Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

“Blinded by the Eclipse?”

Yes, really; it’s from the Facebook feed of Florida attorney and political hopeful John Morgan of Morgan & Morgan, who has featured in these columns on various occasions over the years. More eclipse-chasing from the firm’s website: “If you’re an eclipse viewer and you’re hurt on someone else’s property, you could have a claim, depending on the circumstance.” [George Bennett, Palm Beach Post]

P.S. According to this Space.com account of the turbulence found on the sun’s surface, “These pockets, or ‘bombs,’ eject plasma.” So that explains it. The sun has deep pockets! (And welcome Ray Dunaway show listeners.)

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Good riddance, Operation Choke Point

The Department of Justice has confirmed that it is putting an official end to Operation Choke Point, the under-the-radar initiative by Obama financial regulators to discourage banks from doing business with certain disfavored businesses such as payday lenders and gun dealers. I’ve written a piece for the Washington Examiner on it, excerpt:

The fate of Choke Point should serve as a warning that it’s dangerous to allow those in power to flag legal-but-suspect domestic businesses for shaming and commercial ostracism — especially if the process is covert, and especially if the result is to cut off the outcasts from access to the basics of economic life.

At the same time, it’s significant that the answer to Choke Point was *not* to pass some new law compelling banks to do business with payday lenders, fireworks stands, or X-rated studios.

Part of a free society is that we shouldn’t force commercial relationships on private actors. Businesses — and that includes providers of credit and payments services — should legally be free to follow their conscience.

And Eric Boehm quotes me at Reason:

“It should serve as a warning that the government doesn’t get to flag for banks—or businesses generally—which legal-but-suspect domestic customers it would like them to ostracize,” Olson told Reason on Friday. “Those in power must refrain from signaling that they’d be pleased if certain categories of otherwise legal customer get cut off from their access to economic life.”

Earlier at our tag. More coverage: Politico, Vending Times (vending machine sales companies hail decision).

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Banking and finance roundup

  • “Unintended Consequences of Military Lending Act Hurt Some Families” [R.J. Lehmann]
  • Tenth Circuit: Fed must provide all depository institutiona access to the clearing system, whether they serve marijuana businesses or any other kind [George Selgin, Cato]
  • “Moneylending has been taboo for most of human history. So how did usury stop being a sin and become respectable finance?” [Alex Mayyasi, Aeon]
  • Financial regulation: too many cooks in the compliance kitchen [Cato Daily Podcast with Thaya Brook Knight and Caleb Brown] “DOL Fiduciary Rule: It’s Not Always Fun to be Right” [Knight]
  • “2016 was an unprecedented year in securities class actions filings.” [Baker Hostetler, JD Supra]
  • Trusts and the offshore wealth trade: from Edmund Burke to the Cayman Islands [Graham McAleer, Law and Liberty]

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The year of movable statues: what to do with Roger Taney?

My new op-ed at the Frederick News-Post on Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to support removal of the statue of Roger Taney from its place in front of the Maryland State House:

Taney did many things in an illustrious legal career but is remembered for only one: the disastrous Dred Scott decision, which served to entrench slavery….

Change in the display of public memorials is natural and inevitable….

No one has erased him from the history books — the Dred Scott case itself makes sure of that.

Plus: some thoughts from Andrew Stuttaford. From Atlas Obscura, displaced statues as a subject of historic preservation. Related: “My favorite Civil War era monuments are the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.” [@david_tanenhaus on Twitter]

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Labor and employment roundup

  • Welcome news: Labor Secretary Alex Acosta urges states to fix occupational licensing [Eric Boehm, Reason] Fresh thinking on the antitrust angle in a bill from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) [Ilya Shapiro, Cato] “Occupational licensing should not be used to keep honest Americans out of work” [Clark Neily, The Hill] Video of Heritage panel on the subject with Maureen Ohlhausen of the FTC, Alex Tabarrok, Paul Larkin, and Dexter Price [Marginal Revolution]
  • “The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has allowed an employee to pursue a disability discrimination claim based on the use of medical marijuana.” [Jon Hyman]
  • That’s how we’ll solve difficult issues of statutory interpretation. We’ll call names [Richard Thompson Ford, Take Care, on expansion of Title VII interpretation to sexual orientation, earlier here, here, etc.] More: Scott Greenfield;
  • If not for wise lawmakers like those in California, who would look out for our privacy? [Steven Greenhut on proposal to give unions private workers’ phone numbers and addresses]
  • D.C. politicians are one big reason residents east of Anacostia River have poor grocery options [Diana Furchtgott-Roth; minimum wage]
  • Uniform, predictable test needed for who is an “employee” and “employer” [Glenn Lammi, WLF, first and second posts]

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Connecticut SC backs $41.7M verdict against school for failing to warn of tick bites

The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled “that schools have a duty to warn parents and students of potential hazards associated with field trips – in particular, dangerous insect bites – and let stand a $41.7 million verdict to a student who was disabled after developing encephalitis from a tick bite while on a school trip to China.” The Second Circuit had certified the question to the Connecticut court as part of the case of Munn v. Hotchkiss School. [Edmund H. Mahony/Hartford Courant, more] “According to the CDC, Munn was the first reported case of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in a U.S. traveler to China.” [Jennifer Morgan DelMonico, Murtha Cullina Appellate Insights]

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Liability roundup

  • Ted Frank, crusader against class action abuse and formerly a contributor to this blog, profiled [Caleb Hannan, Bloomberg]
  • Judge: “Milberg attorneys engaged in an elaborate scheme of deceptive conduct” in qui tam relator case [Bailey McGowan/WLF, opinion in Leysock v. Forest Labs]
  • “One way to help save the subways: Repeal the Scaffold Law” [Mike Elmendorf, New York Post]
  • Not for the first (or eighth) time, U.S. Senate looking like a graveyard for liability reform bills [Bruce Kaufman, Bloomberg]
  • Illinois: “it has not been unusual over the years to learn that insurers don’t want to write policies in Madison County because of the litigation factor.” [Madison County Record]
  • “Data-Breach Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Concoct New ‘Overpayment’ Harm Theory, with Mixed Results” [Greg Herbers, WLF]

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