By a 12-4 vote, the board of legislators of the suburban New York county has approved going to court against the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development in the long-running dispute. HUD is still insisting that the county enact a “source of income discrimination” law barring private landlords from turning away Section 8 federally aided tenants, as well as critically reexamine zoning rules in its various towns. [Peter Applebome, NYT, Journal-News, Newsday] Earlier here, etc.
Suing BP, that cozy Mississippi way
Following through on a deal announced a year ago, former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, representing the state under an arrangement with current Attorney General Jim Hood, has now sued BP over damages from the giant Transocean Gulf oil spill. [WaPo, YallPolitics, Sid Salter/Jackson Clarion Ledger] The two figures have long been entwined with each other — and both with now-disgraced Gulf Coast attorney Dickie Scruggs — in litigations that leverage the power of the state to the advantage of private lawyers, including the Great Tobacco Robbery of the late 1990s and Katrina claims.
More on “soft” paternalism
Anthony Randazzo at Reason reviews Mark White’s new book The Manipulation of Choice: Ethics and Libertarian Paternalism. And in today’s Wall Street Journal, Donald Boudreaux reviews Cass Sunstein’s new book on regulation and paternalism, Simpler. Related here.
Police and prosecution roundup
- Tsarnaev case: Orin Kerr on how the public often miscontrues Miranda rights, and on how courts decide when house-to-house police searches are proper.
- Two-month-old falls on patio and hurts head; then begins Minneapolis family’s encounter with Child Protective Services [Free-Range Kids]
- Dilatory criminal lawyer in Bronx: “Courts in Slow Motion, Aided by the Defense” [NYT via Legal Ethics Forum]
- Former Monster exec imprisoned on backdating charge: if you’re making it in the business world, inform yourself about criminal law [Alex Cohen, Atlas; related Fox Business video] “Ira Stoll on the Compliance Boom” [Reason]
- The Senator from Doonesbury disappoints again: Liz Warren blasts GOPer as soft on legal pot [Jesse Walker, @radleybalko] “A Heartbreaking Drug Sentence of Staggering Idiocy” [Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic]
- Why does Arizona keep trying to put Debra Milke to death on the word of a multiply perjurious cop? [Popehat]
- Top cop’s $400K disability deal was part of the sleaze-scape in Bell, Calif. [Tim Cavanaugh, City Journal, earlier]
“If this was another country, we’d have to tell you that this coffee may be hot.”
Humorous warning on a Canadian coffee cup: my new post at Cato at Liberty (with picture).
Constitutional amendments to overturn Citizens United
They “propose giving Congress unchecked new power over spending on political speech” [John Samples, Cato Policy Analysis] More on Citizens United here, here, here (Democrats’ platform), here, here (Michael Kinsley: case was “correctly decided”), here, here, here (Wendy Kaminer), here, here, here, here (unions as beneficiaries), even more, and on the “corporations aren’t people” sound bite and related rights-abolishing proposals, here, here, here, and here.
P.S. Self-recommending: forthcoming Michael McConnell in YLJ on Citizens United.
Attorneys’ fees roundup
- We’re worth it: lawyers in credit card case want judge to award them $720 million [Alison Frankel, Reuters] Johnson & Johnson will fight $181 million payday for private lawyers in Arkansas Risperdal case [Legal NewsLine]
- British Columbia, Canada: “Lawyer Ordered To Pay Costs Personally For ‘Shoddy Piece Of Counsel Work’” [Erik Magraken] Ontario client questions lawyer’s fee [Law Times]
- Sixth Circuit: attorneys fees statute not intended to cover dry cleaning and mini-blinds [Legal Ethics Forum]
- Indiana lawmaker goes back to drawing board on loser-pays bill [Indiana Law Blog]
- ‘Shocked’ by $3M legal fee in fatal car-crash case, judge tells lawyers to pay plaintiff lawyer $50K [ABA Journal]
- Seth Katsuya Endo, “Should Evidence of Settlement Negotiations Affect Attorneys’ Fees Awards?” [SSRN via Legal Ethics Forum]
- In Israel, more of a discretionary loser-pays arrangement [Eisenberg et al, SSRN via @tedfrank]
- British cabbie beats ticket, recovers only some of his legal costs. Still better than he’d do here, right? [Daily Mail]
- Turnaround guru Wilbur Ross: current structure of bankruptcy fees encourages lawyer “hyperactivity” [Reuters]
Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl and the Indian Child Welfare Act
Is ICWA, the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, unconstitutional, bad policy, both, or neither? Does it impermissibly hand out rights in domestic relations disputes based on forbidden grounds of race and lineage? My new Reason piece on SCOTUS’s adoption heartbreaker is now out. ICWA advocates have argued that the law should be read generously as an effort to remedy a long earlier history in which Indian kids had been improperly been taken out of their homes. More on the case: SCOTUSBlog (I recommend in particular the amicus brief on behalf of family law experts Joan Heifetz Hollinger and Elizabeth Bartholet), ABA, oral argument transcript. And for a viewpoint extremely different from mine, Matthew Fletcher and Kate Fort write up the case at the Indian law blog Turtle Talk (first, second).(& SCOTUSBlog, How Appealing)
U.K.: Tourist boss threatens to sue weather service
The chairman of the Dan yr Ogof group of tourist attractions in South Wales is threatening to sue Britain’s National Weather Service over “misleading predictions of bad weather which later do not materialize … Forecasts of Good Friday snow for the Swansea Valley area saw a rash of booking cancellations at the attraction, he said. But while coach parties [= tour buses] made other arrangements, the day turned out to be one of blazing sun and blue skies, although quite cold.” [Press Association/Yahoo; Sarah Rae Fruchtnicht, Opposing Views]
“Provoke bar fight; get beat up in parking lot; sue bar — and maybe win”
Ryan Koopmans summarizes a baffling Iowa Supreme Court case in which a 4-3 majority of justices decided a bowling alley owner could be sued for having thrown a customer out for insulting a second customer, who — after reacting calmly at the time — then went out to the parking lot and committed violence on his provoker:
So what are the takeaways from the Hoyt decision? For bar and restaurant owners: It’s not enough to kick out an aggressive bar patron; unless you want to pay the cost of litigation and a full trial, your employees should call the police every time one patron taunts another, or, at the very least, they should personally escort every trash-talker to his car.
The takeaway for police departments: You’re going to need more officers.