Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Supreme Court applies stage hook to artful class action dodgers

The decision in Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles was 9-0, Justice Breyer writing for the Court, and signals’ Justices’ impatience with lawyerly gamesmanship intended to evade CAFA (the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005). I’ve got a short commentary at Cato, which filed an amicus brief on the side that prevailed [decision in PDF, background at SCOTUSBlog, earlier here etc., my new Cato post; more on stage hooks](& SCOTUSBlog, Ted Frank/PoL (“Miller County [Arkansas] trial lawyers had collected hundreds of millions of dollars of legal fees from forum-shopped class-action settlements; the class members whom they purportedly represented likely didn’t even get 10% as much.”))

More: Andrew Trask (“The Supreme Court is envisioning the class action as a procedural aggregation device, rather than a corporate deterrent or a trust-like entity. This is good news for defendants.”); Alison Frankel, Reuters. And I’m quoted on the case in Alex Daniels’ account in the March 20 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (sub-only).

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“Six Myths About the Law That Bans Gun Lawsuits”

I’ve got a guest column up at the widely read PowerLine blog, my first there, countering misleading criticisms of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in the Washington Post and elsewhere. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is trying to rally efforts to gut or repeal PLCAA in line with the critics’ charges, but his efforts have picked up little traction thus far.

P.S. Thanks to Eugene Volokh for the link and kind words (“I generally quite agree with it, except that the title (‘six myths about the law that bans gun lawsuits’ is imprecise — the law bans many lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers, but by no means all,” citing the law’s sec. 4(5)(A).)

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Claim: depictions of rights violations in pop entertainment may violate U.N. guidelines

“Human rights advocates claim that the depiction of torture in popular TV shows has had the effect of promoting the practice in real life, implying that the production companies may have failed to meet their responsibility to respect human rights as articulated in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.” [Faris Natour, JustMeans.com; Wired on Zero Dark Thirty] “So, ban Schindler’s List?” [@susanwake]

Meanwhile, the regime in Iran says it will sue over its depiction in the movie “Argo” [CNN; more from Wikipedia on French lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, whose attempts to marry imprisoned terrorist Carlos the Jackal “have been frustrated by legal issues”]

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Food roundup

  • If you thought “finger in chili” was bad, meet the Utah couple arrested on charges of planting razor blade shards in doughnuts and swallowing some [KSL, Daily Mail]
  • My talk a few weeks ago as part of Cato Institute panel on nanny state [YouTube, Bruce Majors]
  • New Reason-RUPE public opinion survey finds public broadly opposed to food and drink bans [Sullum]
  • Feds’ bad advice on polyunsaturated fat: more damaging than any mass tort in sight? [David Oliver] More: Hans Bader.
  • Coroner blames woman’s death on Coca-Cola addiction [TV NZ] Monster Beverage: natural causes, not caffeine toxicity, killed Maryland teen [Reuters, NYT, earlier] More: Jacob Sullum.
  • Oh, CSPI, thou contradictest thyself [Baylen Linnekin; more from him on parents’ and kids’ food choices quoting me, NYC soda ban]
  • “Bloomberg limits seder portions” [Purim spoof, New York Jewish Week]
  • Kelly Brownell, guru of obesity-reduction-through-coercion formerly based at Yale, named dean of public policy school at Duke;
  • “A Knife, a Walmart Birthday Cake and a Frenzy of Overreaction” [Free-Range Kids] Mardi Gras perennial: can you buy king cake with baby figurine already in it? [same, earlier]
  • Now they tell us: NYT book review not conspicuously enthusiastic about Michael Moss anti-food-biz book hyped to the rafters in NYT magazine three weeks earlier [Ira Stoll, SmarterTimes, our take]

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March 18 roundup

  • Justice done in Tewksbury, Mass. as feds won’t appeal loss in Motel Caswell forfeiture case [Institute for Justice]
  • Oh, FTC: “Government Now Says Tweets Have To Include ‘The Fine Print'” [Business Insider]
  • Judge lifts “no Facebook posts” order against class action objector [Paul Alan Levy, ABA Journal, earlier]
  • House Judiciary Committee hearing on litigation abuse feature Ted Frank, John Beisner [link to video, Chamber-backed LNL]
  • Update: minister who aided Miller-Jenkins custody-napping gets 27 month sentence [AP,earlier]
  • Pennsylvania high court judge convicted on charges of using state staff for campaign [AP] Also in Pa., wife/chief aide of high court justice “has received 18 payments as referral fees for connecting law firms with clients” [Philadelphia Inquirer] “Arkansas Supreme Court Justice reports $50k gift from plaintiff lawyer” [LNL]
  • Widow sues church for refusal to accept NASCAR-themed cemetery headstone [IndyStar]

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The drone debate and the traffic-camera debate

Why they overlap [Noah Kristula-Green, U.S. News]

P.S. There was a flurry of national coverage last week when Cincinnati-area judge Robert Ruehlman struck down a traffic camera ordinance in the village of Elmwood Park, declaring the cameras a “scam” and “high-tech game of three-card monte.” [Cincinnati.com] Readers with long memories may recall that Judge Ruehlman appeared to favorable advantage in these columns back in 1999 when he threw out the city of Cincinnati’s abusive lawsuit against gun manufacturers, trade associations and a distributor, the first of the municipal gun suits to reach trial on the merits.

P.P.S. Why police drones aren’t the same thing privacy-wise as police helicopters [ACLU via HuffPo via Amy Alkon](& Bainbridge)

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