“For years, Harvard’s experts on health economics and policy have advised presidents and Congress on how to provide health benefits to the nation at a reasonable cost. But those remedies will now be applied to the Harvard faculty, and the professors are in an uproar.” [New York Times via Jonathan Adler; Rich Lowry, New York Post (quoting Twitter: “Karma is a pre-existing condition.”; Michael Cannon, Cato (“one of the most wonderful things I have read in the course of my career”)]
“Liability Concerns Prompt Some Cities to Limit Sledding”
Sad on multiple levels [AP]:
[Omaha assistant city attorney Tom] Mumgaard said courts in Nebraska have decided cities must protect people, even if they make poor choices.
Most people realize that cities must restrict potentially dangerous activities to protect people and guard against costly lawsuits, said Kenneth Bond, a New York lawyer who represents local governments. In the past, people might have embraced a Wild West philosophy of individuals being solely responsible for their actions, but now they expect government to prevent dangers whenever possible.
I’d say there’s more than one kind of downhill toboggan momentum we might want to worry about. Commentary: Lenore Skenazy (“If we believe that ‘whenever possible’ = ‘imagining all possible dangers, no matter how remote, and actively preventing them all, all the time, even by drastic decrees,’ then we get a society that puts 100% safety above any other cause, including fairness, convenience, exercise, rationality — and delight”); Ira Stoll (“This is the sort of story that you’d think might build some political support for tort reform.”).
Police union: expand hate crime law to include anti-cop offenses
Victimization as competitive sport: The Fraternal Order of Police, a national union claiming a membership of more than 300,000, “is asking for the Congressional hate crimes statute to be expanded to include crimes against police officers.” [Liz Goodwin, Yahoo News] Commentary: Jazz Shaw, Hot Air; Radley Balko (“Most states already allow or mandate sentence enhancements for crimes committed against police.”).
Best of Overlawyered — September 2014
- California environmental laws hailed as having “worked” because developer’s request to build under existing zoning took only 20 years to win EIR approval. Plus: California toughens criminalization for unlicensed contractors. And! “California Destroys Winery For Use of Volunteers“;
- Details: “Law firm mistakenly identifies dead smokers as alive in 588 suits”
- Former intern apologizes for letting herself be used as plaintiff in suit against David Letterman;
- 13-year-old piano prodigy embarks on ten-day world performance tour, gets docked for truancy days by D.C. schools;
- St. Louis North County: “Why Does a City With 600 Residents Need 14 Cops?” Related on forfeiture, CBC warns Canadians against carrying large sums of money with them on trips to the U.S.;
- Before you file a claim of amputation of all four of your limbs, be aware that such a claim is checkable;
- “Down comes the pediatrician’s wall of baby pictures, another HIPAA casualty.”
“Not guilty,” pronounces the judge
Mandatory composting/food recycling comes to Seattle
“Starting Jan. 1, it will be illegal to throw food and food waste in the trash in Seattle, when a new ban takes effect to increase recycling and composting in the city.” [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] “Food waste” includes things like used napkins and pizza boxes with food residue clinging to them. Residents are subject to fines if more than ten percent of their trash flow consists of recyclables, defined as including food and its associated materials as well as glass, metal, and other items subject to recycling. So are ordinary businesses (Seattle restaurants already come under a separate regime of recycling rules) and apartment landlords, who notoriously have trouble monitoring and controlling what tenants throw in the bins.
Readers who live there: is it lawful in Seattle to engage a private garbage service that isn’t subject to the municipal service’s rules?
International human rights law roundup
- In Britain, Conservative Party proposes pullback from involvement in European Convention on Human Rights [BBC, Telegraph with more coverage, Isabel Hardman/Spectator, Economist, Jon Holbrook/Spiked, Adam Smith Institute, Dominic Grieve/Prospect, Basak Cali/OJ]
- Lessons of forgotten debates in U.S. history: “Constitutional problems with international courts” [Eugene Kontorovich]
- “The United Nations is also pressuring countries, particularly Japan, to enact anti-hate speech laws.” [Elizabeth Nolan Brown]
- “How the Supreme Court Has Limited Foreign Disputes from Flooding U.S. Courts” [George T. Conway III, John Bellinger III, R. Reeves Anderson, and James Stengel for the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform via D&O Diary]
- Why U.S. ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child would be pointless [Julian Ku/OJ]
- “I despise North Korea human rights violations as much as anyone, but I’m skeptical that US tort system is answer.” [@tedfrank on Twitter; D.C. Circuit opinion in Kim v. DPRK]
- Critique of international human rights treaties as having done little to reduce abuses of rights [Eric Posner, The Guardian] Some human rights clinics at law schools like Yale “are very close to pure political advocacy groups” [Julian Ku on another Posner article]
R.I.P. Mario Cuomo
The New York governor was a lawyer by training — Gideon Kanner recalls his start as an eminent domain compensation lawyer in Queens — and drew insight from the experience. Bill Hammond of the Daily News:
Mario Cuomo: "I've concluded that litigation can be a kind of failure." cc @overlawyered http://t.co/6FosHsl7iN pic.twitter.com/YnBbJBSA07
— Bill Hammond (@NYDNHammond) January 3, 2015
During his term in office I wrote two pieces for the Wall Street Journal about Cuomo, one an opinion piece on New York’s finances, another a review of an unsuitably hagiographic biography; neither is online so far as I know. My view was that despite his lion-of-the-Left reputation, Cuomo had governed in a cautious rather than radical way, and by the same token had in no way been a transformational figure for his state: New York had largely the same set of governance problems when he left office as when he entered.
Harvard caves to a Title IX deal
The university has capitulated to U.S. Department of Education demands that it water down due process protections for accused students and faculty [celebratory ED press release]. That’s a sign of the “madness” afoot on campus at the moment, says Prof. Elizabeth Bartholet [WSJ Law Blog] With 27 other Harvard law professors, Bartholet had signed a letter calling for the defense of procedural fairness in disciplinary complaints under Title IX, which at this rate might as well have been shouted into the wind.
KC Johnson has a more detailed analysis of the settlement agreement at Minding the Campus. Sample excerpt:
As has occurred in previous settlements with SUNY and SMU, OCR also inserted an ex post facto review of cases from the past two academic years, ordering the law school to reinvestigate sexual assault claims (under the new, lower threshold) and to provide “any additional remedies necessary.” Will previously acquitted students now be branded rapists?
A considerable portion of the resolution agreement, however, amounted to little more than OCR lashing out at the Harvard Law professors, and reminding the law faculty who now has the power in campus due process debates….
Best of Overlawyered — August 2014
- “Put Down the Cupcake: New Ban Hits School Bake Sales.”
- New Facebook acquaintance, most likely a lawyer-marketing-bot, “wanted to know if I’d died or was suffering a lingering fatal condition…. I thought I’d finally found Zombie Dating.”
- Shut down Uber, Lyft, and other ride-sharing apps until they can demonstrate disabled accessibility? Salt Lake City slaps $6,500 tickets on ridesharing drivers;
- Federal grant programs drive police militarization; “Wrongfully arrested man charged for getting blood on cops’ uniforms.“
- British Medical Journal urges government action against salty cheeses such as Roquefort, feta and halloumi; FDA vs. wooden onion crates;
- Warning sign: “this sign that warned you will be ‘Exhibit 1’“;
- “L.A. to pay $26 million for ban on naps by garbage-truck drivers.”