Jury clears Toyota in Uno case

“A jury cleared Toyota Motor Corp. of liability Thursday in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a Southern California woman killed in a 2009 crash that occurred amid widespread reports of unintended acceleration involving Toyota vehicles.” Despite regular hints in places like the Los Angeles Times that undetected electronic defects might be to blame for sudden acceleration, lawyers for Uno’s family went to trial on the more prosaic theory that Toyota was wrong not to have included a brake override system in the car as an added help to drivers who might be unable to correct a depressed gas pedal. A jury disagreed. [AP/NBC Los Angeles; L.A. Times]

New at Reason: “A step toward Facebook.gov?”

I’ve got a new piece at Reason.com expanding on my earlier reports on the new pilot program by which Facebook will give Maryland school officials a dedicated channel with which to seek takedown of posts and other material that in their view contributes to the problem of “cyber-bullying.” I think the program represents a disturbing step toward a wider government role as arbiter of what is allowed to be said in social media, the more so as it will be difficult or impossible to know whether takedown decisions at Facebook’s discretion are an entirely neutral application of the service’s “Community Standards” or are swayed in part by the wish to keep government bodies happy. I quote various press accounts, some affording additional insight into the existing and proposed takedown process, as well as commentary by Scott Greenfield, TechDirt, and the Daily Caller in which I’m quoted. Some additional commentary: Joy Pullmann/Heartland, Josh Blackman. More: Instalanched, thanks Glenn Reynolds.

“He was charged with using an ‘illegal letter'”

Dan Lewis at Now I Know on (now-easing) Turkish laws governing Kurdish cultural expression:

…until the early 1990s, using Kurdish in public was technically illegal (albeit not often enforced). Still to date, the Turkish government does not recognize the Kurdish language, and, therefore, the letters Q, W, and X do not exist in any official Turkish capacity. And while the law mostly goes unenforced and unnoticed, it has been used opportunistically to suppress Kurdish culture. Kurds were not allowed to use those letters when naming their children as recently as 2004, by way of one example. And in 2007, according to Public Radio International, when a Turkish mayor issued a greeting card wishing his townsfolk a happy “Nowruz” — the Kurdish spelling for the Kurdish and Persian New Year — he was charged with “using an illegal letter.” Really. (The charges were dropped.)

“Owner ticketed for walking wheelchair-bound cat without leash”

“Basically, we have someone that just is not getting the fact that you have to be in control of your animal when it’s off your property,” said Capt. Bob Brown of Brevard County, Florida, Animal Services, speaking of the $230 in fines Yvonne Steel was slapped with for having an off-leash cat along with a couple of other animal offenses. “Animal services said there are no exceptions to the leash law, even for disabled animals,” and noted that one rationale for the law is that an unleashed pet might be attacked by other animals, although what help a leash would have contributed for this particular pet is not clear. [WESH] Correction/update: not so unreasonable, as commenter Nevins points out: the cat is mobile when in the wheeled device and not reliant on its mistress as I had wrongly assumed.

Bloomberg Business Week: “The End of the Class-Action Carnival”

Reporter Paul M. Barrett:

Growing judicial skepticism toward such suits and toward the lucrative settlements they generate has caused plaintiffs’ attorneys to shy away from accepting lengthy, complicated cases. That’s tilting the legal playing field decisively in favor of Big Business—and as the Supreme Court reconvened on Oct. 7 for its 2013-14 term, trial lawyers are bracing for more setbacks.

Not everyone is shedding tears. Walter Olson, a legal expert at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, attributes the decline of mass lawsuits to a predictable—and welcome—backlash against “a wild carnival” of frivolous damage claims and outrageous conduct by plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Ted Frank has some further reactions.

Environmental roundup

“USPS To Destroy ‘Just Move’ Stamps Over Safety Concerns”

CannonballStampYou might think this was a parody, but apparently not. The federal government has ordered the destruction of a series of fifteen postage stamps intended to get kids to be more active after sports safety advocates said three of the stamps raised safety concerns, including illustrations depicting kids “skateboarding without kneepads, and doing a headstand without a helmet.” [Postal News]

My own view is that if you’re learning proper skateboarding technique off a postage stamp, you’re doing it wrong. (& Scott Shackford, Reason)

Reactions via Twitter: “One can understand the recall after the disastrous spate of upside-down plane crashes in 1918.” [@tedfrank] “I wonder how they missed the one with explosives on it” [@Bert_Huggins] “USPS thinks kids know what stamps are.” [@UlyssesHL]

“This seems to be designed for tabloid consumption”

Should prosecutors hype their charges for publicity value? U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan (S.D.N.Y.) is scathing about a sensationally worded press release put out by the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on bringing corruption charges against two Gotham politicos. The alternative presumably would be to save the colorful language in the name of the public until actually securing a conviction. And by contrast, Mike Koehler quotes comments by Judge Richard Leon on dismissing Africa Sting FCPA cases:

This appears to be the end of a long and sad chapter in the annals of white collar criminal enforcement. Unlike takedown day in Las Vegas, however, there will be no front page story in the New York Times or the Post for that matter tomorrow reflecting the government’s decision today to move to dismiss the charges against the remaining defendants in this case. Funny isn’t it what sells newspapers.

[FCPA Professor] More from Scott Greenfield:

According to the Law360 article, “fellow panel member and deputy U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Richard B. Zabel defended the practice, saying under U.S. Department of Justice guidance, part of the reason to have a press conference or release is to explain to the public what is going on. ‘The purpose of a quote is to be quoted and draw attention to the case,’ Zabel said. “Laypeople can’t read a complaint.”

Is that not a great explanation or what?