New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, has a particular niche among state courts: it’s liberal on many matters, as suits the state’s politics, but over the years has tended to take care that its commercial law is relatively predictable and efficient from a business perspective, since it would rather not risk tempting the state’s huge business sector to flee to other jurisdictions. With two vacancies on the court, Gov. Andrew Cuomo now has a chance to confirm the court’s historic path, or set it on a different one. [Lawrence Cunningham]
Archive for November, 2012
Discrimination law roundup
- In DC today? I’ll be commenting at Cato on new Russell Nieli book on affirmative action [details]
- EEOC continues to pressure employers over use of criminal background checks in hiring process [Hans Bader, Daniel Schwartz, Jon Hyman, earlier]
- Bill in Congress would require employers to make ADA-like accommodation for pregnancy/childbirth [Hyman]
- “Religious freedom and the nondiscrimination norm” [Rick Garnett, Prawfs] What is supposed to make discrimination so tempting, anyway? [Bryan Caplan, EconLib]
- Lawsuit alleges that group car rental discount for members of gay group constitutes unlawful discrimination against straights [Volokh]
- Complainants argue in Strasbourg that UK failure to more fully accommodate Christians violates Euro human rights law [Telegraph]
- Push for ADA coverage of obesity raises controversy [Christina Wilkie, HuffPo]
“Female Cop Gets $1 Million After Colleagues Trolled Database to Peek at Her Pic”
No, these were not naughty pictures, they were driver’s license headshots. “The city’s liability could have been upwards of $565,000 because the statute provides $2,500 to be assessed per each unlawful look-up of the database, and we had 226 look-ups,” City Attorney Sara Grewing [of St. Paul, Minn.] told the Pioneer Press. “So we were looking at $565,000 plus attorney’s fees, if we were found liable.” St. Paul was one of several municipalities that settled with Anne Marie Rasmusson, whose picture fellow officers often looked up without proper authority in violation of a 1994 enactment called the federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act. [Kim Zetter, Wired “Threat Level”; CityPages.]
Copyright and D.C. lobbying: that was fast
The House Republican Study Committee calls for reconsideration of over-restrictive copyright law, then un-calls for it a day later [TechDirt, rueful update; Alex Tabarrok]
P.S. And check out this upcoming Dec. 6 Cato discussion of the newly published Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive To Excess (Mercatus Center; Jerry Brito, ed.)
The quest for asbestos defendants, Chapter CCXXXIII
“In answers to interrogatories, [the mesothelioma-diagnosed] plaintiff identified Colgate’s Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder as the sole source of her asbestos exposure.” [Ron Miller]
Class action roundup
- Ted Frank on Whirlpool front-loading washer class action [PoL] $1.5 million for attorneys, $41,510 for class? Judge balks at Amex gift card settlement [same] EasySaver coupon settlement “conservatively” values coupons at 85% of face value [same]
- Cy pres: Roger Parloff on tech-defendant class-action cy pres [Fortune] Privacy groups nominated for cy pres windfall in Facebook settlement [Wired, PoL]
- “Class-Action Lawyers Face Triple Threat At Supreme Court” [Daniel Fisher at Forbes; related, Michael Bobelian]
- Georgia high court: company could be on hook for $456 million for sending junk faxes [UPI] Will unwanted text-message class actions be the sequel to junk-fax litigation? [Almeida, Sedgwick via WLF]
- “Class action summer camp” series from Andrew Trask includes refreshers on key concepts such as typicality, adequacy, etc.
- “Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Comcast” [Wajert, earlier]
- City of Des Moines class action: we owe it to ourselves [Iowa Appeals] For another case where there was high overlap between plaintiff class members and those expected to pay damages, see Sept. 2, 1999 [Milwaukee tainted municipal water system]
Anti-smoking authoritarianism
Ban smoking entirely, or issue licenses to smokers? In some quarters of the public-health world, those appear to be the end points of the spectrum of debate as they pursue the “endgame” of a “tobacco-free society.” [Jacob Sullum]
Ontario court: man’s 120 lawsuits are enough
Canada: “It started with a car crash in 1988 that sparked a court case and, last month, three judges suggested it was time to end; in between, Ural Direk launched more than 120 lawsuits, filed thousands of pages of documents, filled a trailer full of evidence, sought secret hearings to unveil dark campaigns against him, and linked the outcome of his cases to a Jewish conspiracy.” Mr. Direk prevailed in his original lawsuit, but considered the $34,984 damages awarded unsatisfactory and filed a losing appeal whose ramifications have continued to this day. A judicial panel has now recommended that he be declared a vexatious litigant. [National Post]
Justice Alito’s speech at the Federalist Society
Josh Blackman has a summary, including the Justice’s memories of Charles Reich’s constitutional law class at Yale, his commentaries on cases from the last Supreme Court term, and a proposal to carve the faces of Federalist Society founders Lee Liberman, David McIntosh, Peter Keisler, and Steve Calabresi on Mount Rushmore.
P.S. And on the Citizens United decision [BLT]:
Alito said arguments can be made for overturning Citizens United, but not the popular one that boils down to one line: Corporations shouldn’t get free speech rights like a person.
“It is pithy, it fits on a bumper sticker, and in fact a variety of bumper stickers are available,” Alito told a crowd of about 1,400 at The Federalist Society’s annual dinner. He cited two: “End Corporate Personhood,” and “Life does not begin at incorporation.”
Then Alito pointed out the same people do not question the First Amendment rights of media corporations in cases like The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the Pentagon papers case. If corporations did not have free speech rights, newspapers would lose such cases, he said.
Hawaii vs. online vacation rental markets
Protectionism for real estate agents [Coyote]:
In legislation that reminds me of stuff from the 1990s when businesses tried to fight Internet-driven disintermediation, Hawaii is proposing to force non-Hawaiians to use a local broker to list their rental properties. Apparently local residents can still list their properties on low-cost Internet sites, but folks on the mainland (also known as “the United States”) must use a high-cost locally licensed broker, who typically charge 50% of rental fees as a commission. … Only by structuring this law to apply to those annoying out-of-staters could it ever be passed.