A class action against Apple ends anticlimactically, and not without comic complications. [ABA Journal, Daniel Fisher and more]
Archive for 2014
Ohio shores up mens rea requirement in criminal law
The governor of Ohio has signed a historic measure providing that newly created crimes will be deemed to include a mens rea requirement unless lawmakers have made express provision for liability on a lesser basis. Now other states need to look at the same idea [Isaac Gorodetski/James Copland, Economics 21; Elizabeth Brown; text; earlier on mens rea here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here]
Best of Overlawyered — May 2014
- “Weapons Policy Bans Fencing Group From Practicing On Campus”;
- Those “everything you know about the Stella Liebeck case is wrong” memes are often wrong themselves;
- “Of course they handcuffed her. You can’t be too careful with a nine year old.”
- Ways of being on disability: “No disability pension for ex-officer who staged shooting” (N.J.); Providence ex-firefighter sues after video of muscular weightlifting workout leads to cessation of disability check;
- More of this please: “Minnesota ‘unsession’ dumps 1,175 obsolete, silly laws“;
- “Tom Goldstein’s letter for rich client who threw porn star off roof for video” dubbed “instant classic”;
- Collecting Indian arrowheads: one era’s childhood pastime, another’s life-destroying felony.
“Will Google Cars Eviscerate the Personal Injury Bar?”
Eric Turkewitz, who practices and blogs about personal injury law, hopes so.
Deterrent effects of this site
Prof. Stephen Bainbridge, writing at his site the evening before last:
I had a slip and fall at a restaurant tonight after Christmas Eve dinner. (No. It’s not what you’re thinking. I had only had two beers. It was dark and the step was hard to see.) The manager freaked and then double freaked when I mentioned I was a lawyer. My first thought was “payday!” Mega-settlement baby.
But my second thought was that it was just a scraped knee and injured pride. And then my third thought was about all those nasty things I’ve said about trial lawyers over the years. And then my fourth thought was that I’d end up as a story on Walter Olson’s Overlawyered blog! And my final thought was I’d never be able to hold my head up around my tort reform pals again!
So I’m just going to put some ice on it and forget about it.
Food and beverage roundup
- Why British pubs are in decline [new Institute of Economic Affairs report from Christopher Snowdon]
- After legal battle with chicken chain, Vermont man wins “Eat More Kale” trademark [AP, earlier here, etc.]
- “Why D.C. Breweries Say They’re Drowning In Red Tape” [Rebecca Sheir, WAMU] Pennsylvania: “Cops Seized Couple’s $160,000 Wine Collection – And Want to Destroy It All” [Baylen Linnekin]
- More on FDA calorie-labeling mandate for restaurants and food servers [Sarah Kliff, Vox (“way more aggressive than expected”); Steve Chapman, Jacob Sullum, Danny Vinik, New Republic on the lack of evidence in their favor; Jason Stverak, Providence Journal on the costs; Cass Sunstein via Althouse in favor; earlier here, etc.]
- Opponent seeks sanctions over attempt to turn “meritless snack food labeling action into the Second Peloponnesian War” [Daniel Fisher]
- “A Trademark Year in Wine and Beer: Our 2014 Holiday Buyer’s Guide to Disputed Beverages” [David Kluft, Foley Hoag]
- Roundup of reactions (including ours) to Boston professor’s fateful tussle with Chinese restaurant [National Post, earlier]
Christmas highlights of Overlawyered past
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! You can read some highlights from past Overlawyered coverage of the holiday here.
Can regulators insist that a company fire its CEO?
In New York that’s getting to be a regular pattern in the settlement of charges against financial firms; although Eliot Spitzer, known for creative methods of corporate decapitation, may have departed office, Spitzerism lives on. I explain in a new Cato post on the state’s Ocwen Financial pact.
Related: Tactics the federal government used to seize control of insurer American International Group (AIG) away from Hank Greenberg, now made public despite years spent resisting disclosure [Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times]
Santa’s surveillance
…the Federal Bureau of Investigation approached Santa Claus to enlist his cooperation in a new surveillance program. FBI agents advised Santa that his extensive knowledge regarding “bad” children, and failure to disclose this information to the government, likely made him guilty of millions of counts of misprision of a felony. But, the agents added, perhaps a deal could be arranged.
Relax, it’s not real, it’s just Prof. Kyle Graham’s annual Christmas card couched in the form of a criminal procedure final exam. (Last year’s was a constitutional law final exam).
Judge throws out home-care overtime regs
A “thinly-veiled effort to do through regulation” what Congress had refused to do, according to federal district judge Richard Leon, who struck it down in a victory for the interests of elderly and disabled persons in need of care, not to mention the interests of taxpayers and liberty [Bloomberg Business Week] Earlier on the regulations here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.