A WSJ editorial and news coverage have called attention to a case from the Alabama high court holding Pfizer liable for a drug it didn’t produce, namely a generic knockoff of its acid reflux drug Reglan. Michael Greve agrees that it’s daffy to allow such suits, but traces the problem to the U.S. Supreme Court’s popular (at least with the media) 2009 decision in Wyeth v. Levine, okaying state tort actions over federally approved labels — and cautions that any victories for regulated business on the issue of federal-state preemption tend to be temporary at best. More: Coyote, FedSocBlog.
WSJ investigation on asbestos claims fraud
It’s behind a paywall, but TortsProf has a few highlights. Some lawyers are battling to stave off transparency that could catch out counsel and clients who tell inconsistent stories from one case to the next in the course of squeezing maximum payouts from bankruptcy trusts set up to handle claims against asbestos defendants; the trusts themselves have extensive managerial ties to leading plaintiff’s-side firms.
P.S. And House hearings [Bloomberg News, Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine].
Time to fix copyright on sound recordings
Terry Teachout, WSJ (via About Last Night):
…In Europe, sound recordings enter the public domain 50 years after their initial release. Once that happens, anyone can reissue them, which makes it easy for Europeans to purchase classic records of the past. In America, by contrast, sound recordings are “protected” by a prohibitive snarl of federal and state legislation whose effect was summed up in a report issued in 2010 by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress: “The effective term of copyright protection for even the oldest U.S. recordings, dating from the late 19th century, will not end until the year 2067 at the earliest.… Thus, a published U.S. sound recording created in 1890 will not enter the public domain until 177 years after its creation, constituting a term of rights protection 82 years longer than that of all other forms of audio visual works made for hire.”
Among countless other undesirable things, this means that American record companies that aren’t interested in reissuing old records can stop anyone else from doing so, and can also stop libraries from making those same records readily accessible to scholars who want to use them for noncommercial purposes. Even worse, it means that American libraries cannot legally copy records made before 1972 to digital formats for the purpose of preservation—not unless those records have already deteriorated to the point where they may soon become unplayable.
That’s crazy.
Law schools roundup
- Harold Lasswell and Myres McDougal’s influential article on legal education figures prominently in Schools for Misrule; Henry Manne says their scheme of actual classroom pedagogy did less well [Bainbridge]
- Deanship of local plaintiff’s attorney at St. Louis U. is short, colorful [NLJ]
- GW lawprof trips, falls at Denver Law event, now in court [Above the Law]
- Law reviews requiring authors to sign indemnity clauses. Reason for alarm? [Dan Markel, Prawfs]
- Out-of-touch law academy, vol. 18: Duke prof dismisses floodgates arguments on principle [Ted Frank]
- “Should Law Reviews Consider Race When Selecting Articles?” (and do they?) [Josh Blackman]
- Insurance is an undercovered topic in the law school curriculum, so Randy Maniloff decides to do an intervention [Coverage Opinions, PDF, lead article]
Toward a more uneducated electorate
The teacher’s union in Oregon is trying to get the legislature to repeal a voter-approved measure that warns electors in the state when a property tax hike is on the ballot. I’ve got more at Cato at Liberty (& Brian Doherty, Reason).
Religious liberty and anti-discrimination laws
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has been soliciting testimony and public comments on the issue, and is holding a hearing on March 22, Friday of next week. [Peter Kirsanow; Marc DeGirolami, Mirror of Justice; Ed Whelan, Ethics and Public Policy Center]
FDA declines to approve new tobacco products
Is this what Congress intended, or what the public was told, when the FDA was given authority over tobacco in 2009? Jacob Grier at the Atlantic:
As first reported by Michael Felberbaum of the Associated Press, since 2009 the agency has received about 3,500 substantial equivalence reports [i.e., submissions seeking approval for new products on the grounds that they are substantially equivalent to products already on the market]. Approximately 115 employees work on reviewing them. And to date they have issued exactly zero rulings.
Can it really be the case that none of the 3,500 reflect new products that are substantially equivalent to (or for that matter safer than) the cigarettes already on the market? And while we’re asking questions, who benefits when new competition for existing products is cut off? More: Michael Siegel.
International law roundup
- Let’s hope not: is Kony case reconciling conservatives to International Criminal Court? [New Republic] Sea Shepherd case shows Alien Tort Statute can serve “conservative” as well as “liberal” ends [Eugene Kontorovich, earlier]
- “Why the U.S. Shouldn’t Sign On to Empty Human Rights Treaties” [Eric Posner, Slate, earlier]
- Or maybe non-empty? U.N. Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities said to require enactment of strong Europe-wide equivalent of ADA [Disability Law]
- A questionable free speech victory at the U.N. on defamation of religion [Jacob Mchangama]
- Tales of “independent” court reports that weren’t: “Chevron-Ecuador case expert switches sides” [SF Chron, December]
- New Kenneth Anderson book getting lots of recommendations: Living with the UN: American Responsibilities and International Order [Amazon]
- “Revive Letters of Marque and Reprisal to Launch Cyber-Attacks Against China?” [Julian Ku/OJ]
Bloomberg’s Soda Grab and the Separation of Powers
[cross-posted from Cato at Liberty]
I’m at the Commentary magazine blog this morning with a second bite (second gulp?) at the NYC soda ban ruling. This time I look at the separation-of-powers angle, and at the way Judge Milton Tingling, Jr.’s ruling addressed the overgrown ambitions of some in the “public health” community to control more and more of life. Although the decision did not forestall the New York City Council from adopting nanny-state regulations in the future should it see fit, I argue,
…yesterday’s decision should cheer us for other reasons. It holds the Gotham administration accountable for overstepping the separation of powers, an important principle in the safeguarding of liberty. (In a profile of Judge Tingling, the New York Times notes that he’s been skeptical of government claims to power in a number of other cases as well.)
Under separation of powers as generally understood at the time of the Framers, an executive agency cannot enact new legislation on its own, that being a role constitutionally reserved for the legislature. Especially during the Progressive Era and New Deal, these barriers were eroded as administrative agencies claimed a power to issue regulations that looked more and more like traditional legislation, under powers deemed to have been delegated by the legislature. Still, there are some limits, both under the U.S. Constitution and in New York (which under a 1987 case called Boreali v. Axelrod applies its own, quirky standard in evaluating whether a regulation oversteps the separation of powers.) And those limits to delegation were at the heart of the soda case.
The New York City Health Department was asserting a breathtakingly broad definition of its powers, on the grounds that successive city charters give it sweeping authority to address all matters relating to health. Under the interpretation advanced by Bloomberg’s lawyers, this vague charter language would empower the department to issue pretty much whatever diktats it pleases for New Yorkers to obey on any topic somehow related to advancing health….
Looking at cases where the agency’s authority to act had been upheld, the judge noted instances of emergencies, particularly those relating to epidemics of contagious or communicable diseases. … In that legal finding is the germ of a much-needed rebuke to some actors in the public-health movement, who have taken the centuries of moral and practical authority originally built up by their colleagues from the fight against epidemic infectious disease and dubiously sought to apply it to a dozen other health-related questions of life and lifestyle, including not only doughnuts, soft drinks and salty snacks but also such supposed “disease vectors” as gun ownership and overreliance on cars for commuting.
Read the whole thing at Commentary here. Background in yesterday’s post here (& Alex Adrianson, Heritage).
Court: ADA might cover employee’s chronic tardiness
Or, Prof. Bagenstos headlines it at Disability Law, “Second Circuit Holds Timely Arrival at Work Not Necessarily an Essential Job Function.” Reversing a summary judgment in favor of the employer, the judges found that a schizophrenic case worker whose medication caused morning drowsiness was entitled to a trial on his claim that he could have accomplished the job by working extra to make up for time missed early in the day. [McMillian v. City of New York; Disability Law; Paul Mollica, Outten & Golden]