Monday on the Hill: Justice Delayed, Justice Denied?

I’m speaking on the Hill this Monday along with Robert Alt of Heritage and Ken Boehm of the NLPC on this topic. Monday, June 22, 2009, 12:30 – 1:45 pm, Room B354, Rayburn House Office Building. “It may be an old legal cliche, but several pending cases that have been remanded by the Supreme Court raise the question of whether we face this problem today. Please join our distinguished panel for a lively discussion on several cases that have clogged court dockets in an effort to determine if this old legal cliche is, in fact, true.” And “Food Will Be Served.”

Ex-wife wins $500K in suit against new wife

North Carolina’s alienation of affection law strikes again. [WRAL via Lawyers USA; earlier]

More from commenter “spudbeach”: “I am _sooo_ glad that I live in Wisconsin. Not only are alienation of affection lawsuits not allowed, it is actually illegal to even threaten one! Wisc. Stats. 768.03 makes it illegal to threaten, and 768.07 sets the penalty to $10,000 fine and/or 9 months in jail.” And XRLQ observes that these laws (still on the books in Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah, as well as North Carolina) could impose liability not just on paramours, but on plain old friends or acquaintances who’d encouraged an unhappy spouse to leave a marriage. Yet more: Robinette, 2007 (via); The Briefcase.

June 16 roundup

  • Legal hazards of beachcombing: “Keeping bald eagle feather could result in a $100,000 fine and year in prison” [BoingBoing; our Sept. 1999 post]
  • “E.U. Condemns America’s Online Gambling Crackdown” [Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”]
  • Much-loved Stockton, Calif. eatery Chuck’s Hamburgers is menaced by ADA serial litigator, and friends rally to save it [Stockton Record, 4000-member Facebook group]
  • Doomed AF Flight 447 had multiple connections with France (airline, aircraft maker) and Brazil (takeoff, many passengers’ nationality), so of course some American lawyers are hoping to get resulting suits heard in U.S. courts [Bloomberg]
  • Sure takes a lot of lawyering to bring a movie like “Bruno” to the screen [Althouse, WSJ Law Blog, Legal Ethics Forum]
  • Form vs. substance: U.K. historic-preservation edict saves increasingly impractical Victorian bell frames, at expense of 650-year-old bell ringing tradition [Telegraph via Never Yet Melted]
  • All in a day’s (double) work: take city retirement or even disability, then come back in second job [Al Tompkins, Lowell (Mass.) Sun]
  • Can it be? In just about another two weeks your favorite source of legal consternation will turn ten years old [nine years and eleven months or so ago on Overlawyered]