For all his newfound capitalist prowess, it seems Sen. John Edwards still isn’t familiar with some fairly basic geopolitical facts on the ground:
“I’m going to be honest with you — I don’t know a lot about Cuba’s healthcare system,” Edwards, D-N.C., said at an event in Oskaloosa, Iowa. “Is it a government-run system?”
(ABCNews.com “Political Radar”, Aug. 17)(via Weigel)(disclaimer).
Peter Lattman at WSJ law blog (Apr. 10) discusses political maneuvering in the two early-Presidential-deciding states. It turns out that both states have (in the persons of Bill Shaheen and Jerry Crawford, respectively) Democratic kingmakers who happen to be trial lawyers. Not that this makes them so different from other states from coast to coast….
Class action attorney allowed to tell Iowa jury that the named plaintiffs are “just regular people who bought software” who volunteered to step forward to sue Microsoft; Microsoft is not allowed to question plaintiffs (who stand to recover a few dollars) about whether they were actually recruited by their attorney friends who stand to make millions if the case succeeds. (David Pitt, AP/Houston Chronicle, Jan. 22). How the class even got certified under these circumstances is also questionable.
“An Iowa judge has denied unemployment benefits to a man who claimed discrimination after being fired from an ethanol plant for drinking ‘automobile fuel’ produced by the company.” Cory Neddermeyer, 42, was fired after being hospitalized with an almost fatal 0.72 blood-alcohol level after dipping into the 190-proof fuel at his employer, Amaizing Energy in Denison, Iowa. “Neddermeyer argued that his employer shared in the responsibility for the incident because the spill at the plant provided an ‘opportunity’ for him to drink. He also argued that Amaizing Energy was discriminating against him due to his ‘disease of alcoholism.'” (Clark Kauffman, “Man fired for getting gassed on spilled ethanol at work”, Des Moines Register, Jul. 9 (via Romenesko)).
I’m moderating a panel with this title Monday afternoon at 3 at AEI.
The U.S. Senate has announced that it will be debating new legislation to reform America’s medical malpractice law in early May. Is the Senate likely to pass useful reforms? What types of reform should they consider? What is the appropriate role of the federal government in addressing the issue and what are the potential conflicts between the federal government and the states?
At this AEI event, a distinguished group of panelists will discuss the questions surrounding federal medical malpractice reform. The panel will include Michael S. Greve, the John G. Searle Scholar at AEI and director of the institute’s Federalism Project; George L. Priest, the John M. Olin Professor of Law and Economics at Yale Law School; and Dr. Stuart Weinstein, the current chairman of Doctors for Medical Liability Reform and the Ignacio V. Ponseti Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Iowa.
Admission is free.
But somehow, “the food industry” doesn’t sound quite as evil as “the tobacco industry.” Something about food — the fact that it keeps us alive, perhaps — makes its purveyors hard to hate. For that matter, the rationale for recent bans on smoking is the injustice of secondhand smoke, and there’s no such thing as secondhand obesity. …
These obstacles don’t make the assault on junk food futile. But they do clarify how it will unfold. It will rely on three arguments: First, we should protect kids. Second, fat people are burdening the rest of us. Third, junk food isn’t really food….
A fact sheet from [Iowa Sen. Tom] Harkin implies that schools should treat milk, French fries, and pizza like soda, jelly beans, and gum.
(William Saletan, “Junk-Food Jihad”, Slate, Apr. 15).
Yes, it’s fairly common for trial lawyers to be a candidate’s major backers, but sometimes it gets ridiculous. In the race among seven candidates to succeed retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, the contender who leads by a healthy margin in fundraising is 48-year-old Waterloo lawyer Bruce Braley, a Democrat who is a former president of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association and currently sits on the board of ATLA. He’s raised $305,629 through September:
Braley’s fundraising prowess has turned heads already. And so has the source of his money. Of the $253,000 in individual donations itemized on campaign finance reports, $227,000, or 90 percent, comes from lawyers. It’s a wide base, too. Donors from more than three dozen states have given money.
Of the $23,250 in political action committee money he’s received, half came from attorney-related committees, including $10,000 from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, or ATLA….
“People who know me think I would make a very good representative,” he says….
One law firm that has been a prime target for conservatives also is a generous donor to Braley. Fifteen lawyers associated with the Baron & Budd firm in Dallas, one of the leaders in litigating asbestos and other toxic substance claims, gave $15,000 to the campaign.
In all, 85 percent of Braley’s donations have come from outside the district. (Ed Tibbetts, “In a seven-horse race, it’s all about the purse”, Quad City Times, Nov. 14).
At the Armour Star meat packing plant in Fort Madison, Iowa, run by a subsidiary of the Dial Corporation, workers are expected to engage in “repetitive lifting of a 35-pound rod of sausages to a height of approximately 65 inches.” Concerned about a high rate of worker injuries, the company foolishly thought that it could introduce (in 2000) a physical test which “required the repeated lifting of 35 pounds to a height of 65 inches.” Wrong: sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the company is now going to be paying out $3 million for its troubles. The EEOC argued, and a court agreed, that the test had “disparate impact” on women because 97 percent of men but less than 40 percent of women passed, that it appeared some applicants who failed the test might nonetheless be able to handle the job duties (by standing on tiptoe while heaving the weights, for example, which the test did not permit), and that the company had not shown a “business necessity” to use the test since it could take other measures to improve safety. According to the EEOC, “52 women who were rejected for entry-level production jobs because they had failed a strength test will be offered jobs at Dial and will share approximately $3,390,000.”. (EEOC press releases, Feb. 8 and Sept. 29) (via George’s Employment Blawg)(& welcome Fark readers).