- Behind costly EPA crackdown on wood-burning stoves, a whiff of sweetheart lawsuits? [Larry Bell]
- Reminder: California’s Prop 65 doesn’t actually improve public health, makes lawyers rich, and harasses business [Michael Marlow, WSJ]
- “What I learned from six months of GMO research: None of it matters” [Nathanael Johnson, Grist]
- Eminent domain threatens store owner in Fire Island’s Saltaire [NYP]
- In case you haven’t seen this one: chemical content of all-natural foods [James Kennedy Monash]
- “The court ordered that the county pay the turtles’ attorneys fees.” [Dan Lewis, Now I Know]
- “On the government’s books, the switch [from steel to aluminum in Ford’s new F-150 pickup] is a winner because MPG goes up.” [William Baldwin, Forbes]
Posts Tagged ‘Long Island’
Politics roundup
- John Lott Jr. argues in new book that judicial-nominations system is broken; responses from Michael Teter, Clint Bolick, John McGinnis [Cato Unbound]
- “Weaponized IRS” meets Administration’s political needs at cost of future public trust [Glenn Reynolds, USA Today]
- “For some time, however, cause lawyers have moved in and out of government, thus complicating the traditional picture of lawyer-state opposition.” [Douglas Nejaime, “Cause Lawyers Inside the State,” SSRN via Legal Ethics Forum]
- Gun rights: public opinion has changed over the decades in a big way [Bryan Caplan, Steven Greenhut]
- “Mostyn Law Firm donates $1 million to help Wendy Davis in Texas governor’s race” [Washington Examiner, New Republic] Plaintiff’s bar supporting GOP primary challenges to Texas Supreme Court incumbents Phil Johnson, Jeff Brown, and Chief Justice Nathan Hecht [TLR] More: Legal NewsLine (Mark Lanier Law Firm largely funding challengers)
- Nassau’s Kathleen Rice: “Anti-Corruption Panel Co-Chair Receives Big Donations From Sheldon Silver’s Law Firm” [Ken Lovett, NYDN]
- Rule of thumb: a political party leans libertarian in proportion to the number of years since it last held the White House [Orin Kerr]
- Dept. of Justice indicts a prominent Obama critic on campaign finance charge [Ira Stoll; more above]
Nocera on the “asbestos scam”
Perhaps it was overreach for a prominent New York City plaintiff’s law firm to file asbestos litigation on behalf of Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, the famously fond-of-smoking Long Island Congresswoman now fighting lung cancer, against General Electric, Pfizer and more than 70 other companies. The high-profile case is focusing public attention on the legal fictions by which lawyers have been lassoing seemingly conventional lung cancer cases and bringing them into the asbestos litigation system [Joe Nocera, New York Times; Daniel Fisher; earlier]
P.S. Patterns of filing non-mesothelioma cancer cases reflect asbestos lawyers’ economic incentives [Daniel Fisher]
“‘Somebody has to pay,’ Margiotta said.”
Long Island: “The head of Suffolk’s new Traffic & Parking Violations Agency on Thursday defended the controversial policy of charging an administrative fee even on tickets that are dismissed.” [Newsday]
Update: Long Island judge rules against Leatrice Brewer
“The Smoking Congresswoman and Her Asbestos Lawsuit”
Paul Barrett at Business Week:
…even a politically moderate, law school-educated guy like me, someone who’s perfectly prepared to root for a suit against a dishonest insurance company or an exploitative landlord, finds himself increasingly dismayed by the uses to which our civil justice system is put.
That’s by way of introducing the lawsuit filed by 69-year-old Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), known as a big-time smoker, attributing her lung cancer to asbestos products made by more than 40 companies. Did we mention that representing her is the politically well-connected New York firm of Weitz & Luxenberg?
Long Island middle school cracks down on recess
“Officials at Weber Middle School in Port Washington are worried that students are getting hurt during recess. Thus, they have instituted a ban on footballs, baseballs, lacrosse balls, or anything that might hurt someone on school grounds. … some parents said it is really about liability and lawsuits.” [CBS New York] More: Lowering the Bar.
Long Island: “Woman who drowned her 3 kids in tub in 2008…”
“… wants cut of wrongful death settlements.” “A mentally disturbed suburban New York woman who drowned her three young children in a bathtub in 2008 wants a cut of $350,000 in wrongful death settlements obtained by the children’s fathers, attorneys said Friday. Leatrice Brewer, 33, was found not guilty because of mental disease or defect in the deaths of her children, so her attorneys say she should not be subject to laws that bar convicts from profiting from their crimes.” [Associated Press/NY Daily News]
Pursuing check-cashing stores through zoning
Check-cashing businesses are perfectly legal, but the Long Island town of Hempstead doesn’t like them, so it’s used zoning to try to force them out of areas convenient to their clientele. New York’s highest court is considering the companies’ appeal. [Newsday]
Long Island: “Woman who drowned children seeks part of their estate”
“A woman who admitted to drowning her three young children in her bathtub in New Cassel nearly five years ago is telling a judge that she deserves some of the money from her children’s $250,000 estate. … [Innocent] Demesyeux [father of two of the three children] settled a lawsuit against [Nassau] county last year for $250,000, claiming that social services caseworkers could have done more to save his children.” A lawsuit on behalf of the third child is pending. [Newsday]