May 18 roundup

  • Historic preservation and habitat preservation laws can backfire in similar ways [Dubner, Freakonomics]
  • Serious points about wacky warnings [Bob Dorigo Jones, Detroit News]
  • Texas solons consider lengthening statute of limitations to save Yearning for Zion prosecutions [The Common Room]
  • A call for law bloggers to unite against content-swiping site [Scott Greenfield]
  • Drawbacks of CFC-free pulmonary inhalers leave asthma sufferers gasping [McArdle, Atlantic]
  • Try, try again: yet another academic proposal for charging gunmakers with costs of crime [Eggen/Culhane, SSRN, via Robinette/TortsProf] More/correction: not a new paper, just new to SSRN; see comments.
  • California businesses paid $17 million last year in bounty-hunting suits under Prop 65 [Cal Biz Lit]
  • Trial lawyer lobby AAJ puts out all-points bulletin to members: send us your horror stories so we can parade ’em in the media! [ShopFloor]

Great moments in jury deliberations

According to affidavits in a Texas case, one juror slept during deliberations, another “all but read” a newspaper account about the incident aloud to others, some used “personal feelings” to decide, and one juror “asked to be told how to vote so she could get out of deliberations.” An appeals court sustained the defendant’s conviction anyway; Colin Miller at Evidence Law Blog explains the legal logic, if that is the right word for it.

American Law Institute meeting

This fall, I had the honor of being elected to the American Law Institute—along with Point of Law blogger Michael Krauss and CL&P blogger Brian Wolfman.

Next week, the ALI has its annual meeting in Washington. Of critical importance is the May 20 vote on amendments and the Final Draft of its Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation—a document that could be of great influence in the way courts think about class actions. Beck and Herrmann have a must-read post detailing the issues involved. And they note that ALI is a nose-counting organization: policy is made by those that show up. If members of your law firm or university are ALI members, please pass along the post to them.

“Can you afford your doggie door?”

From Dog Scoop, a followup on that “hazardous pet door” story we covered last week (with a hat tip to the skill of Overlawyered readers in, well, digging).

Incidentally, Consumer Reports was really impressed with the dog-door-dangers story, promoting it on at least three of its blogs, with no hint whatsoever of the law-firm provenance of the PetAccessDangers.org website or any other trial-lawyer connections to the story.

May 16 roundup

  • At “Hit and Run”, Damon Root deems a certain website “indispensable” [Reason; accolades file]
  • Montgomery Blair Sibley, colorful lawyer for the “D.C. Madam” and a figure much covered on this site, has new book out [Doyle/McClatchy]
  • Although Indian tribal litigators attacked it as “disparaging”, the Washington Redskins football team can keep its trademark, for now at least. “My ancestors were both Vikings and Cowboys. Do I have a course of action?” [Volokh comments]
  • “Is Patent Infringement Litigation Up or Down?” [Frankel, The American Lawyer]
  • Maryland high court dismisses autism-mercury lawsuit [Seidel, Krauss @ Point of Law]
  • Chrysler dealers are lawyering up against the prospect of being cast off [WSJ Law Blog]
  • “Should doctors who follow evidence-based guidelines be offered liability protection?” [KevinMD]
  • Obama proposes $1.25 billion to settle black farmers’ long-running bias claims against the U.S. Department of Agriculture [AP/Yahoo]