Aware of New York City’s penchant for prosecuting persons found in possession of knives commonly used in construction and design work, sculptor Jonathan W. “therefore chose the Spyderco UK Penknife… a non locking, slip joint folder, which should have been in the clear. But that wasn’t good enough for the NYPD (who arrested him), the DA (who charged him), or even his public defender (who recommended he plead guilty).” [The Truth About Knives] Earlier on NYC’s crazy “gravity-knife” law here and here.
Archive for November, 2014
Liability roundup
- Kip Viscusi: current structure of tort law gives firms like General Motors reason not to investigate risks/benefits of their designs [Alison Frankel, Reuters]
- California woman in trouble after allegedly sending “faked treatment documents and burn photos from a hospital website” to bolster hot coffee spill claim against McDonald’s [ABA Journal]
- Despite Kumho Tire, Joiner, and amendments to evidence rules in 2000, Eighth Circuit cuts its own liberal path on expert witness admissibility [Bernstein]
- “In the BP case, the rule of law is on trial” [Lester Brickman, The Hill, on cert petition]
- “Fighting and Winning Against Pit Bull Defense Lawyers” [Ronald Miller]
- Business groups savor victory in racketeering suit over concocted asbestos claims [Barrett, Bloomberg Business Week]
- Peter Spiro adds another favorable review of Paul Barrett’s Chevron/ Ecuador book Law of the Jungle [Opinio Juris]
Prodded by feds, Minneapolis will consider race in school suspensions
The groundbreaking move follows negotiations with the federal government, which sent out a letter to school systems warning that disciplinary patterns with “disparate impact” were under suspicion. There is of course a reformist cast for rethinking some harsh aspects of school discipline systems, zero tolerance policies being one, but not the only, example. Such reforms might well have the effect of narrowing disproportionately high rates of discipline for students in some minority groups. But the Minneapolis system’s move (apparently encouraged by Washington) to consider race explicitly in the suspension process, with minority kids getting an additional layer of review, raises the likelihood of a challenge under the Constitution’s equal protection clause, as does the setting of an enforceable compliance objective of achieving identical suspension rates from one demographic group to the next independent of whether misconduct rates are identical. [Tom Corbett/Star Tribune, Hans Bader/CEI, John Steele Gordon/Commentary, RiShawn Biddle/Dropout Nation (a different view)].
Overlooked good news last week?
The United Nations system’s contemplated “takeover of the Internet” may have been shelved, perhaps indefinitely [David Post]
Welcome Rod Dreher readers
I once wrote that a highly litigious society is like a civil war in very, very slow motion. Rod Dreher has similar thoughts here about how the structure of mutual trust erodes when people learn (and are taught) to find advantage in setting legal process against each other. Dreher quotes Iranian reader Mohammad:
…the USA system of justice is such an allure! It invites you to sue. One reason is that you can get money this way. The first thing I was taught in the USA (a lesson I did not learn) was to seek occasions for suing people. I was treated like trash couple of times, and I had the golden opportunity to cash in, but I decided it was totally unethical.
However, there are other reasons why litigation is so sexy in the USA. The system gives you a profoundly stupid idea about what is just and what is not, and about your entitlement to your rights.
Also mentions this site [The American Conservative]
November 13 roundup
- Italian appellate court overturns conviction of seismologists on manslaughter charges following 2009 L’Aquila earthquake [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- “The most ominous outcome in last week’s election: A band of big-bucks civil attorneys almost picked off an Illinois Supreme Court justice because they believe he’s a threat to their big paydays.” [Chicago Tribune on Karmeier retention] More: lawyers aren’t through with him yet [Madison County Record]
- They were expecting any different? “Landlords Say de Blasio Ignores Their Plight” [New York Times]
- “Liberties,” they said: New York Civil Liberties Union represented complainants who got couple fined $13,000 for not renting farm for a same-sex wedding [Ann Althouse]
- Michael Greve on citizen suits, deadline-forcing consent decrees, and “sue and settle” [Liberty and Law] Why Germany rejects the citizen-suit device [same]
- Harry Reid planning to push through large number of nominees in lame duck session, few more controversial than Sharon Block at NLRB [On Labor] (7 a.m. Thursday update: White House withdraws Block)
- Maricopa County, Ariz. sheriff and perennial Overlawyered favorite Joe Arpaio sues building owners after sidewalk trip/fall “as he headed to a restaurant to get a bowl of soup” [AP/Yuma Sun]
“Lawyer sanctioned $1M for allowing smoking reference in med-mal trial”
Personally liable in Philadelphia: “A Pennsylvania lawyer has been ordered to pay nearly $1 million in attorney fees for allowing an expert witness to refer to a lung cancer victim’s history of smoking in a May 2012 medical malpractice trial. Defense lawyer Nancy Raynor of Malvern, Pennsylvnia, told the Legal Intelligencer that insurance would not pay the sanction and her personal assets are at risk.” [ABA Journal]
Catching up: John Oliver on asset forfeiture
I know I’m one of the last to catch up with this brilliant show from last month, which has had 3.8 million views, but if you still haven’t seen it, now’s your chance: it’s pricelessly funny and only too real. Cato has been inveighing against forfeiture laws for two decades or more and it’s tremendously satisfying to see the issue take off this year.
P.S. More forfeiture links: excellent Shaila Dewan piece in the New York Times the other day (“Put your valuables where I can see them!”), noting that police deciding to seize property sometimes check it against a department wish list; explosive videos from cop how-to-seize seminars and other government proceedings (“If in doubt…. take it”) tend to confirm a dark view [Nick Sibilla]; Institute for Justice report, Bad Apples or Bad Laws? Testing the Incentives of Civil Forfeiture [Bart J. Wilson and Michael Preciado, September]; “The IRS Has Been Holding This Guy’s $447,000 For 2 Years, And He’s Never Been Charged With A Crime” [Erin Fuchs, Business Insider, on Hirsch brothers case]
Blue-ribbon excuses: lawyer says he was hiding cash from wife, not law
A lawyer who resigned abruptly from the office handling BP oil spill claims has denied allegations he accepted kickbacks from lawyers with claims pending in the process, saying the money was paid for earlier work and that his aim was to hide it from his wife — who also happened to work at the claims office — rather than to conceal anything improper. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]
Schools roundup
- “Feds Punish Princeton For Liking Due Process Too Much” [Robby Soave, Reason; earlier]
- Despite outcome in California superintendent race, last week a major defeat for teachers’ union politics [RiShawn Biddle] UFT has outlasted school reform efforts in New York City, bad news for kids and parents there [Daniel DiSalvo]
- Global look at perceptions of risk and shrinking play opportunities for children [Blair Barrows, Common Good]
- Feds another step closer to clamping Title IX goals-and-quotas on collegiate club and intramural sports [American Sports Council]
- Link roundup: commenters who expressed doubts about this summer’s Vergara v. California decision on grounds other than actually liking the system of teacher tenure [Andrew Coulson, Orin Kerr, Will Baude, Larry Sand/City Journal, Eric Posner, Daniel Fisher, Richard Epstein]
- More cases spur criticism of zero-tolerance knife policies [WJBK, The Truth About Knives (Atiya Haynes, Dearborn Heights, Mich.); WOIO (Da’von Shaw, Bedford, Ohio]
- University of Oregon student government leader seeks to shut down critical blogs for being mean [Popehat]