- NFL alleges its billion-dollar concussion settlement fund has drawn hundreds of millions in fraudulent claims [Nicholas Malfitano, Penn Record; Andrew Beaton, WSJ]
- After the mass shootings: “We’ve all gotten a thousand phone calls from lawyers.” [Jack Healy, New York Times]
- Retrial in Sheldon Silver corruption case [Bill Sanderson/New York Daily News, more, yet more (guilty on all counts)] “Silver’s disgrace has had no discernible effect on the way Albany conducts the public’s business. And no one should have expected it to, given the record.” [Bob McManus, City Journal] City’s asbestos docket, on which Silver thrived, is still a plaintiff’s playground [Daniel Fisher, more]
- One reason for Illinois’s reputation as a lawsuit hot spot is its willingness to hear disputes from elsewhere [Dan McCaleb, Illinois News Network]
- “Split Pennsylvania court refuses to void $500K award to man burned during ride in crowded limo” [Matt Miller, PennLive]
- Judge tosses lawsuit over McDonald’s Extra Value Meals [Patricia Manson, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, earlier] “NYC Man Sues Halo Top For Not Being Regular Ice Cream” [Jen Carlson, Gothamist]
Posts Tagged ‘NYC’
Labor and employment roundup
- “Three Bad Arguments for Government Paid Leave” [Vanessa Brown Calder, Cato]
- So much wrong with Bernie Sanders scheme of a guaranteed government job for everyone [Ryan Bourne, Cato] “This old socialist standby deserves to stay exactly where we left it — on the ash heap of history.” [Megan McArdle]
- NYC legislates “dues checkoff” payable to activist groups [Ruth McCambridge, Nonprofit Quarterly]
- “Ralph Lauren interns get next to nothing after winning lawsuit” [Julia Marsh, New York Post]
- Uh-oh: Ford Foundation funding Harvard Law School project to redesign U.S. labor law from ground up [Benjamin Sachs, On Labor]
- The federal law that forbids employers from ceasing to participate in union (multiemployer) pension plans unless they pay massive “withdrawal liability” including obligations of other employers is unjust and destructive. Now it’s playing havoc with the makers of Peeps confections [Damien Paletta, Washington Post/Lehigh Valley Live, related earlier]
Campus puritanism, cont’d
If the WSJ paywall kept you from reading my piece last month on Yale admissions and social justice, an unpaywalled version is now up courtesy of the Cato Institute.
Related: “Then, he asked me what my ‘exit plan’ was. He explained that there were certain safe ways to exit the building.” Later: “‘A student shouted out “F–k the law.” This comment stunned me. I replied, “F–k the law? That’s a very odd thing. You are all in law school.”‘” Josh Blackman speaks at CUNY Law School, the city-sponsored law school dedicated to one particular and controversial ideology, that of “public interest law.” [Blackman’s blog post; Robby Soave, Reason; William Jacobson, Legal Insurrection; Eugene Volokh (“seems like an organized attempt to keep Blackman from speaking…The protesters’ standing on the same stage as the speaker, I think, would also not be tolerated for other events”); Eric Turkewitz (“Is their training so shoddy that they don’t grasp there are differences of opinion on how a law or the constitution is read?…Why are they afraid of words?”)]
Also related: Keith Whittington of Princeton speaks at Cato on his new book, “Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech” [Ilya Somin, Jonathan Adler]
Police misconduct roundup
- “Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Rights” laws give police officers interrrogated over suspected misconduct a wide range of rights not enjoyed by general citizenry under like circumstances [Alex Tabarrok, earlier] Followup: “A new paper, The Effect of Collective Bargaining Rights on Law Enforcement: Evidence from Florida, suggests that police union privileges significantly increase the rate of officer misconduct” [same]
- Courts should retain power to scrutinize arrests motivated by First Amendment retaliation even when probable cause is also present [Ilya Shapiro and Matthew Larosiere on SCOTUS case of Lozman v. Riviera Beach, Florida]
- “Aurora police union: City should let cop fired over hidden cameras used to spy on ex-wife go back to work” [Hannah Leone, Aurora, Ill., Beacon-News]
- “Even if consent decrees don’t do squat to fix police impropriety,” the appointed monitors make out well [Scott Greenfield]
- “Hancock County, W.V. officer is convicted, sentenced to 18 months in prison for beating up drunk motorist who displayed insufficient respect. Officer: The trial court erred by letting the jury know about those other times I beat up people who failed to respect my authority. Fourth Circuit: We’re OK with it.” [John K. Ross, Short Circuit, on U.S. v. Cowden]
- “Internal NYPD files show that hundreds of officers who committed the most serious offenses — from lying to grand juries to physically attacking innocent people — got to keep their jobs, their pensions, and their tremendous power over New Yorkers’ lives” [Kendall Taggart and Mike Hayes, BuzzFeed]
Crime and punishment roundup
- Why Baltimore’s Civilian Review Board hasn’t done much to fix its police crisis [J.F. Meils, Capitol News Service/Maryland Reporter]
- Three prosecutors with high national profiles who’ve put up dogged, maybe too dogged, resistance to actual-innocence claims [Lara Bazelon, Slate]
- Carceral liberalism: Advocates press to do away with statute of limitations for sex assault prosecutions [Scott Greenfield]
- “No charges have been filed against the cops. All of the officers involved are still employed by the department.” [Christina Carrega, New York Daily News on nearly $1 million award to Oliver Wiggins, unsuccessfully framed for DWI after police car ran stop sign and crashed into his vehicle]
- Founding-era views of duty-to-retreat vs. stand-your-ground might be more complicated than you think [Eugene Volokh]
- The trial penalty “is among the most important features of America’s criminal justice system, and yet there is no reference to it in the Constitution” [Clark Neily, Cato]
Law enforcement for profit roundup
- “When you find yourself threatening to find more reasons to put even more citizens in jail in order to protect your revenue stream, it’s maybe time to take a step back and think about what you’re doing.” [Scott Shackford on Alabama forfeiture debate]
- How IRS spent $20 million on debt collection program that generated $6.7 million in payments [Howard Gleckman, Tax Policy Center]
- “Federal Judge Strikes Down New York City’s Dragnet That Seized Thousands Of Cars Without Warrants” [Nick Sibilla, IJ/Forbes]
- Prison phone calls and other captive markets: “Stop squeezing prisoners’ families for cash” [Megan McArdle]
- “The high price of being wrongly accused in Alabama’s ‘monetized’ criminal justice system” [Ashley Remkus, Al.com]
- “Cop Who Called Asset Forfeiture ‘A Tax-Liberating Goldmine’ Sued for Illegal Traffic Stop and Seizure” [C.J. Ciaramella; Kane County, Ill.]
Housing roundup
- “One year ago, Portland enacted inclusionary zoning. One year later, “apartment construction in Portland has fallen off a cliff.”” [@michael_hendrix citing Dirk VanderHart, Portland Mercury] Better policy is to focus on building supposedly unaffordable housing [Scott Sumner]
- Intractable problems of residential zoning and of public schooling in the U.S. have a great deal to do with each other [Salim Furth, American Affairs]
- New NBER study “suggests building energy codes hurt the poor, too” [Vanessa Brown Calder, Cato]
- Upzoning of Dumbo helped catalyze Brooklyn’s revival [Ira Stoll] How Henry George and followers influenced NYC property and tax policy, and the tax deal that helped touch off the Manhattan building boom of the 1920s [Daniel Wortel-London, The Metropole]
- How to live in some apartments forever without paying, and more tips for unscrupulous NYC tenants [Jeremiah Budin, Curbed]
- For “but,” read “therefore”: “Marin County has long resisted growth in the name of environmentalism. But high housing costs and segregation persist.” [David Henderson, quoting]
Public employment roundup
- Striking expose of why subway construction costs so much more in New York City than in other cities like Paris and Hong Kong [Brian M. Rosenthal, New York Times]
- “The Myth of Public-Sector Unions’ ‘Free Rider’ Problem” [Trevor Burrus and Reilly Stephens, Cato, on Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, earlier here, here, and here]
- Ray of hope on Golden State finances: Gov. Jerry Brown says absurd “California Rule” on pensions must yield [Nick Gillespie] “The Legalities of Pension Reform: How Do You Get There From Here?” [Alexander Volokh, Reason Foundation]
- “Battling treacherous office chairs and aching backs, aging cops and firefighters miss years of work and collect twice the pay” [Jack Dolan, Gus Garcia-Roberts and Ryan Menezes, L.A. Times]
- Politicized pensions: NYC’s scheme to divest from oil companies is unlikely to accomplish goal but does put funds’ investment performance at risk [James Copland, New York Daily News]
Annual survey of more than 280 state-administered public pension plans finds trouble ahead [Thurston Powers, Elliot Young, Bob Williams & Erica York, ALEC] - “The missile employee messed up because Hawaii rewards incompetence” [Gene Park, Washington Post]
Liability roundup
- Company that advances money to claimants against New York City also donates generously to New York politicos [Shawn Cohen, Julia Marsh, Rich Calder and Bruce Golding, New York Post and followup (“LawCash execs showering Schneiderman with campaign contributions”), as well as editorial and followup]
- Jesner v. Arab Bank (whether corporations are exposed to liability under Alien Tort Statute) argued at Supreme Court [John Bellinger and Andy Wang, Lawfare; Anthony J. Bellia and Bradford R. Clark, Lawfare; Just Security symposium; Federalist Society teleforum with William Casto and Samuel Estreicher]
- For defendants in pending patent litigation, T.C. Heartland decision on patent venue may not offer a get-out-of-Texas card [Jeffri A. Kaminski, WLF]
- Top ten class action related developments of 2017 [Paul Karlsgodt; plus Andrew Trask on the class action issues of ascertainability and Spokeo standing in 2017]. And Jim Beck offers a defense perspective on most and least helpful court decisions of the year for pharmaceutical and medical device makers;
- Missed this from 2014: how tort law creates pressures (before any dispute arises) to intrude on privacy [Eugene Volokh, Columbia Law Review]
- “Alabama SC: Settlement schedule violates due process rights, class members deserve more information” [Jessica Karmasek, Legal NewsLine; MedPartners securities action]
“We Were Wrong about Stop-and-Frisk”
“I and others argued that crime would rise [in NYC]. Instead, it fell. We were wrong.” [Kyle Smith, National Review]
Of course, to the extent that stop-and-frisk police practices violate the U.S. Constitution — as they often do — NR should have known better than to support them even if they showed some results. Aside from that, though, it’s good to be open to changing one’s mind based on evidence.