What, no dustjacket? The suit claims that the way the iPad turns off to avoid overheating, which can happen outdoors in direct sunlight, makes its user experience not “just like a book”. [Chris Walters, Consumerist]
NYT: Roberts Court “most conservative in decades”
Ilya Shapiro sees some heroic simplification — at the least — going on in that sweeping assertion.
“Warning: Sharp Thing May Cut Hand”
A product liability action filed in San Francisco alleges that “defendants failed to warn the plaintiff that playing with a sharp sword displayed in its store would result in the plaintiff slicing his hand when he attempted to place it back in its sheath.” [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar](& welcome Bainbridge readers)
The Mississippi emails, cont’d
If Attorney General Jim Hood wanted to avoid the impression that he was thick with the Scruggs crowd, he probably shouldn’t have had them vet his response to the Wall Street Journal before he sent it off. [David Rossmiller, earlier]
Panel: “Union influence on public policy”
At Cato today at noon, with John Fund, Armand Thieblot, John Samples, and moderator Chris Edwards, and watchable online. Wish I could attend, but I’m not in Washington at the moment.
Passenger sues over crying toddler on flight
Qantas settled the American passenger’s complaint, so we never got to hear the battle of the experts about whether the 3-year-old’s screaming really caused blood to issue from her eardrum as alleged. [Suzanne Murray/CafeMom via Stoll and many readers]
Slowing down the copyright trolls
How to respond to the emergence of assembly-line copyright-suit filers without undermining the right of content owners to stop unauthorized reprints that go beyond fair use? Max Kennerly raises the possibility of steering rights owners into agency complaints or arbitration as an alternative, or at least precondition, to court action. That might slow down the business model of groups like RightHaven, which has demanded in terrorem sums from mom-and-pop bloggers and other infringers and even asked courts to order seizure of the domains of otherwise legitimate target websites.
“…one of the unheralded heroes of our time”
That Mr. Stossel certainly says some nice things.
Peter Henning on SEC whistleblowing
As I’ve been warning: under the new Dodd-Frank provisions, companies “should expect at least some of their employees to report to the government first rather than relying on internal disclosure mechanisms.” [NYT “DealBook”, earlier here, here, etc.] More: various perspectives on FCPA whistleblower bounties [Koehler]
July 28 roundup
- “N.J. High Court to Review Drunken Drivers’ Right to Sue Bars That Served Them” [NJLJ]
- Recipe for Oakland-style public unionism: “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act” pending on Capitol Hill would impose public-service collective bargaining and labor arbitration on local governments nationwide [Cavanaugh/Reason, more, effects on police misconduct accountability]
- iPhone class action of doubtful benefit to consumers [Hahn & Passell, Regulation 2.0]
- U.K.: “Fired Top In-House Lawyer Testifies She Was Bullied by Underling” [ABA Journal]
- Due this fall: Norma Zager book “Erin Brockovich and the Beverly Hills Greenscam” [Pelican Publishing] Weitz firm invokes Brockovich association to drum up Gulf spill business [Michael Daly, NYDN]
- Paperwork nightmare: “Health Care Reform’s Terrible, Tiny Tax” [Megan McArdle]
- Three views of Sherrod fiasco [Rick Esenberg, Radley Balko, John Derbyshire]
- This time the feds look serious about foisting low-flow showerheads on unwilling consumers [Heritage Foundry]