- 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]
Posts Tagged ‘endangered species’
The feds’ eagle-feather waiting list
Indian rights, religious freedom, equality claims and strict criminal penalties have gotten into a tangled mat [Marcia Zug, Prawfsblawg] Earlier on eagle feather law here, here, and here.
June 16 roundup
- Legal hazards of beachcombing: “Keeping bald eagle feather could result in a $100,000 fine and year in prison” [BoingBoing; our Sept. 1999 post]
- “E.U. Condemns America’s Online Gambling Crackdown” [Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”]
- Much-loved Stockton, Calif. eatery Chuck’s Hamburgers is menaced by ADA serial litigator, and friends rally to save it [Stockton Record, 4000-member Facebook group]
- Doomed AF Flight 447 had multiple connections with France (airline, aircraft maker) and Brazil (takeoff, many passengers’ nationality), so of course some American lawyers are hoping to get resulting suits heard in U.S. courts [Bloomberg]
- Sure takes a lot of lawyering to bring a movie like “Bruno” to the screen [Althouse, WSJ Law Blog, Legal Ethics Forum]
- Form vs. substance: U.K. historic-preservation edict saves increasingly impractical Victorian bell frames, at expense of 650-year-old bell ringing tradition [Telegraph via Never Yet Melted]
- All in a day’s (double) work: take city retirement or even disability, then come back in second job [Al Tompkins, Lowell (Mass.) Sun]
- Can it be? In just about another two weeks your favorite source of legal consternation will turn ten years old [nine years and eleven months or so ago on Overlawyered]
May 18 roundup
- Historic preservation and habitat preservation laws can backfire in similar ways [Dubner, Freakonomics]
- Serious points about wacky warnings [Bob Dorigo Jones, Detroit News]
- Texas solons consider lengthening statute of limitations to save Yearning for Zion prosecutions [The Common Room]
- A call for law bloggers to unite against content-swiping site [Scott Greenfield]
- Drawbacks of CFC-free pulmonary inhalers leave asthma sufferers gasping [McArdle, Atlantic]
- Try, try again: yet another academic proposal for charging gunmakers with costs of crime [Eggen/Culhane, SSRN, via Robinette/TortsProf] More/correction: not a new paper, just new to SSRN; see comments.
- California businesses paid $17 million last year in bounty-hunting suits under Prop 65 [Cal Biz Lit]
- Trial lawyer lobby AAJ puts out all-points bulletin to members: send us your horror stories so we can parade ’em in the media! [ShopFloor]
“Ringling Bros. Elephant Trial Promises to Be a Circus”
“After more than eight years of litigation, lawyers for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will appear in federal court this week to square off against a handful of animal welfare organizations that have filed suit against the circus alleging that it routinely violates federal law by abusing its elephants. The case is a major test for the reach of the Endangered Species Act, which for the first time is being used by private citizens to try to influence the care of animals already in captivity.” If the complainants, led by the ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), succeed in the creative effort to reshape the Endangered Species Act into a federal animal welfare statute, lawsuits in other areas are likely to follow [Legal Times]
Snapping goose causes slip-fall, the sequel
Last year we covered the unsuccessful suit against Contemporary Watercrafters, a Rockville, Md.-based pool maintenance business. It’s getting some more attention now as one of the entries in the U.S. Chamber’s Faces of Lawsuit Abuse campaign (careful, it auto-plays video with sound). Angle we didn’t mention in our earlier post: the owner was annoyed at the mess made by the geese and approached the Humane Society about removal but was told “it was a no-go — the Migratory Species Act forbade him from moving or disturbing the geese. All he could do was wait for their goslings to hatch and hope they then moved on of their own free will. The store put up tape around the area and signs warning passersby of the terrible geese threat.” (On the Record (Md. Daily Record blog), Dec. 9).
August 20 roundup
- Lawyers’ contingency fee is temptation to ethical corner-cutting in consumer debt collection, too [Miami Daily Business Review, Popehat; Orlando’s Palmer Reifler & Associates, mass mailing of demand letters to accused shoplifters]
- Discussion continues on loser-pays with me and many others at NewTalk, and note comment from Ontario lawyer [through today]
- Age bias suit by Hollywood writers gains traction. Next, actors? [Ink Slingers via Class Action Blawg weekly review]
- Class action against Quebec lottery on behalf of problem gamblers finally set for trial [CP/Yahoo, Lee Distad via Class Action Blawg, earlier]
- Should we and other commentators avoid mentioning litigants’ real names so as not to intrude on their Google legacy? [comments at Ron Miller/Md. Injury]
- California lawmakers OK feel-good “Donda West Law” but it won’t do much to keep impulsive clients from rushing into plastic surgery [GruntDoc, Cameron Turner/EURWeb, Truth in Cosmetic Surgery Blog]
- Probably not a swift career move for lawyer to tell bar disciplinary panel “Go to hell.” [ABA Journal]
- Class action forces HUD to allocate more to some Indian recipients, so it cuts other programs, bad news for North Carolina’s Lumbee tribe [Fayetteville, N.C. Observer courtesy US Chamber]
- Environmental authorities won’t press charges against man who shot protected rattlesnake that had just attacked and bitten him [eight years ago on Overlawyered]
August 27 roundup
- More critics pile onto new Medicare “we won’t pay for errors” policy [Orac, Chris Rangel, Universal Health, MedPundit; earlier; plus KevinMD]
- Wisconsin lawmaker wants to address perceived lawyer oversupply by cutting funding to the state’s law school [NLJ]
- What would great authors of Britain’s past have thought of pub smoking ban? [AN Wilson, Telegraph; one response; more]
- As Texas trial lawyer Mikal Watts gears up Senate run, his GOP critics turn for ammunition to a certain website [ChronBlog via Half Empty]
- Holder in due course? Pa. man has left fragrant ethical trail buying up bounced checks and demanding their payment in court [NJLJ]
- One reason for slow adoption of electronic medical records: docs’ fear of wider malpractice exposure [Medical Economics via KevinMD]
- “He knows there is irony in a criminal defense attorney being driven out of the city because of crime” [Baltimore Sun]
- More evidence that Endangered Species Act perversely encourages landowners to make their habitat inhospitable [Adler @ Volokh]
- If you recognize one of your hospital patients as a wanted fugitive, don’t let HIPAA keep you from calling cops [MedRants first, second post]
- Teenager may face year in jail for recording 20-second movie clip [Wired “Gadget Lab” via Harsanyi and Reynolds]
- Behind a judge’s order that GM pay $1.2 billion over a drunk driver’s crash [eight years ago at Overlawyered; case’s eventual settlement]
“Woodpecker mapping gets chain saws buzzing”
More unintended consequences of the Endangered Species Act, this time to the detriment of the red-cockaded woodpecker in North Carolina: “Coastal residents clear-cut to avert protected birds’ nesting” (Wade Rawlins, News & Observer, Aug. 8)(via Jonathan Adler).
Update: Potemkin species in Sebastopol
Readers may recall the brouhaha last year when a federally protected plant, the Sebastopol meadowfoam, was discovered growing on the grounds of a controversial proposed housing development in the Northern California community; state wildlife officials investigated and said it was apparently planted on purpose. (May 25, 2005). Now the plant has sprung up again on the site, and although opponents of the project have seized on the news, the developer says it’s just a result of the germination of seeds from the earlier illicit plantation. (Terence Chea, “Trouble in bloom at Calif. development site”, AP/Boston Globe, Jul. 17).