- More details on my panel discussions on food issues next week at the Heritage Foundation [Monday, Sept. 23] and at Vermont Law School [Friday, Sept. 27];
- “A Ban on Some Italian Cured Meat Is Ending” [Glenn Collins, N.Y. Times] “Market Forces Lead to Better Treatment for Farm Animals” [Steve Chapman]
- “Tempering temperance: Puritan attitudes on alcohol still linger decades after Prohibition” [National Post]
- Dozens of class-action suits: “Bay Area courts center of legal battle against food industry” [Mercury-News]
- “Plain and/or Terrifying Packaging Considered for Junk Food in New Zealand (and Australia)” [Katherine Mangu-Ward]
- If the dangers of rice aren’t enough to alarm even today’s Margaret Hamburg-headed FDA, they’re probably not very serious [ACSH]
- North Carolina: home visits to make sure Medicaid recipient kids are eating their veggies? [Rick Henderson video]
Posts Tagged ‘Australia’
Free speech roundup
- “It’s Not Illegal to Sell Anti-NSA Shirts Bearing the NSA Logo”
[Volokh] - Can an American national be sued in American courts for working to persuade a foreign government to pass an oppressive law? [BTB on Scott Lively Uganda case]
- “Court Rejects Religious Discrimination Claim Based on Associated Press’s Rejection of Plaintiff’s Religiously Themed Article” [Volokh]
- Workings of British hate speech law: police visit clergyman who emailed pair of unwelcome religious tracts [Spectator]
- “HIV Denialist’s Trademark and Defamation Claims Against Critical Blogger” [Paul Alan Levy]
- Revisiting the practice of suing publishers of drug information in pharmaceutical liability cases [Beck]
- “Australia’s Press Regulators Look To Enforce Ideological Conformity” [Tuccille, Reason]
Ethics roundup
- “Robo-litigation”: ethical issues of the mass-foreclosure mess [Dustin Zachs, SSRN, via Legal Ethics Forum]
- Roger Parloff on Chevron counterclaims against Patton Boggs [Fortune] “Judge Grudgingly Lets Donziger’s Lawyers Out Of Chevron Case” [Daniel Fisher; Reuters]
- Should Australia dilute or abolish the “cab rank” rule? [John Flood via LEF]
- “Ethical Limits on Civil Litigation Advocacy: A Historical Perspective” [Carol Andrews (Alabama), SSRN; Legal Ethics Forum]
- “When Is a Demand Letter (Arguably) Extortion?” [John Steele, more, ABA Journal (Martin Singer demand letter threatening to expose target’s sexual indiscretions]
- Fifth Circuit denies Dickie Scruggs’s latest appeal [YallPolitics]
- When crowdfunding meets litigation finance, watch out world [Richard Painter]
- “Judge Orders Prenda Law Group Beamed Out Into Space” [Lowering the Bar, TechDirt]
May 10 roundup
- Electric-car maker Tesla doesn’t get many kind words from free market types, but here’s one [Coyote] More: North Carolina auto dealer lobby strikes back [News & Observer]
- One lawyer’s selection of the worst lawyer billboards, though they’re far from the worst we’ve seen [John M. Phillips]
- House hearings on litigation abuse and on litigation and international competitiveness [Judiciary, more, Point of Law]
- Ninth Circuit cites conflict of interest, throws out credit reporting class settlement [Trial Insider; Daniel Fisher]
- Private pensions, market-based water rates and more: “Australian travel notes from a policy wonk” [Alex Tabarrok]
- “Use elevators properly. Riding outside of cars can be dangerous and deadly” [Scouting NY, seen in Bronx apartment building]
- “It’s long been my view that blawgs, law blogs, are the greatest peer reviewed content ever created.” [Greenfield]
A Letting Kids Walk Around Legal Defense Fund
Someone needs to organize one pronto, to judge by stories like this one from Ohio, where parents say they need pro bono help against a Child Protective Services attempt to seize custody of their six year old daughter for “neglect” that appears to include letting her walk around the neighborhood [Free-Range Kids, Shackford]
P.S.: Another story from Australia last year; and a happier one from Canada.
“5 Bizarre Workers’ Comp Claims That Were Actually Successful”
Worker’s comp is intended to provide relatively liberal coverage in some ways — that goes with the territory of a “no-fault” compensation scheme — but a few of these outcomes might still raise an eyebrow, particularly when it comes to generous definitions of what’s “work-related.” [Cracked] More: Coyote (“Our problem tends to be that we get a whole heck of a lot of “injuries” in the 3-4 hours between when we fire someone and when they leave the property.”)
Labor and employment roundup
- Judge rules in first California “suitable seating at work” trial [The Recorder; earlier here, here]
- On business travel: “Injury During Sex is Work-Related and Compensable, Aussie Court Holds” [Workplace Prof]
- On the other hand: “Running in High Heels Was Probably Enough to Defeat This Workers’ Comp Claim” [Lowering the Bar]
- Illinois federal court rules that unpaid volunteers may be covered by Title VII discrimination law [Eric Sigda, GTLE Blog]
- Seattle to pay drama teacher $750K for not accommodating wishes re: renovation of building [Seattle Times, meanwhile]
- Recalling AP v. NLRB, 1937, in which SCOTUS rejected First Amendment defense to Wagner Act, over Sutherland dissent [Gerard Magliocca, ConcurOp]
- House Oversight Committee blasts NLRB for pro-union bias [press release and staff report PDF, Goldberg Segalla]
Free speech roundup
- Australia: after talk displeasing to authorities, popular radio host ordered to undergo “factual accuracy training” [Sydney Morning Herald]
- Jenzabar loses an appeal against documentary filmmaker [Paul Alan Levy, CL&P; earlier here, etc.]
- “A Few Words On Reddit, Gawker, and Anonymity” [Popehat]
- Canada: “Federal Court Upholds Hate Speech Provisions in the Canadian Human Rights Act” [Yosie Saint-Cyr, Slaw] “Canadian Government Official Calls Anti-Abortion Speech Illegal ‘Bullying'” [Hans Bader, CEI, Amy Alkon]
- U.N.-regulated web? No thanks [Robert McDowell, Federalist Society, earlier here, etc.]
- Further thoughts from Kevin Underhill on being sued by Orly Taitz [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- U.S. State Department official: we’re not just going to roll over on this free speech business [Volokh]
Australia: “Student loses appeal over 99.95 HSC mark”
“After achieving a university entry rank of 99.95, winning fifth place in the state for chemistry and a place at the University of Sydney studying medicine, the former Abbotsleigh student Sarah Hui Xin Wong believed she could have done better in the [Higher School Certificate].” A New South Wales administrative tribunal has now turned down her complaint that she suffered disability discrimination by not being allowed further accommodations on the test, specifically a computer and extra time. But Australia does have loser-pays: “Ms. Wong has been ordered to pay some of the Board of Studies’ costs, including a proportion of the fees of the leading Sydney barrister Chris Ronalds, SC.” [Sydney Morning Herald]
In other Australia schools litigation news, a “former student who is suing Geelong Grammar School says she decided to seek damages after she failed to qualify for her preferred university course. Rose Ashton-Weir, 18, alleges Geelong Grammar gave her inadequate academic support, particularly in maths.” [Melbourne Age] More in update at The Age (“was perpetually disorganised and failed to attend classes, a tribunal has heard.”)
Australia: Great moments in discrimination law
Expanding, as is so often the case, at the expense of the rights of contract and property: “Australia’s hotel industry has been rocked by a court’s ruling that a prostitute was illegally discriminated against by a motel owner who refused to rent her a room to work from. The ruling has stunned hotel and motel owners, who thought they had a right to decide what sort of businesses were operating from their premises. … Prostitution is legal in Queensland, and discrimination based on lawful sexual activity is outlawed.” [Telegraph, U.K.]
Discussion: Catallaxy Files (“Australia’s leading libertarian and centre-right blog”).