- Tennie Pierce update: only 6 out of 15 members vote to override mayor’s veto of $2.7M dog-food settlement (Nov. 11). [LA Times]
- Reforming consumer class actions. [Point of Law]
- Judicial activism in Katrina insurance litigation in Louisiana. [Point of Law; Rossmiller; AEI]
- What will and won’t the Seventh Circuit find sanctionable? Judge Posner’s opinion gets a lot of attention for snapping at the lawyers, but I’m more fascinated about the parts where the dog didn’t bark, which isn’t getting any commentary. [Point of Law; Smoot v. Mazda; Volokh; Above the Law]
- Montgomery County doesn’t get to create a trio-banking system. [Zywicki @ Volokh and followup]
- “The Hidden Danger of Seat Belts”: an article on the Peltzman Effect that doesn’t mention Peltzman. [Time; see also Cafe Hayek]
- Pending Michigan “domestic violence” bill (opposed by domestic violence groups) criminalizes ending a relationship with a pregnant woman for improper purposes. [Detroit News via Bashman; House Bill 5882]
- Did Griggs causes distortion in higher education? I’m not sure I’m persuaded, though Griggs is certainly problematic for other reasons (e.g., POL Aug. 12, 2004). [Pope Center via Newmark]
- The Kramer cash settlement. [Evanier]
- Jonathan Wilson gives Justinian Lane a solid fisking on loser pays. [Wilson]
- Speaking of Justinian Lane, for someone who says he was “silenced” because I didn’t post a troll of a comment on Overlawyered, he’s sure making a lot of whiny noise. Hasn’t corrected his honesty problem, though. [Lane]
- The stuff Gore found too inconvenient to tell you in “An Inconvenient Truth.” [CEI]
- Islam: the religion of peace and mercy, for sufficiently broad definitions of peace and mercy. [Volokh]
- One year ago in Overlawyered: photographing exhibitionist students at Penn. Jordan Koko doesn’t seem to have gone through with the threatened lawsuit. [Overlawyered]
James Lileks on copyright law
From his syndicated column (“Obliging the Entertainment Industry Poobahs”, Newhouse, Nov. 29):
Think of all the unauthorized copyrighted material you have in your head right now: Beatles tunes, Stephen King plots, images of Mickey Mouse.
Thief!
Well, you’re not exactly a criminal — but give it time.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has just been amended again, and if the changes make the entertainment industry happy, that does not bode well for your future.
Tomorrow the law may be amended to prevent you from reading Doonesbury while moving your lips, since that’s an unauthorized reproduction that shifts content from one form to another….
“What does it say about a society when tag is considered a high-risk activity?”
On “Hypocrisy” Accusations III
Speaking of hypocrisy and taxes, I was amused by the following (off-topic) quote (via Open Market):
At the outset of his research, [economist Arthur] Brooks had assumed that those who favor a large role for government would be most likely to give to charity. But in fact, the opposite is true.
Several times throughout the book, Mr. Brooks quotes Mr. Nader, the political activist, who said during his 2000 presidential campaign: “A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.”
Mr. Brooks calls it a “bitter irony” that those favoring income redistribution are not doing much redistributing from their own bank accounts — and he blames liberal leaders like Mr. Nader for letting liberals off the hook.
“In essence, for many Americans, political opinions are a substitute for personal checks,” Mr. Brooks writes.
(Ben Gose, “Charity’s Political Divide”, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Nov. 23). AEI is holding a book forum for Brooks’s book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism, on Tuesday, December 5, at 5:00 PM, free to the public; I’ll sadly have to miss because I’m attending the Scalia-Breyer debate sponsored by the Federalist Society and ACS.
New Times column — “US capital markets must learn from London”
My new column in the Times (UK) Online is up this morning, and discusses yesterday’s issuance of the much anticipated Paulson Committee report on the need to revive flagging U.S. competitiveness in international capital markets by reforming the workings of our securities and class-action law. (Dec. 1). For more on the work of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, see PoL Oct. 19, Nov. 30, Dec. 1, etc.
More drive-by disability suits
We’ve previously covered lawyers who file hundreds of lawsuits alleging discrimination against the disabled over alleged technical violations of the law, and then extort settlements at thousands of dollars a pop. (E.g., Nov. 4; Aug. 28; May 31, 2005). The Sacramento Bee recently ran an extensive series on the issue. (Marjie Lundstrom and Sam Stanton, “Visionary law’s litigious legacy”, Nov. 15 ; Id., “Frequent filers”, Nov. 16; Id., “Targeting entire towns”, Nov. 12; Bullet-point summary).
A California court has interpreted that state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act to only provide $4000 penalties in the case of intentional violations of the law; while this is a good public policy result in the abstract, I’m personally wary of the court using its judicial power to rewrite the poor legislation. It also doesn’t fix the problem with the federal law. (Gunther v. Lin; Wendy Thomas Russell, “Court ruling puts crimp in disability lawsuits”, Long Beach Press Telegram, Nov. 19). And in Florida, the press is just getting around to noticing the drive-by problem because of Robert Cohen’s 300 suits. (Kelli Kennedy, “‘Drive by’ suits rake in dough for attorneys”, AP/Miami Herald, Nov. 28 (h/t W.F.)). Even reflexive reform opponent Stephanie Mencimer takes notice and can’t defend the parasitic lawyering involved, but manages to spin the issue to implausibly blame the Republicans for the problem—though the ADA’s civil remedies were drafted by Democrats when they controlled Congress in 1991.
Ob-gyns become cosmetic surgeons
Doctors are increasingly choosing to trade medicinal necessities for a luxury practice, a factor that many who simply count raw numbers of doctors fail to take account of. Now, one must acknowledge that there are several reasons an ob-gyn would choose to switch from delivering babies to performing cosmetic surgery: the hours are better, one doesn’t have to deal with the hassle of insurer and Medicare reimbursement, one’s patients are likely to be more genteel. But surely the $120,000/year difference in malpractice insurance has at least something to do with it on the margin. (Natasha Singer, “More Doctors Turning to the Business of Beauty”, New York Times, Nov. 30).
Updates
Recent developments on past stories:
* Remember Shannon Peterson, the Denver condo owner who got sued by a neighbor who complained that she was taking baths too early? (Feb. 27). The case is still dragging on the better part of a year later, a judge having refused so far to throw it out. David Giacalone has the details (Nov. 30).
* Glamourpuss lawsuit-chaser Erin Brockovich, fresh from the humiliating dismissal (Nov. 18) of suits she fronted against California hospitals alleging Medicare overbilling, has been rebuffed in another high-profile case. This time a judge has dismissed twelve lawsuits brought by her law firm of Masry & Vititoe alleging that exposure to oil rigs at Beverly Hills High School caused cancer among students there (Martha Groves and Jessica Garrison, “School oil-rig lawsuits dismissed”, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 23) (via Nordberg who got it from Legal Reader). For more on the case, see Jul. 15 and Nov. 19, 2003, and Mar. 16, 2004. The New Republic has marked the occasion by reprinting its revealing 2003 article on the affair by Eric Umansky. P.S. More from Umansky, who has his own blog, here.
* Reader E.B. writes in to say:
Remember the group of parents (Oct. 23) who threatened litigation over their daughters’ playing time on the girl’s basketball team? The ones who demanded a six-person panel to oversee the selection of the players?
None of the parents’ daughters made the team. And they’re not happy about it. See C.W. Nevius, “Castro Valley hoops coach can’t win”, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 30.
* A court has dismissed the action (Aug. 10, 2005; Feb. 9, Feb. 20, Mar. 6, Jun. 28, 2006) by fair housing activists against Craigslist over user ads that expressed improper preferences or mentioned forbidden categories in soliciting tenants, apartment-sharers and so forth. (Anne Broache, “Craigslist wins housing ad dispute”, CNet, Nov. 17). However, blawger David Fish says the court’s reasoning was highly unfavorable to many other Internet companies generally, and may expose them to future liabilities (Nov. 15). Craigslist now has an elaborate page warning users that it is unlawful for them to post preferences, etc. in most situations not involving shared living space. Update: David Fish’s name corrected, apologies for earlier error.
* 3 pm update to the updates from Ted: “An Illinois intermediate appellate court overturned the $27 million verdict in Mikolajczyk v. Ford (which we reported on last year), ordering the lower court to replace the arbitrary jury verdict with a lower arbitrary number. Why the jury’s damage award is considered the product of passion and prejudice, but the same jury’s liability award is kosher, remains unclear. (Steve Patterson, “Court says $27 million crash award too much”, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 23).”
Lighter manufacturers ask for more CPSC regulation
[David H. Baker, the Lighter Association’s general counsel] said association members want mandatory standards to help reduce their legal liability. He explained that members often get sued for fires resulting from malfunctioning lighters. In many cases, he said, the lighter was destroyed in the fire, so there’s no proof of who made the lighter. But the easiest targets are the well-known brands such as Bic, Scripto and Swedish Match — companies that are members of the association, Baker explained.
Chinese off-brand import lighters are only 30% likely to meet voluntary industry safety standards, and manufacturers are not just facing the cheaper competition from the imports, but apparently also having to swallow liability from accidents caused by the more dangerous imports.
False accusations of “hypocrisy” II
For those who care about these things, Justinian Lane demonstrates a fundamental lack of reading comprehension in a response to my earlier post. Lane writes: “If I do the very thing I oppose, that does indeed make me a hypocrite.” This is technically inaccurate in a prescriptivist sense (look it up), but even under the descriptivist definition, Lane continues to confuse the idea of “I believe that X is bad public policy” with “I believe those who take advantage of X are immoral.” This is precisely the error I pointed out in the original post, but Lane says nothing to rationalize the conflation other than to repeat the assertion. He then proceeds to insult me for taking a legal tax deduction. Let’s be clear: I don’t oppose individuals taking Schedule A deductions for state taxes; that’s just common sense, and one’s tax rate is already higher to reflect the fact that deductions are available. I oppose the government’s policy of offering deductions for state taxes. There’s no hypocrisy, any more than there is hypocrisy because Lane pays his federal taxes even though his taxes are used to support the war in Iraq or some other government spending that he might object to, or because Lane votes for an elected official who doesn’t agree with Lane on every single jot and tittle.
Lane opposes making people better off through lower prices and higher wages, as Wal-Mart does; that is his right, and (unlike John Edwards) he can feel good about his abnegation that he goes without a toolbox because Wal-Mart is the only store that provides a reasonably priced model (though I don’t see Lane demanding to pay his supermarket and other stores more money to reflect the fact that they lowered prices to match Wal-Mart’s competition, so he’s not completely innocent of taking advantage of the benefits Wal-Mart brings to the economy). But it’s not remotely analogous to the scenario I describe.