Latin Jazz musicians sue over termination of Grammy category

In April the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), which runs the Grammy awards, dropped 31 categories of competition, including Latin jazz, zydeco, Hawaiian and Native American. Musicians remain free to enter their work into competition in overlapping related categories. Now four Latin jazz musicians have filed suit, arguing “that NARAS is in effect forcing Latin jazz artists to now compete in broader jazz categories against more mainstream artists, hurting their chance of winning an award.” [Jazz Times]

Buffalo lawmakers irate at law firm ad set in council chambers

“What’s next? A dog food commercial?” fumed Council President David A. Franczyk, who says, as do colleagues, that they were never informed that a prominent local injury-law practice was filming a TV ad in its historic chambers [Buffalo News via WSJ]. The firm of Cellino & Barnes, which we’ve met previously on this site, says it has no plans to discontinue showing the ad despite the lawmakers’ displeasure.

August 4 roundup

California: “Lawmakers kill fix for disability access suits”

Democrats in Sacramento are unswayed by continuing reports that Unruh Act complaint mills are extracting millions from the state’s small businesses on accessibility claims, and throttle a bill that would require notice and a chance to fix problems before suing. [Legal Pad, The Recorder, CJAC] Opponents of the fix include the trial-lawyers’ lobby, Consumer Attorneys of California. Background here; the perennially doomed equivalent bill in the U.S. Congress is discussed here. I discussed the issue on the John Stossel show last year.

“Litigating One’s Way to a Faculty Appointment”

Former North Dakota Attorney General Nicholas Spaeth may face an uphill fight in a newly filed action alleging age discrimination in law faculty hiring, predicts Jeff Lipshaw [PrawfsBlawg, with comments]. Spaeth believes “more than 100 law schools discriminated against him by refusing to consider him for teaching jobs because of his age” despite an impressive earlier career in the law [ABA Journal]. Represented by attorney Lynne Bernabei, Spaeth has sued Michigan State and expects to add other schools as defendants. As Prawfsblawg commenters note, Spaeth’s underlying gripe may be with the overwhelmingly dominant model of law faculty hiring (reinforced by accreditation and rating pressures) in which expected future scholarly output, as opposed to, say, teaching excellence or even adequacy, tends to dominate hiring for tenured positions.

August 3 roundup

  • Central Falls, R.I. lands in bankruptcy court [NYT; my Cato take]
  • Less efficient patdowns? Man with one arm files complaint after being turned down as TSA inspector [MSNBC via Hyman]
  • Don’t join the Mommy Mob [Ken at Popehat]
  • Montana high court upholds failure-to-warn verdict against maker of aluminum baseball bat [PoL link roundup, Russell Jackson; earlier here and here]
  • Finally some good news from Connecticut: state enacts law protecting municipalities from lawsuits over recreational land use [BikeRag; earlier here, etc.]
  • Claim: climate-change tort suits will require radical changes in tort law and that’s a good thing [Douglas Kysar (Yale), SSRN]
  • Attorney keen to go on TV, will take any case, either side [Balko]