Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

SCOTUS to hear raisin takings case again

For a second time, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case in which federal agricultural marketing order regulations compelled the Horne family of California to surrender about half their raisin crop for little if any compensation. [Will Baude, Ilya Somin, Michael McConnell] A previous high court ruling had kicked the case back to the Ninth Circuit for further proceedings [earlier here and here.]

Should the Court deem the requisitions a taking for which compensation is due, the implications for other agricultural programs are considerable. “Similar USDA marketing order programs are in place for almonds, apricots, avocados, cherries (both sweet and tart), Florida and Texas citrus, cranberries, dates, grapes, hazelnuts, kiwifruit, olives, many onions and pears, pistachios, California plums and prunes, many potatoes, raisins, spearmint oil, tomatoes, and walnuts.” [Baylen Linnekin]

Also, wouldn’t this make a good illustration?

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Our new site design

We’ve overhauled our design (thanks, Jeremy Kolassa and colleagues at Cato) to a cleaner and more up-to-date look that loads faster, works better on small devices like tablets and phones, and is more social-media-friendly. Tell us what you think in comments or email editor – at – overlawyered – dot – com. We’re still tinkering and implementing details, so your suggestions can make a difference.

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“When letting your kids out of your sight becomes a crime”

Danielle Meitiv, who with her husband has come under Child Protective Services scrutiny for letting their kids walk home from a local park, has some thoughts on the still-in-progress episode in the Washington Post [earlier]. I have often wondered why there were not more stirrings toward a legal defense organization for parents facing overreaching CPS actions, and a group called National Association of Parents apparently is hoping to fill that gap (its Facebook presence).

P.S. Well, this is neat: at the New Yorker “Talk of the Town,” Lizzie Widdicombe profiles Lenore Skenazy.

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New Jersey gun laws: felony for possession of antique flintlock

Gordon VanGilder, a 72 year old retired schoolteacher, now faces felony charges for possessing a 225 year old flintlock pistol, which he says he told a sheriff’s deputy about during a routine traffic stop. [NRA YouTube] More: Charles Cooke, Scott Greenfield (current New Jersey law specifically prohibits possession of antique firearms, a provision one lawmaker there would like to fix). For more on the tender mercies of New Jersey gun control laws, see our coverage of the Brian Aitken case.

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Federal judge dismisses Louisiana levee boards’ erosion suit

U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown has dismissed a “lawsuit filed in 2013 by a Louisiana flood board that sought damages — potentially in the billions of dollars — from scores of oil, gas and pipeline companies over erosion of the state’s fragile coast.” The judge ruled that federal and state laws did not provide any basis for the suit. The suit had provoked a furor in the state, with opponents of the suit arguing that political authorities in the state had authorized and indeed invited and encouraged the sorts of energy development being sued over. An appeal is expected. [Associated Press; New Orleans Advocate; earlier here, here, here, here, etc.]

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“Uncle Sam is a horrible nutritionist”

They’re finally letting the egg back into the good graces of government nutritionism, long after it had become clear that the cholesterol scare was unfounded [Washington Post] Again and again, health guidelines promoted by Washington have pushed Americans from safer toward less safe food choices, and from long-familiar foods that came to seem too rich or indulgent (butter, animal fat) toward alternatives about which far less is known. [Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Week] More: “Worth remembering that, if they had the power in the 1980s, the public health lobby would have forced us to eat a diet they now say is bad.” — @cjsnowdon

However bad a nutritionist Uncle Sam may be, of course, he is unlikely ever to be as bad as the science-impaired, self-proclaimed Food Babe Vani Hari [The Atlantic (“There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever.”), Orac/Respectful Insolence, Advertising Age, earlier] If only the public health establishment worked as hard to counteract the notions spread by Hari as it does to inscribe whatever its current set of food enthusiasms may be into coercive government policy! More: Michelle Francl, Slate.

P.S. At Scott Greenfield’s suggestion:

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Housing disparate impact returns to the Supreme Court

Daniel Fisher recounts oral argument in the case of Texas Dept. of Housing vs. The Inclusive Communities Project. Roger Clegg (more) and Terry Eastland comment on a “to exclude one is implicitly to include all others” argument made by some on the liberal side.

Interviewed at HousingWire, Mike Skojec of Ballard Spahr predicts major consequences from the case (including, paradoxically or otherwise, higher costs for the building of “affordable” housing should the liberal side win) and has this to say about how disparate-impact advocates have overplayed their hand:

In some disparate impact cases, the theory has worked effectively to lessen racial discrimination and the perpetuation of illegal segregation. However, the substantial increase in the use of the theory by advocacy groups and HUD for many kinds of claims for which it should not be used, such as how risk is evaluated in selling property insurance or how management companies screen the risk of criminal conduct and other bad acts by possible tenants, has caused the theory to be attacked and probably struck down.

Why “probably” struck down? Well, there are many signals of the Court’s intention:

The Court has wanted to examine this issue, as evidenced by accepting cert three times. It has repeatedly said that it only wanted to look at whether disparate impact applies under the Fair Housing Act and not what standard would apply if it does exist, even though there are many circuit court decisions using disparate impact, and they have used conflicting standards. Typically, the Court would want to decide an issue that is in conflict between the circuits, especially here, where HUD has already tried to resolve the conflicts with a rule. The Court’s refusal to consider a standard suggests that the majority of the justices already know disparate impact will no longer apply under the Fair Housing Act.

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February 13 roundup

  • Government of Canada alleges bill-padding by “king of class action lawsuits” in Indian residential schools compensation case [CBC; earlier here, here, and here]
  • P.F. Chang’s sued over surcharge on gluten-free menu [Yahoo, John O’Brien/Legal NewsLine]
  • Town consolidation as a cure for fragmented North County woes? Not so fast [Jesse Walker] Would it help if the towns went broke? [Megan McArdle, related on “taxation by citation”] St. Louis Post-Dispatch has gathered its coverage of the Ferguson story at a single portal;
  • “It was (Scottish) land law’s greatest ever day on twitter” [@MalcolmCombe Storify]
  • Billion-dollar lawsuit over natural gas collapses after “lawyers discovered that a key piece of evidence had been fabricated.” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
  • “Double Platinum Rapper Shilling For Local Lawyer Now” [Above the Law; Mark Jones, Columbus, Ga.]
  • She stoops to instruct: “Read the briefs,” Linda Greenhouse tells SCOTUS regarding high-profile King v. Burwell ObamaCare case [James Taranto, WSJ “Best of the Web”]. More: Robert Levy.

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How SCOTUS urban legends are made

No, the Supreme Court did not rule that firing a woman for breastfeeding is okay because men can lactate too. [Philip Miles, Lawffice Space]

P.S. Snopes weighs in (headlines “create a grossly misleading impression based upon one very minor element of a single aspect of the case”), prompting the ACLU’s Galen Sherwin to try a rescue mission in hopes readers would not lose interest in the case entirely once deprived of its clickbait elements. Raw Story, which did much to spread the silly meme, has now appended an easy-to-miss correction; Slate, which slapped an equally ridiculous headline on an Amanda Marcotte post, as of this writing has not.

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