Josh Blackman, at The Atlantic and Volokh Conspiracy, has the tale of how in the nomination of conservative Ninth Circuit nominee Lawrence Van Dyke, the American Bar Association (ABA) appears to have played fast and loose with the interview process, breaking its own rules along the way. Given “that the ABA cannot be trusted to accurately recount the conversations” resulting from its inquiries, Blackman proposes that in future “these interrogations should be treated as hostile depositions. A court reporter and videographer should be present, as well as private retained counsel to push back on unfounded accusations.”
Archive for 2019
November 6 roundup
- In the greater Oklahoma City area next Tuesday, Nov. 12? Come out to my lunchtime law school talk at the U. of O. on employment law, sponsored by the school’s Federalist Society chapter [details]
- A Sixth Circuit opinion thus begins: “This court once observed, ‘[w]hen a party comes to us with nine grounds for reversing the district court, that usually means there are none.’ Steven Hank comes to us with twenty-seven.” [Hank v. Great Lakes Constr. Co., Court Listener]
- Elizabeth Warren tale of “two cents” wealth tax Hallowe’en costume doesn’t quite add up [my Cato post; another point]
- Speaking of Warren, when asked what would happen to displaced health insurance workers once private insurance is done away with — not, to be sure, the strongest objection to her plan, but still one worth having an answer for — saying they can go work for auto or life insurers makes about as much sense as saying displaced workers from dance studios can go work for recording or graphic design studios [The Hill]
- No good deed: Brad Pitt, others on charitable foundation can be sued over alleged flaws in New Orleans homes [AP/WDSU]
- “Coincidentally or not, current and former members of the Baltimore Orioles, which the Angelos family owns, were dispatched to the [Maryland] State House for a good will visit while the [Angelos asbestos] bill was under consideration.” [Josh Kurtz, Maryland Matters]
No strings: feds won’t use funding leverage against religious social service agencies
A new HHS plan to rescind LGBT bias rules would back the feds away from one of the most hotly contested frontiers of the culture wars, the role of religious agencies in foster care and adoption. I explain in a new Cato post.
California’s demands on utilities don’t add up
Already driven to the bankruptcy courts by liability over past wildfires, and facing further legal exposure when its equipment sparks new fires, Pacific Gas & Electric generally does not face liability for cutting power supply [Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg Opinion and related with reader comments; Ted Frank on Twitter] “California’s ratepayers like to imagine that someone else can pay the bill… In 2017, the commission refused to let San Diego Gas & Electric raise rates to cover its liability for wildfires that took place in 2007, which is why utilities are now terrified of any risk, however small, that their equipment might start a fire.” [Megan McArdle, Washington Post/Santa Cruz Sentinel] More: Ed Driscoll with link roundup including account of opposition to trimming of trees near PG&E power lines to reduce fire risk; earlier including link to Susan Shelley column.
Free speech roundup
- Massachusetts state lawmaker who introduced much-derided bill to criminalize the word “bitch” when directed at another person says he “filed the bill after being asked to do so by a constituent.” [Alex Griswold, Free Beacon]
- Presidents have long used their power to retaliate against the press. When does the constitution direct or permit the courts to do anything about that? [First Amendment lawyer Robert Corn-Revere for FIRE, part one and part two]
- After two students shout racial slur loud enough for others to hear, University of Connecticut arrests and charges them “under a rarely-used, unconstitutional state law prohibiting ‘ridicule.'” [Adam Steinbaugh, FIRE]
- “May a company get an injunction to block a defendant from invoking the Streisand Effect?” [Paul Alan Levy]
- How courts draw the line on when menacing language triggers the “true threat” exception to First Amendment protection [Federalist Society teleforum with Eugene Volokh, John Elwood, and Michael Dreeben]
- “Should Congress Pass A ‘Deep Fakes’ Law? A few tentative thoughts.” [Orin Kerr, Volokh Conspiracy]
“South Carolina Judge Declares Civil Forfeiture Unconstitutional”
Horry County (Myrtle Beach), South Carolina: “In a 15-page decision, 15th Judicial Circuit Judge Steven H. John declared that South Carolina’s civil forfeiture laws, which let the government ‘seize unlimited amounts of cash and other property when no crime has been committed,’ run afoul of the U.S. and South Carolina Constitutions’ guarantees of due process and bans on excessive fines.” [Nick Sibilla, Forbes; Scott Shackford, Reason]
From opioids suits, an expected fee harvest far into the billions
The prospect of settlement in the local government opioid cases is likely to result in a massive windfall into the many billions of dollars for private lawyers who signed up government clients; many of these lawyers are munificent political donors as well [Daniel Fisher, Legal Newsline] Earlier, an Ohio federal judge’s scheme for opioid “negotiating class” idea raised eyebrows [Alison Frankel/Reuters, Daniel Fisher/Legal Newsline; Jan Hoffman, New York Times] And at Harvard Petrie-Flom’s “Bill of Health,” Jennifer Oliva interviews Prof. Elizabeth Chamblee Burch on the opioids battle; Burch has been critical of self-dealing and angling for fees by lawyers in mass tort and multi-district litigation.
Wage and hour roundup
- After Target, under pressure from activists, announced a $15 companywide minimum wage, “workers say they’ve had their hours cut and lost other benefits, such as health insurance.” [Eric Boehm, Reason]
- New Chicago scheduling ordinance is “the ultimate intrusion of government in the workplace.” [Chicago Tribune editorial; Allen Smith, SHRM; Fisher Phillips]
- “As predicted, the $15 wage is killing jobs all across the city” [New York Post editorial; Billy Binion, Reason; Michael Saltsman and Samantha Summers, Crain’s New York letter (defenders of hike playing fast and loose with numbers) ]
- The Federalist Society held a teleforum with Tammy McCutchen of Littler Mendelson on the lower courts’ reception of the Supreme Court’s decision one year ago in Encino Motorcars on FLSA interpretation [earlier]
- By next year I expect Left Twitter to be asserting in the alternative that this famous Seattle restaurant 1) never existed, 2) remains open and has no plans to close, and 3) was sunk by issues unrelated to the minimum wage. [Jason Rantz, KTTH (Sitka & Spruce)] More on restaurants: Legal Insurrection (closure of West Coast chain); Tyler Cowen (NBER working paper on what kinds of restaurants are most likely to be affected);
- “In the past five years, nearly two-thirds of companies have faced at least one labor and employment class action and, overwhelmingly, companies report that wage and hour matters are their top concern in this category.” [Insurance Journal, Carlton Fields Class Action Survey]
Hate speech laws? No thanks, we’ll stick with the First Amendment
Watch out when Establishment figures “declare that they’ve changed their mind on free speech and now think there should be less of it,” I write in my new piece at Cato:
This new Washington Post opinion piece (“Why America needs a hate speech law”) is by Richard Stengel, a former editor of Time magazine and the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs from 2013 to 2016. In that post, he was charged with representing America’s values to the world.
Honestly, could Stengel’s argument be any weaker? “Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran. … it should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another.”
If the prospect of violence by offended groups is what causes us to censor, we are well on the way toward closing down speech at the whim of whichever mobs, here or abroad, decide to be violent….
Whole thing here.
Section 8 Landlording Should Be Voluntary
It’s the strings: landlords should have a right to decide for themselves whether to shoulder the Section 8 program’s only-too-real regulatory burdens, I argue in my new Cato piece, reacting to a Baltimore Sun opinion piece. Baltimore County is the scene of a long-running controversy over whether to force landlords to participate in the federal housing voucher program. Earlier here.
Sidelight: A new San Diego ordinance that took effect August 1 “orders violators to pay three times the advertised monthly rent to eligible plaintiffs who saw the ad, plus punitive damages, as well as a plaintiff’s attorney fees and costs if a judge so orders. Even after the offending ad is taken down or changed, exposure to liability from anyone who saw the illegal ad lasts for a year.” Soon thereafter enterprising attorney Christian Curry filed more than 50 lawsuits under the ordinance and has obtained many settlements, although critics suspect his clients weren’t always intent on living in properties with challenged ads; they also say some ads were targeted that were written before the law changed and not intentionally left online afterward. A spokeswoman for a property group “likened the new Section 8 cases to ‘drive-by’ lawsuits over violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.” [Ashly McGlone and Jack Molmud, Voice of San Diego]