May 16 roundup

  • The Economist on the future of the legal business;
  • Hairpin reversals of fortune in long-running Barbie v. Bratz doll fight [Cal Biz Lit, earlier]
  • As I note in Schools for Misrule, institutional reform litigation is alive and well: Reinhardt says 9th Circuit should take over VA’s mental health efforts, Kozinski dissents [LAT, AP, The Recorder]
  • Court rejects Koch suit over spoof website posing as Koch’s to make political points [EFF, earlier]
  • “Romeo and Juliet” amendment could soften harsh Texas sex-offense laws [Lenore Skenazy] Law isn’t especially protective of teen boys persuaded to sign paternity declarations [Amy Alkon]
  • “Disney Trademarks ‘Seal Team 6′” [Atlantic Wire]
  • Great moments in human rights law: UK high court rules airplane hijackers should have been admitted to country as refugees [five years ago on Overlawyered]

Claim: Chuck E. Cheese kids’ games amount to gambling

“A San Diego woman has sued the company that owns the Chuck E. Cheese’s family restaurant chain, claiming that many of the games intended for children at these locations are actually illegal gambling devices — like slot machines.” [San Diego Union-Tribune, Above the Law (“Can you imagine growing up and being known as the kid whose mom sued Chuck E. Cheese?”)] For other class actions based on creative theories that something “amounts to” gambling, see this site’s reports from 1999 (Pokémon and other kids’ trading/collecting cards) and 2008 (“Deal or No Deal” TV show).

Jezebel, the Dodgers and eminent domain

Gideon Kanner recalls how the forcible 1950s displacement of a modest Mexican community made way eventually (after the dropping of a public housing scheme) for the construction of L.A.’s baseball stadium. Some of the residents resisted: “Their principled fight became a footnote in the wretched history of eminent domain law which holds that once a condemnor acquires title to private property by eminent domain, it is not bound to put it to the ‘public’ uses for which it was taken.” [“The Curse of Chavez Ravine“]

In other eminent domain news, voters in the Indian state of West Bengal have ousted the long-ruling Communist party; a rival party “began to gain momentum when angry farmers erupted in protest against the Communist government in 2007 and 2008 after it seized farmland to set up an automobile factory.”

Indiana: “No right to resist illegal cop entry into home”

Your home no longer your castle: “Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.” [NWI Times] James Joyner rounds up outraged blog reaction, and Scott Greenfield has some thoughts on the gradual erosion of the right to resist.

“Chemistry set with no chemicals”

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing: “The liability-phobic dilution of kids’ science has reached its apotheosis with ‘CHEMISTRY 60′: a chemistry kit that promises ’60 fun activities with no chemicals.’ Kids are expected to supply the chemicals from their parents’ kitchen cupboards.” [linking to Sean Michael Ragan, MAKE; see also Chemical & Engineering News, RSC]

Several years ago Wired carried a report by Steve Silberman: “Garage chemistry used to be a rite of passage for geeky kids. But in their search for terrorist cells and meth labs, authorities are making a federal case out of DIY science.” The CPSC carries out a war on chemicals that can be used to make illegal fireworks, while a Texas law makes it illegal “to buy such basic labware as Erlenmeyer flasks or three-necked beakers without first registering with the state’s Department of Public Safety to declare that they will not be used to make drugs.” The renowned 1940s and 1950s manufacturer of chemistry sets, Porter ChemCraft of Hagerstown, Md., “produced more than a million chemistry sets before going out of business in the 1980s amid increasing liability concerns.”

Federalist Society podcast on Schools for Misrule

Just out: one of the most serious and wide-ranging podcasts yet on my new book, Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America. I’m interviewed by James Haynes of the Society’s Professional Responsibility & Legal Education Practice Group Executive Committee and Baltimore Federalist Society Lawyers Chapter. It’s 53:25 minutes in length and you can listen here. Thanks also to the 100+ Facebook users so far who’ve “liked” the podcast.