Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2012

The White House calls YouTube: how about yanking that video?

“Earlier in the week, YouTube said it found that the video was “clearly within” its guidelines.” [L.A. Times, Washington Post, Jesse Walker, Matt Welch, Paul Alan Levy; previously on calls to suppress putative “hate speech” in response to riots in the Middle East and elsewhere] Per news accounts, YouTube chose to block access to the video in certain Arab countries where outbreaks of violence have occurred. More: “Google rejects White House request to pull Mohammad film clip” [Reuters]

Meanwhile, L.A. County sheriffs swoop down to round up the alleged filmmaker for questioning, supposedly for probation violations. Ann Althouse has a thing or two to say about that. But see defense lawyer and former prosecutor Ken at Popehat (viewing arrest as not unusual if a defendant in serious fraud case involving aliases is observed to violate probation terms by doing business under alias)(more).

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Club owners: lap dancing deserves tax status as “art”

Quite a lot of tax money is at stake: New York is seeking more than $400,000 in back taxes and penalties from one establishment alone. But the broad construction of artistic expression that judges understandably apply in censorship cases under the First Amendment need not carry over to a less constitutionally fraught area such as the application of tax categories. “Can we get past the idea that somehow this is the Bolshoi?” asked one judge. [Naomi Schaefer Riley, New York Post, quotes me]

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NYC approves ban on large sodas

As expected, the New York City Board of Health has gone along with a proposal from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and become “the first in the nation to ban the sale of sugared beverages larger than 16 oz. at restaurants, mobile food carts, sports arenas and movie theaters.” [Time, AP] Notes Scott Shackford, “the ban shouldn’t affect diet or sugar-free drinks, but as The New York Times reports, establishments with self-service fountains will not be able to stock cups that hold more than 16 ounces. So essentially, thirsty people will want to avoid the targeted businesses altogether even if they’re drinking healthy.” [Reason] Earlier here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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Beef processor sues ABC News over “pink slime” story

Sensationalist coverage devastated a niche sector of the meat processing industry, and now a group of companies are demanding $1.2 billion from various defendants including ABC News, Diane Sawyer, and a UCLA microbiologist over various alleged inaccuracies. South Dakota, where the case was filed, has passed something called the South Dakota Agricultural Food Products Disparagement Act, one of a genre of “food defamation” laws previously criticized in this space. [Popehat; Reuters, ABA Journal, Poynter]

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Torts roundup

  • Chamber of Commerce’s annual survey of which states businesses consider unfair in litigation: where does yours rank? [survey, PoL]
  • “Toothless cootie” in Denver: “Jury Says PI Firm Must Pay Ex-Client $2M for Pressuring Her to Settle Auto Case for Too Little” [ABA Journal, WestWord]
  • “Thoughts on Reporters Reading New Lawsuit Filings” [Jim Dedman]
  • Cruise line, defending lawsuit: no, our ship didn’t pass stranded boat [AP/KATU]
  • Two Harvard lawprofs on why it’s time to get rid of the interference-with-inheritance tort [Juan Antunez, Florida Probate Litigation Blog]
  • New Jersey high court rejects loss-of-pet emotional-distress damages [NJLRA]
  • “An Alternative Explanation for No-Fault’s ‘Demise'” [Nora Engstrom, SSRN]

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Chicago teachers’ strike

It’s so obvious that teachers’ strikes hurt kids (not to mention adults) that even the New York Times’ editorialists, even Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, can’t really stomach this one. It’s likely to heighten the contradictions within the Democratic Party, which is simultaneously expected to represent the interests of public employees and of big city dwellers. It will also further questions (raised by my Cato colleague Andrew Coulson) about unions’ role in keeping American education monopolistic. And it’s already evoking the example of earlier officials who vindicated the rights of the public against such unions, including Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, and Scott Walker. Is Rahm Emanuel made of that kind of stuff?

A couple of videos, one from the Illinois Policy Institute:

And from Reason.tv:

Andrew Grossman: “Chicago parents: Stand in solidarity with your fellow workers and refuse to teach your children. Don’t be a scab!”

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Ambassador’s murder fuels calls for hate-speech bans

Peter Spiro of Temple, one of the more prominent international-law specialists in the legal academy, claims that the killing of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya, following demonstrations over a video produced by private U.S. citizens denouncing Mohammed, “bolsters” the case for free-speech laws by adding a foreign-policy rationale, and warns that on matters of unfettered speech (“The First Amendment? Call me a relativist”) “international law is going … in a different direction than we are.” [Opinio Juris] (Later news reports suggest that the Benghazi attack, though taking advantage of a mob demonstration for cover, was in fact a well-planned paramilitary operation.) Meanwhile, a religious-studies professor has proposed arrest of the offending filmmaker, even though “If there is anyone who values free speech, it is a tenured professor!” [Anthea Butler (U. Penn.), USA Today] And here’s the background climate of opinion at the United Nations. More: Ken White/Salon, and Alana Goodman/Commentary on the elusive “Sam Bacile.”

More: Eugene Volokh traces how Prof. Spiro and Prof. Harold Koh — now top State Department legal adviser — propose to use international law to adjust First Amendment norms toward those prevailing elsewhere.

Further from Volokh (“I think such suppression would likely lead to more riots and more deaths, not less.”) and more (modernist views often vulnerable to being characterized as an “intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others”), and Ken at Popehat (“We can’t cave on this in the face of demands that we censor. We can’t. Today it’s bigoted videos. Tomorrow it’s any representation whatsoever of Mohammed.”)

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Law enforcement and prosecution roundup

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