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July 10-11 -- Convicted,
but still on their teaching jobs. How hard is it to fire
a bad teacher in New York City?
"Daniel LaBianca, chief of outside funding for School District 14 in Brooklyn,
pleaded guilty in 1999 to helping private school officials embezzle millions
in federal aid for poor children. Three years later, he still holds
his New York public school job -- and has a $10,000 raise to boot.
A Daily News review of the seven cases since 1999 in which the Board
of Education filed to terminate tenured school teachers or administrators
with criminal convictions found that in every case, the crooks stayed in
the school system." The state education probe requires that attempts
to oust educators be sent to arbitration, where the teacher's union has
an impressive record of defending its members against ouster. (Alison
Gendar and Bob Port, "Cons in Classroom: Crooked teachers, officials cling
to jobs", New York Daily News, Jun. 26) (& welcome Joanne
Jacobs readers; she describes three appalling teacher-ouster cases
that she covered years ago). (DURABLE
LINK)
July 10-11 -- Memo
to bar associations: save your P.R. bucks. The new president
of the Florida Bar "is asking Florida lawyers to chip in as part of a $750,000
campaign to improve the image of lawyers. He's even hired a public-relations
firm." Back in 1993 "the American Bar Association tried this same
sort of thing .... The ABA paid a consultant $170,000 to improve the image
of lawyers. It didn't do any good then, either." The way to
salvage the profession's reputation is precisely what the bar associations
are not about to do, namely to police the profession's excesses, writes
columnist Howard Troxler. ("Mere PR campaign won't change public's
low view of lawyers", St. Petersburg Times, Jul.
8). Read the whole thing, which is full of observations like:
"People tell lawyer jokes as a defense mechanism, because a certain percentage
of lawyers exist for the sole purpose of finding a new victim from whom
to extract money. Every small business owner dreads the lawsuit that
will destroy all their efforts." And see fuller report, Oct.
3. (DURABLE LINK)
July 10-11 -- The
legal price for roommate discrimination. "Do you have
the right to say whom you want for a roommate? In California, you
apparently don't", notes Eugene Volokh. "On May 7, the California
Fair Employment & Housing Commission penalized Melissa DeSantis $500
for inflicting 'emotional distress' on a would-be roommate by allegedly
telling him that 'I don't really like black guys. I try to be fair
and all, but they scare me.' It also required her to pay him $240 in expenses
-- and take 'four hours of training on housing discrimination.'" The case
is Department of Fair Employment & Housing v. DeSantis
(Cal. FEHC May 7, 2002).) Volokh thinks that if the issue were litigated
far enough the courts would probably wind up finding there to be a constitutional
right to "intimate association" that would protect people like DeSantis
from being forced to room with people they didn't want to room with, but
writes, "To my knowledge there's no caselaw on the matter." (Volokh
brothers blog, Jul.
8). In the reasonably well-publicized "lesbian roommate" case
of 1996, however, Ann Hacklander-Ready and another respondent were made
to pay several hundred dollars plus thousands of dollars in plaintiff's
attorney fees after deciding that they didn't want to be co-tenants with
a lesbian applicant, in violation of the fair housing laws of Madison,
Wisconsin. The case reached the state's appellate courts (Court of
Appeals, Sept. 26,
1996) and the U.S. Supreme Court eventually denied certiorari (Hacklander-Ready
v. Wisconsin, 117 S.Ct. 1696 (May 12, 1997)). So it would
be natural for the California authorities to assume that, no, there is
no remaining individual liberty left in this country to decide with whom
one wants to live in a shared tenancy (& see Volokh updates,
Jul. 12 -1-,
-2-).
More: Aug.
10, 2005 and Feb.
9, 2006 (Craigslist) (DURABLE
LINK)
July 10-11 -- They
thought we'd just sue. "The fifth element that made Bin
Ladenism possible was the West's, especially America's, perceived weakness
if not actual cowardice. A joke going round the militant Islamist
circles until last year was that the only thing the Americans would do
if attacked was to sue the attackers in court. That element no longer exists.
The Americans, supported by the largest coalition in history, have shown
that they are prepared to use force against their enemies even if that
means a long war with no easy victory in sight." (Amir Taheri, "Bin Laden
no longer exists: Here is why", Arab News, Jul.
9) (via Instapundit, Jul.
7). (DURABLE LINK)
July 3-9 -- Now
we are three. We launched Overlawyered.com
on July 1, 1999, which means we're
now beginning the site's fourth year of commentary. Tell your friends!
(DURABLE
LINK)
July 3-9 -- Law
blogs. While we're on a week-long hiatus, check
out some of these weblogs on law and law-related topics, a category that
barely existed a year ago. Aside from InstaPundit
and the Volokhii, which if you're like
us you already visit daily or more often, there are the pseudonymous "Max
Power" and pioneering
Breaching
the Web; Rick Klau; Bag
and Baggage; Ernie the
Attorney; zem; and
Held
in Contempt. (All the above-mentioned also display an excellent
sense of taste by linking to this site). Most have link lists that
will lead you to other law blogs and sites. Two others that are deservedly
popular: Howard Bashman's
How
Appealing and the pseudonymous "Robert
Musil". Not surprisingly, blogs are especially well established
in the world of IP law and copyright, with such entries as Yale Law's LawMeme;
Donna
Wentworth's blog at Corante, and EFF's wonderfully named Consensus
at LawyerPoint. (DURABLE LINK)
July 3-9 -- "Tampa
Judge Tosses Out Class-Action Suit Against Hog Company".
"A judge dismissed a federal class-action lawsuit against the nation's
largest hog producer, ordering the plaintiffs' attorneys, including Robert
Kennedy Jr., to pay the company's legal expenses." (We've been covering
this case since it was farrowed in late
2000, not excluding Kennedy's embarrassing
public forays into the controversy). Chief U.S. District Judge
Elizabeth A. Kovachevich granted Smithfield Foods' motions to dismiss the
case, "saying the plaintiffs did not succeed in establishing how the company's
actions damaged their property. The judge also said the plaintiffs'
attorneys filed 'frivolous motions,' and ordered the dozen or so law firms
representing the plaintiffs, including Kennedy's, to pay Smithfield's legal
costs." Sometimes the system does work as it ought to -- happy Fourth of
July! (AP/Tampa Bay Online, Jul. 2). (DURABLE
LINK)
July 3-9 -- Drunk
pilots. It's apparently happened again,
this time with an America West flight stopped before taking off at Miami.
We covered the legal aftermath the last
time around. (DURABLE LINK)
July 1-2 -- Going
to blazes. Raging wildfires are what you get if you suppress
smaller burns and forbid deliberate thinning of forests through logging,
but both logging and "controlled burns" out West have run into community
opposition and litigation. "The uncertainty caused by [anti-logging]
lawsuits has decimated the logging industry in Arizona, and that has contributed
heavily to the situation we find ourselves in today," writes Republican
Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona. "... If we want to save what remains
of our forests in Arizona, we've got to get a handle on the frivolous lawsuits
that prevent us from doing so." (Rep. Jeff Flake, "Costly lawsuits
provide kindling for forest blazes", Arizona Republic, Jun. 25).
In an article promoting the use of controlled burns, the New York Times
cites prominent Westerners who seem to feel much as Flake does ("Gov. Jane
Dee Hull of Arizona said it was 'policies from the East Coast' that kept
the Forest Service from pruning overgrown forests. Gov. Judy Martz
of Montana said environmental groups
'played a great role in the fires,' by blocking some efforts to log trees.")
while also quoting environmentalists who point to a General Accounting
Office study which they say proves that they have seldom challenged fuel-reduction
projects (Timothy Egan, "Idea of Fighting Fire With Fire Wins Converts",
New York Times, Jun.
30). Update: "Plans to cut fire danger by thinning trees
in an Arizona forest now being destroyed by the nation's largest active
wildfire were blocked for three years by a Tucson environmental group,
a Tribune investigation has found. The U.S. Forest Service approved
a plan to thin trees and remove volatile debris in parts of the Apache-Sitgreaves
National Forest on the Mogollon Rim in September 1999, according to court
records. The plan was halted after the Center for Biological Diversity
appealed the decision, then sued in May 2000, claiming the Forest Service
had not followed regulations. The matter is still pending in federal
court." Mark Flatten and Dan Nowicki, "Green group lawsuit blocked
forest thinning", East Valley Tribune, Jul. 1). Further
update Jul. 12-14: new Forest Service
report indicates that fire-prevention projects have been frequently litigated,
throwing doubt on the environmentalists' case. (DURABLE
LINK)
July 1-2 -- Updates.
The other shoe drops on various stories:
* Well, that didn't last long: "Home Depot Changes Mind, Will Sell to
Uncle Sam" reads the headline (AP/Tampa Bay Online, Jun. 28)(see Jun.
17-18).
* Former Minnesota court of appeals judge
Roland Amundson has been sentenced to 69 months in prison for stealing
more than $300,000 from the trust fund of a mentally retarded client (see
Mar.
19) (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Jun. 8) (via Burt Hanson's Law
and Everything Else,
Jun.
8; Hanson argues that the sentence is too stiff).
* Another wrongful birth case for your list: "The family of a child
born with a disabling chromosomal defect that went undetected during pregnancy
has settled a wrongful-birth lawsuit against the mother's obstetrician
for $1.65 million, according to court papers and attorneys." Cynthia
Fields argued that she would have had an abortion "in the blink of an eye"
had she been given an amniocentesis that revealed that her daughter Jade,
now 7, would be born severely disabled, requiring round the clock care
(Lindy Washburn, "Family of disabled child settles for $1.65M", NorthJersey.com,
May
23). On the crisis in obstetrics law generally, see Rita Rubin,
"Fed-up obstetricians look for a way out", USA Today, Jun.
30. (DURABLE LINK)
July 1-2 -- Mississippi's
other disaster. As if the collapse of locally based WorldCom
weren't bad enough, state lawmakers still haven't done anything about the
litigation climate (Tim Lemke, "Best place to sue?", Washington Times,
Jun. 30). But at least Judge Lamar Pickard says his court in Jefferson
County has enough out-of-town litigants for now and has told plaintiffs
with no local connection to start taking their business elsewhere.
(DURABLE LINK)
July 1-2 -- Moving
to new host. We're in the process of moving this site
to a new host (Verio); we moved our editor's home site there a couple of
weeks ago, as a trial run. It'll be a little more expensive, but
we can afford it thanks to our generous readers whose Amazon Honor System
donations
(more than $1,000 in all) put the site in the black last year. We
expect the new service to be more reliable, especially on email, which
had been a chronic problem with our previous service (we had a miserable
time trying to get email to AOL users, for example). Thanks for your
support! (DURABLE LINK)
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