- Poster case for cy pres abuse: Cato files amicus brief in Google referral header privacy class action settlement [Ilya Shapiro, earlier]
- “California Court Decision Offers Hope for Procedural Brake on Lawyer-Driven Class Actions” [Glenn Lammi, WLF on Noel v. Thrifty Payless]
- New book details Tampa attorney Brian Donovan’s frustrations with multi-district litigation (MDL) in Transocean spill case [Amanda Robert, Legal NewsLine]
- West Virginia: “House moves to limit Attorney General’s use of settlement funds” [Brad McElhinny, WV Metro News]
- “2017 Civil Justice Update” [Mark Behrens and Sarah Goggans, Federalist Society white paper]
- “Here’s why you’ll be paying more for car insurance if you live in Baton Rouge, New Orleans” [Dan Fagan, The Advocate]
Posts Tagged ‘California’
Compelled marketplace speech and the First Amendment
California law compels “crisis pregnancy centers” whose mission is to provide alternatives to abortion to advise clients that the state of California offers free or low-cost abortion, contraception, prenatal counseling, and other services to eligible women. An instance of compelled speech that rises to the level of a First Amendment violation? [Ilya Shapiro as part of SCOTUSblog symposium on NIFLA v. Becerra; Shapiro, Trevor Burrus, and Meggan DeWitt, Cato]
Related: Courts should apply strict scrutiny to compelled-disclosure laws requiring firms to disparage own products or take part in public debate [Shapiro and DeWitt on cert petition in CTIA v. Berkeley, on Berkeley, Calif. law requiring cellphone vendors to warn customers of radio frequency exposures even though the FCC has found no scientific evidence to link to any illness]
February 21 roundup
- Minimum 18 age for marriage, stadium subsidies, bill requiring landlords to distribute voter registration material, dollar-home programs, and more in my latest Maryland policy roundup [Free State Notes; earlier on NJ first-in-nation ban on under-18 marriage]
- Now shuttered by California regulation: startup that allowed home cooks to sell meals directly to neighbors [Baylen Linnekin]
- Guess who’s hosting a program of his own on Russia’s RT network? Tub-thumping plaintiff’s lawyer, sometime RFK Jr. pal and longtime Overlawyered favorite Michael Papantonio;
- “Should the governments give LGBT-owned businesses a leg up in public contracts?” (Answer: no. Set-asides and preferences are unfair in themselves and deprive taxpayers and those served of the best price/value proposition.) [Bobby Allyn, NPR Marketplace]
- “Network effects” bogeyman gets deployed to bolster many an antitrust nostrum [David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee, Cato “Regulation”] “The Future of Antitrust” Federalist Society video with Ronald Cass, Daniel Crane, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, Jonathan Kanter, Barry Lynn, moderated by Judge Brett Kavanaugh;
- Arguments fated to lose: “After 4th DWI, man argues legal limit discriminates against alcoholics” [Chuck Lindell, Austin American-Statesman]
Public employment roundup
- Striking expose of why subway construction costs so much more in New York City than in other cities like Paris and Hong Kong [Brian M. Rosenthal, New York Times]
- “The Myth of Public-Sector Unions’ ‘Free Rider’ Problem” [Trevor Burrus and Reilly Stephens, Cato, on Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, earlier here, here, and here]
- Ray of hope on Golden State finances: Gov. Jerry Brown says absurd “California Rule” on pensions must yield [Nick Gillespie] “The Legalities of Pension Reform: How Do You Get There From Here?” [Alexander Volokh, Reason Foundation]
- “Battling treacherous office chairs and aching backs, aging cops and firefighters miss years of work and collect twice the pay” [Jack Dolan, Gus Garcia-Roberts and Ryan Menezes, L.A. Times]
- Politicized pensions: NYC’s scheme to divest from oil companies is unlikely to accomplish goal but does put funds’ investment performance at risk [James Copland, New York Daily News]
Annual survey of more than 280 state-administered public pension plans finds trouble ahead [Thurston Powers, Elliot Young, Bob Williams & Erica York, ALEC] - “The missile employee messed up because Hawaii rewards incompetence” [Gene Park, Washington Post]
Pharmaceutical roundup
- “Addicts Use Imodium to Help With Detox. That’s a Terrible Reason for the FDA to Make It Harder to Get” [Mike Riggs, Reason] Expect runs: “Does anyone see the humor/irony here? A diarrhea medicine package that’s hard to open?” [Josh Bloom, ACSH]
- “The Return of Drug Reimportation?” [Roger Pilon, Cato; more thoughts from David R. Henderson]
- California Supreme Court rules research drugmakers legally responsible “for harm caused by defective warnings in labels on generic versions of their products” [T.H. v. Novartis; Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, Steven Boranian (“awful”), Jim Beck]
- “Abuse-Deterrent Opioids and the Law of Unintended Consequences” [Jeffrey Singer, Cato Policy Analysis]
- Should the FDA approve Metformin for possible anti-aging effects? [Alex Tabarrok]
- “FDA Proposes to Delay Off-Label “Intended Use” Rule” [Stephen McConnell]
Housing roundup
- “The Rent is Too High and the Commute is Too Long: We Need Market Urbanism” [Andrew Criscione, Market Urbanism] Is excessive regulation making it costly to build starter homes? Ask the New York Times [Ira Stoll]
- Good: Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Paul Gosar have introduced a bill to eliminate outright the Obama administration’s meddlesome AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing) rule [Vanessa Brown Calder, earlier]
- “Dollar home” programs show mostly sparse results in urban revitalization, especially when regulatory strings come attached [Jared Alves, Greater Greater Washington]
- Too radical to pass? Bill 827 in California would impose upzoning on transit corridors [Ilya Somin] California wildfires will worsen Bay Area housing shortage, but where’d that shortage come from? [Enrico Moretti, NYT] “Why Does Land-Use Regulation (Still) Matter in Oregon?” [Calder, Cato]
- New from NBER: “Rent Control Raises Housing Costs” [Charles Hughes, Economics21] Study “provides strong evidence of rent control’s damaging effects” [Calder]
- “Blockchain technology can empower public and private efforts to register property rights on a single computer platform,” with particular benefits for poorer societies in which property rights remain ill-defined [Phil Gramm and Hernando de Soto, WSJ/AEI, Arnold Kling] “The U.S. property title system is a disgrace. It could be fixed with blockchain. But it also could be fixed without blockchain.” [Kling]
California scheme to fine waiters $1,000 for offering plastic straws
Under a California bill introduced by Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderone and backed by the L.A. Times, restaurants would be permitted to give plastic straws only to patrons who ask for them. A widely cited statistic in support of the measure turns out to be based on research done by a 9 year old. [Christian Britschgi, Reason; who updates the story to say the sponsor now intends to revise the bill to take out the fines]
“This can’t possibly be consistent with the First Amendment”
California is prosecuting a man under state electronic-harassment law for posting five insults on an Islamic Center’s Facebook page [Eugene Volokh] A court filing by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra denies that the insults are protected speech or that the law is unconstitutional as applied. UCLA First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh writes, of California’s logic defending the prosecution: “This can’t possibly be consistent with the First Amendment.”
Related: New Jersey Supreme Court adopts narrow reading of criminal harassment statute so as to avoid covering repeated offensive speech which, though intended to annoy, does not invade privacy or put target in reasonable fear as to safety or security.
Labor and employment roundup
- Spotted in Senate tax bill: what sounds like an excellent proposal to cut off worker-classification lawsuits [Shu-Yi Oei and Diane M. Ring (who take a very different view of the provision) via Caron/TaxProf]
- Federalist Society convention video on future of federal workplace agencies with Alex Acosta and Nicholas Geale of DoL, Victoria Lipnic of EEOC, Philip Miscimarra of NLRB;
- “‘Mistake’ in Pennsylvania homecare contract would have helped unions in fight over healthcare workers” [Sean Higgins, Washington Examiner; Cato podcast with David Osborne and Caleb O. Brown]
- Automatically worth reading, Claudia Goldin on gender pay gap [New York Times]
- Public sector unions rule in California politics, and pension-spiking is just one of the results [Steven Greenhut] “California Union Bill Looks to Ban Outsourcing Public Services” [same]
- New report from Dana Berliner, Clark Neily al., “Occupational Licensing Run Wild” [Federalist Society Regulatory Transparency Project]
Medical roundup
- In welcome reversal of Obama-era ban, FDA will once more permit direct-to-consumer genetic testing [Meghana Keshavan/STAT News, FDA press release]
- Will California law hold a pharmaceutical maker liable — in perpetuity — for a drug that it did not make and did not sell? [Steven Boranian/Drug & Device Law, PLF on T.H. v. Novartis]
- Litigation funding group chases clients in hip replacement litigation [PR Newswire]
- ACA penalizes hospitals for high Medicare readmission rates, but new study links that policy to higher mortality for heart failure patients [Arnold Kling, Ankur Gupta et al., JAMA Cardiology, Cristina Boccuti and Giselle Casillas, Kaiser Family Foundation]
- Litigation tourism model that has done well for plaintiff’s bar now circling drain after Supreme Court’s Bauman, Bristol-Myers Squibb decisions [Jim Beck, Drug & Device Law, more, yet more; related on West Virginia, and from Michelle Yeary on choice of law and forum non conveniens]
- “FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb Goes to Bat For Evidence-Based Opioid Policies” [Mike Riggs, Reason] “Abuse-Deterrent Opioids Cross an Ethical Line” [Jeffrey Singer, Orange County Register]