“…We’ll just do our business in London.”
“Isolated” EPA enforcement abuse
Louisiana plant manager Hubert Vidrine has won a rare $1.7 million verdict against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for malicious prosecution, with a judge lambasting EPA’s enforcement apparatus for “reckless and callous disregard” of Vidrine’s rights. Agency defenders say it was an isolated case of a rogue agent, a proposition I examine in my latest Cato post. More: Orin Kerr, Volokh.
Legal trap doors for New Jersey builders
According to attorney Jeffrey Newman in the Times of Trenton, New Jersey law allows class actions and consumer fraud suits to be based on paperwork infractions with no showing of actual harm, creating openings for opportunistic litigation:
As an attorney, I have defended numerous business owners against frivolous claims in which the plaintiff could prove absolutely no injury and he or she had received whatever service or product that was promised. Yet there was language in the purchase agreement that was found to be considered “non-compliant” with the Contractors Registration Act and the Consumer Fraud Act’s Home Improvement Contract regulations.
…Contractors who choose to use boilerplate contracts often sold in office supply stores are playing with fire, as such agreements would never withstand the scrutiny of the state’s consumer protection laws. When contractors use these forms and are sued, the courts can rule that they have to hand back to the consumer every penny — even the money they laid out for materials to do the job. … In another case, we represented a contractor whose advertisements were not in compliance. Even though the plaintiff never bought anything, our client was still sued!
October 7 roundup
- Prodded by UNICEF and the Hague Convention, countries cut back on international adoption, leaving kids to future of orphanage life [Reason.tv video, interviewing among others Harvard’s Elizabeth Bartholet; more]
- Critics: lawyers are main winners in NYC rent settlement [NYDN] NYC rent stabilization rules gave landlords incentive to do luxury conversions [FWIW]
- Breast-aurant rivals in court: “Hooters Suing Twin Peaks, Which Previously Sued Grand Tetons” [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- Jonathan Chait: it’ll be “useful” for debate if CEOs “fear for their personal safety” [Matt Welch, related, similar (see “Patterns of Intimidation”), also related to “occupation” as tactic]
- Ethics complaint charges that boilerplate affidavits led to fee approval for lawyer in Bronx Surrogate’s Court [ABA Journal]
- “Widow allowed to sue tobacco companies [whose products] husband didn’t use” [Florida, DBR] Appeals court: manufacturer not under legal duty to warn of asbestos injury caused by another manufacturer’s products [Business Insurance]
- Debit card fee: made in D.C. [Glenn Reynolds; related, Joe Weisenthal]
Not a political concern
Apple, notes Tim Carney, never formed a PAC and didn’t see its business as politics.
EEOC vs. the ministerial exception
Argued yesterday before the Supreme Court, the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC pits the quasi-religion of employment discrimination law against organized religion of every other sort. Guess which side the Obama administration comes down on? I explain in a new op-ed at The Daily Caller. More background: Christopher Lund (Wayne State), “In Defense of the Ministerial Exception”, North Carolina Law Review/SSRN. And per Rick Garnett at NRO “Bench Memos,” the Court’s justices in their questioning yesterday did not appear friendly toward the idea of overthrowing the exception (& followup). According to the L.A. Times and other reporting, Justice Kagan described the Justice Department’s position as “amazing.” More: Marcia McCormick, Workplace Prof (linking to transcript of oral argument, PDF)(& welcome Damon Root/Reason “Hit and Run” readers).
The “Halliburton rape” case: setting the record straight
Remember the “Halliburton rape” case, where the national media uncritically passed along claims that a young woman had been viciously assaulted by co-workers while stationed in the Middle East, then confined to a container by beastly managers when she tried to complain, and finally suffered the ultimate indignity when her employment contract required her to submit the claims to arbitration? It’s a tale that was advanced by politicians like Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), by some of the usual suspects in opinion journalism, and especially by the litigation lobby as part of its campaign against contractually provided-for arbitration (as with the much-reviewed, HBO-aired “Hot Coffee“). Not a few of these advocates — like the left-leaning ThinkProgress — threw “allegedly” to the winds and flatly accused the co-workers of rape.
Unless you’d read one of the very few skeptical evaluations of the case — many of them written by Ted Frank — you may have been shocked this July when a Houston jury summarily rejected Jamie Leigh Jones’s lawsuit. Now — better late than never — the Houston Chronicle shreds the popular narrative of the affair and its media coverage in particular (ABC News: a tale of “sexual brutality, corporate indifference and government inaction.”) Is it too much to hope that anyone will be embarrassed enough to apologize?
More: As commenter E-Bell notes, journalist Stephanie Mencimer, with whom we’ve had our differences in the past, deserves due credit for this July coverage in the unlikely venue of Mother Jones. And quoth @Popehat: “‘Putting the victim on trial’ is code for ‘defending yourself and testing the evidence.'”
October 6 roundup
- Dodd-Frank, arms-trade laws serve to entrench bigger business against smaller [Tim Carney, Rand Simberg] Similarly with automakers and coal producers [David Henderson]
- One guess as to why: “Many Physicians Feel They’re Delivering Too Much Care” [WSJ health blog, CJAC] Insurers report incidence of med-mal claims has dropped, severity has increased [National Underwriter] Roundtable on defensive medicine [Orthopedics Today]
- Pinball Hall of Fame adversary doesn’t like being called a vexatious litigant [Las Vegas Weekly via @loweringthebar]
- U.K. “Solicitors from Hell” gripe site has so far defied multiple efforts to shut it down [Independent]
- WTC dust inhalation suits grind on on despite doubts on scientific effect [PoL, more] “Improbable Chain of Events Dooms Con Ed’s 9/11 Lawsuit” [Mark Hamblett, NYLJ]
- Nathan Glazer’s work in perspective, and an interview [City Journal];
- In the mail: Curtis Wilkie’s Dickie Scruggs book, “The Fall of the House of Zeus.”
“Senior sues because gum stuck to dentures”
Even as odd lawsuit stories go, this underexplained little account of a product liability claim in Canada stands out. Conceding that having to pick gum out of one’s dentures is not plausibly deserving of C$100,000, does the plaintiff at least deserve points for honesty in averring that her depression lasted only ten minutes? [Edmonton Sun]
Advertising food as “genetically unmodified”
The Food and Drug Administration substantially restricts food companies’ freedom to promote their wares as not-genetically-modified, although quite a lot of grocery shoppers are (perhaps misguidedly) interested in making product decisions on that basis. Thom Lambert at Truth on the Market detects the symptoms of regulatory “capture.”