- Trial lawyers look for Democrats to punish. [Point of Law; Investors’ Business Daily]
- Point of Law Vioxx trial updates: California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
- Men seeking laws freeing them from child support when DNA proves they’re not the father. Earlier: May 10 and Feb. 3, 2004. [Time]
- Latest creative defense to a murder charge: Asperger’s syndrome. [Boston Globe]
- A complicated medmal case is trumped by the sympathy factor [Cortlandt Forum via Kevin MD]
- Cost of EMTALA (Sep. 2, 2005) in LA County alone: $1.6 billion. LA Times doesn’t
mention the law by name orconsider the obvious conclusion. [LA Times] - Why the painfully obvious explanations on painfully obvious objects? [comments at Obscure Store; New York Sun; new Mike Judge movie Idiocracy]
- Lessig: stop me before I regulate again! [Hit & Run]
- Right-wingers take on Dinesh D’Souza [roundup of links at Postrel]
- The meaningless and counterproductive Democratic House bill on student loans. [Novak @ WaPo]
- Do big law firms really care about attrition? One theory. [Ivey Files]
- My girlfriend thinks I spend too much time arguing with idiots. Relatedly, Eugene Volokh responds to Anisa Abd el Fattah about the First Amendment and Jews. [Volokh]
Kids’ ice slides
Now endangered in Scotland. (Murdo MacLeod and Scott McCulloch, “Banned: ice slides in the school playground”, The Scotsman, Jan. 21).
“Candid Camera”
Apparently the long-running show was sued very little, if at all, by victims of its hidden-camera stunts. Was that because, as host Allen Funt maintained, the show’s spirit was genial rather than sadistic, in contrast to more recent shows? Or because its liability releases (presumably proffered to the victims after the embarrassing stunt had been sprung) were more likely to be upheld? Or just because people then weren’t as primed to sue? (Ann Althouse, Jan. 20).
January 22 roundup
- “Don’t Google the lawyers.” Do judges need to be that explicit in admonishing jurors? [New Jersey Law Journal]
- Ky. lawyers bail out of hospital-infection suits [Courier-Journal, Dr. Wes, KevinMD]
- Man accused of extorting Oprah Winfrey earlier inserted himself into dispute arising from Prudential workplace-bias suit, lawyer says [Sun-Times]
- Nevada smoking ban scuppers taverns’ business, no real surprise there unless your name’s Bloomberg [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
- Panic! Another thermometer spill! (earlier, here and here) [Szwarc, and sequel]
- Write your legislator urging vote on pot decriminalization, get reported to police [Sullum]
- Heavy-handed: Calif. lawmaker proposes ban on spanking kids Saunders, Fisher]
- Think twice before driving your neighbor to the hospital: the Border Patrol just might seize your car [Tucson Citizen via Reason “Hit and Run”]
- Golf club ejectee sued for discrimination, but club says it was because of his many financial scams [Las Vegas Sun]
- Populist Dems vs. free trade: we’re all the losers [Chapman, syndicated]
- Student sues over excessive summer homework [Two years ago on Overlawyered]
January 21 roundup
- Update: $8M Greyhound verdict (Aug. 18, 2005) affirmed. [Serles v. Greyhound (6th Cir. 2007)] (Update to update: also Nordberg.)
- Hugo Chavez-wannabe Mississippi AG Jim Hood: $2.5M State Farm verdict is “drop in the bucket.” See also POL Jan. 16 and links therein. [Biloxi Sun-Herald]
- I’ve been saying this for a while: Enron litigation a search for deep pocketed-bystanders, rather than actual wrongdoers. [Houston Chronicle]
- Lawless LA: Deputies barred from foot chases now, so criminals know to run away. Lawsuit victim:
“I’m less proactive because I’m worried the next time I do something — who’s going to second-guess that?” [LA Times] - Lawyer tries to sabotage clients’ immigration proceedings over $7000 fee dispute, gets slap on wrist. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
- Forbidden words [Bader @ CEI Open Market]
- How bad US ethanol law hurts poor Mexicans [Cafe Hayek]
- Case for abolishing FCC [Slate (!)]
Extra time on exams, cont’d
The “secret world of the ADA”: professors grading exams aren’t supposed to know whether a given test-taker got extra time as an accommodation, but there are often ways you can tell, says San Diego lawprof Gail Heriot, especially when the essay comes in twice as long as other students’. Still, when she tries to find out what percentage of her class is getting extra time — not asking for names, just a rough figure on what share — she’s told it’s “none of your business”. (The Right Coast, Jan. 10). More: Jun. 2 and Dec. 8, 2006, among many others.
January 20 roundup
- Med mal: does sorry work? [Point of Law]
- Med mal: Nelu Radonescu v. Naum Ciomu. I think the damages were too low, since the act was intentional. But it’s in Romania. [Metro UK]
- New San Francisco sick leave law helps workers at big chains (if only in the short term) and lawyers, hurts everyone else. [Point of Law]
- Vioxx medical monitoring class action to proceed. [Point of Law; Drug and Device Law Blog]
- And the next Vioxx trial in New Jersey, starting Monday. [Point of Law]
- Adware displays porn on teacher’s computer, she faces 40 years. [roundup of links at Boing Boing]
- Fraud in Ohio asbestos case plus slap on wrist for lawyer; no consequences for plaintiff. [Point of Law; Adler @ Volokh]
- Always open mail from California. [Cal Biz Lit]
- $100 million legal bill defending oneself against Spitzerism. [WSJ Law Blog]
- “It would probably be better for the nation if more of the gifted went into the sciences and fewer into the law.” [Murray @ OpinionJournal]
- Borat accepting Golden Globe: “And thank you to every American who has not sued me so far.” [Above the Law; Throwing Things]
- OJ’s book contract. [Slate]
- Contra Doonesbury, Bush administration not hiding age of Grand Canyon [The Daily Gut via Captain Spaulding; Adler @ Volokh]
- Stephen Colbert “eviscerates” Dinesh D’Souza. [Comedy Central via Evanier]
“Prof. defends right to send feces”
Good news for poo-flingers: a Colorado lawyer is arguing (on behalf of a client facing misdemeanor charges) that there’s a First Amendment right to deliver dog droppings to someone’s office as a means of political self-expression, at least if the lucky recipient is a member of Congress. (AP/Boston Globe, Jan. 18).
Deep Pockets Files: More Myspace suits
January 19 roundup
- New legislation aimed at regulating “grassroots lobbying”: will it hit political bloggers? (Answer: apparently not.) [McCullagh, Hardy, Sullum, Bainbridge, Reynolds]
- Upper East Side merchant sues vagrants whose cardboard-box loitering ruins his location [NYSun, NYTimes]
- “People probably aren’t thinking about potential legal liability when they’re having casual sex,” says lawprof about new Calif. trend of spousal VD suits [KEYE-TV via KevinMD]
- “Devious, dissembling, dodgy. And that’s just the police”. Theodore Dalrymple on UK criminal justice [Times Online]
- Daniel Boulud of restaurant fame, targeted by lawsuit campaign, says he won’t pay to make worker advocates go away [NYTimes]
- Erin Brockovich on the warpath against recycling facility in Apple Valley, Calif. [Fumento/TCS]
- As a lawyer, Pres. John Adams represented Redcoats after Boston Massacre; what would he say about Guantanamo flap? [NYSun editorial]
- Nearly all radiologists frustrated with practice, liability is top reason [LocumTenens.com]
- Duke profs who egged on lynch mob in bogus rape case stand on melting ice floe of credibility [Reynolds, Althouse, Podhoretz, Bainbridge here and here, Allen]
- Ringling Bros. trainee says clown college was harder to get into than law school [Five years ago on Overlawyered]