- “NLRB Could Ease Unionization of Franchisees” [Bill McMorris, Washington Free Beacon]
- Wait, you mean self-harm is something you can overdo? “Can the Minimum Wage Be Too High?” [NYT “Room for Debate”] “Correcting Harold Meyerson’s Math On The Minimum Wage” [Tim Worstall]
- Lawyers can help ascertain when lip-licking in workplace rises to level of harassment [Fox Rothschild]
- Pending bill in Illinois would do away with workers’ comp’s longstanding immunity for safety consultants [Kevin Martin, State Journal-Register]
- Best and worst states legally for staffing business [Leslie Stevens-Huffman, Staffing Industry]
- “You can have your strong public employee unions, ‘prevailing wages’ and restrictive work rules, or you can have nice infrastructure. New Yorkers have (perhaps unknowingly) made their choice.” [Scott Sumner via Arnold Kling]
- Does time spent driving to employer-mandated anger-management courses count as compensable “hours worked” under FLSA? [Bryan Symes, Ruder Ware]
Archive for June, 2014
The Redskins trademark and agency discretion
Too close to the regulation of speech content, too chancy in its impact on the rule of law [Jonathan Turley, Washington Post]:
Many of us recoil at the reference to skin color as a team identity. The problem is that the Redskins case is just the latest example of a federal agency going beyond its brief to inappropriately insert itself in social or political debates. …
The Supreme Court affirmed in 1983 that the IRS could yank tax exemption whenever it decided that an organization is behaving “contrary to established public policy” — whatever that public policy may be. … There is an obvious problem when the sanctioning of free exercise of religion or speech becomes a matter of discretionary agency action. And it goes beyond trademarks and taxes.
I wish more companies would do this when attacked
New York Times columnist Tim Egan takes a swing at Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart swings back.
P.S. Now expanded into a longer post at Cato — don’t miss the (very good!) views of Obama administration chief economist Jason Furman. (& Scott Shackford, Reason)
“The FAA revised pilot qualifications last year for 19 seat planes….”
“…So now we only operate them with nine seats.” Taxpayers nationwide get to chip in as part of the federal government’s Essential Air Service (EAS) program. [J.D. Tuccille, Reason]
Legal pressures on childbirth options
“Judging from Facebook, the country seems to be brimming with women who have had ‘unsatisfying experiences’ in hospitals,” writes Naomi Schaefer Riley. I’m quoted: “Our tort system works to take away women’s choices. In the name of safety we allow litigation to slice away at the range of choices women have,” whether it be choice of at-home or close-to-home options, choice of personnel, or choice of delivery method. [New York Post]
Class-action lawsuit: supermarket Greek yogurt not actually made in Greece
Nor, the complaint adds triumphantly, is Chobani yogurt even “made by Greek nationals.” It’s made in New York! Also, it’s too sweet and not very natural. [ABA Journal]
IRS scandal: the dog wiped their emails, cont’d
I’ve got an update on the fast-developing scandal of evidence destruction at the IRS in my new Cato post (earlier). If not for reading Kim Strassel and her colleagues at the Wall Street Journal, I might not have learned that Lois Lerner’s emails got wiped from her hard drive by forces unknown about 10 days after the letter arrived from House Ways & Means inquiring into targeting of political opponents.
Since the new round of disclosures in the IRS scandal broke a week ago, the WSJ has shown itself willing to dig in a way that many other prestige press institutions have not. “People used to ask how Watergate might have turned out if the press had sided with Nixon instead of against him. Thanks to the work of Strassel and her WSJ colleagues, let’s hope we never find out.”
The Economist covers the story in this commentary. Our tag on evidence spoliation and document retention — lawyers among our readers will be familiar with how very seriously these concepts are taken in the world of litigation — is here.
Welcome readers: Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit.
New Cato podcast on Washington Redskins trademark ruling
Why should trademark law ban “disparagement” in first place? Caleb Brown interviews me on the Washington Redskins case for the Cato Daily Podcast. Earlier here.
David Post has a post at the Volokh Conspiracy laying out the unexpectedly complicated relationship between the federal Lanham Act and state trademark common law. And he presents the First Amendment problem with “disparagement” doctrine head on:
…the constitutional question is also, for me, pretty cut-and-dried; this is precisely the sort of thing the First Amendment prohibits: an agency of the federal government doling out benefits on the basis of whether or not you have used a word or phrase that is ‘disparaging,’ or that “bring into contempt, or disrepute” any “institutions, beliefs, or national symbols.” … [Whether my view of the matter is in tune with current doctrine is another question entirely]
Police and prosecution roundup
- Sad and bad: “House Republicans vote to block Obama’s new pardon attorneys” [MSNBC, Jacob Sullum, my Cato take]
- Ready for sorghum-patch unrest? More than 100 U.S. Department of Agriculture agents are armed with submachine guns [Matt Welch]
- “Cop who punched Occupy Wall Street protester gets tax-free disability pension” [New York Daily News, video of punch]
- “Officials could identify just one [Bronx] prosecutor since 1975 … disciplined in any respect for misbehavior while prosecuting a criminal case.” [City Limits via Radley Balko]
- Georgia drug raid: flash-bang grenade thrown into crib badly burning toddler [Tim Lynch, PoliceMisconduct.net “Worst of the Month”]
- New book by Sidney Powell critical of USDOJ explores Ted Stevens, Enron prosecutions, has foreword by Judge Alex Kozinski [“Licensed to Lie”: Craig Malisow/Houston Press, Legal Ethics Forum, Amazon]
- Two times over the legal limit, hmm. Would it help to flash my badge? [Prosecutorial Accountability on state bar discipline against San Francisco deputy d.a.]
Man charged for holding “Turn Now” sign before DUI checkpoint
Less than a mile before a police DUI checkpoint in Parma, Ohio, resident Doug Odolecki held a sign reading “Check point ahead turn now.” Police gave him a ticket and confiscated the sign: “Odolecki was issued a ticket and forced to hand over his sign. “Parma Police tell us they can’t get into the details of the pending case but a Sergeant told me that Odolecki was obstructing officers ability to do their job. They also said that the issue was with the part of the sign that said ‘turn now.'” [WOIO via AOL]