Under pressure from higher-ups, Los Angeles schools have sharply reduced suspensions of disruptive kids — or have they just reduced the rate at which they report suspensions? At any rate, no one seems to be happy. “Last year, the L.A. school board became the first in the state to ban defiance as grounds for suspension; legislation would expand that ban statewide. … those in the trenches say it hasn’t been easy to comply with the mandates.” [L.A. Times, with comments; more on school discipline]
Archive for June, 2014
Chicago enlists in war on painkillers
“Following in the footsteps of two California counties, the city of Chicago this week filed suit against five pharmaceutical companies, contending that they drove up the city’s costs by overstating the benefits of their addictive painkillers and failing to reveal the downside of taking the drugs.” [ABA Journal, Bloomberg] The city’s press release asserts, among other things: “there is no scientific evidence supporting the long-term use of these drugs [opioids] for non-cancer chronic pain.”
Suits like this are typically, though not invariably, concocted by private law firms which then pitch them to governments hoping for contingency-fee representation deals. (Orange and Santa Clara are the California counties that have signed on to such actions.) For more on the war on painkillers and their marketing, check the ample resources at Reason mag from Jacob Sullum, Brian Doherty, and others; note also a recent book, A Nation in Pain by Judy Foreman, via Tyler Cowen. Our earlier coverage is here.
NLRB: employer policy may not prohibit negativity and gossip
In an April decision, the National Labor Relations Board found largely unlawful a hospital’s employee handbook policy as follows:
…11. We will not make negative comments about our fellow team members and we will take every opportunity to speak well of each other.
16. We will represent [the hospital] in the community in a positive and professional manner in every opportunity.
21. We will not engage in or listen to negativity or gossip. We will recognize that listening without acting to stop it is the same as participating.
The reason? Under NLRB doctrine, in both non-union and union workplaces, negative discussion of managers and other co-workers could count as “protected activities” linked to the potential for concerted labor action.
[Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer’s Law Blog, on the April case of Hills & Dales General Hospital (PDF)]
House votes to defund Operation Choke Point
The vote, which has occasioned little notice thus far in the press, took place on a proposed amendment brought to the House floor by Rep. Blane Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri) and co-sponsored by three Democratic members (Cardenas, Hastings, Perlmutter) as well as two other Republicans (Mulvaney, Yoder) [Kelly Riddell, Washington Times] The investigation by Rep. Issa’s committee released last week capped a steadily mounting furor, starting among groups like payday lenders experiencing reduced access to the banking system but spreading to various “vice” businesses and the firearms community — assuming the administration is still distinguishing the latter from the former. Earlier here, here, here, etc.
Former Brooklyn D.A. charged with misuse of funds
Critics of asset forfeiture have warned for years that it not only warps the priorities and incentives of law enforcement agencies, but creates a slush fund ripe for abuse by sidestepping the appropriations process. Now investigators accuse longterm Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes of using forfeiture funds to pay more than $200,000 to a P.R. consultant whose labors were largely devoted to advancing Hynes’s campaign. The consultant’s firm was paid more than $1 million over a decade. [New York Times]
“Insurance troubles for high school bass tournament”
“Concerns about insurance requirements will keep a southwest Missouri high school team from participating in the first high school bass pro fishing tournament in June.” The insurer for the Nixa High School angling team said it had only suggested, not required, “such things as having the volunteer boaters take a Coast Guard certification course at a cost of about $400 each, and to be CPR- and first-aid trained and requiring students and boat captains to wear specific safety glasses.” [AP/Houston Chronicle; Springfield News-Leader]
Occupational licensure — in the New York Times
“The right and left agree — too many occupations are overregulated” [Morris Kleiner, New York Times via Peter Van Doren, Cato; Arnold Kling]
Court decides Bond v. U.S. narrowly
A jealous wife’s attempt to poison a rival gave the Supreme Court a splendid chance to detoxify a pernicious constitutional law doctrine about the scope of the treaty power, but yesterday the Court passed up the chance. [Earlier.] My colleague Ilya Shapiro explains. Chief Justice Roberts, for the majority: “The global need to prevent chemical warfare does not require the federal government to reach into the kitchen cupboard, or to treat a local assault with a chemical irritant as the deployment of a chemical weapon.”
P.S. Congratulations to my colleague Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz and the Cato Institute amicus program (i.e. Ilya Shapiro) for the way Justice Scalia in his concurrence picks up whole chunks of argumentation from Nick’s 2005 HLR article on the treaty power and Cato’s recent amicus brief based on the same line of argument. Also, for those keeping score, this is another embarrassing 0-9 goose-egg defeat for the Obama administration, which once again took a position totally aggrandizing of federal government power and once again could not win for it the vote of even a single Justice. [piece slightly revised for style Tues. a.m.] More: Cato podcast with Ilya Shapiro.
Intellectual property roundup
- Supreme Court tackling patent law in several cases this term [Sartori and Aga, WLF; Richard Epstein; Kristen Osenga/Prawfs] New fee-shifting regime announced in Octane Fitness already bringing relief to litigants [Ars Technica on Lumen View/FindTheBest case]
- Copyright claims on intrinsically newsworthy material: curious claim concerning suicide note [Eugene Volokh] “Is it copyright infringement to post a lawyer’s cease-and-desist letter?” Australian university seems to think so [same]
- Fate of Prenda Law model spirals downward [Ars Technica, Volokh, EFF]
- Comedian Adam Carolla has “decided to make himself the focus of the Personal Audio suit against podcasters.” [Steven Malanga]
- Why, as a textbook author, Alex Tabarrok has concluded copyright law is out of control [Marginal Revolution]
- Remembering when patent examiners were celebrities (in the 19th Century) [Slate]
- Someone sends Jim Harper a dubious DMCA takedown notice, and this is his response [Cato]
“When Jail Is No Alibi”
For Daniel Taylor to be convicted of a murder committed while he was actually behind bars, at least three things had to happen: 1) a supposed confession extracted by Chicago police; 2) a conveniently corroborative sighting of Taylor at the scene by another cop; 3) improper withholding of exonerating evidence by the Illinois prosecutor. A Center on Wrongful Convictions video (via Balko)(& welcome Above the Law readers).