“They will spend 10 years and all their money on litigation because of their inability to agree on anything,” a therapist predicted accurately. Yet more unsettling: the mom leveled false abuse accusations at the dad before eventually recanting. [Winnipeg Free Press]
Archive for May, 2013
World’s grumpiest patent lawyer goes for Round Two
It started with an insult-filled letter to a patent examiner that quickly made the rounds in the legal blogosphere (“Are you drunk? No, seriously … are you drinking scotch and whiskey with a side of crack cocaine while you ‘examine’ patent applications?”) In Round Two, the incensed attorney goes after patent-law blogger Dennis Crouch of Patently-O, who brought the letter to the web’s attention. [Above the Law]
May 7 roundup
- In quiet retreat from STOCK Act, Congress dispenses with trading transparency for its staff [Prof. Bainbridge]
- Deep-pocket quest: hotel named as additional defendant in Florida A&M hazing death [Orlando Sentinel, earlier]
- “Keynes didn’t expect to have kids so he didn’t care about the future” wheeze long predates Niall Ferguson [Kenneth Silber; my new post at IGF, where I’ve also been posting lately on the topic of adoption]
- Ten and five (respectively) reasons for a plaintiff’s lawyer to turn down a personal injury case [Eric Turkewitz, Max Kennerly]
- Setback for man seeking to trademark “Eat More Kale” [AP, earlier]
- Gawker is now on the UK “Warning: This bag of nuts may contain nuts” case [earlier]
- Overlawyered’s Twitter feed just passed the 7,000-follower mark, while our Facebook page, which recently stood at 1,000 likes, has now surged to nearly 2,500. Thanks for following and liking, and if you’d like to engage with other parts of Cato on social media, check out this nifty guide by Zach Graves.
Correctional officers’ “bill of rights” and the Baltimore jail scandal
Last month 13 guards and 12 others were indicted on charges of letting a gang effectively take over management of the Baltimore City Detention Center; according to the indictment, corrupt guards allegedly smuggled in drugs, cellphones and other contraband and had sex with the gang leader, several becoming pregnant by him. Since then the public and press has been asking what went wrong. A Washington Post editorial suggests one place they might look:
The absurd situation described in the indictment took root at least partly because of a “bill of rights” for corrections officers, backed by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and enacted by the Maryland legislature in 2010 at the behest of the guards union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. This bill of rights grants extraordinary protections to guards, including shielding them from threats of prosecution, transfer, dismissal or even disciplinary action during questioning for suspected wrongdoing.
While Gov. O’Malley has sought to minimize the relevance of the 2010 law, the Post notes that FBI recordings suggest that a guard who was deemed “dirty” was transferred to another facility, rather than fired — transfers-instead-of-firing being a less than optimal way of dealing with public employee corruption, but one typical of systems with strong tenure entrenchment. AFSCME, which boasted at the time of its “relentless lobbying” on behalf of the law, is now doing damage control. More: “those protections left officers at the jail without fear of sanctions for allegedly smuggling contraband or having relationships with inmates, the FBI said in an affidavit.” [Baltimore Sun] Union-allied lawmakers defend the measure [AP]
Card counting in casinos
Counting by way of human memory is not unlawful, but casino law tends to ban card counting that is assisted by mechanical device. Is that a defensible distinction? [Adam Kolber, Prawfs]
The high, high cost of the Jones Act
The Jones Act, which forbids coastwise trade in goods or passengers between American ports except in U.S.-made, U.S.-staffed, U.S.-owned vessels, has developed into a quintessential special interest law. It’s why Maryland and Virginia “bring in road salt from Chile rather than Ohio;” why Jacksonville, Fla. relies on coal from Colombia rather than U.S. sources; and why the economies of Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam are perpetually hobbled by high input costs. [Malia Blom Hill, Capital Research Center] Does it at least strengthen U.S. defense by preserving a defense-relevant merchant marine sector? The signs on that aren’t good either. [Eftychis John Gregos-Mourginakis and Joshua Jacobs, NRO; followup]
Disabled rights roundup
- U.S. Department of Justice may soon issue regulations mandating disabled accessibility for websites, a truly awful idea [WSJ, N.C. Journal of Law and Technology, Alexander Cohen, Atlas; one advocate’s view; our long-running coverage, and my two cents years back]
- Coming soon: 7% disabled-worker quota for federal contractors? [David Harsanyi, earlier here, here, etc.]
- “Disability Act Charges and Awards Skyrocket” [Corp Counsel]
- NYC: “Judge Raps Disability-Lawsuit Mill After ‘Client’ Disappears” [Daniel Fisher/Forbes, ABA Journal, John Andren/WLF, earlier on attorney Bradley Weitz]
- W.D. Va.: farmers’ markets covered by ADA as “places of public accommodations” [Bagenstos]
- Result under UK’s new version of ADA: teacher reinstated after arguing that mental disability caused him to keep student out drunk till 3 a.m. [Fox Rothschild]
- Hey, let’s start constitutionalizing disabled rights! What could go wrong? [Michael Waterstone via Bagenstos]
Great moments in immigration law (UK division)
An immigration judge has ruled that the British government cannot deport convicted drug dealer Hesham Ali, who has never been in the country legally, because he has a girlfriend and making him leave would therefore violate his “right to family life” under the Human Rights Act [Telegraph]:
He convinced a judge he had a “family life” which had to be respected because he had a “genuine” relationship with a British woman – despite already having two children by different women with whom he now has no contact.
Ali also mounted an extraordinary claim that his life would be in danger in his native Iraq because he was covered in tattoos, including a half-naked Western woman – a claim which was only dismissed after exhaustive legal examination.
Meanwhile, Ted Frank argues that the case of the Tsarnaev family points up the longstanding problem of dubious or fraudulent asylum claims [Point of Law]
Airplane child seats
Why they might not work to the overall benefit of child safety [Adam Sandberg, CEI “Open Market”]
NYC battle: can employers consider job applicants’ credit records?
Sometimes, when food choices are not involved, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is actually on the right side of controversies. One instance of that is the series of battles he’s having with the New York City Council on various bills to regulate employers. The Council recently overrode his veto of a bill creating unemployment status as a new protected class, and has pressed a paid-sick-leave bill as well. A third proposal: forbidding employers to consider job applicants’ credit records in hiring. Eight liberal-leaning states have already enacted similar measures but as the Proskauer Rose law firm explains, the NYC proposal goes further:
Unlike the vast majority of laws in effect and in legislation pending across the nation, however, the Proposal does not explicitly enumerate exceptions for managerial positions, or positions with access to bank or credit card information, Social Security numbers, significant amounts of cash, or confidential or proprietary information. Although the Proposal exempts employers required by law to run credit checks on their applicants and employees, its silence as to these other standard exceptions should give New York City employers particular pause should the Proposal become law.