Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

ABA “Blawg 100” — take a moment to vote for Overlawyered

I’m pleased to announce that Overlawyered has been named by the American Bar Association as one of its “Blawg 100” noteworthy legal blogs. It’s not our first appearance on the list, but it’s always gratifying when it happens.

And here’s the good part: you can vote for us. In particular, you can go to this page:

http://www.abajournal.com/blawg100

You’ll need to register (which only takes a few moments) and then vote for your favorite in each of a list of categories. (They put Overlawyered in the “Torts” category.)
ABABlawg100FiveVoteFor
The nominations include many of our favorite and most-linked blogs, including Lowering the Bar, Prof. Bainbridge, Volokh, Jon Hyman, Daniel Schwartz, Abnormal Use, Eric Turkewitz, and Russell Jackson, to name a few. A number of these are also in the “Torts” category which means you’ll need to resist the urge to vote for them and select Overlawyered instead. Please take a moment to vote now. Thanks in advance for your support!

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Chick-Fil-A vs. “Eat More Kale,” cont’d

Paul Alan Levy finds it hard to sympathize with either side of the much-noted trademark dispute, and notes that before the restaurant chain sicced its lawyers on him, Vermont t-shirt silk-screener Bo Muller-Moore had himself sought to trademark the “Kale” version of the slogan: “why should Muller-Moore be able to prevent other members of the public from making T-shirts with the same slogan?” [CL&P, earlier]

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December 12 roundup

  • Liability suits bankrupt manufacturer of gasoline cans [Tulsa World]
  • Faces life imprisonment: “Greece’s statistics chief faces criminal probe” for “not cooking the books” [FT via @OlafStorbeck]
  • Man injured by runaway car can sue county on grounds bus shelter was built too close to street [Seattle Times]
  • Title IX trips up track teams [Saving Sports: Delaware, West Virginia, Maryland]
  • “‘Not gay enough’ softball players settle suit” [SF Chron]
  • Now it’s the Obama administration that’s upset with ABA over ratings of judicial nominees [Whelan]
  • Lawyer kiosks in UK newsstands [Knake, LEF] Lawyers open kiosk at Florida mall [ABA Journal]

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Suing Google over search results

Max Mosley, former head of the Formula One racing organization, has been the subject of a number of lurid allegations in the European press. Now he is suing Google in France and Germany, and contemplating suit in California, “in an attempt to force the internet company to monitor and censor search results about” the allegations. “It is understood Google has removed hundreds of references to the defamatory claims after requests from Mosley’s solicitors. However, Mosley is attempting to force Google to monitor its search results so the material never appears” in the first place. [Guardian] More: Above the Law.

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Labor law roundup

  • Union withdraws, and NLRB drops, complaint against Boeing over plant location decision [Adler, earlier] “Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) Introduces Bill to Reverse NLRB’s ‘Micro-Union’ Decision” [LRT via @jonhyman] Video of “Organized Labor & Obama administration” panel [Federalist Society convention]
  • Suing Atlantic City is an established sport for current, former employees [Press of AC] After lawsuit win, former Gotham sanitation worker litters neighborhood with cars [NY Post via Christopher Fountain] Why have House, Senate reversed usual ideological lines on federal employee workers’-comp reform? [WaPo]
  • Murder of reformist professors reinforces difficulty of changing Italian labor law [Tyler Cowen] UK considers relaxing “unfair dismissal” controls on employers [BBC, earlier]
  • Taylor Law and NYC transit strike: “ILO Urges that U.S. Stop Violating International Obligations It Hasn’t Agreed To” [Ku, OJ; Mitch Rubinstein, Adjunct Law Prof]
  • Maryland’s misnamed 2009 “Workplace Fraud Act” bedevils carpet installers and other firms that employ contract workers, and perhaps that was its point [Ed Waters Jr./Frederick News-Post, Weyrich Cronin & Sorra, Floor Daily]
  • “Government pay is higher” [Stoll] Notwithstanding “Occupy” themes, interests of unions and underemployed young folks might not actually be aligned very well [Althouse]
  • More on outcry over proposed federal restrictions on kids’ farm chores [WSJ, NPR, Gannett Wisconsin, CEI, earlier]

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Judge: blind plaintiff can sue landlord, guide-dog provider over fall

A judge has ruled that an elderly Manhattan woman can sue her landlord and a guide-dog provider over a fall she suffered on a step at her building. Gloria Clark argues that her earlier guide dogs had always guided her around a dangerous step over 26 years of living in the building but that while she was auditioning a new guide dog the dog’s trainer did not properly take care against the hazard. [New York Daily News]

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Glendale bans fake grass

The Los Angeles suburb claims it adopted the ban because of dangers posed by chemicals, toxins and plastics present in artificial turf. Might there perhaps be an alternative motive, that of policing residents’ aesthetic taste in landscaping? Well, the ban applies only to front yards: “When asked why the fake grass would continue to be allowed in backyards, officials had no answer.” [CBS Los Angeles]

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“Does ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ Promote Bullying?”

No wonder a Long Island University professor thinks so: the Christmas ditty spins a grim account of name-calling and game-exclusion and then gives it all an inappropriately “happy” conclusion, thus distracting us from the need for massive therapeutic and social intervention. [KDKA](& Althouse)

P.S. And let’s not even get into “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” “known as the Christmas Date Rape Song” [Ann Althouse]

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