The insanity — and the 10 to 20 year waits — of housing regulation in the Swedish capital [Alex Tabarrok]
“Only two of the estimated 232,000 class members claimed the coupons”
“Only two of the estimated 232,000 class members claimed the coupons” in a class action led by Edelson McGuire LLP. Defendant Dick’s Sporting Goods “agreed not to oppose the plaintiff’s request for $210,000 in attorney fees and costs and a $3,500 incentive award,” but an Orange County, Calif. judge took away a large chunk of that sum because… why? Because some of the lawyers angling for it had not been admitted to practice in California, that’s why. [Kenneth Ofgang, Metropolitan News-Enterprise; Golba v. Dick’s Sporting Goods, unpublished]
Schools and childhood roundup
- “Someone could have put their hand in the window and unlocked the door and taken the kids” [Lenore Skenazy/Free Range Kids; related stories here and here; similar, Illinois Policy]
- Police warn that plan in Scotland to provide state guardian for every child could backfire in abuse investigations [Telegraph, more on “named person” scheme]
- Also from Scotland: Law Society says proposed ban on liquor promotion is so broad it might snag parent wearing rugby-sponsor jacket at school pickup [Express]
- Judge rejects Mississippi school finance suit [Andrew Ujifusa, State Education Watch, background]
- Widespread criticism of Michigan judge for sending kids to juvenile detention for not wanting to have lunch with their father [Radley Balko]
- “Two Parents Weren’t Sure How Their Little Girl Fractured Her Leg, So CPS Took the Kids” [Lenore Skenazy, more, yet more on “medical kidnapping”]
- Caleb Brown and Andrew Grossman discuss educator-dues case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association [Cato Daily Podcast, earlier on case, its SCOTUSBlog page]
Take that, authenticity
Staffers from the New York City Commission on Human Rights comb Craigslist for improper job ads and hit pay dirt when they found one from the Indian restaurant Shalom Bombay seeking an “experienced Indian waiter or waitress.” A judge decided to cut the fine on the owners from $7,500 to $5,000; documents in the case noted the lack of any evidence that the ad had real-world consequences. The restaurant has been out of business for more than a year. [“Indian restaurant fined for trying to hire Indian waiter,” New York Post]
Banking and finance roundup
- “Fee-shifting: Delaware’s self-inflicted wound” [Stephen Bainbridge, more] Needed: a new Delaware [Reuters] Fordham lawprof Sean Griffith fights trial bar on shareholder suits [Bainbridge, more]
- Goodbye, insurance (hugs). I think I’ll miss you most of all. [Bridget Johnson on anti-cinema, anti-stock-trading views of radical Islamist British activist and former lawyer Anjem Choudary]
- Rare coalition of bankers, housing advocates urges limits on mortgage-related suits [W$J]
- “The Administrative State v. The Constitution: Dodd-Frank at Five Years” hearing includes testimony from Mark Calabria of Cato (law delegates vast authority to bureaucracy, has failed to generate clear rules for regulated parties) and Neomi Rao of George Mason (unconstitutionality of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) [Senate Judiciary Committee, related on a CFPB constitutional challenge]
- Do-it-yourself Operation Choke Point: letter from one Illinois sheriff shut down adult-ad credit card payments [Maggie McNeill, Daniel Fisher]
- “Obama DOJ Channels Bank Shakedown Money To Private Groups” [Dan Epstein, Investors Business Daily]
- “The U.S. listing gap” [Doidge, Karolyi, & Stulz NBER paper via Tyler Cowen, MR]
This land is my land
“Kentucky man shoots down drone hovering over his backyard” [Cyrus Farivar, Ars Technica]
Contingency fees + IRS = sound policy?
Yet again — we covered this issue last year — lawmakers on Capitol Hill are considering sending private debt collectors on contingency fee after those who owe money to the Internal Revenue Service. Here’s an issue where I can agree with Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell: contingency fees and tax collection don’t make for a good mix. Will we ever learn our lesson on law enforcement for profit?
July 29 roundup
- Former NYT Peking correspondent Richard Bernstein, who now co-owns two nail salons, challenges Times blockbuster on prevalence of labor exploitation at NYC salons [New York Review of Books, Elizabeth Nolan Brown and followup, Times rebuttal. More: Bernstein rejoinder]
- More details on how studios used Mississippi attorney general’s office as cut-out against Google [Mike Masnick, TechDirt, earlier here and here, more on AG Jim Hood]
- Of course licensing laws “are only there to protect consumers and are enforced in a totally neutral way that has nothing to do with viewpoints or political pull (lol).” [Coyote on Boston mayor’s “not welcome in our town” message to Donald Trump]
- Speaking of Donald Trump, would his lawyer threaten litigation to intimidate reporter Tim Mak? Only in a totally classy way [Daily Beast, S.E. Cupp/New York Daily News (Cohen, 2011: “I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished”), earlier from the vaults on Trump’s use of litigation]
- Things class-action lawyers sue over: “Beggin’ Strips Don’t Have Enough Bacon” [Reuters, New York Post]
- As Lois Lerner targeting scandal drags on, time for Congress to impeach IRS officials? [Mike Rappaport, Liberty and Law]
- Welcome to AFFH-land: Bharara, on behalf of feds, says Westchester County should pay for not squeezing Chappaqua hard enough to approve housing project [Journal-News, earlier here and here]
Bloomberg on tort “lead generators”
Missed this a couple of months back: how click-and-sue lead generators use Facebook, Big Data and call centers in India to rustle up plaintiffs for mass tort law firms [Bloomberg]
“Jdate Sues Competitor Jewish Dating App For Using The Letter ‘J'”
“Jdate’s parent company, Spark Networks, discreetly filed a lawsuit late last year against Jswipe, the ‘Tinder for Jews’ dating app, claiming intellectual property over the letter “J” within the Jewish dating scene (the company refers to the branding as the ‘J-family’). … [But there are] more Jewish apps that start with the letter ‘J’ than New York school closings on Rosh Hashanah.” [Gregory Ferenstein]