It’s pulling them off and replacing them with new buttons so as to bring children’s clothing into CPSIA compliance.
A Family Dollar store in Maryland was removing kids’ shoes from the shelf and destroying them, thus baffling an onlooker who wondered why they couldn’t have been donated instead. (Because that’s what the law says.) More on that episode: Deputy Headmistress.
This proposed holiday (proposed by someone, anyway) set for today, April 14, doesn’t seem to have caught on much yet (h/t: reader M.L.)
Past differences on other issues aside, Jonathan Turley has a good column (in Sunday’s WaPo) on international trends toward restricting speech.
The Smoking Gun (via Childs/TortsProf): “A Las Vegas party promoter has dropped a libel lawsuit over his portrayal as a ‘douchebag’ in the book ‘Hot Chicks with Douchebags.'” Earlier here, here, etc.
David Ardia of Citizen Media Law has more details on this disturbing case (earlier).
Toronto considers a ban (via Fountain).
The Washington Times reported on Friday on what it says is a little-noticed provision in draft cap-and-trade legislation (PDF) authored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.): new authorization for “citizen suits” to challenge government inaction on climate change. The bill would confer such standing, according to the article, on anyone “who has suffered, or reasonably expects to suffer, a harm attributable, in whole or in part,” to such inaction. However — in an apparent concession made some time ago to Republican lawmakers — the article also says that total payouts by the government would be limited to the comparatively minor amount of $1.5 million per year. Attorneys’ fees payable to prevailing plaintiffs, however, will presumably be subject to no such limit. More: Carter Wood also discovers new litigation powers for state AGs tucked into the bill; Marlo Lewis, CEI “Open Market”; Deputy Headmistress.
William Pecau of Steptoe & Johnson has advice for businesses (PDF) thinking of suing over their reputation (reprint courtesy Paul Alan Levy)
Last year, Overlawyered was the first to report that Judge William Acker in the Northern District of Alabama had held the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), which provides unlimited damages of $100-$1000 per violation for trivial technical violations of printing too many numbers on a credit card receipt, unconstitutional. Other judges have refused to follow his lead, and last week the Eleventh Circuit reversed the decision, rejecting the facial challenge to the statute, but leaving open the possibility that the statute would be unconstitutional as applied in a particular case. (Harris v. Mexican Specialty Foods, No. 08-13510; h/t R.M.)
Many are taking no action to save themselves from the law, but — as Kathleen Fasanella explains — act as if paralyzed by the February “stay” with its illusion of hope.