- The American Illness: Essays on the Rule of Law, new book from Yale University Press edited by Frank Buckley, looks quite promising [Bainbridge]
- So the New York Times gets spoon-fed “confidential” (and disappointingly tame) documents from the old Brady Campaign lawsuits against gunmakers, and then nothing happens;
- IRS commissioner visited White House 118 times in 2010-11. Previous one visited once in four years. Hmmm… [John Steele Gordon, more] (But see reporting by Garance Franke-Ruta and commentary by Yuval Levin.) Did politics play role in 2011 Gibson Guitar raid? [IBD]
- Supreme Court of Canada: “Judges may ‘cut and paste’ when writing their judgments” [Globe and Mail]
- Lack of proper land title and registration holds Greece back [Alex Tabarrok]
- I try not to clutter this blog with links to memoir-ish personal pieces of mine, but if you’re interested in adoption, or in how America manages to be at once the most conservative and the most socially innovative of great nations, go ahead and give this one a try [HuffPost]
- Big Lodging and hotel unions don’t like competition: New York City’s war against AirBnB and Roomorama [John Stossel, Andrew Sullivan]
Posts Tagged ‘Canada’
“This is the most wonderful legal threat EVER”
Sent to Gawker by a lawyer who represents controversial Toronto mayor Rob Ford, it affords Ken at Popehat much delight: “First, nobody ever governed themselves accordingly based on a threat from a hotmail account.”
Canada: man who killed cellmate sues jail staff
Justin Caldwell Somers, in jail for not paying a jaywalking fine, brutally murdered his sleeping cellmate by stomping him to death on the cement floor, but was found not criminally responsible because he had been acting under the influence of delusions and hallucinations. Now he is suing various personnel of the remand center for not preventing the incident, in part by not heeding the recommendation of a nurse and psychiatrist that he be housed alone: since the murder Somers “has experienced severe mental anguish and mental distress as a result of his role in causing the death of Mr. Stewart, as well as a result of the conditions of his incarceration.” [Edmonton Journal]
Postal code lookups on websites
“Canada Post — a failing, state-owned Crown Corporation — not only claims a copyright on the database of postal codes (a collection of facts, and not the sort of thing that usually attracts copyright). They also claim a trademark on the words ‘postal code,’ and have sent legal threats to websites that use the words factually, to describe actual postal codes.” (U.S. = zipcodes) [Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing; Eruci]
“A child-custody catastrophe”
“They will spend 10 years and all their money on litigation because of their inability to agree on anything,” a therapist predicted accurately. Yet more unsettling: the mom leveled false abuse accusations at the dad before eventually recanting. [Winnipeg Free Press]
“If this was another country, we’d have to tell you that this coffee may be hot.”
Humorous warning on a Canadian coffee cup: my new post at Cato at Liberty (with picture).
Attorneys’ fees roundup
- We’re worth it: lawyers in credit card case want judge to award them $720 million [Alison Frankel, Reuters] Johnson & Johnson will fight $181 million payday for private lawyers in Arkansas Risperdal case [Legal NewsLine]
- British Columbia, Canada: “Lawyer Ordered To Pay Costs Personally For ‘Shoddy Piece Of Counsel Work’” [Erik Magraken] Ontario client questions lawyer’s fee [Law Times]
- Sixth Circuit: attorneys fees statute not intended to cover dry cleaning and mini-blinds [Legal Ethics Forum]
- Indiana lawmaker goes back to drawing board on loser-pays bill [Indiana Law Blog]
- ‘Shocked’ by $3M legal fee in fatal car-crash case, judge tells lawyers to pay plaintiff lawyer $50K [ABA Journal]
- Seth Katsuya Endo, “Should Evidence of Settlement Negotiations Affect Attorneys’ Fees Awards?” [SSRN via Legal Ethics Forum]
- In Israel, more of a discretionary loser-pays arrangement [Eisenberg et al, SSRN via @tedfrank]
- British cabbie beats ticket, recovers only some of his legal costs. Still better than he’d do here, right? [Daily Mail]
- Turnaround guru Wilbur Ross: current structure of bankruptcy fees encourages lawyer “hyperactivity” [Reuters]
Update: “Albino Rhino” beer brand withdrawn following human rights complaint
“Earls Restaurants will take beer sold under the 25-year-old brand off the menu after a Vancouver woman with albinism filed a BC Human Rights Tribunal complaint against the chain in 2012. The same craft beer will still be sold, but just as ‘Rhino.'” [Emily Jackson, MetroNews, Canada; earlier]
P.S. Frances Zacher at Abnormal Use on other beer-naming controversies.
“Canada tried registering long guns — and gave up”
Maybe it’s not just as simple as passing a new law. [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
January 16 roundup
- Woman embroiled in neighbor dispute claims disability bias based on depression, but now faces $107,000 award of legal fees [Buffalo News]
- B.C., Canada: “Law Firm Unsuccessfully Seeks Fees From Their Own Insurer’s Negligence Payout” [Erik Magraken]
- “Worst case a client has ever asked you to take” meme reaches ABA Journal [earlier]
- Hans Bader on re-election of “legally insane” Chicago judge [CEI “Open Market”, earlier]
- Far-fetched theories of constitutional tax immunity claim more victims, this time in Canada [National Post]
- Law geek alert: Prof. Green will be blogging key federal courts decision Erie RR v. Tompkins (1938) daily through the month [Prawfs]
- Appreciations of the late political economist James Buchanan [David Boaz, Alex Tabarrok, Tyler Cowen and more, Arnold Kling, Radley Balko]