Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2009

CPSIA’s ban on brass

By a 3-2 vote, the CPSC has confirmed that the absurd and inflexible Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act bans the sale of children’s products which contain components of conventional (leaded) brass. The vote drew dissents from commissioners Anne Northup (statement) and Nancy Nord (official comments, PDF; further statement at her blog). From the latter:

…The Commission has now very clearly determined that we do not have the flexibility under the law to make common sense decisions with respect to lead.
AnimalsBall3b
…I am especially concerned about what this decision means for our schools, where brass is found on desk hinges, coat hooks, locker pulls and many other items. Are schools now going to be forced to remove all brass and if so, who will bear this financial burden?

…brass is found throughout a home and removing it from toys does little in terms of removing it from a child’s environment. If brass were really harmful to children, we would be taking action to remove it from the home but no one is suggesting that there is a safety issue that needs to be addressed in this way.

Evidence of actual health risks from brass in the everyday environments of American children is, of course, anything but compelling. Rick Woldenberg has been covering the story here, here, here, and here. Greco Woodcrafting predicts rough times ahead for school bands, as well. And the WSJ editorializes today.
AnimalsBall3c
More: this summer the CPSC issued guidance on the closely related topic of ballpoint pens (the roller balls of which include lead alloy); the upshot was so long as manufacturers don’t primarily market any given pen design as being for kids, they’re in the clear, even if large numbers of children are among the pens’ users. (Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association petition and response, both PDF; earlier here, here, etc.) For more on that episode, see 3 Green Angels, NAM “Shop Floor” and more, Rick Woldenberg and more, and Whimsical Walney.

PUBLIC DOMAIN IMAGES from Elise Bake, Der Ball Der Tiere (“The Animals’ Ball”, German, 1891), courtesy ChildrensLibrary.org.

Filed under: , , , ,

“Spano’s Suicide: Housing Plan Doomed County Exec”

The New York Post has now picked up a slightly shortened version of my City Journal piece on the housing lawsuit that contributed to a voter revolt in Westchester (cross-posted from Point of Law).

P.S. The Weekly Standard “Scrapbook” feature discusses the piece, as do John Derbyshire and Ron Coleman. And reader Paul Rath writes: “We face the same issue at the other end of the state, near Buffalo. Unfortunately, we have the same race-baiting and over-simplified arguments in our press here as well.” For more on how towns expose themselves to litigation if they attempt to earmark sub-market-rate housing for local residents or workers, see this Oct. 23 New York Times report on Connecticut.

Filed under: , ,

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]

Filed under: , , , , ,

Australia mulls lip-sync concert disclosure

“Reports [Britney Spears] will lip-sync during many of [her 15 planned Australian] concerts has prompted debate on whether there should be disclaimers on tickets advising consumers whether a concert has been pre-recorded.” [ABC.net.au] Writes reader Steven Jones: “The inevitable result of this legislation is that concert promoters will have the warning whether the performer lipsyncs or not (there is no legal penalty for a false warning). This means that consumers will be no better informed, but the promoters will be covered legally.”

Filed under: ,

Careful about criticizing N.J. school board officials

Paul Levy, Consumer Law and Policy:

The Freehold School Board has subpoenaed New Jersey Online to identify several citizens who chimed in to discuss stories published in the Newark Star Ledger and New Jersey Online about several high administrators who got fake degrees from an online diploma mill, and hence received higher pay. After New Jersey Online notified its subscribers of the subpoena, the ACLU of New Jersey and Freehold attorney Stuart J. Moskovitz stepped in to represent various anonymous posters, and NJ.com has refused to furnish identifying information about the posters.

Asbury Park Press:

Howell representative William Bruno on the school board said he was in favor of the Aug. 31 subpoena.

“If they have nothing to hide, what’s the problem?” Bruno said.

Filed under: , ,

John Endean, “Canadianized Labor Law?” (Forbes)

New at Forbes.com: John Endean has an important article demonstrating that while American unionists seek to use Canada’s pro-union labor laws as a model for their proposed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), they seldom mention that Canadians themselves have found it advisable to rethink and retreat from some of those laws. It’s a condensed adaptation of a paper that will soon be published here as the first in a planned Manhattan Institute series on labor policy. Check it out here (cross-posted from Point of Law).

Filed under: , ,

After a housing-suit settlement, Westchester voters rebel

I’ve got a new piece up at City Journal on Tuesday’s sensational Westchester County upset, in which GOP challenger Rob Astorino knocked off Andy Spano, the longtime Democratic incumbent county executive, by a convincing 58-42 percent margin. Taxes were a key issue, but so was the county’s consent to what was billed as a landmark housing-reform settlement in which it agreed to arm-twist affluent towns into accepting low-income housing. Many Westchester residents were wary of the potential consequences — and downright insulted when Spano suggested that to resist the lawsuit further would be to make the generally liberal-leaning county a “symbol of racism”.

The federally brokered settlement is itself of interest far beyond Westchester, if only as the occasion of a truly remarkable rhetorical flourish from an Obama Administration official, HUD deputy secretary Ron Sims: “It’s time to remove zip codes as a factor in the quality of life in America.” It was also hailed at once in some quarters as a model for similar legal action against other suburban jurisdictions considered guilty of not being hospitable enough to low-income housing. The Westchester voter revolt, I argue in the piece, may serve as a signal to local officials elsewhere to fight, rather than roll over, when the social engineers and their lawyers come knocking (cross-posted from Point of Law).

Filed under: ,