“Justice Department Urges Banks to Implicate Employees”

“The Justice Department has a suggestion for banks hoping to avoid criminal charges: Rat out your employees.” By agreeing to throw individuals under the bus, the company as a whole will qualify for valuable cooperation credits. [Ben Protess, New York Times “DealBook”] On a similar culture-of-informants theme, Eric Holder is proposing to further boost bounties for Wall Street informants into more massive contingency-fee territory: “Mr. Holder will urge Congress to allow bigger whistleblower rewards under the 1989 Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act…. Current law caps any Firrea whistleblower payment at $1.6 million.” [Wall Street Journal, earlier coverage and specifically]

Labor and employment roundup

DoJ inspector general finds wrongdoing (then nothing happens)

FOIA findings: “Dozens of Justice Department officials, ranging from FBI special agents and prison wardens to high-level federal prosecutors, have escaped prosecution or firing in recent years despite findings of misconduct by the department’s own internal watchdog. … In at least 27 cases, the inspector general identified evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing but no one was prosecuted.” Many cases ended in oral admonishment of errant employees. While various legitimate reasons can underlie a decision not to prosecute, such as a poor prospect of securing conviction, low stakes, or unclear law, the rate at which public integrity cases have been prosecuted has dropped significantly since the previous administration. [McClatchy] More: AP, Tim Cushing/TechDirt, Scott Greenfield.

“California environmental laws ‘worked’…”

Or so a California Court of Appeals “proudly announced …because it took only 20 years from a developer’s application to build a housing tract under existing zoning, to the court’s EIR [environmental impact review] approval.” [Gideon Kanner, citing Clover Valley Foundation v. City of Rocklin, 197 Cal. App.4th 200 (2011), as well as a September 2014 land use roundtable in California Lawyer]

Liability roundup

Feds to Arpaio: give back that Pentagon gear

Maricopa County (Phoenix) Sheriff and longtime Overlawyered mentionee Joe Arpaio did not keep close track of the military-grade gear the Pentagon gave him — in fact, his office seems to have lost some of it — and now the feds are lowering the boom: “Because of the agency’s continued failure to locate nine missing weapons issued by the Pentagon’s 1033 program, the Sheriff’s Office was terminated from the military-­surplus program, effective immediately. The agency is required to return its cache of issued firearms, helicopters and other gear within 120 days.” Arizona Republic reporter Megan Cassidy quotes me regarding the interesting timing of the announcement, following closely after events in Ferguson, Mo. helped stir a nationwide furor over the 1033 program. It’s not specified (h/t Lauren Galik) whether they’ll have to give back the hot dog machine and $3,500 popcorn machine.

“Did California just make it illegal for businesses to stop dealing with customers who insult them?”

An outcry has lately arisen over consumer contracts that purport to ban disparagement of the company that proffered the contract or its products, especially since a few such companies, seeking to silence customers vocally dissatisfied with products or services, have proceeded to sue them, threaten them with suit, or report them as credit risks. Although it is doubtful that existing law in fact permits practices of this sort, California proceeded to pass a new law protecting consumers from retaliation by companies they criticize — a law that appears to go much farther than just banning the practices that stirred the furor. [Volokh] Contra: Scott Michelman, CL&P.

September 16 roundup

  • “When I asked them why they decided to sell their [toy import] business, they said that they got out because of Proposition 65 and the CPSIA.” [Nancy Nord]
  • State tax regimes are getting more aggressive about grabbing money earned in other states [Steve Malanga, City Journal]
  • “Still can’t get over the fact that all [development] permits are discretionary in San Francisco” [@TonyBiasotti linking Mark Hogan, Boom]
  • How would American politics change if political parties could expel members, as in many countries they can? [Bryan Caplan]
  • Defenders of Wisconsin John Doe prosecutor push back against Stuart Taylor investigation [Daniel Bice, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via Althouse, more, related on “blue fist” posters and John Doe investigator, earlier]
  • “In Britain, Child’s Weight Leads to Parents’ Arrest” [New York Times in June, King’s Lynn 11-year-old; also, Cadbury agrees to “stop making chocolate bars in Britain with more than 250 calories”] More: Pencil-twirling in class leads to CPS referral in New Jersey [Katherine Mangu-War, Reason]
  • Should there be judicial remedies — what kind, and for which plaintiffs — when federal spending is politicized? [Daniel Epstein, Federalist Society “Engage”]

“Philadelphia is really the Ground Zero for forfeiture abuse”

“The City of Brotherly Love can’t get enough of its citizens’ property and cash. The city is in a class by itself in the world of civil asset forfeiture, says Institute for Justice attorney Darpana Sheth” in this Cato podcast with interviewer Caleb Brown. More on IJ’s suit challenging Philadelphia’s forfeiture practices: Philadelphia Inquirer, Nick Sibilla/Forbes, Dave Weigel/Slate, and Scott Shackford/Reason.

And by way of balance on the Philadelphia story: one who defends forfeiture law as “good law” that “works” is “CNN legal analyst and consumer attorney, Brian Kabateck,” seen before in this space and elsewhere in his role as a class-action plaintiff’s attorney.