“A deaf former IBM worker claims he wrongly accepted a lowball discrimination settlement of $200,000 because his lawyer exaggerated his knowledge of sign language and confused the sign for ‘million’ with that for ‘thousand’ while negotiating the deal.” Software engineer James Wang, who had blamed his firing on his deafness, got $200,000 but says he expected $200 million. [New York Post]
“Families of San Bernardino Shooting Sue Facebook, Google, Twitter”
“Family members of three victims of the December 2015 shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, have sued Facebook, Google and Twitter, claiming … that by allowing Islamic State militants to spread propaganda freely on social media, the three companies provided ‘material support’ to the group and enabled attacks.” [Reuters, ABA Journal]
High school student makes contribution to Supreme Court literature
I’m not in a position to check whether Alexander Prakash’s study was well executed, but it does look well conceived. Prakash took a publicly available data set (measuring how much Justices talk during oral argument) and used it to test two hypotheses: 1) Justices talk more during high-profile cases, maybe because they like public attention; and 2) they talk more during closely divided cases, maybe because they seek to influence each other. Prakash finds the evidence consistent with 2) but not 1), and incidentally notes that there do not appear to be systematic differences in speaking time based on left-right orientation or gender (h/t Adrian Vermeule on Twitter).
On religious liberty, a less than overwhelming executive order
I’ve got an op-ed at the New York Daily News about President Trump’s executive order taking a few generally small and measured steps toward accommodation of and favorable legal treatment toward religious belief. Excerpt:
On Wednesday, social media was filled with outcry about the sweeping, “Handmaid’s Tale”-like provisions of the executive order on religious liberty President Trump was preparing to sign Thursday….
What the White House unveiled Wednesday night was far more modest. In fact, it dropped about 96% of the controversial stuff that had circulated in the January draft, including many provisions that in my view were misconceived …
There is also [in the tax section of the order] a cryptic reference to having agencies defer more broadly to speech rights beyond the context of the IRS and campaigns, which lawyers are likely to look at closely in coming days just in case it proves to be something big….
Significantly, according to advance reports, a White House official indicates that there are no plans for any additional executive order on LGBT discrimination issues.
Organized gay groups, committed to keeping their base in a constant state of alarm, will be reluctant to admit that this is a big win for their cause.
More: Ilya Shapiro at Cato, Ed Morrissey, and my post on the earlier draft.
Please advise IBM of any mint issues
A tweet by Robert Swirsky:
Amused by this lengthy disclaimer in front of a bowl of mints at an NAB booth. "It's needed for compliance" they said. @overlawyered pic.twitter.com/KSdOHUb21Q
— (((Thrill Science))) (@ThrillScience) April 25, 2017
A followup photo includes the fateful mint jar. In subsequent discussion, attorney Peter Orlowicz points out that general federal ethics regulations “exclude modest items of food/refreshments from the definition of ‘gift’; it’s not clear that IBM was being over-cautious, though, given that supplementary agency regulations as well as state and local regulations have been known to go further than the general federal standard.
Free speech roundup
- Howard Dean, in hole re: grasping legal status of “hate speech,” keeps digging [Eugene Volokh (“No, Gov. Dean, There Is No ‘Hate Speech’ Exception to the First Amendment”), more (Chaplinsky and “fighting words”), Ronald K.L. Collins (will Dean publicly debate Volokh?]
- White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus gets asked on a talk show about Trump’s much-criticized hopes for libel law. Did he say much that was new? [Volokh]
- “Don’t Compel Doctors to Promote State-Favored Programs” [Ilya Shapiro and Thomas Berry on Cato amicus brief supporting Supreme Court certiorari in National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra]
- “Newspapers and magazines tend to bury stories about libel settlements. Don’t want to give readers ideas.” [@jackshafer on Twitter]
- Until courts definitively smack down New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s war on wrongful climate advocacy, this interim freedom-of-information win is nice [CEI] Related: Leo Doran, Inside Sources.
- First “alternative facts,” now this: “Students Have an ‘Alternate Understanding’ of the First Amendment.” [Stephanie Castellano, Newseum]
“VW judge dares plaintiffs’ lawyers to go after clients for fees”
“It’s obvious from a ruling Monday by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco that the judge does not think owners of Volkswagen ‘clean diesel’ cars needed individual counsel. The judge denied motions by 244 plaintiffs’ lawyers who wanted VW to pay them for the time they spent drafting filings for individual car owners, suggesting edits to classwide filings and advising their clients about developments in the case, including advice about whether to participate in the $10 billion class action settlement.” (Lawyers for the class itself, on the other hand, led by San Francisco’s Lieff Cabraser, are on track to get $175 million in fees and costs.) “So if VW doesn’t have to pay these 244 non-class lawyers for their time, will the 3,642 VW owners who signed individual contingency fee agreements with them be on the hook?” While Judge Breyer has instructed VW not to recognize liens for the individual attorney fees, they could still proceed against their clients for collection under the terms of the individual contingency fee contracts. [Alison Frankel, Reuters]
Cleveland police union plans to sue toy gun makers
“The Cleveland Patrolmen’s Association announced it will soon be filing a lawsuit against toy gun manufacturers in federal court… [seeking] to restrict the design of toy guns, so they don’t look so realistic.” City police came under nationwide criticism following the fatal police shooting of Tamir Rice, 12, who was in possession of a toy gun at a park. [WEWS News 5 Cleveland]
Arrive home safely, go to bed, get arrested for DUI
“If Canada’s new impaired driving laws are passed police could show up on your doorstep — up to two hours after you arrive home — to demand a breath or saliva sample.” The proposals would “[drop] the requirement that officers must first have reasonable suspicion before demanding a breath test,” and shift to the accused the burden of proving that the timing of drinking as reflected in a breath test was legally innocent. Critics predicted a challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the changes, “which were announced the same day the federal government unveiled its bill to legalize marijuana.” [Bryan Labby, CBC]
May 3 roundup
- Sixth Circuit ruling breaks new ground in disturbing ways: employer can be sued under Fair Housing Act if it withdraws job offer based on disapproval of accepted applicant’s public position on a housing controversy [Linkletter v. Western Southern Financial Group Inc.; Chiodi]
- A request from blogger Coyote: he’s looking to interview folks who run 10-40 employee firms [details]
- “Massachusetts is just one of six states that prohibit employers from donating to candidates while allowing unions to donate,” and the only one that prohibits employers from administering a PAC [Paul Craney and James Manley, Commonwealth Magazine]
- California voters sought to fix gerrymandering in races for state and federal office, but omitted to address the county level. Guess what’s happening now? [AP] No one is really fooled by Maryland legislature’s pledge to reform redistricting if five (5) nearby states all agree to enact exactly the same reforms [Nancy Soreng and Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, Washington Post; Rachel Baye/WYPR and related audio, legislation]
- D.C. should concentrate on deregulating hotel and apartment provision, rather than try to choke off AirBnB. [David Alpert, Greater Greater Washington, rounding up various views] “California will audit Airbnb hosts for racial discrimination” [ABA Journal, Guardian]
- Securities class action settlements continue steep rise [Harvard Corporate Governance Project]