An Oregon man robbed and shot during a fishing vacation to the state of Sinaloa, Mexico says the tour operator should have warned of the endemic risk of violence [OnPoint News]
February 24 roundup
- Judge Ciavarella defiant after racketeering conviction in Pennsylvania cash-for-kids horror [TheLegalIntel, Sullum and more, WSJ Law Blog, Greenfield, earlier]
- Widener lawprof Lawrence Connell facing discipline over hypotheticals in class [Orin Kerr, NLJ, interview at NAS]
- “Do we even want to remain a child care center if we have to eliminate all the parts we love?” [Free-Range Kids] Lawsuit fears tame a Frederick, Md. ice playground [same]
- Marquette lawprof Rick Esenberg on Wisconsin showdown [first, second, third posts]
- A patent owner, the Chicago Tribune and Sen. Durbin: Anatomy of a pool drain scare story [Woldenberg, AmendTheCPSIA.com]
- Mayor Thomas Menino vows to save Boston from scourge of everyday low prices [Mark Perry]
- “Comp Hearing Scheduled ‘On the Sly’ for Texting Cop Who Caused Fatal Accident” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] “Paying for bad cops” [Balko]
- Demand for shaker abstinence: nosy, hectoring CSPI files suit asking that salt in food be subjected to FDA regulation [six years ago on Overlawyered]
DC readers: speaking at Cato next Thurs. afternoon
Attention readers in the Washington, D.C. area: I’ll be speaking at a Cato Policy Forum next Thurs., March 3, at 4 p.m. at the Cato Institute auditorium, discussing my new book Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America. Roger Pilon, who directs Cato’s program of legal studies, will be the moderator, and commenting on my remarks will be one of the most distinguished federal judges, the Hon. Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The event is free, but you do need to register in advance here, where you’ll find more details. There’ll be a reception afterward and a chance to buy the book. Please introduce yourself and mention that you’re an Overlawyered reader!
Oh, what testimonials
Scott Greenfield calls to our attention a Rochester lawyer whose criminal defense clients are not only grateful, but rather more articulate than one might have expected.
$6.7 million awarded after drunk student’s fall
“A judge has awarded more than $6.7 million to the family of a Northeastern University student who fell down a set of stairs at a Boston bar in 2007 and died after a night of drinking. The judge’s award comes about three months after a jury ruled the bar violated the city building code but was not liable for the 21-year-old man’s death.” [Boston Globe; Herald; MyFoxBoston]
SCOTUS, 6-2: vaccine suits preempted
James Beck explains and Orac has some strong views as well (“I’m afraid Justice Sotomayor borders on the delusional when she blithely proclaims that courts are so good at efficiently disposing of meritless product liability claims.”) More: Kathleen Seidel and footnotes.
P.S. But preemption does not carry the day in an automotive case, Williamson v. Mazda.
Wisconsin: a frisky-union vignette
Headline from last August, recalled by James Taranto: “Milwaukee teachers union files suit over lack of Viagra coverage.” The lack of coverage for erectile dysfunction drugs amounted to sex discrimination, according to the complaint. [Journal-Sentinel]
More on the Wisconsin union showdown from Cato Institute scholars Chris Edwards (Virginia has much sharper restrictions on public-employee unionism than what Gov. Scott Walker is proposing), Neal McCluskey (for the kids? really?), David Boaz (president, with his entire political machine, “is inserting himself into a medium-sized state’s battle over how to balance its budget,” Roger Pilon (unions’ quarrel is with voters) — and see also this 2009 background paper on the unsustainable costs of some union victories.
Canada: “fatally flawed” human rights proceedings
They trampled an Ontario businesswoman’s rights, a higher court finds. Maxcine Telfer of Mississauga, Ont., “whose home was ordered seized to pay an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal award to a former employee[,] can keep her house — for now.” [Toronto Star]
“Tobacco tax hike was a backroom deal”
The Supreme Court should strike down the multistate compact by which state attorneys general carried out the Great Tobacco Heist of a decade ago, argues Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute [Washington Times and CEI; earlier here, here]. I’ve discussed the MSA at chapter length in my book The Rule of Lawyers as well as in shorter form here and elsewhere.
P.S. AEI’s Michael Greve analyzes the legal background at Balkinization.
Rise and fall of a “dropsy” epidemic
Scott Greenfield on curiously convenient cop testimony.