Time to rethink a traditional law enforcement practice? “In City of Los Angeles v. Patel, which will be argued in the Supreme Court March 3rd, a group of hoteliers have challenged the city’s ordinance requiring them to hand over customer data whenever a police officer wants it.” The innkeepers prevailed in an en banc Ninth Circuit ruling and the case is now before the high court [Jim Harper, Cato] More: Tim Cushing, TechDirt.
Posts Tagged ‘hotels’
Labor and employment roundup
- I’m quoted dissenting from the seeming ENDA consensus [Caroline Preston, Al Jazeera America; earlier here and here; related, Mark Lee, Washington Blade last year, “ENDA and the Seduction of Symbolic Gestures”]
- EEOC gears up to fight employer wellness programs under ADA [Stephen Miller/SHRM, ABA Journal, John Holmquist/Michigan Employment Law Connection, Robin Shea/Employment and Labor Insider]
- Evidence still points to disemployment effects for low-skilled workers from minimum wage hikes [David Neumark et al NBER working paper via Ira Stoll, related] What’s the right minimum wage? As the NYT correctly perceived in 1987, $0.00. [David Henderson video, Prager]
- “Judge Calls Out NLRB Pro-Union Partisanship” [Labor Pains; document demands levied by agency against Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center]
- If you so much as think of declaring me fit for work, my lawyer will make you rue the day [Coyote on employer role in Social Security Disability]
- New Cato research brief, “Labor Market Fluidity and Economic Performance” [Stephen J. Davis and John Haltiwanger]
- Philly councilman wants to reserve city subsidies for unionized hotels [Joel Mathis, Philadelphia mag]
“Court ruling sparks rise in disabled-access lawsuits”
Reports Angus Loten in the WSJ:
Small-business owners face a growing number of disabled-access lawsuits in the wake of a recent appeals-court ruling giving rise to disabled “testers,” as well as the release of detailed federal specifications for curb ramps, self-opening doors and other standards.
…A November 2013 decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in a case against Marod Supermarkets found that someone who isn’t necessarily a patron could be a “tester” of disabled-access compliance. That cleared the way for individual plaintiffs to bring dozens, even hundreds, of lawsuits against multiple businesses, as serial testers….
The litigation upswing also follows the Justice Department’s release of a set of compliance standards for the 24-year-old federal disability law. Those standards, which came into force in March 2012, include detailed specifications for long-standing requirements, such as the allowable slope of a wheelchair ramp and the exact height of towel dispensers in accessible restrooms. They also introduced a new requirement for hotels with pools to provide a “pool lift” for disabled guests, which went into effect last year.
Some business owners say the lawsuits accomplish little more than providing revenue to attorneys. …
We warned about the pool-lift requirement multiple times. The article reports that plaintiffs are filing multiple suits against hotels in Florida for not having the lifts; along with Florida, California and New York account for a high share of all accessibility actions against local businesses and retailers, in part because of favorable state and city laws that increase complainants’ legal and financial leverage.
October 10 roundup
- NYC pols, hotel interests unite in the cause of suppressing AirBnB [CNBC, Matthew Feeney/Cato, more, NY mag]
- David Bernstein on Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in Schuette, the Michigan affirmative action case [Cato Supreme Court Review via Volokh Conspiracy, and thanks for quoting my views]
- Restaurant’s amusing response to “do you know I’m a lawyer?” [Above the Law]
- Cronyism in city governance: its enablers, consequences and possible cures [Aaron Renn, Urbanophile, first, second, third, fourth posts; Lincoln Steffens, 1905, on the evils of Rhode Island]
- N.J. toll-taker’s suit: it’s my right to tell motorists “God bless you” whether turnpike authority likes it or not [AP/CBS New York]
- “Q: What has worse terms than gym memberships and class action settlements? A: This class action over gym memberships.” [Center for Class Action Fairness on Twitter]
- US border security great at keeping out bagpipes and Kinder Eggs, not so great at keeping out Ebola [Mark Steyn, more Steyn on bagpipes and earlier on musical instrument confiscations here, here, etc.]
“He induced his chauffeur to file an involuntary petition against him…”
Adventures in bankruptcy and other high-stakes litigation. [Stacy Perman, Fortune]
September 26 roundup
- Was California workers’ comp claim against NFL by former Tampa Bay Buccaneer-turned-P.I.-lawyer inconsistent with his mixed martial arts prowess? [Tampa Bay Times, Lakeland Ledger, earlier and more on California workers’ comp and professional football]
- Salt Lake City’s $6,500 stings: “Secret Shopper Hired to Punish Lyft & Uber Actually Prefers Them” [Connor Boyack, Libertas Institute]
- Are libertarians undermining public accommodations law? (If only.) [Stanford Law Review, Samuel Bagenstos and Richard Epstein via Paul Horwitz]
- Why NYC is losing its last bed and breakfasts [Crain’s New York via @vpostrel]
- U.S. continues foolish policy of restricting crude oil and gas exports, time for that to change [David Henderson first and second posts]
- So it seems the New York Times is now committed to the theory that Toyotas show mechanical unintended acceleration;
- OK, the future Kansas politician was at the strip club strictly on attorney business when the police arrived. Was he billing? [Politico]
Alcohol roundup
- David Henderson has been blogging excerpts from Dan Okrent’s book on Prohibition, Last Call, including one on the origins of “Raines Law hotels” [Econlog] Also, the “law-abiding” kind of speakeasy; and would polite opinion today, as it did in the 1920s, assail Prohibition enforcement as draconian and intrusive?
- Obstacles to craft brewing [Matthew Mitchell, Christopher Koopman, Mercatus; Michelle Minton/DC Beer]
- Brown U. professor Dwight Heath on why drinking age should be lowered [WJAR]
- Feds go after hobby distillers [Jacob Sullum]
- When a liquor license sells for $425,000, as happened in Boston recently, it’s become virtually a taxi medallion [Ira Stoll]
- Maryland grain alcohol ban tripped up violin restorers, cake pros, craft bitters folk. Gee thanks, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health [WaPo] Much more about the center’s anti-alcohol crusader, David Jernigan [my Free State Notes] Tax dollars have enabled his crusades [Michelle Minton, Baltimore Sun]
- Profile of obscure Treasury Department official who “approves essentially every beer label in the United States” [Tim Mak, Daily Beast; coaster image, Flickr user Roger Wollstadt]
They came to stay, cont’d
It happened on AirBnB, the lodging-sharing service: “A woman rented her 600-square-foot Palm Springs, California, condo to someone for a little over a month, and now she says the guy won’t leave and is threatening to sue her.” [Business Insider, ABA Journal] For the case of the nanny who declined to leave her in-home living quarters after a falling out with the family that hired her, see this post last month. A February post raised the question of whether AirBnB visitors staying in units in San Francisco, a city with notably pro-tenant housing laws, might be able to dig in after a period much shorter than 30 days, the span that triggers tenancy status under general California law.
Free speech roundup
- “Tenured Wisconsin Prof Sues Former Student Over Online Comments on Her Teaching” [Caron/TaxProf]
- Recent Paul Alan Levy profile: “The web bully’s worst enemy” [Washingtonian] HHS signals it won’t pursue case against blogger [Levy, earlier] Arizona Yelp case angle [Scott Greenfield]
- Get your ideas out of town: threats against hotel “have escalated to include death threats, physical violence against our staff and other guests” [Deadline Detroit; “men’s rights movement” conference]
- UK police investigate Baptist church after “burn in Hell” sign reported as “hate incident” [Secular Right]
- Please don’t give him ideas: “Should it be against the law to criticize Harry Reid?” [Trevor Burrus, Boston Herald]
- “MAP: The places where blasphemy could get you punished” [Washington Post]
- Only three states – Wisconsin, Michigan, and Kansas — have laws inviting vengeful secret John Doe probes [Ilya Shapiro, earlier]
Rat out your AirBnB-using neighbors
Win cash rewards! Under a proposed initiative in San Francisco, neighborhood snoop/informants could pocket 30 percent of fines and taxes imposed [David Kravets, Ars Technica]