamation suits I: Stormy Daniels sues President Trump [Ken White and Marc Randazza at Popehat, strong language x2]
- Celebrity political defamation suits II: Roy Moore sues accusers [Paul Gattis/Al.com, Gabriel Malor on Twitter]
- Our knowledgeable readers have been having a discussion in comments about Wisconsin’s butter-grading rules and whether they have a rational basis, and Joshua Thompson of Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents Minerva Dairy, has written a post to explain more, which also has kind words we appreciate (“does a magnificent job pointing out and explaining the seen and unseen costs of our legal system”);
- USC lawprof Simkovic’s screed on campus-speech controversies ascribes sinister motives to Eugene Volokh and Prof. Josh Blackman, not to mention my own book Schools for Misrule [David Bernstein and more, Paul Horwitz, Popehat on Twitter, Rick Hills, William Jacobson/Legal Insurrection, Scott Greenfield]
- “Gabriel Over the White House,” Hollywood’s jarringly weird 1933 paean to one-man rule, aired on TCM April 27 [Jeff Greenfield, David Boaz, Gene Healy and Caleb Brown video]
- “Keep Facial Recognition Away From Body Cameras” [Matthew Feeney, Cato]