Next: Sanitary League of Canada protests that use as legal retainer brings good name of toilet paper into disrepute. [CBC]
Archive for 2014
Supreme Court: recess appointments, protest buffer zones
What a morning at the Supreme Court. Unanimous free-speech ruling that Massachusetts went too far with a law creating a 35-foot zone banning protests on public streets outside abortion clinics. [McCullen v. Coakley, SCOTUSBlog case page] Unanimous 9-0 ruling rebuking the Obama administration’s broad claims of recess appointment power, though the Court split 5-4 on rationale. [NLRB v. Noel Canning et al, SCOTUSBlog case page]
This now makes about a dozen cases in which the Supreme Court has *unanimously* rejected Obama administration claims of broad government power. In case after case, the Department of Justice can’t even win the votes of the President’s own appointees, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. This is an extraordinary rebuke.
“Kathleen Kane’s Bad Choices”
From her threat to sue the Philadelphia Inquirer over its reporting to her use of elected office to pursue quarrels with political foes, it’s a record that makes a case all by itself for demoting the office of Pennsylvania Attorney General to something appointive and lower-profile. [Joel Mathis, Philadelphia Magazine, earlier]
Police need warrant to search arrestees’ cellphones
In its ruling today in Riley v. California, the Supreme Court unanimously established a clear new rule for police-citizen interaction: The police can’t, without a warrant, search the digital information on cell phones they seize from people they arrest. This is a big deal because it means that being arrested for, say, not paying a speeding ticket, will no longer open you up to having your entire life examined by law enforcement. Unlike the satchels and billfolds of yore, people now carry essentially all their private documents with them at all times: address books, financial and medical records, photo albums, diaries, correspondence, and more. To allow police to review all of that information just because they happen to have arrested someone would violate the Fourth Amendment’s protection of personal papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. …
Kudos to the Court—and raspberries to the federal government, which has now had its expansive arguments rejected unanimously 11 times since January 2012.
More: Orin Kerr.
June 26 roundup
- Court slaps “nightmare” Sacramento litigant Raj Singh with sanctions [KXTV, auto-plays, earlier]
- Child overprotection: “I don’t think they even drink liquid soap, the gateway drug for sunscreen.” [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids]
- Three-fer: personal injury, qui tam lawsuits against guardrail maker coordinated by disappointed patent litigant [Insurance Journal]
- Donald Trump hit with sanctions in lawsuit for not disclosing insurance policy [South Florida Business Journal, our Trump coverage]
- On AirBnB and sharing services, it’s lefty economist Dean Baker (con) vs. David Henderson (pro). Go David! [EconLib] London black cabs seek level playing field with Uber. Good idea, let’s deregulate ’em both [Matthew Feeney, Cato]
- Waffle House chairman claims attorneys committed extortion in ex-housekeeper’s sex lawsuit [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
- “Tenth Circuit Says No to ‘Death by Discovery’ in Dispute over Agreement to Arbitrate in Class Action” [Lars Fuller, Class Action Blawg on Howard v. Ferrellgas Partners LP]
“Firefighter’s Fear Of Burning Buildings Does Not Qualify As A Disability”
“The Texas Supreme Court overturned a $362,000 disability discrimination judgment awarded to a captain for the City of Houston fire department who was removed from firefighting duties because his fear of entering burning buildings made him a danger to himself and others. City of Houston v. Proler, No. 12-1006 (Tex. June 6, 2014). According to the court, no reasonable jury could have found that his fear of entering burning buildings constituted a disability under the ADA or Texas law.” However, the court based its decision on the state of the law before Congress drastically widened ADA eligibility in 2009, so it’s not clear how such a case might come out if filed today. [Kevin Cox, Kollman & Saucier, P.A.; Eric B. Meyer]
NYC official impounds car used to transport cancer patients to hospital
The Taxi and Limousine Commission functionary ignored the volunteer driver’s protests that the vehicle was not operating unlawfully for hire but was rather being provided as a free charitable service. After all, as someone might have put it, stealing the car of a volunteer driving cancer patients to the hospital is just another name for the things we do together. [NY Daily News, New York Post, earlier this month]
Banking and finance roundup
- In banking and FCPA cases, targets of DOJ prosecution are disproportionately firms domiciled abroad, and other countries do notice that [Jesse Eisinger, NYT “DealBook”]
- “Los Angeles’ Confused Suit against Mortgage Lenders” [Mark Calabria, Cato] Providence also using disparate impact suits in hopes of making banks pay for its housing failures [Funnell]
- Podcast discussion on Operation Chokepoint with Charles J. Cooper, Iain Murray, and Todd J. Zywicki [Federalist Society, earlier]
- New round of suits against banks based on ATMs’ imperfect wheelchair accessibility [ABA Journal, earlier here]
- Walgreen’s could save billions in taxes if it moved to Switzerland from U.S. Whose fault if anyone’s is that? [Tax Foundation]
- “Left unmentioned: how fed regulation and trial lawyers deter banks from protecting themselves with overdraft fees.” [@tedfrank on NYT report about banks’ use of databases to turn down business from persons with records of overdrawing accounts, a practice that now itself is being targeted for regulation]
- Scheme to seize mortgages through eminent domain stalling as cities decline to come on board [Kevin Funnell]
House blocks funding for HUD local power grab
We’ve tracked (especially by way of the Westchester County, N.Y. controversy) the ambitious efforts of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to grab more control over local governments’ zoning and project building decisions, in part through a proposed new “AFFH” rule (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing). Now the House has voted an appropriations rider cutting off funds for implementation of the new rule. [sponsor Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Paul Mirengoff/PowerLine, Sara Rankin/Legislation Prof (opposed), National Low-Income Housing Coalition, earlier on AFFH and on housing discrimination law generally]
NLRB: law protects employee’s right to curse out boss
In not just one recent case, but two:
* “During a meeting about commissions, minimum wage, and employee breaks [at a Yuma, Ariz. car dealership], an employee lost his temper, angrily calling his supervisors words such as [obscenities omitted]. He also stood up, shoved his chair aside, and told them they would regret it if they fired him. Unsurprisingly, that tirade resulted in the employee’s termination. Astoundingly, in Plaza Auto Center (5/28/14), the NLRB concluded that the termination was an unlawful violation of the employee’s rights to engage in the protected concerted activity.” [Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer’s Law Blog; Brennan Bolt, Labor Relations Today]
* “Starbucks cannot fire a union activist employee who cursed at a manager in front of customers, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled for the second time. Joseph Agins was active in trying to unionize four Manhattan Starbucks coffee shops between 2004 and 2007.” His repeated imprecations, sometimes in the presence of customers, included “this is [BS],” “do everything your damn self,” “about damn time” when the manager arrived to help, and “go … yourself”. A protected pattern of behavior under federal labor law, the NLRB ruled. “The board ordered Starbucks to offer Agins his old job or a substantially equivalent position, compensate him for any loss of earnings and other benefits, and remove from its files any references to the unlawful firing.” [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
Compare the separately developed field of “hostile-environment” law, in which the employer may be held liable for years’ worth of back pay if it does not separate from the workplace an employee who repeatedly confronts a co-worker with belligerent and profane abuse (& Scott Greenfield).