Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) wants alcohol interlocks to be made mandatory on all new cars. Rice, a former prosecutor, “recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD),” which has pushed the expensive interlocks-for-everyone notion. Earlier here, here, here, here, etc.
Posts Tagged ‘autos’
May 21 roundup
- “To the public, a car’s status is binary: it is either broken or working, flawed or functional.” But to an engineer… [Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker; our coverage of autos and sudden acceleration]
- Canadian court awards special costs, akin to sanctions, for bad litigant conduct in “Real Housewives of Vancouver” divorce case [CBC]
- As IRS scandals grind on, lawyers defending agency meet with less than favorable reception before D.C. Circuit panel [Scott Johnson, Power Line, our earlier takes here, here, etc.]
- Gov. Larry Hogan signs Tesla bill, okay. But Maryland auto buyers should be demanding more freedom than that [my Free State Notes, related Peter Van Doren, Cato and Nick Zaiac, Maryland Public Policy Institute]
- Why one victim of Washington, D.C.’s peeping-Tom rabbi isn’t suing [Bethany S. Mandel]
- After Illinois Supreme Court rules that state constitution forbids lawmakers ever to cut public pensions for any reason, Moody’s slashes Chicago bond rating to junk status [Daniel Fisher; David Skeel, On Labor]
- Panel on Capitol Hill tomorrow (Fri., 5/22) on lessons of Baltimore with Cato’s Tim Lynch, Matthew Feeney, Michael Tanner, moderated by Peter Russo [register or watch online] Richard Epstein on Baltimore with a critique of both 1) police unions and 2) Ta-Nehisi Coates’s apologia for violence [Hoover “Defining Ideas”]
May 13 roundup
- “Lawyers Won 10x Fee Payoff By Avoiding Competition, Objector Claims” [Daniel Fisher, Center for Class Action Fairness on Capital One TCPA settlement]
- DMCA surprise: “Automakers are supporting provisions in copyright law that could prohibit home mechanics and car enthusiasts from repairing and modifying their own vehicles.” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt; Pete Bigelow, AutoBlog]
- Comments deadline May 19 on proposed Indian Child Welfare Act regulations; American Academy of Adoption Attorneys files comments warning they go beyond statute, will harm kids [related group, earlier and general]
- Asbestos lawsuits are “economic engine” of rural Edwardsville, Ill. [Associated Press]
- Chicago pays damages to victims of police torture, suggestively labeled “reparations” [Sandhya Somashekhar, Washington Post, thanks for quote]
- Court dismisses pro se litigant’s handwritten “God v. gays” complaint for lack of basis for federal jurisdiction, other predictable deficiencies [Volokh, Lowering the Bar and followup]
- “Starbucks not liable in police coffee-spill case, jury decides” [WRAL, earlier]
“Will Google Cars Eviscerate the Personal Injury Bar?”
Eric Turkewitz, who practices and blogs about personal injury law, hopes so.
“Detroit Council OKs Study of City-Sponsored Auto Insurance”
Perhaps on the theory that socializing losses beats reducing crime and litigiousness: “The high cost of auto insurance has been one of the key reasons residents have been leaving the city for years,” [Mayor Mike] Duggan said in a statement. [Allan Lengel, Deadline Detroit]
“Hyundai Must Pay $73 Million Punitive Award, Judge Says”
The story from Montana, on Bloomberg, updates our earlier report [link fixed now] including this link. Writes correspondent R.T.:
Big difference in liability theories here:
Plaintiff: Defective steering mechanism;
Defendant: The fireworks that were going off INSIDE THE CAR at the time of the crash.
Let’s ban cruel auto repossessions!
But what if the alternative for clients is no car at all? [Megan McArdle]
“If we start arresting parents for things that COULD happen, there’s no parent safe on earth.”
ABC 20/20 with Elizabeth Vargas takes on the kids-unattended-in-cars hysteria, interviewing Lenore Skenazy and discussing the growing tendency of random passersby to take on the role of informant and call the cops when they see kids — even older kids on cool days — alone in parked cars.
As an urban mobility revolution draws near…
Government is busy chasing century-old transit formats [Randal O’Toole, Cato; more] And Marc Scribner cautions libertarians against buying too heavily into a “regulated ridesharing” legal framework that could impede the emergence of something much better in ten or twenty years when self-driving vehicles are common [Skeptical Libertarian]
Mass tort roundup
- New Hampshire lottery: after Granite State’s MTBE contamination suits pays off big, Vermont files its own [WLF Legal Pulse]
- Supreme Court declines to review various cases arising from Florida’s Engle tobacco litigation [Lyle Denniston, SCOTUSBlog, earlier] “U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Fen-Phen Lawyers’ Appeal of $42M Kentucky Verdict” [Insurance Journal, earlier]
- In action against five drug firms over opioid marketing, California’s Santa Clara County partners with law firms Robinson Calcagnie, Cohen Milstein, and Hagens Berman, marking at least the tenth time the county has teamed up with outside law firms to file suits [Legal NewsLine; earlier on Chicago’s involvement in painkiller suit]
- Lester Brickman on fraud in mesothelioma litigation [SSRN] “Plaintiff Lawyer Offers Inside Look At `Institutionalized Fraud’ At Asbestos Trusts” [Daniel Fisher]
- “‘Light’ cigarette case vs Huck’s continues after 9 years; Two current judges had been plaintiff’s counsel” [Madison Record, ABA Journal]
- “If honesty in the judicial system means anything, it means proceeding with candor before the tribunal, which plaintiffs’ counsel did not do during the removal proceedings.” [dissent in Peter Angelos Cashmere Bouquet asbestos case, Legal NewsLine]
- Report on products liability and the driverless car [John Villasenor, Brookings, earlier]