At Point of Law I’ve got a post up about a significant embarrassment — $18 million worth — for veteran Connecticut Attorney General (and now Senate candidate) Richard Blumenthal.
Posts Tagged ‘Connecticut’
New at Point of Law
Stories you may be missing if you’re not following our sister site:
- Administration now seeks to take credit for med-mal reform as part of health care plan. How believably? (related here, here, here, here, etc.)
- Also related, if less closely: health care bill packed with goodies for labor;
- Trial lawyers continue push in Congress to restore minimally demanding notice pleading standard by overturning Supreme Court’s Iqbal, Twombly decisions;
- Imprisoned exec of Union Bank of Switzerland wants billions as whistleblowing bounty for assisting federal tax investigators;
- “Right and Left Join Forces on Criminal Justice” — the NYT coverage;
- “New Connecticut Law Tries to Trip Up ‘Runners’ and the Lawyers Who Hire Them”; Connecticut AG Blumenthal to push mandatory hospital error disclosure;
- Third-party litigation finance is getting more controversial;
- “The ethics counsel to the New York state senate told senators to hand-deliver ethics filings, rather than mailing them, to avoid coverage under the federal mail fraud statute.”
- More on public pension funds, securities class-action lawyers, and campaign contributions.
Persons accused of domestic violence have right to hearing
That’s a more controversial proposition than you might think; the Connecticut Supreme Court was split 5-2 in agreeing that a hearing was necessary to confirm the validity of a protective order against a defendant who has been accused but not convicted. The case pitted the state ACLU against the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence. [Connecticut Law Tribune via Amy Alkon]
Three-year-old wanders from Connecticut home
And now police have charged mom with a felony. [AP/Hartford Courant]
New at Point of Law
Things you’re missing if you’re not keeping up with my other site:
- Judge dismisses much-watched Kivalina suit demanding damages for Inuit village from global warming;
- Supreme Court will tackle controversial doctrine of “honest services fraud”;
- Class action lawyer Sean Coffey [Bernstein Litovitz] may run for New York attorney general;
- Not even a hearing before Senate confirms OSHA nominee David Michaels?
- Law firm pay-to-play in representing New York public pension funds. And Spitzer: let’s use public pension funds to annihilate the U.S. Chamber;
- When Teamster librarians signal you to be quiet, you’d better be quiet, understand? And Connecticut orders utilities not to lay off workers.
John Langbein on new Connecticut probate reform
The Yale law professor, a longtime advocate of probate-court reform, says the Nutmeg State’s recent legislation falls well short of what’s needed; he’s particularly critical of lawmakers’ decision to let probate judges go on carrying on their own law practices on the side. [Hartford Courant via Estate of Denial]
October 10 roundup
- Greenwich, Connecticut real estate board may discipline member whose blog (often linked in this space) regularly pokes fun at overpriced houses. Antitrust/First Amendment problem? [Chris Fountain, For What It’s Worth]
- “Religious group sued for allegedly inciting harm through prayers” [USA Today]
- Legally driven waste of water in parched California should reopen Endangered Species Act debate [Max Schulz, American Spectator] “More Unintended Consequences — Endangered Species Edition” [Ronald Bailey, Reason; related AEI panel]
- “Apple v Woolworth re Apple Logos In Australia” [Trademark Blog]
- Speaking of Australia, Consumers Union’s Consumerist site publishes fake “Aussie McDonald’s fraud plot” memo as real — revises post later, but without mentioning it was taken in by hoax [HardArticle]
- Pennsylvania couple learns about squatter’s-rights law the hard way [Hazleton Standard Speaker]
- Maybe Saratoga Springs, N.Y. will let middle schoolers bike — or even walk! — to school [Albany Times-Union, Lenore Skenazy/Free Range Kids, Patrick at Popehat, Doug Mataconis/Liberty Papers]
- Milberg, the disgraced class action firm of Mel Weiss and Bill Lerach fame, is hot again [NLJ]
Connecticut soup kitchen, cont’d
Updating our August 21 item: The Health Department in Middletown, Connecticut issued a “citation against St. Vincent DePaul Place on Tuesday for accepting some donated food from unlicensed kitchens. 
The department has asked the nonprofit group, which runs a soup kitchen, to comply with the health code by accepting food that comes only from licensed kitchens.” [Middletown Eye] The state’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, is asking the legislature to loosen rules for charitable kitchens. [Hartford Courant] We covered the Connecticut pie menace nearly ten years ago [Dec. 13, 1999] and have since noted legal crimps put on cookies for troops, church potlucks, and much more.
Westport’s wall woes
$150,000 in legal costs to defend challenges to a newly constructed stone wall is admittedly on the high side, but it points up a wider problem that besets the much-envied Connecticut community:
…the dispute opens a window into life in a wealthy suburb, where neighbors have enough money to fight for years over an issue that may have been quickly resolved in a less well-off town. In fact, Westport officials say such cases are not all that unusual.
“More than 50 percent of my day is dealing with these disputes,” said Gordon Joseloff, the first selectman. “In Westport, the people are very wealthy, and at the first indication of anything, they’ll threaten or file a lawsuit.”
August 31 roundup
- California: “Feds Say Lawyer Took Bribe to Encourage Client to Lie in Immigration Case” [NLJ]
- “Before you celebrate [the] seemingly wise anti-litigation statement [of the “Skanks in New York” blogger], take note that she’s suing Google…” [Althouse, earlier here, here, etc.] Dispute is female-vs.-female, but feminist lawprofs inevitably spot gender discrimination [Citron, ConcurOp; Greenfield]
- “Ousted members of Florida chess board sue to reclaim their volunteer positions” [St. Petersburg Times]
- Man freed after serving 22 years on dubious child abuse charges, but prosecutor who went after him is doing fine [Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”, Bernard Baran case, Massachusetts]
- Khalid bin Mahfouz, plaintiff in celebrated “libel tourism” case against Rachel Ehrenfeld in England, is dead at 60 [Wasserman/Prawfsblawg]
- Colorful University of Connecticut law professor lands in a spot of bother again after girlfriend’s arrest [Above the Law]
- Federal judge says prosecutor in Chicago U.S. Attorney’s office allowed witness to testify falsely [WSJ Law Blog]
- Deja vu? “‘Seinfeld’ joke gets man canned for harassment” [Des Moines Register, earlier Wisconsin case; & see Ted’s caveat in comments]