Mark your calendar now: Mon. Sept. 18 is the Cato Institute’s all-day annual Constitution Day program. I’ll be moderating a panel on “Property, Religious and Secular” with Roger Pilon and Rick Garnett, and other well-known Cato names appear through the day. The annual B. Kenneth Simon Lecture will be delivered by Columbia lawprof Philip Hamburger. Details here.
Tenth Circuit: neighbors’ RICO suit against pot growers can proceed
I wrote two years ago about how
a pro-Drug-War group [Safe Streets Alliance] is using civil RICO to go after banks, bonding companies, landlords, and other commercial vendors that do business with marijuana facilities legalized under Colorado’s Amendment 64. Whatever you think of the underlying Colorado law, RICO (I argue) puts too much power in the hands of bounty-hunting private lawyers.
Now the Tenth Circuit has ruled that Safe Streets Alliance, representing a couple named Reilly, can proceed with a racketeering suit against the Reilly’s marijuana-growing neighbors. The direct damages claimed, including noxious odors, are of the sort that might form the basis of a conventional nuisance action, but the RICO framing could make possible steeper penalties, such as triple damages and attorneys’ fees, while the continued unlawfulness of the growing under federal law (even if left unenforced) knocks out possible defenses for the growers [Eugene Volokh; my 2015 piece]
Inside an ADA mass filing operation
An investigation by Arizona’s ABC 15 “confirmed through attorneys, sources and internal documents that Litigation Management and Financial Services is comprised of the same people behind the Valley group, Advocates for Individuals with Disabilities, or AID.” The news organization also lays its hands on contracts used by the resulting ADA mass filing operation; it seems disabled plaintiffs in whose names the suits were filed got paid $50 a pop.
Sessions : DoJ will stop sending settlement money to private groups
My new piece at Cato begins:
In a memo dated June 5, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ended the practice by which the Department of Justice earmarks legal settlement funds for non-governmental third-party groups that were neither victims nor parties to the lawsuit. This is terrific news and a major step forward in respecting both the constitutional separation of powers and the private rights that litigation is meant to vindicate.
On the separation-of-powers aspects of these slush funds, I go on to recommend a vigorous dissent by Judge Janice Rogers Brown in the recent D.C. Circuit case of Keepseagle v. Perdue. Whole thing here.
The mills of justice grind slowly, cont’d
Report from the Washington, D.C. courts: “A woman who sued the Washington, D.C., Department of Corrections for sexual discrimination is still awaiting the final resolution of her lawsuit 27 years after it was filed….The case has been before nine judges; a 10th will consider her dispute over interest this week.” [ABA Journal]
June 7 roundup
- “Copyright Troll’s Tech ‘Experts’ Can Apparently Detect Infringement Before It Happens” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt] “Judge Alsup Threatens To Block Malibu Media From Any More Copyright Trolling In Northern California” [Mike Masnick, same]
- “The Truth About Seattle’s Proposed Soda Tax and its Ilk” [Baylen Linnekin quoting my piece on the Howard County, Maryland campaign against soft drinks; my related on Philadelphia soda tax] Update: measure passes;
- “Judge calls attorney a ‘lowlife’ in tossing defamation suit, says ‘truth is an absolute defense'” [Julia Marsh, New York Post]
- Rent control in Mumbai, as closer to home, brings strife, litigiousness, and crumbling housing stock [Alex Tabarrok] “How Germany Made Rent Control ‘Work'” [Kristian Niemietz, FEE]
- Together with Judge Alex Williams, Jr., I wrote an op-ed for the Baltimore Sun on the Maryland legislature’s misbegotten scheme to require a six-state compact before fixing its gerrymander-prone redistricting system;
- Inefficient land title recording leaves billions on table, but lawmakers show scant interest in reform [Arnold Kling]
Under new Connecticut law, lawyers to represent animals in court
“A Connecticut law makes it the first state to provide animals with court-appointed advocates to represent them in abuse and cruelty cases, similar to laws that provide for victim’s or children’s advocates.” [Laurel Wamsley, NPR]
Environment roundup
- Clean Water Act’s citizen-suit procedure can “be a huge money maker” for private groups: “Policing for profit in private environmental enforcement” [Jonathan Wood]
- “Chicago Alderman Tells Property Owners to ‘Come Back to Me on Your Knees’ or Face Zoning Changes” [Eric Boehm, Reason]
- Wetlands: “Farmer faces $2.8 million fine after plowing field” [Damon Arthur, Redding Record-Searchlight]
- Urban bike lanes are green religious monuments, writes Arnold Kling, a biker himself;
- Climate change shareholder disclosure: “Class action lawyers have become very clever at developing these cases for profit.” [Nina Chestney, Reuters]
- “Why full compensation for property owners might lead to more unlawful takings” [Ilya Somin]
“Back the Blue Act”
“The Back the Blue Act would make any assault on an officer a federal crime with a mandatory minimum sentence. But here’s the thing: assaulting a police officer is already a crime in every state and already carries strict penalties set by local legislatures.” The placing of persons under arrest inevitably generates some ambiguous or factually uncertain instances of the closely related offenses of resisting arrest and assault on a police officer, and the concept of assault itself is independent of any infliction of actual injury. Pulling broad swaths of this law, and then subjecting the whole thing to mandatory minimums, is unlikely to improve matters. (The bill has other provisions too.) [Neill Franklin, The Hill] More: Scott Shackford.
Discrimination law roundup
- Go figure: Trump executive order says “Hire American” even as federal law bans job discrimination in favor of American citizens [Jon Hyman]
- Though ADA excludes “gender identity” claims, judge green-lights suit over gender dysphoria [P.J. D’Annunzio, Law.com]
- “UC Berkeley Drops Free Online Videos In Response To Government Threat” [Jane Shaw/Heartland, and thanks for quote]
- “Hostile work environment can be created with one racial slur, 2nd Circuit rules” [ABA Journal]
- Connecticut’s CHRO attracts much higher per capita filings of workplace discrimination than comparable agency in Massachusetts, with complaints from incumbent employees a key growth area [Marc E. Fitch, Yankee Institute; Daniel Schwartz with somewhat different view]
- Missed, from December: Philadelphia could close businesses deemed to discriminate [Tricia Nadolny, Philadelphia Daily News, related earlier]