Peter Suderman in Reason on the baleful effects of the Prohibition episode on quality bar ingredients and American drinking culture generally.
Archive for 2017
“NLRB restores sanity to its rules on employee handbooks and joint employment”
Some seriously good news, finally, from the National Labor Relations Board, which had hurtled left in recent years but now has a majority of Republican appointees: 1) it overturned its notorious Browning-Ferris rule, which had threatened to impose liability on companies allegedly responsible for the working conditions of employees of other firms, as in franchise and outsourcing contexts; 2) it announced in Boeing Co. that it would drop a standard under which it had found unlawful, as interferences with NLRA rights of collective action, various widely used employer handbook policies on subjects “from confidentiality, to insubordination, to the use of company logos, to photography bans, and to conflict-of-interest rules.” [Jon Hyman]
Crime and childhood lead exposure
The hypothesis that precipitous drop in US crime rates resulted from previous declines in childhood lead exposure has been widely aired. A new study in JAMA Pediatrics of data from New Zealand, however, casts doubt on the strength of the association as regards such measures as violent crime rates, conviction, and recidivism. While lead exposure and involvement in crime are each known to correlate independently with low socio-economic status, “This study fails to support a dose-response association between BLL [blood lead levels] and criminal offending in a sample in which there was no association between BLL and childhood socioeconomic status.” [Sean Duffy, Courthouse News] In America, prevailing blood-lead levels have dropped greatly since the phase-out of leaded gasoline between the 1970s and the 1990s and the US ban on household lead paint in 1978.
Best of Overlawyered — April 2017
- “Miami may target Airbnb hosts who spoke at City Hall”;
- USA Today investigates ADA drive-by lawsuits;
- Third Circuit: neighbors who criticized condo residents over emotional support dogs must face civil rights suit;
- “It’s like open carry, but for Coppertone” in Spokane schools;
- Surveillance videos of flash-mob robbery of Oakland BART station will not be made public because people committing crimes appear to be minors;
- “Oregon man fined $500 for calling himself engineer in email to state” (and he eventually won)
- Judge in Ireland rules on playground fall: an old-fashioned accident, no cash to be had.
Oregon appeals court upholds $135,000 cake fine
An Oregon appeals court has upheld the oppressive $135,000 fine levied on bakers Melissa and Aaron Klein, who turned away a gay couple’s wedding cake order [Whitney Woodworth, Salem Statesman-Journal] As I observed two years back, the use of ruinous fines to punish non-ruinous conduct is a wider problem in our law, not just here. The Oregon court did reverse one state finding related to the Kleins’ supposed announcement of a future intent to discriminate, to which I and others had taken particular exception.
As my colleague Roger Pilon put it about the Colorado case, “If there is intolerance here, it is from those who would force a man to choose between his religious beliefs and his livelihood.”
P.S. Eugene Volokh on the court’s main ruling and on the “threat to discriminate” sub-issue.
Free speech roundup
- Well, he would, wouldn’t he? “De Blasio thinks city-funded news outlets would be ‘more fair’” [Max Jaeger, New York Post]
- Watch out for Honest Ads Act, which purports to force disclosure of political advertising on the Internet [John Samples, Cato] One effect of campaign donor disclosure mandates is to enable retaliation against those who back “wrong” candidates [Eric Wang, Cato Policy Analysis]
- Court orders target not to publicize the libel takedown demand letter it got. Fair play? [Volokh]
- Ken at Popehat is so very unimpressed with Anthony Scaramucci’s defamation suit threat to Tufts student paper. Of course Ken frequently does defend the unimpressive;
- Complaints about corporate speech in politics subsided as fast as you could say “Patagonia” [Ira Stoll]
- “Court Says Google Must Unmask Person Who Left Wordless, One-Star Review Of Local Psychiatrist” [Tim Cushing, Techdirt]
After layers of rules on farmers, “regulatory fatigue”
“Produce growers represent a textbook example of what businesses describe as regulatory fatigue….’It is just that one layer after another gets to be — trying to top the people before them,'” says an apple grower near Albany. Food law expert Baylen Linnekin sees a comparative compliance advantage going to mass-scale growers as well as foreign produce suppliers. And now here comes the Food Safety Modernization Act, often warned of in this space [Steve Eder, New York Times]
Best of Overlawyered — March 2017
- “Woman Gets a Ticket for Parking Two Seconds Early”
- Fifth Circuit’s Jerry Smith drop-kicks “dispute, fueled by a disgruntled cheerleader mom, over whether her daughter should have made the squad“;
- Clichés come to life: lawyer’s pants catch fire during final argument
- “NJ public works employee with phobia of public places gets $400K in lawsuit”
- Too good to check: debunking various press outlets’ claim that White House budget was going to zero out Meals on Wheels;
- Just as ADA-rattled Berkeley was going to take down online course materials, some clever souls archived and mirrored the content;
- Advocates seek tighter state reins on homeschooling;
- Dial O for opportunism: professional junk-call plaintiffs;
- “Seattle: We’ll pick a union for Uber drivers”
Bulletproof glass and the Pennsylvania constitution
Does the provision of Philadelphia’s Bill 170963 intended to curb the use of bulletproof glass in stores run afoul of language in the Pennsylvania constitution asserting “inherent and indefeasible” rights of “defending life” and “protecting property”? Our earlier post (and see update) mentioned that Eugene Volokh had written about the contours of a constitutional right to self-defense, and now the UCLA lawprof (at the newly un-paywalled site of his Conspiracy) has sketched a possible argument against the Philly Plexiglass measure along those lines.
Medical roundup
- “Survey: Most Docs Sued for Malpractice” [John Commins, Health Leader on Medscape survey] “The Missing Link in Lavern’s Law” (New York) [Peter A. Kolbert and Andrew S. Kaufman, New York Law Journal]
- Prescription spirits: why many physicians prospered so mightily during Prohibition [Paula Mejia, Atlas Obscura]
- Third Circuit greenlights consumer financial injury class action claiming eyedrop container dispenses eyedrops that are too big [Beck and McConnell on Alcon suit; see also earlier Posner on Allergan case]
- AI in health care, spot the legal issues: “For the First Time, a Robot Passed a Medical Licensing Exam” [in China; Dom Galeon, Futurism]
- “Why FDA regulations limiting e-cigarette marketing may cost lives and violate the Constitution” [Jonathan Adler; related, Jacob Sullum, earlier here, etc.] Anti-vaping crusade represents broader scandal of public health [John Tierney, City Journal]
- Off-label prescribing offers a window on a world with much less FDA regulation, and overall it’s an attractive one [Alex Tabarrok]