Staying in touch with your doctor via IM? It’s more likely to happen in Mexico than here. Kevin MD quotes one doctor who “suspects that the demand that patients have to electronically talk to their doctors will force a change in privacy laws. We can only hope.”
Posts Tagged ‘privacy’
December 31 roundup
- “Court to Plaintiffs: You Have Zero Forum Shopping Days until Xmas” [Jackson; New Yorker seeks to refile pharmaceutical case in Minnesota to overcome statute of limitations defense]
- Miller-Jenkins battle: Mathew Staver of whimsically named Liberty Counsel won’t comment on whether client has kidnapped child in pursuit of continued defiance of court order [BTB, WSJ Law Blog, background]
- “How many college football coaches have law degrees?” [Above the Law; Mike Leach vs. Texas Tech] More: Michael McCann, Sports Law; Carter Wood at Point of Law.
- “Struck by a restaurant’s decor” good if it’s just a figure of speech, bad if it’s falling taxidermy [Lowering the Bar]
- Trial lawyer message in support of med-mal litigation falls on some credulous ears in media [White Coat]
- On airport whole-body imaging, some privacy advocates seem to have changed tune [Stewart Baker]
- “Litigant Guru of Gwinnett, Georgia Loses Lawsuit” [sanctioned over defamation claim; Bad Lawyer via AtL]
- Step right up and win cash for your vote in the ABA’s blogospheric beauty pageant [Scott Greenfield] Update: contest wraps up [Legal Blog Watch]
“Milan Prosecutors Request Jail Sentence for Google Executives”
Bloomberg reports that the trial in Italy is going forward
on charges related to a clip uploaded to Google Video in 2006.
The clip was created and posted on the Web by a group of students at a Turin school, who filmed themselves bullying a disabled classmate. Google says that it removed the video as soon as it was notified and that it helped Italian police identify those responsible. The trial has been closed to the media at Google’s request.
“Seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open Internet,” Google spokesman William Echikson said in June.
More: AP.
November 20 roundup
- Judge finds Army Corps of Engineers negligent in Katrina levees suit [WSJ Law Blog, Krauss/PoL]
- Feds raid the Gibson guitar factory in Nashville on an exotic-woods rap [The Tennessean] Eric Scheie has a few things to say about what turns out to be a remarkably comprehensive federal regulatory scheme on trade in wood enacted with little public discussion as part of the 2008 farm bill [Classical Values]
- In the mail: Amy Bach’s new book Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court, very favorably reviewed by Scott Greenfield not long ago (AmLaw Daily interview with author);
- Pension tension: link roundup on CALPERS mess [Reynolds]
- Maine passes very sweeping law banning marketers from collecting or using wide array of information about minors, but state acknowledges that much of the law probably wouldn’t pass constitutional muster and won’t be enforced [Valetk/Law.com, Qualters/NLJ]
- StationStops, which provides a mobile app for NYC commuter schedules, seems to have survived its legal tussle with New York’s MTA and thanks those who helped call attention to the story, with generous words for a certain “great blog”;
- Lawsuits cost Chicago taxpayers $136 million last year [Fran Spielman, Sun-Times]
- Blawg Review #238 is from Joel Rosenberg and bears the title, “Celebrating the International Day of Tolerance … and the NRA’s Birthday” [WindyPundit]
U.K.: Great moments in immigration law
The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that sending the Bolivian man back to his homeland would breach his human rights because he was entitled to a “private and family life”, and joint ownership of a pet was evidence that he was fully settled in this country. …
The Bolivian’s identity has not been disclosed and even the name of the pet cat was blanked out in official court papers to protect its privacy.
Delivering her decision on the case, which is thought to have cost the taxpayer several thousand pounds, Judith Gleeson, a senior immigration judge, joked in the official written ruling that the cat “need no longer fear having to adapt to Bolivian mice”. …
More: Rougblog (“We are all familiar with the term “anchor baby,” but the “anchor cat” is a new concept for me.”)
“Peeping Tom threatens legal action”
Strange goings-on in Ontario. [Toronto Sun]
September 28 roundup
- Massachusetts: “New Law to ‘Protect’ Kids from Germs Would Kill Band Program” [Free Range Kids]
- ACORN lawsuit against videomakers analyzed [Above the Law, Ken at Popehat and more] More: Andrew Moshirnia, Citizen Media Law.
- “The Remoras Are Loose Again”: judge vs. opportunistic class action objectors [WSJ Law Blog, CL&P, 10b-5 Daily]
- How ill-considered FAR (floor area requirement) zoning regulations can uglify new houses [Fountain]
- Doctor wins $10 million libel award against St. Petersburg Times, deceased reporter’s notes not allowed into evidence [St. P. Times, ABA Journal]
- Norm Pattis vs. Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College, cont’d [Connecticut Law Tribune]
- “Mother’s Suit Over Tot’s Injury is a Real Hot Potato” [OnPoint News, Massachusetts Dunkin’ Donuts]
- Remembering Barack Obama’s days as a class action lawyer [Mark Tapscott, Washington Examiner]
September 24 roundup
- Florida man and attorney file multiple ADA complaints against businesses in Seminole-Largo area [Tampa Bay Newspapers]
- “The growing ambitions of the food police”:
dietary paternalism in Bloomberg’s NYC and Washington, D.C. doesn’t go over well with writers at Slate [William Saletan, Jacob Weisberg, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Glenn Reynolds] - Assumption of risk is alive and well in New York cases over sports and spectator injuries [Hochfelder first, second, third posts, NYLJ]
- Favorable review of William Patry, “Moral Panics and the Copyright Laws” [BoingBoing]
- Kentucky high school case: “Coach Acquitted in Player’s Heatstroke Death” [ABA Journal]
- Olivia Judson on the Singh case and the many problems with British libel law [NYT; earlier here, here, etc.]
- Kids behave stupidly with girlfriends/boyfriends or dates, then the law ruins their lives [Alkon, Balko, Sullivan]
- “Report a bad doctor to the authorities, go to jail?” [Orac/Respectful Insolence, Texas; disclosure of patient and official information alleged against nurses]
Australia: satellite data to spy out pool-safety scofflaws
Authorities in Queensland, Australia, intend to use spy-satellite photos to catch homeowners not in compliance with strict new safety rules on swimming pools, which include the mandatory clearing of trees near pool fences so that determined children cannot climb their way over. [Courier-Mail] More: Popehat.
In the United States, incidentally, there are some indications that a crackdown may be underway to enforce the new federal pool safety act passed last year and administered by the Consumer Product Safety Commission [Aquatics International, earlier] And (via AI) Billings, Montana is pulling the plug on a big public pool project, since “the city wasn’t willing to accept the financial risk and legal liability of owning a large aquatic center”. [Billings Gazette]
Not an Onion headline
“Britain To Put CCTV Cameras Inside Private Homes.” Seems that Britain believes this will encourage better parenting to have the full-fledged nanny state enforcing homework and child discipline. Worse: the opposition party is complaining that the Labour government’s plan isn’t ambitious enough.