The Associated Press and Belleville News-Democrat investigate some curious clusters of workers’-comp claims among downstate correctional officers and other public employees.
“Ever argued with a woman?”
Copyranter’s selection of the “sketchiest lawyer billboards” [via AtL]
“Battleground Ohio: John Kasich’s Collective Bargaining Reform Goes Down”
At Capital Research Center, James Antle has a post-mortem on the defeat of Ohio Republicans’ ambitious attempt to turn around the public sector employment climate.
Food and agriculture roundup
- Steve Chapman on FDA salt reduction initiative [Tribune/syndicated] Canada: “Health minister takes sodium-reduction plan off the table” [Calgary Herald] Flashback: FDA holds first hearing on regulating salt content in food [2007, Medical News Today] Discussion of my piece last week [Adler/Volokh, Instapundit]
- More on McDonald’s sidestepping of San Francisco would-be Happy Meal ban [Fair Warning, earlier; background here, here, here, here, etc.]
- “Caveat Venditor: Cottage Food Laws Great in Theory, Often Less So in Practice” [Baylen Linnekin of pro-freedom Keep Food Legal, who guestblogged at Reason last week]
- Rather than get government out of way, left’s farm bill (“Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act”) would cut small/local/organic growers in on more USDA programs [Obama Foodorama, Linnekin]
- Good riddance to monopoly powers of the Canadian Wheat Board [CBC]
- Texas now allows home bakers to sell their wares [Austin Chronicle via @pointoflaw]
- Widespread opposition to new Department of Labor proposal to ban kids from much work on farms [Nebraska Outback]
December 7 roundup
- Debate on medical malpractice between Ted Frank (Manhattan Institute) and Shirley Svorny (Cato Institute) [PoL]
- Lawyers, accountants have done well from litigation-ridden Pearlman Ponzi aftermath [Orlando Sentinel]
- Book drop “inherently dangerous”, says rape victim’s family suing library designers [Florida, LISNews]
- “The iTunes Class Action Lawsuit You’ll Never Hear About”[NJLRA] “Jackson v. Unocal – Class Actions Find a Welcome Home in Colorado” [Karlsgodt]
- Another tot accused of sexual harassment, this time a first grader [Boston Herald, earlier (six year old’s “assault”)]
- Profile of lawyer who defends fair use of clips for documentary makers [ABA Journal]
State Department restricts imports of Greek coins
It’s another big step forward for the notion of “cultural patrimony,” in this case humoring the whims of foreign governments that wish to suppress private ownership of long-collected everyday antiquities. [Peter Tompa/Cultural Property Observer; my take]
SEIU to Washington legislators: raise taxes or we’ll keep suing you
“Washington [the state] is getting hit with so many lawsuits over budget cuts that it’s not clear at times who controls the state’s purse strings: lawmakers or the court system. … Overall, the state has been sued more than a dozen times because of cuts lawmakers made in recent years to curtail state spending and balance the budget.” A spokesman for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the groups suing the state over cuts, describes program cuts as “violating people’s rights” and says the state should raise revenue if it doesn’t want to be sued. [Seattle Times] (& Bainbridge).
Expanding mental diagnoses: the legal rub
As part of its revision of its influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the American Psychiatric Association is proposing to lower diagnostic thresholds for some conditions and recognize other entirely new (and sometimes controversial) disorders. That will have implications for the coverage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws, as I explain in a new post at Cato at Liberty. (& Alkon, Alex Adrianson/InsiderOnline)
“Sprung from prison, tort-bar king back raising money for Dems”
Bill Lerach is a big cheese again and doesn’t mind who knows it. [Examiner]
December 6 roundup
- TSA: design of gun on purse is “replica gun” [Radley Balko]
- “Note: Before Attaching Ankle Monitor, Make Sure Leg Is Real” [Lowering the Bar]
- “Harm to others” rationale seems to fall by wayside as Boston bans workplace use of e-cigarettes [Jacob Sullum]
- “Should legislation protect the obese?” [NYT “Room for Debate”]
- German town drops charges against Pope Benedict XVI for failure to wear seat belt in Popemobile [WaPo, Lowering the Bar, Irish Times]
- Ninth Circuit agrees to review litigation seeking court takeover of vets’ mental care [SFChron, WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
- The shaky science of “shaken baby syndrome” [Pfaff, Prawfs, ABA Journal, earlier here, here] Jerry Brown should pardon dubiously convicted grandmother [Emily Bazelon, Slate]