“Emergency regulations” adopted in 1985 by the District of Columbia sharply restrict where fast-food restaurants may operate, and despite an effort in 2007 to refine the definition of a fast-food place, it remains rigid: any eatery where the utensils are disposable is included, as does any in which cash is paid before the meal is handed over. Now the regulations have come to restrict the operation of popular “fast-casual” restaurants and even one-off ventures launched by noted chefs, like a barbecue sandwich place that had been slated to open in Shaw near the Convention Center. [Tim Carman, Washington Post via Scott Beyer, Forbes]
Archive for 2016
Indian Child Welfare Act symposium at Cato Unbound
I’m one of four participants in a symposium at Cato Unbound this month on the Indian Child Welfare Act. Timothy Sandefur (Goldwater Institute) writes the principal paper to which I respond; other responders include Profs. Matthew L. M. Fletcher (Michigan State) and Kristen Carpenter (Colorado). Earlier coverage of the Indian Child Welfare Act here. Excerpt from my contribution:
Someday we might want to design a legal regime that minimizes state intrusion into families, limits the discretion of faraway bureaucrats, and empowers parents by clarifying their rights. But ICWA sure isn’t it. It’s a power play that’s meant to serve the interests of one governmental actor on the scene, the tribe. It regards children and parents as tribal resources to be conscripted, and it designates a vastly overbroad group of children to grab as “Indian children,” the better to maximize resource intake.
Food and nanny state roundup
- Has Obama administration endorsed anti-GMO campaign with new labeling law? Not really [Thomas Firey, Cato, earlier here, here, etc.]
- United Nations anti-tobacco meeting seeks to exclude persons overly involved with tobacco production, ban list turns out to include many officials of member governments [Huffington Post UK]
- Dumping Michigan tart cherries to comply with USDA marketing order? There must be a better way [Baylen Linnekin]
- “I am the man, the very fat man, who waters the workers’ beer.” [Science Daily, prompting Christopher Snowdon’s recollection of that line of song]
- Feds alone have spent $500 million chasing food-desert mirage, with “negligible” impact on health [Mac McCann, Dallas News, earlier]
- “FDA Assigns Zero Value To Smokers Who Die Because Of Its E-Cigarette Regulations” [Jacob Sullum, more on vaping]
“Plaintiffs are only allowed one bite at the sno-ball.”
For those who like judicial puns and wordplay, it’s on display in this Fifth Circuit decision on litigation between competitors in the southern Louisiana frozen confection business. [New Orleans Times-Picayune]
“Family of NYC autistic teen found dead to get $2.7M”
14-year-old Avonte Oquendo left his school in Queens without permission and was later found dead. “A law passed after his death required schools to install audible door alarms.” [Associated Press]
Update Sept. 17: Original link above now broken, but many other links to the same AP coverage remain active as of this writing [NBC New York, Insurance Journal, Chicago Tribune, WPIX, etc.] The New York Post’s coverage is here.
Mikal Watts acquitted in Gulf spill claims fraud case
“San Antonio plaintiffs’ attorney Mikal Watts was acquitted Thursday by a Mississippi federal jury of multiple fraud counts after federal prosecutors charged that he submitted the names of phony clients seeking to recover from the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.” Two others associated with Watts’ firm were also cleared of charges. Watts, who represented himself at the trial, had argued that he was a victim of, rather than collaborator, in the wrongful practices of others who brought potential spill claimants in as clients for his firm. “The jury found several of the defendants Watts hired in Mississippi to gather clients guilty of the fraud allegations.” [Texas Lawyer]
After adverse verdict, Gawker will cease publication
What Ken says at Popehat:
…for most of us the scary part of the story is that our legal system is generally receptive to people abusing it to suppress speech. Money helps do that, but it’s not necessary to do it. A hand-to-mouth lunatic with a dishonest contingency lawyer can ruin you and suppress your speech nearly as easily as a billionaire. Will you prevail against a malicious and frivolous defamation suit? Perhaps sooner if you’re lucky enough to be in a state with a good anti-SLAPP statute. Or perhaps years later. Will you be one of the lucky handful who get pro bono help? Or will you be like almost everyone else, who has to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect your right to speak, or else abandon your right to speak because you can’t afford to defend it?
The system isn’t just broken for affluent publications targeted by billionaires. It’s broken for everyone, and almost everyone else’s speech is at much greater risk.
Our coverage of the publication, including its run-in with champerty and maintenance and Peter Thiel’s version of “public interest” litigation, is here.
Tweet of the day: Laurence Tribe on IRS ideological targeting
Yesterday Harvard law professor Larry Tribe sent out a tweet brusquely dismissing the IRS targeting episode as a debunked non-scandal. I and others promptly took issue with him, and pointed him toward the August 5 D.C. Circuit opinion laying out the scandal’s genuineness. (I also referenced my Ricochet article summarizing the decision and citing the Inspector General report from Treasury.)
Within an hour or two Prof. Tribe sent this tweet very graciously conceding error, along with several similar.
@walterolson I confess error wrt IRS ideological targeting. The IG report and the CADC panel decision seem right to me. Inexcusable abuse.
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) August 18, 2016
I have on occasion had my differences with Prof. Tribe’s views, but what an honorable example he sets here. May all of us prove equally ready to re-examine our own views when challenged.
Liability roundup
- Big win for Ted Frank’s objector project in Walgreens case: “Posner opinion blasts class actions that are ‘no better than a racket'” [ABA Journal, Kevin LaCroix/D and O Diary, Cook County Record]
- “It’s a bonus if they went [to the hospital] in an ambulance”: litigation funding moves into mainstream [Sara Randazzo, WSJ]
- Class actions and lawyer collusion: why the Supreme Court should review Schulman v. LexisNexis [Ilya Shapiro and Jayme Weber, Cato]
- “Should Judges Allow Juries To Hear A Windfall May Be Bad For A Plaintiff?” [Kyle White, Abnormal Use]
- California Supreme Court OKs basing class action fees on settlement size rather than hours worked [Alison Frankel, Reuters; earlier on Laffitte v. Robert Half International]
- “Contra Plaintiffs’ Bar, Registering to Do Business Does Not Create General Jurisdiction” [Mark Moller, Washington Legal Foundation]
Can debt collector buy back your suit against it in an auction of your assets?
A Nevada resident was receiving dunning notices and responded by filing a lawsuit against the debt collector under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The collector subsequently filed a notice of execution including, among her property to be seized and auctioned, her rights under that lawsuit. It then attended the auction of her assets and bought that right for $250, thus nullifying the claim against itself. Should courts uphold? [Consumerist]