The folks at Fair Warning are very sad that an organized motorcyclist community considers them an intrusion on liberty and has been getting states to repeal them.
What Wyeth v. Levine did
The media and legal academy largely applauded the Supreme Court’s 2009 ruling on preemption, but Michael Greve deems its outcome “irresponsible and not even minimally rational”:
Under the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetics Act (FDCA), drugs sold in the United States require an FDA-approved label—the elaborate, incomprehensible (to laymen) sheets you find inside every package. Every sentence is dictated by FDA requirements, down to the font and letter size. Violations of these requirements, and the sale of drugs without the label or a different label, are subject to very severe penalties. The statutory scheme operates to the explicit exclusion of any state regulatory (administrative) scheme. What Wyeth asks us to believe is that state juries may nonetheless hold drug manufacturers liable, for accidents caused by use in direct contravention of the federal label, on the grounds that the federally required label was inadequate. Meticulous compliance with federal requirements doesn’t preempt “failure to warn” liability under state common law.
Gun owners as new protected class in employment discrimination law
Way to make the country less free, guys [Missouri Freedom Watch] More: Stephen Bainbridge, Charles Sullivan on Mitchell v. University of Kentucky.
Libertarians and religious liberty
Tim Carney, the influential columnist at the D.C. Examiner, writes as if libertarians have been AWOL or worse when it comes to defending religious liberty from the incursions of the modern liberal-bureaucratic state. I try to set him straight in a new post at Cato at Liberty. More: Carney responds; Jordan Bloom, The American Conservative; Rick Esenberg.
A paradox of privacy class actions
Privacy buffs usually prefer for business practices to be opt-in (consumers participate only if they affirmative choose to) rather than opt-out (consumers are bound unless they affirmatively choose to exclude themselves). Yet when it comes to filing class action lawsuits over consumer privacy, what do they think those same lawsuits wind up doing? [Eric Goldman via Andrew Trask]
“Think carefully about ‘friending’ co-workers.”
Jon Hyman finds the National Labor Relations Board’s policy on social media in the workplace a “bungled mess.” More: Reed Smith.
June 11 roundup
- Nortel portfolio now used for offense: “How Apple and Microsoft Armed 4,000 Patent Warheads” [Wired]
- Via Bill Childs: “This shows up in Google News despite fact that it’s lawyer advertising.” [TheDenverChannel.com] At “public interest watchdog” FairWarning.org, who contributed this article about Canadian asbestos controversies? Byline credits a law firm;
- Another Bloomberg crackdown in NYC: gender-differential pricing in haircuts and other services [Mark Perry]
- A “Pro-Business Regulation Push” from Obama White House? Oh, Bloomberg Business Week, sometimes you can be so droll [Future of Capitalism]
- “Trial Lawyers’ Support of Republican Candidates Yields Less Than Stellar Results” [Morgan Smith, NY Times; Examiner editorial; more from TLRPac on Texas election results]
- “Community banks to Congress: you’re crushing us” [Kevin Funnell]
- If an emergency injunction could stop one reality-TV show, why couldn’t it stop them all? [Hollywood Reporter]
Department of Things You Hope Are a Joke
Turning governance of the Internet over to the United Nations system [The Hill, Josh Peterson/Daily Caller, more]
P.S. Oh joy: “U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, leaked docs show” [Declan McCullagh and Larry Downes, CNet]
Self-proclaimed NYC “Queen of Torts”
She’s asking $30 million over a client’s dog bite. Have her subjects informed her about New York’s abolition of ad damnum clauses? [Eric Turkewitz, earlier]
Shareholder lawsuits: “Shark Attack”
The Economist on “Why American firms cannot do deals without being sued”:
In 2005, 39% of M&A deals were challenged by lawsuits, one study found. By 2011 a hefty 96% of acquisitions worth more than $500m were attracting suits…
J. Travis Laster of Delaware’s Chancery Court [has] become an outspoken public critic of “worthless”, “sue-on-every-deal” lawsuits. In March he told one group of plaintiffs’ lawyers: “I don’t think for a moment that 90%—or based on recent numbers, 95%—of deals are the result of a breach of fiduciary duty.”