According to one expert, “special education’s share of school budgets has jumped to an average of 21% in 2005, from just 4% in 1970.” A major contributor: “hidden disabilities” like chronic fatigue syndrome, ADHD, migraines, multiple chemical sensitivity and fibromyalgia that can precipitate demands for expensive accommodations such as home tutoring at school district expense. [Amy Dockser Marcus, WSJ]
Archive for September, 2011
Tough cookies, asthma sufferers
The federal government really is going through with its ban on over-the-counter asthma inhalers — sometimes the only ones readily available in emergencies — because of the minute CFC emissions for which they are responsible. [Mark Hemingway, Weekly Standard, Atlantic Wire; earlier]
California’s sclerotic CEQA
As Gideon Kanner points out, you don’t need to be a property rights advocate to see the California Environmental Quality Act as a lawsuit-intensive mess (quoting Prof. Robert Freilich):
Many attorneys, planners, architects, engineers, scientists, developers, small businesses, business associations and governments in the state, and many environmentalists are agreed that CEQA needs major reform. Delays in the system are causing projects to suffer delays of 2 to 9 years to get EIRs approved, especially for (but not limited to) the failure to compare the project with all “feasible” alternatives, establish vague baseline analysis for existing mitigation, and the tricky determination as to which parts of regional, general and specific plan EIR findings can be incorporated, to eliminate duplication of effort and cost. The law is so confused on these points that it is a miracle that any EIR can survive its first round in the courts without a remand to do it over again. Complicating this result is the establishment of a specialized group of attorneys that initiate litigation at the drop of a hat, primarily because the statute authorizes attorney’s fees for any remand or reversal. Many community associations and no growth environmentalists use the EIR litigation process to delay and in many cases kill projects for little or no environmental substance.
“Judge Blasts Lead Plaintiff’s Firm for ‘Epic Failures’ in Securities Case”
“Bernstein Leibhard has been chastised by a federal judge for revealing after six years of lawyering that the lead plaintiff in a securities case never bought the funds at issue.” [Mark Hamblett, New York Law Journal]
Canada: “Man sued by mother for parental support”
“A B.C. man who was abandoned as a teenager is being sued by his elderly mother for parental support…. Shirley [Anderson], who has not had a relationship with Ken or his two siblings for decades, is asking for $750 per month in support from each of them.” Like some American states, British Columbia retains a law on its books requiring grown children to support their parents in case of destitution. [CBC]
Forcing non-members to pay for unions’ political advocacy
Early next year the Supreme Court will hear Knox v. SEIU Local 1000, an important case about union power and individual conscience. The Cato Institute has joined several other organizations in filing an amicus brief (PDF), as my colleague Ilya Shapiro explains here.
New podcast: “Coffee and Markets” at New Ledger
Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry interviewed me about my new book Schools for Misrule and you can hear the resulting podcast here (& RedState, Big Government, Twitter mentions).
“Golf course company in lawsuit: Sanford lied 90 years ago”
“The city of Sanford [Florida] is in court — again — because the private company that manages its Mayfair Country Club golf course wants out of its 20-year contract, accusing the city of a 90-year-old lie. Maece Taylor Inc., which rescued and revived the course four years ago after the city had a falling-out with its previous operator, says its deal with the city is invalid because city officials lied about who designed the course in the 1920s.” [Orlando Sentinel]
Massachusetts: “Innovative Medical Liability Reform”
A new report for the Pioneer Institute by John Biebelhausen (Colorado) and Amy Lischko (Tufts) examines a range of policy options for improving the Massachusetts medical malpractice system, including “less traditional” options such as “contract liability,” a “method for patients to contract directly with doctors or health systems to establish pre-determined rules for compensation in the case of injury due to physician negligence.” [“Innovative Medical Liability Reform: Traditional and Non-Traditional Methods“]
“Baby Mixup Does Not Support Claim for Emotional Distress”
Though given the wrong baby to nurse, a New York mother cannot recover cash for “extreme emotional pain,” the state’s highest court having declined review of her case. [Brooklyn Eagle via Scheuerman/TortsProf, earlier]