Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘animals’

May 15 roundup

  • “Fan sues Insane Clown Posse after injury at Illinois concert” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] “As Insanity is not a defense to the claim, the Clowns are now adding litigation counsel to their Posse.” [@colinsamuels]
  • Suit on behalf of school-cheat son “wouldn’t have been much of a story” if dad had left argument to hired gun [Mark Bennett, earlier]
  • If you can’t buy a Coke with your debit card any more, this may be why [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason] Related: “a ‘do-nothing Congress’ is sort of like a ‘do-nothing arsonist.'” [IowaHawk]

    • A common traditional pet

  • L.A. judge reverses much-publicized Honda small claims award [CBS Local, earlier]
  • Harris County judge deems pig “common, traditional” pet in homeowner association suit [Houston Chronicle]
  • Plaintiffs, not just defendants, can use Daubert to exclude opponents’ scientific theories that fall short of general acceptance by the relevant scientific community. Why is this news when it was clearly part of the intended and expected effect of Daubert from day one? [guestposter Mark Bower at Turkewitz]
  • “The unfair attack on ALEC” [Ted Frank and Jim Copland at PoL] More: Wendy Gramm and Brooke Rollins, WSJ.

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Showdown: Protected birds vs. protected fish

“Oregon officials … want federal approval to shoot a sea bird that eats millions of baby salmon trying to reach the ocean. Oregon needs federal approval to start shooting double-crested cormorants because the birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.” The state has previously attempted to protect the salmon fry by paying for speedboats and firecrackers to harass the cormorants, but “harassment has ‘proved insufficient.'” [East Oregonian via Balko]

P.S.: Meanwhile, “Federal prosecutors hope to use an obscure law to punish two recreational pilots whose low flying may have disturbed thousands of resting migratory birds in Iowa.” [h/t Baylen Linnekin]

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Ethnic foodways vs. state regulation

The sale of live seafood, common in Chinese food markets, can collide with blanket state regulation of wildlife sales. Virginia, for example, classifies as wildlife any animals not appearing on a list of domestic animals, even if they are raised on farms and have never lived in the wild. While the Virginia suburbs of D.C. have won fame as a hot spot for admirers of Asian food, the selection got somewhat narrower last year with the confiscation of eels, crayfish, bullfrogs and other critters from the Great Wall supermarket. Two store managers were hit with felony charges. [NY Times, Washington Post]

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Lawyers can’t safety-proof national parks

Timothy Egan, New York Times, on lawsuits over rogue mountain goats and other hazards of wild places:

My experience, purely anecdotal, is that the more rangers try to bring the nanny state to public lands, the more careless, and dependent, people become. There will always be steep cliffs, deep water, and ornery and unpredictable animals in that messy part of the national habitat not crossed by climate-controlled malls and processed-food emporiums. If people expect a grizzly bear to be benign, or think a glacier is just another variant of a theme park slide, it’s not the fault of the government when something goes fatally wrong.

More: Steve Chapman (most dangerous animal in the parks is the one “wearing your pants”); David Boaz.

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