Adrian Moore explains why no new refineries have been built in the U.S. since 1976, and not for lack of demand (“Katrina Reveals Gas Price Folly”, Orange County Register, Sept. 1, reprinted at Reason Foundation site) (via Instapundit). See Jun. 10, 2004.
Investor soaked on WorldCom stock, sues NASDAQ
“Steven Weissman is suing Nasdaq because, he alleges, ‘advertisements by Nasdaq influenced his decision to purchase more than $600,000 of stock in WorldCom Inc.'” Bruce Carton of Securities Litigation Watch pages us (Sept. 7) and Prof. Bainbridge is “left speechless” at the suit’s presumption (Sept. 7).
First things first
Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: “What are we doing here?”
As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters – his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week – a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. . . .
The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for “austere conditions.” Many of them came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.
“They’ve got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified,” said a Texas firefighter. “We’re sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven’t been contacted yet.”
How much fear of litigation do you need to let a city burn to ensure no one accuses you of failing to protect against sexual harassment? We might be hearing more stories like this, except FEMA, again with its priorities straight, has told firefighters not to talk to reporters. (Lisa Rosetta, “Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA”, Salt Lake Tribune, Sep. 6 (via Instapundit)).
Our Furry Friends Plaintiffs
Abstract for a new paper on SSRN:
This article seeks to explore a simple but profound question: how should our legal system deal with the claims of animals for protection against harms inflicted by humans? […] This article examines how the legal system presently balances such interests and how common law judges could expand, in a forthright manner, the consideration of animals’ interests. Finally, this article will suggest a more expansive consideration of animals’ interests through the adoption of a new tort: intentional interference with a fundamental interest of an animal.
(David S. Favre, “Judicial Recognition of the Interests of Animals – A New Tort”, 2005 Mich. St. L. Rev. 333 (Summer 2005)). Who says we already have too many lawsuits? If there ever is a class action on behalf of the Bovine-American community over McDonald’s hamburgers, it can perhaps be covered in the next edition of another new paper on SSRN, Howard Wasserman’s “Fast Food Justice.”
Earlier Overlawyered coverage: Oct. 21 and our animal rights archive.
No constitutional right to play college sports
College sports dodges a bullet: the Texas Supreme Court, reversing a court of appeals below, has ruled that a star college-level athlete’s reputation and future earning potential do not rise to the level of a property interest creating due process rights under the state’s constitution. The court rejected “a lawsuit by former Big 12 champion and Singapore swimmer Joscelin Yeo, who claimed the University of Texas damaged her reputation by ruling her ineligible to compete after she transferred from another school.” (Jim Vertuno, “Texas Supreme Court rules against former UT swimmer”, AP/Denton (Tex.) Record-Chronicle, Aug. 26; Doug Lederman, “Do Some Athletes Matter More?”, InsideHigherEd, Aug. 30)(opinion/lower court opinion).
More from C. G. Moore
Longtime reader Moore, a Tulane 3L, follows up on his earlier letter (Sept. 2) with this:
I’m back in LA after a few days in TX, and things are getting better here. Necessities are present, and gas prices are coming down. I’ve transfered to LSU for the semester — they’ve been very gracious, taking about 7,000 displaced students — and I just have to re-juggle a new course schedule with work, child care, and commuting home to an area under curfew.
Oh! Something that’s not made national news, as far as I’ve seen: at least 6 looters have been shot in St. Tammany parish (where I live), according to the deputies, and their orders are to shoot to kill. St. Tammany has the highest per-capita income of the state. It’s home to doctors, lawyers, engineers, and scientists. But it’s still a bit wild, apparently.
It’s absolutely mind-blowing to live through this. I think everyone here has had their perspective altered, but it has also helped bind some communities together. It has brought out the best, just as it has brought out the worst.
Incidentally, Ted’s comments on the topic of shooting looters touched off a considerable blogospheric discussion the other day; see Point of Law, Sept. 1.
Eve Tushnet
…will do something creative if you make a Katrina donation (Sept. 4).
Blogger gets nastygram from Monsanto
Tom Philpott, whose Bitter Greens Journal is intended “as a running critique of industrial agriculture, a clearinghouse for info on sustainable farming, and a working manifesto for a liberation politics based on food” has run assorted short items on that blog under the heading “Roundup, Ready”. The phrase plays on the name of the herbicide-resistant “Roundup Ready” seed line of the giant Monsanto corporation, of which Philpott is predictably a fervent critic. Now a Monsanto lawyer has sent him a cease and desist letter warning him to drop the offending term or else. (Aug. 26, Aug. 29, Sept. 2). Monsanto is already notorious for suing a dairy in Maine on the free-speech-chilling theory that it was somehow unfair, misleading or deceptive for the dairy to boast in its advertising that its milk did not contain artificial bovine growth hormones, since there’s nothing wrong with the hormones; see Sept. 17, 2003.
Katrina relief and liability issues
As might be expected, local charities have run into some organizational obstacles.
Former Daytona Beach Mayor Bud Asher, for example, has gathered the names of 50 people who have offered their homes to refugees, but doesn’t know of any refugees who need places to stay. Asher cannot turn to the Red Cross, which won’t give out names because of logistical and liability issues, said Hamlin, the local spokesman.
(Jim Haug, “New Orleans family winds up here, out of resources”, Daytona Beach News-Journal, Sep. 6). NOLA Help and the somewhat unorganized Katrina Help Wiki provides one means of breaking through the red tape.
Elsewhere, Anthony Sebok suggests that Hurricane Katrina should cause us to re-evaluate the 9/11 Victims’ Fund.
Church-aided evacuation plans
Realizing that there were no good plans in place for evacuating the 100,000+ sick or impoverished residents of New Orleans in the event of a hurricane, the Red Cross and a local poverty-action group had been developing a plan to “enlist churches in a vast, decentralized effort to make space for the poor and the infirm in church members’ cars when they evacuate,” according to Bruce Nolan in the July 24 Times-Picayune (reprinted by Brad DeLong). However, Operation Brother’s Keeper had only managed to enlist four churches as participants as of this July. Logistical difficulties posed by the idea were one challenge, but according to Nolan’s reporting another factor was also at work:
although the Archdiocese of New Orleans has endorsed the project in principle, it doesn’t want its 142 parishes to participate until insurance problems have been solved with new legislation that reduces liability risks, Wilkins said.