Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for March, 2009

CPSIA on the radio: WTIC “Morning Show with Ray Dunaway”

radiomic2I’m scheduled to be a guest on Ray Dunaway’s Morning Show (WTIC 1080 AM, Hartford) circa 7:20 a.m. to discuss CPSIA. For a quick introduction to the law, follow our links for the problems with thrift stores, motorbikes, libraries and books, kids’ garments, and general problems with the law.

P.S. WTIC, the news/talk Connecticut station, has been great on crediting Overlawyered over the years, and host Ray Dunaway said on the air that he gets a lot of story ideas for the show from this site. Thanks!

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CPSIA: Congress has spoken. Now go!

A recent report from the Printing Industries of America (reprinted in this March 17 Keiger.com posting, via Deputy Headmistress) contains this distinctly ominous passage:

To date, Congressional majority leaders have stated they are not open to holding hearings nor opening the CPSIA for reconsideration, instead urging industry to pursue the exemption channels provided for in the CPSIA passed last year.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain
Now go! The great and powerful Oz has spoken!*

*For those disinclined to take orders, there’s always the planned April 1 protest. I’m thinking about making it down to D.C. to see how it goes.

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It’s absurd, it’s inane, it’s … Superfund!

gaspump1930s

Around New England, thousands of owners of gas stations and auto repair shops are being billed tens of thousands of dollars apiece for a $65 million Superfund cleanup. Their offense? They were the ones “who made the effort to properly dispose of waste oil and antifreeze by sending it to the sprawling Beede Waste Oil Co. in Plaistow, N.H. Now they are being punished for their conscientious ways.” [Boston Globe]

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March 22 roundup

  • No back-alley bikini lines: New Jersey consumer affairs director rejects proposed ban on Brazilian waxing [Asbury Park Press, JammieWearingFool, Jaira Lima and protest site, Popehat, News12 video] Florida, however, won’t let you get a fish-nibble pedicure [WWSB]
  • Kids doing well in homeschool but divorcing dad disapproves, judge says they must be sent to public [WRAL, Volokh]
  • Al Franken comes out for loser-pays in litigation (well, in this case at least) [MSNBC “First Read”]
  • U.K.: “A man who tried to kill himself has won £90,000 in damages from the hospital which saved his life but hurt his arm in the process” [Telegraph]
  • Life in places without the First Amendment: “Australia’s Vast, Scattershot Censorship Blacklist Revealed” [Slashdot, Volokh, Popehat]; British Telecom passes all internet traffic through “‘Cleanfeed” filters to identify (inter alia) racist content [Glasgow Herald]
  • More on that suit by expelled student against Miss Porter’s School; “Oprichniki” said to be not identical to Keepers of Tradition [NYTimes; our December coverage]
  • “Why We Need Cop Cameras” [Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune] Shopkeepers terrorized in Philadelphia: “The thugs had badges.” [Ken at Popehat]
  • Counting former lobbyists in Obama Administration? Don’t forget Kathleen Sebelius [Jeff Emanuel, RedState]
  • Wisconsin: “$50,000 claim filed over girl’s time-out in school” [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

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March 21 roundup

  • A triumph for good sense, good policy, and the Constitution: Supreme Court declines to disturb 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, thus ending NYC’s wrongful and unfair lawsuit against gun makers [AP/Law.com] Interestingly, the Obama administration joined its predecessor in urging that the law’s constitutionality not be questioned [Alphecca] One of my fond memories is of giving the lead presentation to the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing on the bill during its drive for passage.
  • “Tinkering With DWI Evidence Costs NY Judge and Law Prof Their Jobs” [ABA Journal; Buffalo, N.Y.]
  • Coalition of media organizations urges First Circuit to reverse judge’s “truth-no-defense” defamation ruling, but the Circuit denies en banc rehearing [Bayard/Citizen Media Law and sequel; earlier]
  • Car-crash arbitration-fixing angle heating up in probe of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania judicial scandals [ABA Journal]
  • ACORN helping with the Census? Based on their voter work, we can be sure they’ll give it that 110% effort [Jammie Wearing Fool]
  • To protect the public, why do you ask? Cook County, Ill. sheriff engages in “constant surveillance of Craigslist’s erotic services” [Patrick at Popehat]
  • Imposed-contract provisions mean that Employee Free Choice Act is “not as bad as thought. It’s worse!” [Kaus]
  • West Virginia lawmaker proud of introducing ban-Barbie bill: “If I’ve helped just 10 kids out with this, to me it was worth it” [AP/Charleston Gazette-Mail, earlier]

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Bailouts, bonuses, and the public mood

Steve Chapman, as usual, keeps a cool head about things. And I’ve got some links at Point of Law on the remarkable House-passed proposal to slap a punitive tax on the compensation of many thousands of financial institution employees who are not even notionally to blame for the current crisis, as well as on the threats of violence to AIG employees, which are being met with complacency if not encouragement in some surprisingly respectable circles. Update: Point of Law post now considerably expanded, and with followups here and here.

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CPSIA: a scorecard of reform bills

slothfultoad

Carter Wood at ShopFloor has a very useful compilation of what are probably all the current bills introduced in Congress related to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. (More, of course, may follow as the crisis continues.) Of the 10 bills, one is an omnibus appropriation bill, while the other nine (six in the House, three in the Senate) all appear from their descriptions to be aimed at reforming the substance of the law, its timetables and deadlines, or both.

Significantly, there was introduced this week the first bill with a Democratic (i.e. majority) sponsor, a bill by Montana Democratic Senator Jon Tester to overturn the dirtbike ban.

The three bills in the Senate are S. 608, the Tester bill on motorcycles and related vehicles; S. 374, the much-discussed bill by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that would have injected common sense into several areas of the law, and which Congress (under pressure from Public Citizen and others) refused to incorporate into the stimulus package; and S. 389, a bill introduced by Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) “to establish a conditional stay of the ban on lead in children’s products, and for other purposes.”

The six bills in the House are H.R. 1510 and H.R. 1587, introduced by Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), both relating to cycles/vehicles; H.R. 968, by John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) and H.R. 1465, by Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.), both of which are described as providing “regulatory relief to small and family-owned businesses”; H.R. 1046, by Adam Putnam (R-Fla.), to “ensure the effective implementation of children’s product safety standards under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008”, and H.R. 1027, by Bill Posey (R-Fla.), to “exempt second-hand sellers of certain products from the lead content and certification requirements”.

CORRECTION: I erroneously listed Indiana Congressman Brad Ellsworth above as a Republican, but he is a Democrat; fixed now.

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