2012: most popular and most commented-on posts

Here are the five posts published in 2012 that drew the highest traffic over the past year:

Dressing psychiatrists as wizards on the witness stand [January]
Doormat warning [December]
Long-necked beer bottle maker not liable for barroom assault [August]
“Structuring”: who can get away with it, and who can’t [April]
Reluctant to recant rape accusation [May]

Some posts continue popular long after they’re published. Here are the five from previous years that drew most traffic in 2012:

The burglar and the skylight: another debunking that isn’t [2006]
Urban legends and Stella Liebeck and the McDonald’s coffee case [2005]
Lawyers making clients worse off: Nicholas White’s elevator ride [2008]
Lawyer presidents [2008]
From comments: lawyer referral fees [2008]

Finally, here are the five 2012 posts that drew the largest number of reader comments:

He couldn’t prove it was legitimate [May]
Deaf girl’s family sues Girl Scouts for disbanding troop [August]
That treehouse has to go [January]
May 18 roundup [May]
NHTSA to mandate accelerator overrides [April]

And see also our subjective, recently concluded month-by-month list of highlights starting with January.

Filed under: best of

“Idaho inmates: The beer made us do it”

“[Keith Allen] Brown and four other inmates at Idaho’s Kuna facility are suing major beer companies, blaming their crimes on alcoholism and claiming that the companies are responsible because they don’t warn consumers that their products are addictive.” The laudatory Nicholas Kristof column practically writes itself, though one should note that the inmates “do not have attorneys and drafted the lawsuit themselves.” [Idaho Statesman]

Filed under: alcohol, Idaho, prisoners, third party liability for crime

New legal post at EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation announces, “Thanks to a generous donation, EFF attorney Julie P. Samuels is now ‘The Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents‘.”

In a less jocular vein, Dan Burk on patent reform [Cato Regulation magazine, PDF]

Filed under: patent quality

Royalties demanded over purloined crystal skull

Priceless Mayan-inspired mystical totem, or late Nineteenth Century German artifact aimed at the tourist trade? In “Indiana Jones and the Bogus Lawsuit,” Kevin at Lowering the Bar goes on the authentication trail.

Filed under: antiquities, movies film and videos

Not-about-the-money watch, dateline Newtown

The lawyer who filed a $100 million claim with the state of Connecticut over the Newtown shooting “said the lawsuit isn’t about the money,” though he’s withdrawn it at least for a while following a public outcry. [Greenwich Time, earlier, background on Not-about-the-Money-ism] More: Lenore Skenazy.

Filed under: not about the money

Best of 2012: December

Homeless man wins $200K for exclusion from L.A. buses, and more legal complications ensue.
LAPD: “Is there any way you or your crew could make a few arrests so we can avoid negative coverage?”
Hemingway museum needs zoo license for cats.
Do commercial property owners have a duty to keep defibrillator on site?
“Do not taunt mat.” Funny doormat warning.
“State of Kansas hits sperm donor for child support.”

Filed under: best of