- Blockbuster “web accessibility” issue, with potential for massive disruption of online life, continues to drag on without action in Washington despite urgings from academics; but at Ninth Circuit’s behest, California Supreme Court will decide whether state’s Disabled Persons Act covers websites [David Ettinger, Horwitz & Levy] More: Amy Alkon and commenters;
- Federal district judge (E.D.N.Y.), suspecting foul play in multiple ADA filings, sends staff to investigate, but that’s a no-no as the Second Circuit reminds him [Josh Blackman]
- Noting “continuing paranoia and obsession,” Vermont Supreme Court rebuffs bar applicant claiming discrimination on basis of mental illness [ABA Journal]
- Just fine and dander: optician’s shop in suburban Detroit turns down worker’s request to bring service dog for generalized anxiety disorder, will pay $53,000 in settlement [EEOC]
- Attack on “sheltered workshops” fits into multi-front effort to extend reach of federal wage-hour law: “Landmark DOJ settlement with RI provides road map to disability-law compliance for 49 other states” [ABA Journal]
- Coalition politics counts: prominent disabled-rights groups [AAPD, DREDF, Bazelon Center, etc.] favor driving up cost of at-home attendants at expense of their own putative constituents [Benjamin Sachs, On Labor, on Harris v. Quinn amicus]
- “Alcoholism and the ADA: Not as clear-cut as you think” [Dan Wisniewski, HR Morning, on Crosby v. F.W. Webb Co.] “Playing golf and having sex are major life activities under the ADA” [Eric B. Meyer]
“Stunning”: Patton Boggs to pay Chevron $15 million
The large law firm, which is also Washington, D.C.’s biggest lobbying firm, will pay $15 million, express regret and withdraw from representing Ecuadorian environmental complainants to settle the oil company’s charges that it had participated in a litigation scheme that Chevron has called fraudulent and extortionate. “It also agreed to assist Chevron with discovery against the Ecuadoran plaintiffs and their New York-based lawyer, Steven Donziger,” as well as hand over its five percent share of any moneys the plaintiffs happen to win when the whole thing is over. [Washington Post; Paul Barrett, Bloomberg Business Week; our coverage of the case over years]
The Supreme Court looks at prayer before town meetings
Cato’s Caleb Brown interviews me about this week’s Supreme Court decision in the local-government invocation case of Town of Greece v. Galloway, discussed earlier here and here.
A few measured, non-alarmist reactions to the decision: Noah Feldman via Rick Pildes, ABC News (quoted views of Rick Garnett, Notre Dame, and Daniel Mach, ACLU), and Howard Wasserman/Prawfs. And Paul Horwitz speculates on whether Kennedy’s formula will work when invocational legislative prayer is employed in knowingly divisive ways. More: a different take on the issue from Christian syndicated columnist Cal Thomas.
N.J.: “No disability pension for ex-officer who staged shooting”
In November 2010 Camden Sgt. Jeffrey Frett radioed for help after receiving a superficial gunshot wound in the leg. Police discovered his wife near the scene and the officer later admitted “that he and his wife had concocted the incident. Officers injured in the line of duty receive a pension that pays 66 percent of their salary tax-free for life.” In the mean time, however, Frett had applied for a disability pension on a separate basis, namely the aftereffects of a 2008 car accident while on duty. Now the state pension board has turned down his request, with one of its members publicly questioning why the officer was permitted to plead to a very minor charge to resolve the staged-shooting episode. [Philadelphia Daily News]
Food roundup
- “Particularly relevant …is the uncontested fact that Defendants – as manufacturers of [high-fructose corn syrup] – do not control how much HFCS is used in the finished products that Plaintiff consumed.” [New York federal court dismissing case, h/t Nicki Neily]
- New frontier of public health disapproval: Girl Scout cookies [NPR]
- “Former Kellogg Co. CEO Carlos Gutierrez says food industry is under attack by FDA” [MLive]
- Whole milk, least processed of widely available milk varieties, would be banned in Connecticut childcares if pending bill passes [Elizabeth Nolan Brown]
- House-passed expansion of Jones Act domestic-flag rules for food aid would harm hungry recipients and US farmers alike [Coyote]
- “Archaic distribution laws” hamper craft-beer sector [Steve Hindy, NY Times, related Nick Gillespie (Florida)]
- Facing mounting fiasco in school lunch program, feds double down [Baylen Linnekin, Reason]
Judge strikes down Wisconsin John Doe probe
A federal judge has quashed the stunningly abusive “John Doe” proceedings that had resulted in midnight raids on the homes of leading conservative activists across the state. I’ve got more in a new Cato post; fuller coverage at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Watchdog.org (and series), and the decision itself is here. Earlier coverage here, here, and here. I conclude:
The citizens of Wisconsin must now demand a full accounting of how these raids could have happened. They should also insist on changes in state law, in particular the “John Doe” law, aimed at ensuring that nothing like them ever happens again.
Update: Seventh Circuit panel stays ruling pending appeal.
The “sovereign citizen” cult
A big source of frivolous litigation these days, the “sovereign citizen” cult originated on the political right but has now spread more widely [Lorelei Laird, ABA Journal]:
When involved in any legal matter, from pet licensing to serious criminal charges, sovereigns are known for filing legal-sounding gibberish, usually pro se, learned from other sovereigns who sell lessons in “law” online. Frequently, they cite the Uniform Commercial Code, maritime law and the Bible.
They’re also known for the sheer volume of their filings, which can double the size of a normal docket. …
Some sovereigns hold trials in their own “common-law courts,” convicting public officials in absentia and sentencing them to death for “treason.” …Sovereigns sometimes say they are subject only to “God’s law” or to “common law,” meaning the U.S. legal system as they believe it existed before the conspiracy. They may declare themselves independent nations, join fictional American Indian tribes or attempt to create a replacement government within the sovereign community.
Don’t assume that public officials and public employees are the only ones swept in:
The Atta family locked up their Temecula, Calif., home and went on vacation in 2012. While they were gone, Victor Cheng moved in.
Cheng had owned the home before the Attas, but he lost it in foreclosure. Nonetheless, he filed a fraudulent deed with the county recorder’s office, transferred the utilities into his name and even tried to evict the Attas after their return. During his prosecution for burglary, trespassing and filing a false document, he insisted that he was not the person being prosecuted because the indictment spelled his name in all capital letters.
Full story here.
Free speech roundup
- How the Progressive movement changed thinking on free speech [David Bernstein]
- More “bullying” legislation: “A crime for teenagers to excoriate their unfaithful or abusive lovers on Facebook?” [Eugene Volokh on pending Colorado bill] “Crime to spread rumors about under-25-year-olds, to send ‘hurtful, rude and mean messages’ about them, or to make fun of them online?” [same; pending ordinance in Carson, Calif.]
- “First Amendment protects Internet search results: N.Y. judge” [Alison Frankel, Reuters]
- Wisconsin + other states too: “Last week, the enlightened citizens of Shorewood, Whitefish Bay and several other communities voted to repeal the freedom of the press and of the free speech rights of organizations ranging from the NAACP to the National Rifle Association.” [Rick Esenberg, Shark and Shepherd]
- NYC comptroller Scott Stringer, posing in investor hat, demands that Texas firm Clayton Williams Energy Inc. explain its political giving [AP]
- Look before you leap: some proposals billed as criminalizing revenge porn appear to criminalize far more than that [Scott Greenfield]
- Consumer secretly videotapes allegedly unneeded repairs at Missouri Chevrolet dealership, litigation ensues [Popehat]
Homebuilders hit by patent claim on frame-drying
“Hundreds of home builders in the Pacific Northwest have been put on notice that if they use a dehumidifier to dry rain-damaged projects, they are infringing on a patent recently issued to a father and son who claim they invented the process.” [Legal NewsLine] (& Coyote)
SCOTUS approves invocations at town council meetings
I discuss yesterday’s decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway at Secular Right, and conclude that Justice Anthony Kennedy’s carefully measured majority opinion, while satisfying neither side in the culture wars, is one I and most other Americans can live with (& welcome Eugene Volokh, SCOTUSBlog, and Scott Greenfield readers).