That’s despite the BP/Transocean spill. A danger sign of compensation fraud? [Daily Caller]
P.S. Another spill-compensation angle, with a hint of me too-ism: “Realtors Press Feinberg for BP Fund to Compensate Their Losses” [Bloomberg]
“Hello, I’m with the government and I’m here to help you eat”
San Francisco considers following Santa Clara County’s ban on most Happy Meals [Ken at Popehat] There’s also a new protest website entitled Free To Choose Our Meals.
“Teen Claims School Violated ADA by Barring Basketball with Service Dog”
“A Chicago area teen claims in a lawsuit that her high school violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it barred her from playing basketball with the help of her service dog.” The president of Special Olympics Illinois, which sponsors the team that turned down Jenny Youngwith’s request, “said the group has to make decisions based on the safety of all the athletes.” [ABA Journal]
August 23 roundup
- Lawsuit alleging failure to warn of addictiveness of online game Lineage II survives motion to dismiss [Kravets/Wired, Mystal/AtL]
- Research: outcome of job-bias claims hard to predict, smaller and legally unsophisticated employers at higher risk of adverse outcome [Schwartz]
- UK survey sheds light on decline of outdoor and neighborhood kids’ play [BBC via Free-Range Kids]
- “The Music-Copyright Enforcers” [John Bowe, NY Times Magazine via Carton, Legal Blog Watch]
- Did an early-offer/full-disclosure system reduce medical malpractice costs at University of Michigan hospitals? [Ted at PoL]
- Here’s a professor who might become very popular with the class action bar [Vanderbilt Law School, SSRN] P.S. Andrew Trask responds to Prof. Brian Fitzpatrick.
- Nevada: “Process Server & Office Manager Are Criminally Charged re Alleged False Filings for Debt Collector” [Neil, ABA Journal]
- 1-800-PIT-BULL: not an urban legend [six years ago on Overlawyered]
BlackBerry use as overtime, cont’d
An update on lawsuits claiming employees should be on the books for pay and overtime purposes if the employer asks them to carry a BlackBerry [Workplace Prof, NPR, earlier]
Newly discovered jazz treasures
Locked up by unwise copyright law [David Post/Volokh]
“Just the bad ones,” they say
61 percent of doctors over 55 have been sued, a new AMA study has found [American Medical News]
“Any defamatory or disparaging statements … will be met with swift litigation”
Through his lawyers, Girls Gone Wild impresario and frequent Overlawyered mentionee Joe Francis is wary of serving as the basis for a fictionalized character in an upcoming movie called Piranha 3-D. [IGN]
August 21 roundup
- More criticism of $671 million California nursing home verdict [Tracy Leach/Examiner, California Civil Justice, earlier]
- Community service as precondition for college tax credits? [Charlotte Allen/Minding the Campus, earlier]
- Casket-making monks vs. Louisiana funeral regulators [Ken at Popehat]
- Careful about repeating claims that bad stuff in the environment is causing children to go through puberty earlier [Sanghavi, Slate]
- Grilled chicken: “California Restaurants Lose Appeal On Cancer Warnings” [Dan Fisher/Forbes, earlier]
- Randy Maniloff on the uncertain foundations of insurance bad faith law [Mealey’s, PDF]
- “Why Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Fashion” [Raustiala/Sprigman, NY Times, earlier on design “knockoff” legislation here, here, and here]
- On a personal note, this week I completed my relocation from the New York to the Washington, D.C. vicinity. I look forward to seeing more of my friends both at the Cato Institute’s offices and elsewhere around D.C.
“Blumenthal: The ‘A’ in AG is for Activist”
His hometown newspaper, the Greenwich Time, profiles the Connecticut attorney general who’s now running for Senate against Republican nominee and televised wrestling impresario Linda McMahon. Jane Genova, previewing the race at Pajamas Media, quotes me on the competing forms of showmanship involved:
Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute… puts it this way: “So now Blumenthal, known for years of legal posturing and grandstanding against business opponents, will face off against someone known for building the World Wrestling Entertainment empire. I’d say the two operations actually resemble each other in many ways, except the spectacles Blumenthal puts on have been more stagy and less dignified, and the opponents getting beaten up aren’t there of their own free will.”