Charles Sykes reviews the much-praised new Matthew Desmond book “Evicted,” based on observation of poor persons’ housing problems in Milwaukee, which advances the notion of a right to housing and (relevant to our Civil Gideon coverage over the years) a right to free anti-eviction lawyers [Commentary; more on the current full-employment-for-tenant-lawyers push]
Why they can’t sell you Derby Pie
On the menu this week at your local restaurant or bakery, you might notice cute wordings like “Famous Horse Race Pie,” “Kentucky Bourbon Chocolate Nut Pie,” or even “We’re Not Allowed To Call This Derby Pie.” In a Cato podcast with colleague Caleb Brown, I explain why, and also mention in passing the aggressive enforcement of the Super Bowl trademark.
One reaction: anti-IP libertarian theorist Stephan Kinsella takes issue with several things I say in the podcast and in particular deplores my intended tone of neutral description of trademark law; he contends that a better position would be to challenge the legitimacy of trademark law and of intellectual property law generally, a view some libertarians have taken.
Michael Kinsley on Citizens United
The Citizens United case was correctly decided, says Michael Kinsley. And he is right. [Vanity Fair]
“When consumers want to create or join a class-action lawsuit…”
Hello, AP? The relevant “wanting” here is done by lawyers, not consumers. (“When consumers want to create or join a class-action lawsuit…”) And that’s kind of emblematic of how you miss the point on the Consumer Finance Protection Board’s big announcement of a rule yesterday rescuing many class action lawyers from the arbitration clauses to which their putative clients would otherwise have given legal consent.
More: BNA, James Copland, WSJ:
The industry reaction was swift, with Wall Street and its advocates warning of unintended consequences of the rule within hours of the CFPB proposing it on Thursday.
The change likely will result in higher litigation costs for banks, which they will offset either by raising the costs of consumer-loan products or reducing services, said Nessa Feddis, senior vice president for consumer protection and payments at the American Bankers Association, an industry group.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) called the proposed rule “a big, wet kiss to trial attorneys.”
And: Omri Ben-Shahar, Forbes:
While the overall effect on consumers depends on the balance between meritorious and frivolous class actions, one prediction can be made with confidence. Firms will now take greater care in drafting even longer fine print agreements, where everything is fully “disclosed.” Since many class actions allege violations that can often be corrected through more comprehensive legal disclosures and warnings, firms will lawyer up and write longer and even less readable boilerplate. The “asterisk” will be the winner — the routine disclaimers that accompany advertisements, as in: “Footlong is an average; reasonable variations may apply.” In the end, the CFPB’s proposed regulation will not improve the value of financial services to consumers. It will instead lavish upon people even longer and more excruciating small print.
“Did litigation kill the Beatles?”
As the most successful band in history, the Beatles generated not only a record number of music hits but probably more legal disputes than any other music group before or since. As the first international rock band brand in a still nascent music business – and guided by a neophyte personal manager – the Beatles became entangled in a distracting series of legal problems nearly from the start of their career.
— ABA Journal runs an excerpt from “Baby You’re a Rich Man: Suing the Beatles for Fun and Profit,” a new book by Stan Soocher.
Politics roundup
- Disparage at thy peril: three Democratic lawmakers demand FTC investigation of private group that purchased $58,000 in ads disparaging CFPB, a government agency [ABC News] So many politicos targeting their opponents’ speech these days [Barton Hinkle]
- A pattern we’ve seen over the years: promoting himself as outspoken social conservative, trial lawyer running for chairman of Republican Party of Texas [Mark Pulliam, SE Texas Record]
- Some of which goes to union political work: “Philly Pays $1.5 Million to ‘Ghost Teachers'” [Evan Grossman, Pennsylvania Watchdog via Jason Bedrick]
- “However objectionable one might find Trump’s rhetoric, the [event-disrupting] protesters are in the wrong.” [Bill Wyman/Columbia Journalism Review, earlier]
- Hillary Clinton’s connections to Wal-Mart go way back, and hooray for that [Ira Stoll and column]
- I went out canvassing GOP voters in Maryland before the primary. Here’s what they told me. [Ricochet]
“Bad drivers are a good indicator of a corrupt government”
James O’Malley looked at road deaths per 100,000 people for various counties “and compared it to the scores given by the World Justice Project on Rule of Law in 2015.” The correlation came out at -0.68, suggesting that improvements in the rule of law correlate strongly with safer road conditions, possibly mediated through better driver behavior and trust between citizens. Good rule of law conditions also correlate with increased income, but that appears to have a U-shaped effect on aggregate road fatalities: when very poor countries begin to prosper more persons can own cars and the number of accidents increases, but as countries approach affluence more is invested in safety. [CityMetric via Christopher Groskopf, Quartz, including above title]
“Administrative Law Judges Are Unconstitutional”
Administrative law judges are executive-branch as distinct from judicial officers, yet the President has no power to remove them; at the Securities and Exchange Commission and many other federal agencies, they are themselves employed by the agency on whose enforcement cases they must render quasi-judicial rulings. In recent years federal judges have expressed unease about whether assigning ALJs this particular combination of adjudicatory powers and institutional affiliations is entirely consistent with the U.S. Constitution, and now a Cato Institute amicus brief, in the D.C. Circuit case of Timbervest LLC v. Securities and Exchange Commission, urges courts to take the next logical step and rule that it is not. [Ilya Shapiro and Thaya Brook Knight; earlier here, here, here here, etc.]
Schools roundup
- California appeals court says state’s teacher tenure law doesn’t violate Equal Protection Clause, similar suits pending in NY, Minn. [ABA Journal, Neal McCluskey/Cato, earlier on Vergara case]
- Maryland to local school district: no, families can’t opt out from standardized tests, we might lose federal funds [Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Frederick News-Post]
- Teachers fearful as disorder spreads in St. Paul, Minn. schools [Joanne Jacobs, background on feds’ role]
- Somerset County, N.J.: “It’s ‘harassment’ for a sixth-grader to criticize vegetarianism to a vegetarian classmate” [Eugene Volokh]
- UK agency reverses decision to downgrade rating of pre-school for not teaching cultural diversity [Guardian]
- Schools have rules, but only up to a point: “NY moves to allow illegal immigrants to teach in public schools” [Malia Zimmerman, Fox News]
Dachshunds can’t race in Idaho
Laws ban things, that’s what they do: Idaho law makes the sport of dog racing a felony, and as a result it’s illegal to race dachshunds, even if it’s all in fun, no money is bet, and the diminutive canines are asked to run only a short distance. [Lowering the Bar]