- Availability of Uber and Lyft at LAX airport tied up in lawsuits including one filed under CEQA, the California environmental-review law often used tactically to delay projects [Los Angeles Times]
- Twenty years after his classic contrarian article on recycling, John Tierney returns with another close look at its pros and cons [New York Times] Quit scapegoating plastic bags, they carry enough weight as it is [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason, related]
- California class action: Reynolds should have disclosed formaldehyde in vaping [Winston-Salem Journal] Authors of widely noted New England Journal of Medicine formaldehyde/vaping paper got “philanthropy to support research” from two big-league trial lawyers [NEJM paper, disclosure form, Joseph Nocera January, related April, August and recent New York Times columns, Michael Siegel]
- Federal court blocks EPA’s hotly disputed Waters of the United States (“WOTUS”) rule [Jonathan Adler; National Wildlife Federation (pro-rule); Todd Gaziano and M. Reed Hopper, PLF (against), American Farm Bureau Federation (same)]
- Environmental law firm intervenes in Louisiana governor’s race to tune of $1.1 million [Greater Baton Rouge Business Report]
- Same state: “BP oil spill settlement to reimburse millions Louisiana paid to politically connected law firms” [Kyle Barnett, Louisiana Record]
- Government subsidies for rebuilding hurricane-prone areas disproportionately aid the wealthy [Chris Edwards, Cato]
Wal-Mart’s Mexico practices: the sequel
Remember that big New York Times exposé that accused Wal-Mart of massive Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)/bribery offenses during its expansion in Mexico? Oops:
A high-profile federal probe into allegations of widespread corruption at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s operations in Mexico has found little in the way of major offenses, and is likely to result in a much smaller case than investigators first expected, according to people familiar with the probe.
[Aruna Viswanatha and Devlin Barrett, WSJ (paywall), earlier] More: Mike Koehler, FCPA Professor.
“10 Things I Learn Reading Jury Verdicts and Settlements”
Inside baseball on injury claims and how they’re evaluated and resolved — note the importance of jurisdiction and of type of injury, for example — from our Maryland plaintiff’s lawyer friend Ronald Miller.
October 21 roundup
- “Rightscorp’s Copyright Trolling Phone Script Tells Innocent People They Need To Give Their Computers To Police” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- “‘Affordable housing’ policies have made housing less affordable” [Matt Welch, L.A. Times]
- South Mountain Creamery case: “Lawmakers Call for Return of Cash Seized From Dairy Farmers” [Tony Corvo/Heartland, quotes me, earlier on this structuring forfeiture case]
- Be prepared to explain your social media trail, like by like: “Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 2035” [Orin Kerr]
- From Eugene Volokh, what looks very much like a case against assisted suicide, embedded in a query about whether state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs) might cut a legal path to it [Volokh Conspiracy]
- “The complaint also indicated that the injuries could affect Reid’s ability to secure employment” after Senate exit [Roll Call on Majority Leader’s suit against exercise equipment firm over eye injury]
- Amazon responds to NYT’s “everyone cries at their desk” hatchet job on its workplace culture [Jay Carney, Medium]
Assault on police: the newest hate crime?
The town of Red Wing, Minnesota, has passed a resolution urging that assaults on police be made a hate crime, a position urged for some years by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) union. How bad an idea is this? A very bad one indeed, I argue in an op-ed for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Critics argue that [existing hate-crime] laws in effect play favorites, departing from the spirit of equal protection under law that aims at treating all victims of personal assault as equally important.
Because they seem to put an official public seal on a narrative of oppression, such laws are also lobbied for in me-too fashion by other groups that rightly or wrongly see themselves as oppressed….
Not only are lethal assaults on police declining, I note, but the vast majority of them do not arise from any supposed prejudice or animus against cops, nor do such crimes go neglected and unprosecuted. Besides, most states already allow sentence enhancements on other grounds for crimes against police:
…what would [such a change in law] symbolize? The merely absurd proposition that police in the U.S. today are an oppressed minority group? Or the downright dangerous proposition that the law should step in to chastise and rectify the attitudes of a public that may not be as supportive of police wishes and demands as cop advocates would like?
Read the whole thing. Incidentally, the town council voted last week to let its Human Rights Commission review the resolution, a possible step toward reconsidering it. Some earlier Cato commentary on hate-crime laws here, here, here, and here. (cross-posted from Cato at Liberty).
More links: Star-Tribune original coverage (noting that Red Wing’s police chief approached the council requesting the resolution as a “show of support,” and that Minnesota already provides for sentence enhancements when police are the target of crimes, as indeed do most states); FBI on definition of hate crime; Fraternal Order of Police side of the case; Washington Post; U.S. News; New York Daily News.
“National Constitution Center’s ‘Interactive Constitution’”
Recommended by Eugene Volokh, the National Constitution Center’s “Interactive Constitution“. Its description:
On this site, constitutional experts interact with each other to explore the Constitution’s history and what it means today. For each provision of the Constitution, scholars of different perspectives discuss what they agree upon, and what they disagree about. These experts were selected with the guidance of leaders of two prominent constitutional law organizations — The American Constitution Society and The Federalist Society.
The writers include many familiar names and every contribution I’ve read so far, on both sides of questions, has been of high quality.
How late the Auer
“Auer deference,” announced by the U.S. Supreme Court in Auer v. Robbins (1997), requires courts to accord deference to a federal agency’s interpretation of its own statute. The U.S. Department of Education, contradicting some earlier statements, has lately taken the view that “collection costs may not be assessed against [student loan] borrowers who sign rehabilitation agreements,” thus turning unlawful in retrospect thousands of instances in which lenders have done that. The Seventh Circuit has now denied en banc rehearing in the case of Bryana Bible v. United Student Aid Funds, which — invoking Auer deference — let a suit go forward on that theory. Judge Frank Easterbrook, concurring in that denial of rehearing en banc (h/t Ted Frank), noted that Supreme Court justices including Auer’s original author have lately expressed doubts about the doctrine’s ongoing viability. Easterbrook:
…deference has set the stage for a conclusion that conduct, in compliance with agency advice when undertaken (and consistent with the district judge’s view of the regulations’ text), is now a federal felony and the basis of severe penalties in light of the Department’s revised interpretation announced while the case was on appeal.
“I remain sir, Your obedient serpent”
Lawyer’s letter evicting Adam and Eve from Paradise: “If you have not vacated the property by the specified date, Messrs Michael and Gabriel (Bailiffs) Ltd. will be instructed to take possession.” [Jot 101, from 1964 magazine Arrows: 87]
Schools roundup
- “Justice Department Sues Public School For Refusing to Manage Student’s Service Dog” [Minh Vu, Seyfarth Shaw]
- Feds finally propose exempting historians and some others (but not folklorists) from IRB/human subject research rules [Zachary Schrag, more]
- Could the University of California’s planned “principles against intolerance” someday restrict the scholarship of criminologists? [Heather Mac Donald/City Journal, earlier]
- “District officials say the staff did everything right..The inhaler doesn’t have Emma’s name on it” [Lenore Skenazy]
- “Remember Your Old Graphing Calculator? It Still Costs a Fortune — Here’s Why” [Jack Smith IV, Mic]
- At hearing, Sen. Lamar Alexander criticizes Department of Education use of Dear Colleague letters to push regulation into new areas [The College Fix, CEI, Scott Greenfield]
- Roughhousing is important for kids. Stop trying to ban it [Virginia Postrel, New York Post]
Reparations demanded for Jamaica
A Jamaican official says British Prime Minister David Cameron must “apologize personally” because “his lineage has been traced and his forefathers were slave-owners” Well, no. [Brendan O’Neill, The Spectator; Daniel Hannan; NY Times “Room for Debate”; earlier here and here, etc.] More on reparations here and here; I wrote about them at chapter length in Schools for Misrule.