Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Hurricane Sandy recovery and occupational licensing

To get your power turned back on in the Rockaways, according to a spokesman for the Long Island Power Authority, you’re going to need a pre-inspection for your house not just from a licensed electrician, but from one licensed in NYC — nearby Nassau County, or upstate, won’t do. If occupational licensure makes any sense at all — and Milton Friedman had a thing or two to say about that — it certainly needs to be reconsidered under conditions of public emergency and disaster recovery, or so I argue in my new post at Cato at Liberty.

For more background on the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) as a political football, by the way, check out Nicole Gelinas in the New York Post. Also on disaster recovery, why this might be a good time to rethink municipal ordinances barring property owners from removing old trees [Chris Fountain]. And: “Can customers sue power companies for outages? Yes, but it’s hard to win” [Alison Frankel, Reuters]

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November 13 roundup

  • New law grads and others, come work for liberty at the Cato Institute’s legal associate program [Ilya Shapiro]
  • Lawsuit against United Nations seeks compensation for mass cholera outbreak in Haiti [Kristen Boon, Opinio Juris]
  • “Parents Sue Energy Drink After Girl’s Death” [NBC Washington; Hagerstown, Md.] “The New York Times Reveals That 18 Servings of an Energy Drink Might Be Excessive” [Jacob Sullum]
  • Claim: There is no explosion of patent litigation [Adam Mossoff, Truth on the Market, and further]
  • “After Inmates Sue for Dental Floss, Jailers Explain the Security Risk” [ABA Journal, earlier]
  • Court: First Amendment protects right of “The Bachelor” producers to consider contestants’ race [Volokh, earlier]
  • From Florida tobacco litigation to an, um, interesting higher-education startup [Inside Higher Ed, h/t Overlawyered commenter Jeff H.]

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George Mason conference, “Unlocking the Law”

Last week the George Mason U. School of Law in Virginia held its second annual Henry G. Manne Law and Economics Conference, on the theme “Unlocking the Law: Building on the Work of Larry E. Ribstein,” in honor of the late University of Illinois legal scholar (and friend). Among the panelists and moderators were Henry Manne, dean emeritus of the school; John McGinnis of Northwestern; Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the D.C. Circuit; William Henderson of Indiana; and Benjamin Barton of Tennessee. I live-tweeted a few of the many interesting papers. Some highlights, in downward chronological order rather than the Twitter-standard reverse:

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Supreme Court roundup

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Schneiderman vs. market-clearing prices

Some politicians just want there to be random shortages [WSJ editorial]:

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has subpoenaed the Craigslist website for the identities of people who advertised gas for sale at high prices. Mr. Schneiderman is doing this in the name of a New York law that forbids charging an “unconscionably excessive price” during an “abnormal disruption in the market.”

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My new HuffPo piece: GOP votes carried Maryland Question 6 to victory

Romney voters swung in large numbers to provide the decisive margin for Maryland’s approval of same-sex marriage, according to county-level data I analyze in this new Huffington Post piece. In my own precinct Question 6 ran 14 points ahead of the vote for President Obama, a margin not uncommon in other parts of the state that could be described as economically conservative and socially moderate.

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“Lawyer who sued 90-year-old Greenbrae shooting victim calls social-media criticism unfair”

Well, yes, he would, wouldn’t he? “By suing the 90-year-old Greenbrae man he allegedly tried to kill during a burglary, Samuel Cutrufelli lit a roaring grease-fire of vitriol on social media, much of it from gun-rights advocates.” Attorney Sanford Troy said of his client that “Mr. Cutrufelli is entitled to the presumption of innocence” and expects to get six if not seven figures from Jay Leone, the elderly man who shot him. “The prosecution says Cutrufelli entered Leone’s house, put a gun to his head, tied his hands with a belt and rummaged through his bedroom for valuables” before Leone managed to wriggle free and defend himself. Troy said the shooting arose from a drug deal gone wrong. Complicating his efforts, however, a jury has now proceeded to convict Cutrufelli on all counts after a few hours deliberation. [Gary Klien, Marin Independent Journal: Oct. 23, Oct. 26, Oct. 31]

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