Businesses have grown dependent on the practice of employees’ using their own mobile devices in the workplace and for work. Yet the legal complications are rising, including a California appellate decision that “reaffirmed employer obligations to reimburse employees for work related mobile usage on personal devices.” In part because there is no standard metric for breaking down an employee’s data usage bill into work-related and non-work-related portions, it is not easy to attempt tailored reimbursement practices to reflect changing usage: by one estimate, “just the processing of [a manually submitted] expense report alone costs a company between $18 and $29.” As a result, many employers simply settle on a ballpark figure, such as $70/month, as the reimbursement. “If those subsidies were even lightly scrutinized, they’d be deemed, at least partially, an employee benefit subject to taxation to subsidize Netflix and other personal habits.” Add-on services, for a cost, may serve to navigate between the demands of labor regulations on the one hand and tax authorities on the other. [vendor Ben Rotholtz, Forbes]
Archive for July, 2015
“Occupy Albany: New York’s far-left attorney general”
Just out: the New York Post excerpts my upcoming cover story in City Journal on business-bashing New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The full piece is much longer and gets into a host of individual controversies omitted for space from this one.
“Letter to a Young Social Justice Warrior…”
“… RE: Your Request for a Formal Apology.” Seth Barrett Tillman, who teaches law at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth, points out that the specifically lawyerly skills of “learning to see the world as others see it” and adopting “arguments and conduct that are proportionate to the facts” are also valuable when expressing disagreement with others in legal academia. “If mere hurt feelings were a recognized injury, then no one could possibly disagree with anyone else, and all intellectual inquiry, in law and in other fields, would be at an end. You do see that, right?” Whole thing here.
As I’ve noted elsewhere, I too have decided the time has come to demand a formal public apology. After I give thought to what might achieve the most virality on social media, I will settle on from whom and to whom over what.
Law enforcement for profit roundup
- One Oklahoma official used asset forfeiture to pay back his student loans, another lived rent-free in a confiscated house [Robby Soave, Reason]
- Per ACLU, Arizona has a one-way legal fee rule in forfeiture cases, with prevailing police allowed to collect from property owner but not vice versa [Jacob Sullum]
- From Michael Greve, some thoughts on prosecution for profit and where money from public fines should go [Liberty and Law]
- About the Benjamins: Philadelphia mayor-to-be cites revenue as reason to let parking officers ticket sidewalk users [Ed Krayewski, Reason]
- Captive market: with wardens’ and sheriffs’ connivance, prison phone companies squeeze hapless families [Eric Markowitz, IB Times]
- Former red light camera CEO pleads guilty to bribery, fraud in Ohio [Cyrus Farivar, Ars Technica]
- Taxpayers lose as Maine counties jail indigents over unpaid fines [Portland Press-Herald]
- “St. Louis County towns continue to treat residents like ATMs” [Radley Balko]
The Americans with Disabilities Act at 25
Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Listen to Diane Rehm’s roundtable on the law with me and other guests here:
Five years ago I wrote on the occasion of the ADA’s 20th anniversary. I criticized the more recent, United Nations-drafted Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in this 2012 piece. And the potentially massive disruptions to be expected from a legal requirement that websites be “accessible” — a regulatory idea that the Obama administration is thought to be in the very final stages of considering — have been a regular theme here for many years, as has the harm done by ADA filing mills that file accessibility complaints by the batch against businesses and property owners, often with recovery of attorneys’ fees in mind. More: James Bovard, USA Today.
Study: Dodd-Frank conflict minerals rule worsened Congo bloodshed
We’ve covered this story repeatedly, but now there’s further confirmation:
The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act increased violence in the Congo by 143 percent (and looting by 291 percent) through its “conflict minerals” rule, which has backfired on its intended beneficiaries. So concludes a new study by Dominic Parker of the University of Wisconsin and Bryan Vadheim of the London School of Economics.
As we noted earlier, Dodd-Frank conflict minerals regulations have also caused starvation in the Congo, harmed U.S. businesses, and resulted in increased smuggling—even as they punish peaceful neighboring countries in Africa just for being near the Congo, whose civil wars have killed millions over the last 20 years. They have inflicted great harm on a country that was just beginning to recover from years of mass killing and had the world’s lowest per capita income. The new study is consistent with a 2013 paper by St. Thomas University law professor Marcia Narine that criticized the conflict minerals rule for its dire consequences for the Congolese people.
That’s from Hans Bader’s write-up at CEI; more, Stephanie Slade, Reason. The Parker-Vadheim paper is here.
Barry Bonds: “obstruction of justice” trail peters out
“After more than a decade of wasted tax dollars in the name of ‘justice’ the government has officially dropped its case against the embattled slugger. [Last week] the federal government informed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that it would not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that reversed Bonds’ obstruction of justice conviction.” [The Legal Blitz/Above the Law RedLine; earlier on Barry Bonds]
Not a drunk driver? Prepare to shell out anyway
Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) wants alcohol interlocks to be made mandatory on all new cars. Rice, a former prosecutor, “recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD),” which has pushed the expensive interlocks-for-everyone notion. Earlier here, here, here, here, etc.
The ownership of the Green Bay Packers
If you’ve heard the Green Bay Packers are “community owned” or even “socialist,” here you go [Matthew Parlow and Anne-Louise Mittal (Marquette), SSRN via Bainbridge)]
Suit: concert hall should have known visitor would slide down banister
“Defendants improperly used a ‘sticky substance’ such as double-sided tacky tape to increase friction on the banister and deter concertgoers from sliding down it,” according to the complaint against the owners of Buffalo’s Tralf Music Hall. “Unfortunately, this ‘sticky substance’ caused decedent Dr. Verma to lose his center of gravity and caused him to drop in between the staircase and the wall.” The lawsuit also says the theater’s owners knew that alcohol was served on the premises. The deceased was a 28-year-old medical doctor reportedly serving as a first-year resident. [Courthouse News, WIVB]