“Music industry to abandon mass suits”

It might bring to an end the public relations nightmare of the Recording Industry Association of America, and it should certainly cut down on the number of future legal nightmares endured by bewildered parents, grandparents and other bystanders who’ve been getting sued because their kid used the family computer to visit a music-sharing service at 1 a.m. P.S.: CNet has a copy of the enforcement notice RIAA is planning to send to ISPs instead.

Unhappy holidays for American toymakers?

The Consumer Product Safety Act of 2008, sponsored by Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush and quickly signed into law by President Bush, soon goes into effect.  Sold as a measure to protect children from the perils of Chinese and other foreign-made toys which may contain lead paint, the law was written with good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions sometimes produce bad consequences.  While this law may never save a child, it will certainly have consequences for small businesses which produce toys, as well as other products intended primarily for children under 12.

As always, the devil is in the details, and Publius Endures has given the details careful scrutiny.  Among other little details, this law may require toy manufacturers and importers to perform costly outside testing, at a cost of over $4000, on each lot of toys shipped.  If the law is so interpreted by the people who draft its enabling regulations, that will simply put small manufacturers out of business, leaving the American toy market to giants such as Mattel or driving more of the business to overseas competitors who produce on a larger scale and can absorb the cost.  The result, probably not intended at all by lawmakers, may be monopoly or oligopoly in the American toy market, accomplished through regulation rather than market forces.

For more on this example of unintended consequences of hasty lawmaking in response to a panic, see Upturned Earth, which suggests that congress or regulators might be persuaded to amend or sensibly interpret the law, if only they understood what a potential monster they’ve created.

Guest Blogging, and an Introduction

Due to deadlines and other real life commitments, Walter Olson has graciously invited me to guest blog here through the holidays, which I shall begin in earnest on Sunday.  I am your lump of coal from Overlawyered.  I regularly blog at my own site, Social Services for Feral Children, to which Overlawyered has linked on several occasions, for which I am deeply thankful.  I am an attorney with a civil defense practice in a medium southern state, and enjoy writing about bizarre or abusive lawsuits among other topics.  You may notice that at my own site I write with a rather more acerbic style (meaning I cuss and call people names) than prevails at Overlawyered.  In keeping with the conventions established here, I shall attempt to maintain a dignified presence in order to avoid spoiling Walter’s holiday.

Welcome National Journal readers

The magazine’s “Top Political Bloggers” poll this morning quotes me (twice) on the subject of the horrible and misnamed Employee Free Choice Act, which would end employees’ right to a secret ballot on unionization and impose union contracts on unwilling employers through obligatory arbitration. Most of my blogging on the subject of EFCA and its “card check” provision is actually at my other blog, Point of Law, though.

GWB as regulator: new opt-out “conscience” rules for health workers

“The Bush administration, as expected, announced new protections on Thursday for health care providers who oppose abortion and other medical procedures on religious or moral grounds.” (NYT via GruntDoc). I briefly criticized this bad idea in a post last week at Secular Right, and there are hopes that the incoming Obama administration will rescind it. P.S. Longer post now up over there.

Expelled from Miss Porter’s — but it was the Oprichniki’s fault

The family of Tatum Bass of South Carolina has filed a federal lawsuit over her dismissal from Miss Porter’s, the all-girls private school in Farmington, Connecticut. The suit “acknowledges that Bass was suspended from school this fall for cheating on a test. But the lawsuit contends that Bass only cheated because she was frazzled by” belittlement and bullying from a clique of other girls who are said to have called themselves the “Oprichniki,” after the secret police in czarist Russia. (Vanessa de la Torre, “Miss Porter’s School Sued Over Expulsion”, Hartford Courant, Dec. 10).

“MPs accuse courts of allowing libel tourism”

Sounds like British libel law is finally getting seriously controversial in Britain: “Lawyers and judges were accused by MPs yesterday of using ‘Soviet-style’ English libel laws to help the rich and powerful to hide their secrets. …Bridget Prentice, the Justice Minister, told MPs that the Government would announce a consultation on libel and the internet, and the high cost of defamation proceedings.” (Dominic Kennedy, Times Online, Dec. 18).

Insurance law Hall of Fame

“An insurance company with a potential $25 million liability from a 2007 Houston office fire is claiming smoke that killed three people was ‘pollution’ and surviving families shouldn’t be compensated for their losses since the deaths were not caused directly by the actual flames. Great American Insurance Company is arguing in a Houston federal court that the section of the insurance policy that excludes payments for pollution — like discharges or seepage that require cleanup — would also exclude payouts for damages, including deaths, caused by smoke, or pollution, that results from a fire.” (Mary Flood, “Insurance loophole claimed in fire deaths”, Houston Chronicle, Dec. 17).