“…what is the stupidest case anyone has ever come to you with wanting to sue?”
P.S. Twitter replies:
@walterolson Wrong label on a can of Pepsi.
— Neal Boortz (@Talkmaster) December 18, 2012
@walterolson @overlawyered Lip waxing gone…moderately awry. Think sunburn.
— clminakowski (@clminakowski) December 18, 2012
Kyle Graham notes that the Ninth Circuit has certified that question to the California Supreme Court, in Verdugo v. Target Corp. [Non Curat Lex; opinion, PDF](& White Coat)
Megan McArdle, in her annual holiday guide to kitchen gadget buying:
If you don’t want quite this much capacity — if you’re cooking for one or two, and hate leftovers — then I recommend getting an older (pre-1990) crockpot off of eBay. In recent years, food safety regulations and fear of liability has caused manufacturers to raise the heat on their slow cookers, which means the food cooks faster. I entertain enough that I reluctantly gave up lower heat for larger capacity (old crockpots tend to come in 2-3 quart sizes, rather than the 5-6 quarts that are standard now.) But only an older crockpot will give you really low and slow cooking.
Tim Carney is glad to see the New York Times returning repeatedly to this theme [Washington Examiner]
Not entirely unrelated, a video from the Institute for Humane Studies on how regulation contributes to the widespread use of corn sweeteners in place of sugar in our food supply (“Why Is There Corn In Your Coke?” with Diana Thomas):
Daniel Fisher notes that they had little to say about the inveterate patent asserter who claimed in court to have invented the revolutionary device [Forbes]:
But [Ropes & Gray attorney Jesse] Jenner has one suggestion: Require inventors to prove their technology works before giving them a patent. Most countries require inventors to provide a working model, he said, while the U.S. merely requires a description.
“One way to get rid of a lot of half-baked ideas would be to require that somebody make it first,” he said. If Lemelson had been required to do that, his record as an inventor might have been a lot shorter.
A man who showed up at court in Springfield, Mass. to deal with a traffic ticket mistakenly wound up on a jury. The jury proceeded to hear the evidence and closing statements and convict the defendant; the judge declared a mistrial after it emerged that the man, who spoke limited English, had gotten on to the panel by accident. [MassLive]
Though the Ninth Circuit has differed, four federal circuit courts of appeal have read the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to criminalize unauthorized access to computers even when the breach in question was to overstep contractual terms of service or the access a computer provider intended to furnish. As reported earlier, that leaves open possibilities of private liability or even felony conviction for behavior that in no way resembles hacking. [Mashable]
And Michael Greve is seen biting the steering wheel in response [Liberty and Law]