“When people like Rachel Kane stand up to bullies, it makes it a little bit easier for each and every one of us to stand up to bullies,” writes Ken at Popehat about the blogger who runs a site making fun of some of the wares of the fashion chain Forever 21, and who’s not knuckling under despite a cease-and-desist letter from the store’s lawyer. More coverage: Atlantic Wire; press roundup at WTForever 21.
Radio today: Fox stations, WBAL
I’ll be on the radio a lot today talking about the Supreme Court’s Wal-Mart v. Dukes decision. That includes a bunch of Fox Radio stations at various times between 7 and 11 a.m. EDT, and then the “C4” (Clarence Mitchell IV) show on Baltimore’s WBAL, scheduled for 1:35. More on the Dukes decision here and here.
P.S.: The station lineup includes: KURV (McAllen, TX), WHBC (Canton, OH), WSCC (Charleston, SC), WHAS (Louisville, KY), WERC (Birmingham, AL), WTRC (South Bend, IN), WGST (Atlanta, GA), WSJK (Champaign, IL), WOAI (San Antonio, TX), WSYR (Syracuse, NY), WLNI (Lynchburg, VA), KLIF (Dallas, TX), WTKS (Savannah, GA), WIND (Chicago, IL), KOGO (San Diego, CA), KCOL (Fort Collins, CO), and WAJR (Morgantown, WV).
Law, fairness, and Wal-Mart v. Dukes
I’ve got an instant analysis up at Cato at Liberty of the retailer’s big Supreme Court win today in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the class action certification case. The Court ruled unanimously that the Ninth Circuit had jumped the gun in certifying the case as a class action, and 5-to-4 (Scalia writing) that plaintiffs had failed to assemble the evidence needed for certification. (& welcome Real Clear Politics “Best of the Blogs”, Atlantic Wire, Nicole Neily/Daily Caller, Jon Hyman, SCOTUSBlog)
More: Josh Blackman (with a comment on the Court’s recognition of the work of the late Richard Nagareda), Hans Bader, Jim Copland, John Steele Gordon. Spot-the-errors dept.: Dahlia Lithwick. Briefs and other resources on the case at SCOTUSBlog.
“I have never seen such an incompetent presentation of a damages case”
Said Judge Posner, of an alleged serial spammer’s courtroom presentation. “It’s not only incompetent, it’s grotesque. You’ve got damages jumping around from $11 million to $130 million to $122 million to $33 million. In fact, the damages are probably zero.” [Timothy Lee, Ars Technica]
June 20 roundup
Politics edition:
- Mother ship? White House staffers depart for Harvard Law School [Politico]
- New York: “Lawmakers consider lawyer-friendly med-mal bills,” even as many key legislators moonlight at personal injury firms [Reuters]
- David Brooks on explosive political potential of Fannie Mae scandal [NYTimes] After Kentucky bar panel’s vote to disbar Chesley, Ohio AG pulls him off Fannie Mae suit [Adler, Frank, Beth Musgrave/Lexington Herald-Leader]
- Alabama legislature removes Jim Crow language from state constitution — but black lawmakers oppose the idea [Constitutional Daily]
- AAJ lobbyist Andy Cochran works GOP turf, has convinced trial lawyers to sponsor Christian radio program [Mokhiber, “Seventh Amendment Advocate“]
- Centers for Disease Control funnels grants to allies for political advocacy on favored public-health causes [Jeff Stier, Daily Caller]
- Must have mistaken her for a jury: “John Edwards Sought Millions From Heiress” [ABC News] “One thing [worse than Edwards’s] conduct is the government’s effort to put him in jail for it.” [Steve Chapman]
Consequences of school pranks
According to his lawyer, Indiana high school senior Tyell Morton would have faced a maximum of three years had he brought a gun to school. Unfortunately for young Morton, he brought a blow-up doll instead. [Nsenga Burton/The Root, WTHR, Alkon]
The publicity squeeze
After taking heat in the press, Montgomery County, Md. has waived a $500 fine levied against a kids’ lemonade stand [WUSA, Daily Caller]
A baffling award for ABC’s Toyota scaremongering
John Cook at Gawker wants to know how a coveted Edward R. Murrow prize could just have been bestowed on the Toyota-panic reporting of ABC’s Brian Ross (“America’s Wrongest Reporter”), given that it showcased staged, fakey footage, relied heavily on the assertions of a safety consultant whose plaintiff’s-side involvement in the controversy went unmentioned, and omitted details that would have raised readers’ doubts on key themes, among many other sins. Later investigations, of course, decisively refuted the lawyer-stoked fears that Toyotas have some mysterious tendency to accelerate out of control. More: Ted Frank and Hans Bader, and my take on the sad history of media irresponsibility on car-safety scares.
“Cromwell & Goodwin”
Scam investigators are starting to assess the harm done by a pretend “law firm,” including $6,775 in losses to a victimized British man. Fortunate that it was just fake; imagine how much more damage the law firm might have done had it been real! [AmLaw Daily]
Tough as nails on manicure discrimination
“A Maryland man who was charged $1 more for a manicure than women has filed a lawsuit for $200,000 claiming sex discrimination.” [MyFoxDC]