But that’s not the end of the story. Law school fires her. She sues! But loses, at least so far. [Caron/TaxProf, ABA Journal; Hamline Law School, Minnesota]
January 20 roundup
- Grand jury said to recommend charges against Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane [Philadelphia Inquirer, more, earlier here and here]
- Orin Kerr analyzes Obama admininstration proposals to expand law on computer crime [Volokh Conspiracy and more]
- “Religious Liberty Isn’t a ‘Dog Whistle’ – It’s a Necessary Practice of a Free Society” [Scott Shackford, Reason vs. Frank Bruni, New York Times]
- Scalia, Epstein, many others: videos now online from the Federalist Society’s recently concluded 2014 National Lawyers Convention;
- List of firms with non-disparagement clauses (of highly dubious enforceability) purporting to forbid negative comments from customers [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]
- “Red Tape Is Strangling Good Samaritans” [Philip K. Howard, The Daily Beast]
- I’ve written on this irony: antitrust lawyers collude among themselves to boost their fee take [Daniel Fisher]
“On another occasion, [plaintiff] threatened to shoot his supervisor’s children in the kneecaps”
Great moments in unsuccessful ADA litigation: a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a summary judgment entered against a plaintiff who said his firing by the city of North Las Vegas constituted discrimination against him based on his hearing impairment as well as retaliation [Curley v. City of North Las Vegas]:
As part of the investigation, the Human Resources Department interviewed City employees and asked about their interactions with Curley. The interviews revealed that Curley had repeatedly threatened his coworkers and their families. For example, he threatened to put a bomb under a car, insinuated that he had mafia connections, and talked about giving a “blanket party” — which would involve throwing a blanket over a person’s head and beating him. One coworker reported that Curley threatened to kick his teeth out if the coworker did not join a union. On another occasion, Curley threatened to shoot his supervisor’s children in the kneecaps.
The interviews also revealed details about Curley’s work habits. Multiple coworkers said that Curley regularly conducted personal business while at work, sometimes spending up to three hours on his cell phone. It also appears that Curley was operating an ADA consulting business. Many of the calls he made during work were about the business, and coworkers saw him approach disabled individuals to discuss potential lawsuits.
Update thanks to reader Eric in comments:
I was thinking “He was only fired? Why isn’t he in jail?” so I googled him up. He has quite a history.
Astoundingly after he was fired from the city for his shenanigans, a school district (!) hired him as janitor. Six months later he was arrested for stalking (he kept threatening city employees). Finally (and after appearing in the papers) the school is attempting to fire him.
State of the Union
Tuesday evening, tune in to #CatoSOTU on Twitter for a libertarian take on the president’s State of the Union address with me and many others from Cato including David Boaz, Mark Calabria, Ilya Shapiro, Aaron Ross Powell, Nicole Kaeding, Jason Kuznicki, Julian Sanchez, Alex Nowrasteh, and more. Additional details here
Law enforcement for profit roundup
The “equitable sharing” civil forfeiture program (see weekend post) being just one of the more visible corners of a whole scaffolding of bad incentives in law enforcement:
- “Our view: Civil asset forfeiture is government at its absolute worst.” [USA Today editorial] Washington, D.C. votes forfeiture reform [Nick Sibilla, Institute for Justice] “Philadelphians Save Homes From Civil Forfeiture Machine” [IJ]
- “Police Chief Magazine: Generating Revenue Streams” [Instapundit]
- Public drunkenness outside the French Quarter said to serve New Orleans as key tourist tax [Paul Gowder, PrawfsBlawg]
- “The Debt Penalty: Exposing the Financial Barriers to Offender Reintegration” [Sentencing Law and Policy, Justice Fellowship back in August]
- To catch a non-predator (so as to grab his car through forfeiture) [Conor Friedersdorf on Florida police]
- “Prosecutors Burn Down the Law: How fire investigators distorted evidence to loot a company.” [WSJ editorial on Moonlight Fire case, earlier here and here]
NYT on auto title loans
“With a crackdown on payday lenders, subprime borrowers are increasingly using auto title loans, whose high interest rates can lead to repossession and financial ruin.” [DealBook/NYT] Todd Zywicki at Volokh finds much lacking in the article’s analysis: “it turns out that those who use these products are not as stupid as the Times’s reporters imply they are.” Reihan Salam: “Remember when people said that cracking down on payday loans would have regrettable consequences?”
Holder reins in “equitable sharing” asset forfeiture
Good for Eric Holder. (And yes, that may be the first time I’ve strung those first four words together in that order.) He’s throttling way back on the “equitable sharing” program that has helped turn civil asset forfeiture into a national disgrace. A shame it’s taken this long, and that he didn’t end the program entirely.
Radley Balko praises the order as “a big deal” and notes that if effective, it “will stop local police agencies from circumventing state laws aimed at reining them in.” (If state legislatures want to allow abuse, on the other hand, the order won’t stop them.) But Balko also warns that the order is ambiguous about whether the exception made for joint federal-state task forces will be permitted, as at least one close observer warns, to swallow the rule. Many law enforcement operations have at least a passing contact with the federal government’s many programs, and if that is enough to get them exempted from the new order, business as usual may continue in the seizure of property from unwitting victims (or even under certain assumptions might things worse.) More: Roger Pilon, Jacob Sullum, Institute for Justice; lawmakers’ letter earlier this month.
Florida: No more claw machines, redemption arcades at Disney hotels
Big Mouse is apparently afraid of getting sued on charges of operating a gambling establishment. [Orlando Sentinel]
Letting kids, 10 and 6, walk home from the park
The Meitiv family of Silver Spring, Maryland is now under Child Protective Services scrutiny for permitting their children to walk the neighborhood alone a little too freely. Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids has been on the story for a while, and now the Washington Post and columnist Petula Dvorak are covering it too (related). More: Beth Greenfield, Yahoo Parenting (cross-posted from Free State Notes).
P.S. Google Street View will let you simulate the experience of walking south a mile down Georgia Avenue from Woodside Park through and past downtown Silver Spring. And welcome listeners from “Frederick’s Forum” on WFMD with host Dave Schmidt, where I’ll be calling in to discuss the case this morning.
NY woman sues because tights didn’t zing her
I am going to take a wild guess that the suit is aimed at exciting class-action fees [NY Post; @barbararich_law (“A Carbolic Smoke Ball for the Sex and the City generation”)]