- “Unintended Consequences of Military Lending Act Hurt Some Families” [R.J. Lehmann]
- Tenth Circuit: Fed must provide all depository institutiona access to the clearing system, whether they serve marijuana businesses or any other kind [George Selgin, Cato]
- “Moneylending has been taboo for most of human history. So how did usury stop being a sin and become respectable finance?” [Alex Mayyasi, Aeon]
- Financial regulation: too many cooks in the compliance kitchen [Cato Daily Podcast with Thaya Brook Knight and Caleb Brown] “DOL Fiduciary Rule: It’s Not Always Fun to be Right” [Knight]
- “2016 was an unprecedented year in securities class actions filings.” [Baker Hostetler, JD Supra]
- Trusts and the offshore wealth trade: from Edmund Burke to the Cayman Islands [Graham McAleer, Law and Liberty]
Archive for August, 2017
The year of movable statues: what to do with Roger Taney?
My new op-ed at the Frederick News-Post on Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to support removal of the statue of Roger Taney from its place in front of the Maryland State House:
Taney did many things in an illustrious legal career but is remembered for only one: the disastrous Dred Scott decision, which served to entrench slavery….
Change in the display of public memorials is natural and inevitable….
No one has erased him from the history books — the Dred Scott case itself makes sure of that.
Plus: some thoughts from Andrew Stuttaford. From Atlas Obscura, displaced statues as a subject of historic preservation. Related: “My favorite Civil War era monuments are the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.” [@david_tanenhaus on Twitter]
Labor and employment roundup
- Welcome news: Labor Secretary Alex Acosta urges states to fix occupational licensing [Eric Boehm, Reason] Fresh thinking on the antitrust angle in a bill from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) [Ilya Shapiro, Cato] “Occupational licensing should not be used to keep honest Americans out of work” [Clark Neily, The Hill] Video of Heritage panel on the subject with Maureen Ohlhausen of the FTC, Alex Tabarrok, Paul Larkin, and Dexter Price [Marginal Revolution]
- “The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has allowed an employee to pursue a disability discrimination claim based on the use of medical marijuana.” [Jon Hyman]
- That’s how we’ll solve difficult issues of statutory interpretation. We’ll call names [Richard Thompson Ford, Take Care, on expansion of Title VII interpretation to sexual orientation, earlier here, here, etc.] More: Scott Greenfield;
- If not for wise lawmakers like those in California, who would look out for our privacy? [Steven Greenhut on proposal to give unions private workers’ phone numbers and addresses]
- D.C. politicians are one big reason residents east of Anacostia River have poor grocery options [Diana Furchtgott-Roth; minimum wage]
- Uniform, predictable test needed for who is an “employee” and “employer” [Glenn Lammi, WLF, first and second posts]
Connecticut SC backs $41.7M verdict against school for failing to warn of tick bites
The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled “that schools have a duty to warn parents and students of potential hazards associated with field trips – in particular, dangerous insect bites – and let stand a $41.7 million verdict to a student who was disabled after developing encephalitis from a tick bite while on a school trip to China.” The Second Circuit had certified the question to the Connecticut court as part of the case of Munn v. Hotchkiss School. [Edmund H. Mahony/Hartford Courant, more] “According to the CDC, Munn was the first reported case of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in a U.S. traveler to China.” [Jennifer Morgan DelMonico, Murtha Cullina Appellate Insights]
On expanding the term “terrorism”
The “terrorism” label throws civil liberties onto the defensive, and frequently serves as a “thought-terminating cliché” justifying expansion of official power. Don’t casually extend it to political or hate-fueled violence generally [Ed Krayewski, Reason]
“It would have been career suicide to defend me.”
Google Echo Chamber, or Google Hush? Cathy Young interviews now-ex Google programmer James Damore (earlier here, here, and here). Heather Mac Donald writes on how some workplaces are being remade in the image of college speech codes [WSJ] And my appearance last week on Guy Gordon’s WJR Detroit talk show is now online:
Liability roundup
- Ted Frank, crusader against class action abuse and formerly a contributor to this blog, profiled [Caleb Hannan, Bloomberg]
- Judge: “Milberg attorneys engaged in an elaborate scheme of deceptive conduct” in qui tam relator case [Bailey McGowan/WLF, opinion in Leysock v. Forest Labs]
- “One way to help save the subways: Repeal the Scaffold Law” [Mike Elmendorf, New York Post]
- Not for the first (or eighth) time, U.S. Senate looking like a graveyard for liability reform bills [Bruce Kaufman, Bloomberg]
- Illinois: “it has not been unusual over the years to learn that insurers don’t want to write policies in Madison County because of the litigation factor.” [Madison County Record]
- “Data-Breach Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Concoct New ‘Overpayment’ Harm Theory, with Mixed Results” [Greg Herbers, WLF]
Eclipse risk management
Reader R.T. writes: “Don’t know if anyone has commented but my son’s middle school is keeping all students inside from 1-4. My law partner’s kid’s school is releasing them all at 11. Guarantee it is because they don’t want to get sued for scorched corneas.”
EEOC: “gentleman’s club” broke law by refusing to hire male barkeep
The EEOC’s 1997 dispute with the Hooters breastaurant chain over its failure to hire male Hooters Girls is among the most glorious in its history [see coverage here and here]. Now the Commission seems eager to bring back old times: it has filed a lawsuit charging that Sammy’s Gentlemen’s Club of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., violated sex discrimination law by turning away a qualified male applicant for a bartending job. “Sammy’s subsequently hired at least two females for bartending positions at that location. According to the suit, during 2015 Sammy’s employed 17 females and no males in bartender positions” at the location. [EEOC press release]
Back to the Age of Antitrust?
Tougher antitrust enforcement, going beyond the consumer welfare standard applied by many enforcers in recent decades, is part of Democratic leaders’ “Better Deal” policy package. A good idea? [Alan Reynolds first and second Cato posts, Alden Abbott/Truth on the Market] “It is difficult even to communicate how much Amazon has improved my life…. I love it. So of course, politicians now want to burn it down.” [CoyoteBlog, see also] And Joshua Wright has a Twitter thread refuting “hipster antitrust.”