Asking M.D.s to lecture their patients on the hazards of climate change. [Popehat, Steyn/NRO]
Posts Tagged ‘United Kingdom’
U.K.: Xmas tree “designed according to principles of health and safety”
The new holiday decoration in the town of Poole, Dorset,
has no trunk so it won’t blow over, no branches to break off and land on someone’s head, no pine needles to poke a passer-by in the eye, no decorations for drunken teenagers to steal and no angel, presumably because it would need a dangerously long ladder to place it at the top.
One onlooker describes it as “horrible”. [Times Online via Free-Range Kids; & welcome Damon Root/Reason “Hit and Run” (calling us “the indispensable Overlawyered.com”, Coyote, Ed Driscoll, Musing Minds readers]
U.K.: “Health and safety snoops to enter family homes”
Reads like a parody: “Health and safety inspectors are to be given unprecedented access to family homes to ensure that parents are protecting their children from household accidents.” [Times Online]
U.K.: Find discarded gun, bring it in to cops, get convicted for possession
Could such a sequence of events actually happen? It seems to have happened to Paul Clerke of Merstham, England. [ThisIsSurreyToday via Coyote]
U.K.: “Police worker fired for backing psychic investigations claims religious discrimination”
Having succeeded in winning a ruling that his beliefs in spiritualism and mediums qualify as a form of religious belief, Alan Power can proceed with his suit alleging that he was improperly dismissed because of them. His case “follows a landmark ruling last month that environmental views should be considered equivalent to religious and philosophical beliefs”. [Telegraph, Independent] (& welcome Popehat readers)
November 6 roundup
- Shop worker prevails in U.K.: no need to pay music royalty fees for singing while stacking shelves [BBC]
- Word arrives that Eric Turkewitz has been named a New York Super Lawyer, but he manages to control his enthusiasm [New York Personal Injury]
- In which a columnist criticizes a post-election Tweet of mine, labels me “socially liberal libertarian” [Carney, DC Examiner; Roger Simon, “The Strange Case of NY-23”]
- Plaintiff’s lawyers may bag $28 million in Wal-Mart wage/hour class actions [ABA Journal]
- Contestant’s million-dollar suit against California pageant ends abruptly after surfacing of too-racy-to-post video [TMZ; irony-fraught background at Brayton and Good As You]
- News bulletin: lawyers shouldn’t trade on inside information [Cunningham, Concur Op]
- Possession, not just wrongful use: “L.A. Halloween Silly String Ban” [Volokh]
- Video of man who runs giant soda pop store in L.A., includes his thoughts on recycling law and the way regulation often works to big businesses’ advantage against small [Boing Boing]
November 2 roundup
- Worst, most dangerous legal trend of the moment: trial lawyers continue big Capitol Hill push to overturn Supreme Court’s valuable Iqbal and Twombly decisions on lawsuit procedure [Point of Law and more, Thomas Dupree/WLF, Beck & Herrmann and more, earlier]
- Lawyers rush to courthouse to beat deadline for new Oklahoma limits on liability suits [Tulsa World]
- Spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown admits he’s taped reporter conversations without their consent, seeming violation of California law [SF Chronicle]
- UK: motorist could face prosecution for splashing kids by driving through puddle, at what she says was kids’ request [BoingBoing]
- “Is the pay czar unconstitutional?” [Bainbridge on McConnell, WSJ; Ribstein on link to PCAOB case]
- More “deceptively named fruity cereal” suits in California [Lowering the Bar (“I still think this is like claiming emotional distress because you just learned ‘The Hobbit’ isn’t a true story,”) Ken at Popehat (“Froot of the Poisonous Tree of Litigiousness”), earlier here, here, here, here, etc.]
- A city of stool pigeons: Chicago to pay those who inform on tax cheats [NBC Chicago]
- Ill-fated stint as pole dancer leads to lawsuit against Arizona bar [Above the Law]
Britain’s criminal libel and sedition law
The House of Lords will back its long-overdue abolition. [Guardian]
U.K.: “Council bans parents from play areas”
In England, the Watford Borough Council now bars parents from supervising their own kids at playgrounds unless they undergo criminal record checks. Council-vetted “play rangers” are still allowed to move among the kids, but parents who have not undergone checks must “watch from outside a perimeter fence.” [Telegraph via BoingBoing]
U.K.: Children seized from obese parents
A remarkable story of government power from Dundee, Scotland [Daily Mail via Steyn/NRO, earlier]