Acting Director Mick Mulvaney’s memo on the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Board “encapsulates a humility and restraint and respect for rule of law that is often all too lacking in government.” [Ira Stoll, New York Sun]
Archive for February, 2018
Colleges and anonymous chat
The Yik Yak app is gone, but it leaves behind an important pending Fourth Circuit case on the First Amendment limits of Title IX [Ilya Shapiro on Cato amicus brief in Feminist Majority Foundation v. University of Mary Washington]
When speaking of rights
When speaking of rights, note that the word “right” “means many things, and has long meant many things.” A statement such as “Governments do not have rights, only individuals have rights” might cohere and be worth discussion as an claim of political philosophy, but does not accurately track the usage of the word “rights” in the Anglo-American legal system, now or in the past. [Eugene Volokh, post series one, two, three, four]
Public employment roundup
- Striking expose of why subway construction costs so much more in New York City than in other cities like Paris and Hong Kong [Brian M. Rosenthal, New York Times]
- “The Myth of Public-Sector Unions’ ‘Free Rider’ Problem” [Trevor Burrus and Reilly Stephens, Cato, on Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, earlier here, here, and here]
- Ray of hope on Golden State finances: Gov. Jerry Brown says absurd “California Rule” on pensions must yield [Nick Gillespie] “The Legalities of Pension Reform: How Do You Get There From Here?” [Alexander Volokh, Reason Foundation]
- “Battling treacherous office chairs and aching backs, aging cops and firefighters miss years of work and collect twice the pay” [Jack Dolan, Gus Garcia-Roberts and Ryan Menezes, L.A. Times]
- Politicized pensions: NYC’s scheme to divest from oil companies is unlikely to accomplish goal but does put funds’ investment performance at risk [James Copland, New York Daily News]
Annual survey of more than 280 state-administered public pension plans finds trouble ahead [Thurston Powers, Elliot Young, Bob Williams & Erica York, ALEC] - “The missile employee messed up because Hawaii rewards incompetence” [Gene Park, Washington Post]
Penn Law reparations conference
Something about the graphic for this symposium leads me to believe that it's not going to be a forum for the exchange of different points of view about the issue. I can't quite put my finger on it. pic.twitter.com/mQlgUgZkox
— Robert Anderson (@ProfRobAnderson) January 10, 2018
More on Penn’s fair-and-balanced reparations conference, and earlier conferences in its Edward V. Sparer Symposium series, here. My two cents on the reparations campaign here, or in greater detail in Schools for Misrule.
Environment roundup
- Current Louisiana governor has brought back parishes’ coastal-erosion suits against oil companies [Erin Mundahl, Inside Sources]
- Roundup saga: EPA says glyphosate not likely to be carcinogenic to people [Tom Polansek, Reuters, earlier]
- “Can Land Uninhabitable by an Endangered Species Nonetheless Be ‘Critical Habitat’ Under the Endangered Species Act?” Supreme Court grants cert in Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Jonathan Adler]
- “Oakland Would Pay 23.5% Of Recovery From Its Global Warming Lawsuit To Private Lawyers” [John O’Brien, Legal Newsline; more, John Burnett, Washington Examiner]
- Does this mean casually picking a feather up off the ground will no longer merit prison time? Department of Interior announces new interpretation of migratory bird law meant to bring sense to “incidental take” issue;
- For elephant conservation, sustainable use based on property rights might lead to better results than trade bans [Branden Jung, Wisconsin Law Review/SSRN]
“They confessed to minor crimes. Then City Hall billed them $122K in ‘prosecution fees'”
“In Indio and Coachella, prosecutors take property owners to court for some of the smallest crimes, then bill them thousands and threaten to take their homes if they don’t pay.” [Brett Kelman, The Desert Sun, California, via Dan Mitchell who besides citing this story, and my writing on the new Philadelphia bulletproof glass law, relates local government ticketing sprees arising from Chicago window sign rules and Los Angeles pedestrian laws] The Institute for Justice [press release] has now filed a lawsuit challenging the Indio/Coachella practices. [Kelman, Desert Sun]
February 14 roundup
- “One-Sided Loser Pays Is the Worst of Both Worlds” [Mark Pulliam at his new blog Misrule of Law, and thanks for mention]
- My first piece for Quillette debunks claims of jump in rate at which gay men are being murdered in U.S.;
- Welcome news: Department of Justice memo advises DoJ attorneys to seek dismissal of meritless False Claims Act suits [Reuters, Federalist Society teleforum with Brandon Moss, Greg Herbers/WLF, Michael Granston memo]
- Empirical evidence on factors that lead to approval of low-quality patents [Timothy Lee, ArsTechnica, noting ideas for improving patent review process: (1) eliminate issuance fees, (2) limit re-applications, (3) give senior examiners more time per patent]
- “Will we see tort reform in the midterms?” [Joseph Cotto interview with me for San Francisco Review of Books, YouTube audio, 33:51]
- FSMA will drive many smaller farmers/foodmakers out of business, only question is how many [Baylen Linnekin, our earlier]
“What made you think I wanted 53 firms churning on this case?”
“A federal judge in California last week criticized two lawyers for bringing an additional 49 law firms into a data-breach case, raising to 53 the total number of firms representing the plaintiffs….’What made you think I wanted 53 firms churning on this case?’,” asked U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, telling lawyers from Altschuler Berzon and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll that she was “deeply disappointed.” Koh went on to grant a request for a special master filed by Ted Frank, class action reformer with CEI and formerly a blogger in this space. [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal]
Wage and hour roundup
- “The biggest question from Friday’s disappointing Canadian employment report is how much can be traced to Ontario’s sharp minimum wage increase last month.” [Theophilos Argitis and Erik Hertzberg, Bloomberg] Decline in teen employment in US since 2000 was sharpest for those age 16–17, examining some reasons [David Neumark and Cortnie Shupe, Mercatus Working Paper via Connor Wolf, Inside Sources]
- “Will D.C. End Tipping?” [Thomas Firey, Cato] “I’m your bartender. I don’t want a raise.” [Ryan Aston, Washington Post] Hollywood campaign isn’t helping [Wendyll Caisse, Inside Sources on Restaurant Opportunities Center vs. Restaurant Workers of America]
- If freedom of contract had been respected, whole debate would look different to begin with: “A Colorado Minimum Wage Waiver?” [Ryan Bourne, Cato]
- Federal regulatory role: “Will Restaurants Steal Employees’ Tips if the Feds Let Them?” [Robert Verbruggen, NRO]
- Seyfarth Shaw survey: while employers beat more wage/hour cases at the certification stage in 2017, overall class action payouts in workplace class actions continued to soar [Glenn Minnis, Cook County Record]
- “If You Don’t Want To Tip 15%, An NYC Lawyer Will Help You Sue Applebee’s” [Angela Underwood, Legal Newsline]