Labor and employment law roundup

Bus accident video footage


Because of a mounted dashboard camera, you can watch the footage of a Quincy, Ill. municipal transit bus on its seemingly uneventful ride until an oncoming car suddenly loses control and swerves directly into its path. [KHQA] If you do watch the footage, released by the plaintiff’s lawyer, see whether you would have predicted that the legal outcome of the crash would turn out to be “city pays $4 million to passenger in car that lost control.” (& welcome Reddit readers).

“We know only one category as prosecutors, and that is a ‘V.’…It’s ‘V,’ for victim”.

Monroe Freedman lines up Angela Corey’s press conference — in which she spoke of “our precious victims,” talked of having prayed with the Martin family, and suggested that her investigators had established “the facts” and “the truth” regarding the guilt of George Zimmerman — against the code of ethics. Earlier on the prosecution affidavit here [expanded and retitled 8:30 a.m. Apr. 16].

April 16 roundup

  • Although I’m known as a foe of everything John Edwards stands for, I hope he beats this campaign finance rap [Atlantic Wire]
  • Michael Bloomberg launches demagogic new campaign against Stand Your Ground laws, calling to mind the recent critique of the NYC mayor’s paternalist dark side by Conor Friedersdorf in the Atlantic;
  • Jerry Brown frees grandmother dubiously jailed in shaken-baby death [Slate, earlier]
  • As Scruggs (Dickey not Earl) still pursues vindication, Alan Lange looks back on Mississippi scandals [YallPolitics]
  • Deservedly favorable profile of Fifth Circuit judge Jerry Smith [NOLA]
  • In which I tell off Bill Donohue’s Catholic League for its double insult last week to gays and to adoptive parents [IGF]
  • “The Ninth Circuit was, believe it or not, correct” [Ilya Shapiro and Trevor Burrus, Cato, on administrative law case arising from NLRB rules change on drug rep overtime]

Victory against overbroad “hacking” law

Many will breathe a sigh of relief following Judge Alex Kozinski’s new opinion for an en banc Ninth Circuit in United States v. Nosal, establishing that (contrary to some fears) the “anti-hacking” provisions of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act do not penalize broad swaths of computer usage that exceed “authorized” use. A ruling the other way might have criminalized many instances of employee goofing-off as well as common user violations of website terms-of-service. [Orin Kerr, Volokh Conspiracy, Ken at Popehat] Earlier here, here, here, etc.