“For roughly 200 years, trial transcripts were popular, if not the favorite, reading material in the English-speaking world — especially in Britain.” Theodore Dalrymple recounts high points from “the 83 volumes of Notable British Trials, which are as complete a compendium of human nature as has ever appeared.” [City Journal]
Archive for July, 2018
How to steal a house in Philadelphia
Home-stealing through the filing of false deeds and other legal documents is a problem that goes way back in Philadelphia. And it’s still happening. Ask Tonya Bell, who went to City Hall three years ago and found that she had been declared dead, and that someone else had taken possession of an empty house she owned. [Craig R. McCoy, Philadelphia Daily News]
William Howard Taft and the Constitutional presidency
Cato Forum on Jeffrey Rosen’s short new book on William Howard Taft (American Presidents Series) with comments by Judge Douglas Ginsburg and moderated by Cato’s Gene Healy:
Jeffrey Rosen argues that Taft has much to teach us today. Our “most judicial president,” who later served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, shared the Framers’ conception of the presidency as a constitutional rather than a popular office. In his single presidential term and his failed bid for reelection in the pivotal 1912 race, Taft staunchly opposed Teddy Roosevelt’s “stewardship” theory of the office, which empowered the president “to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or the laws.” The president’s authority, Taft countered, is limited to what the Constitution and the laws specifically grant, and to hold otherwise would lead to an imperial presidency.
In his reluctance to rule by executive order or wage war without Congress — and in his resistance to popular passions — Taft serves both as a model of what a constitutional presidency could be and a reminder of the challenges facing that model in the modern era.
Environment roundup
- California state agency in charge of Prop 65 enforcement seeks to effectively reverse judge’s recent ruling and exempt naturally occurring acrylamide levels in coffee from need for warning [Cal Biz Lit] Prop 65 listing mechanism requires listing of substances designated by a strictly private organization, spot the problem with that [WLF brief in Monsanto Co. v. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment]
- Yes, those proposals to ban plastic straws are a test run for broader plastic prohibitions [Christian Britschgi, Honolulu Star-Advertiser] Impact on disabled users, for whom metal, bamboo, and paper substitutes often don’t work as well [Allison Shoemaker, The Takeout] Surprising facts about fishing nets [Adam Minter, Bloomberg, earlier]
- “A closely watched climate case is dismissed; Will the others survive?” [Daniel Fisher on dismissal of San Francisco, Oakland cases] Rhode Island files first state lawsuit, cheered by mass tort veteran Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) [Spencer Walrath/Energy in Depth, Mike Bastasch/Daily Caller]
- Meanwhile back in Colorado: Denver Post, Gale Norton, other voices criticize Boulder, other municipal climate suits [Rebecca Simons, Energy in Depth, earlier here and here]
- Waters of the United States: time to repeal and replace this unconstitutional rule [Jonathan Wood, The Hill, earlier on WOTUS]
- “What you’re talking about is law enforcement for hire”: at least nine state AG offices “are looking to hire privately funded lawyers to work on environmental litigation through a foundation founded by” nationally ambitious billionaire and former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg [Mike Bastasch]
Emotional support, therapy and companion dogs in court
“As dogs and other animals are increasingly used in courts to comfort and calm prosecution witnesses, a few voices are calling for keeping the practice on a short leash, saying they could bias juries.” [AP/WTOP]
July 5 roundup
- State by state survey of 140 bills around the country on hot topics related to religious accommodation, including adoption, service refusals, campus speech, health care, etc. [Kelsey Dallas, Deseret News] And don’t forget to mark your calendar for two weeks from today when Cato will host our half-day conference on adoption, foster care, and pluralism with an array of fine speakers;
- What ails long-haul trucking in a time of prosperity? Federal break regulations, electronic monitoring, artificial constraints on parking among factors [Virginia Postrel, Bloomberg]
- Antitrust debates cut across political spectrum [Daniel A. Crane, Cato Regulation magazine] “Solicitor General Inveighs Against Antitrust-Law Revolution in SCOTUS ‘Apple v. Pepper’ Amicus Brief” [Corbin Barthold, WLF]
- These seem like well-planned-out laws: Google suspends running campaign ads in Washington and Maryland following states’ enactment of new disclosure laws [Michael Dresser, Baltimore Sun, Jim Brunner and Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times, Scott Shackford]
- “Missouri appeals court tosses $55 million Johnson & Johnson talc-powder verdict” [Reuters, earlier (courts reverse two other big verdicts) and generally]
- “What Secretary Carson Should Know about Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)” [Vanessa Brown Calder, earlier]
DoJ intervenes against Clean Water Act frequent filer
The citizen-suit provision of the Clean Water Act (CWA) “allows any individual or organization that can establish standing to bring litigation against both private parties and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),” and incentivizes such suits by allowing filers to collect attorney’s fees. While some valuable enforcement actions may result, writes Marc Robertson for the Washington Legal Foundation,
it is not difficult for shakedown litigators to identify targets. One especially easy theory to advance in citizen-suit litigation is unlawful stormwater pollution. Stormwater regulations are exceedingly broad, and almost any business whose production process generates as a by-product anything that could be classified as a pollutant is vulnerable to a lawsuit. In many cases, attorneys’ fees can far exceed the damage from the alleged violations, leading companies to settle rather than litigate.
Recently, DOJ filed statements in three ongoing lawsuits that allege violations of stormwater discharge limits. … those suits are just three of more than 150 notices of violation submitted by this same law firm since 2016.
The similarly worded complaints, against industrial facilities in the Los Angeles area, alleged that pollutants at each facility washed off the property during rainstorms. While the government seldom exercises its right to intervene in citizen suits, DoJ in its three filings asked the court to examine whether the actions were truly an effective way to enforce the CWA or were serving other, less public goals. [Alfonso Lares v. Reliable Wholesale Lumber Inc. filing]
A look at Justice Anthony Kennedy’s record
Roger Pilon and I join Caleb Brown in This Cato podcast assessing the 30-year tenure of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who usually reached sound outcomes but often not by the reasoning we might have liked. Among the topics discussed: the gay rights cases, Kennedy’s change of tune on enumerated powers, and his authorship of Citizens United.
Europe’s new data-privacy law helps… guess who?
The European Union’s new privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, is sometimes defended as a response to the prospect that too much data will concentrate in the hands of the biggest corporate data users. Per the WSJ, however, one of its earliest effects “is drawing advertising money toward Google’s online-ad services and away from competitors that are straining to show they’re complying with the sweeping regulation.” In particular, Google is showing a higher rate of success in gathering individuals’ consents to be marketed to. [Tyler Cowen] With bonus mention of CPSIA: “The Inevitable Lifecycle of Government Regulation Benefiting the Very Companies Whose Actions Triggered It” [Coyote]
“‘Dancing Baby’ lawsuit finally settles, baby is now a middle-school student”
“Universal Music Publishing Group has finally settled its copyright lawsuit involving Stephanie Lenz, the woman who posted a short video of her son dancing to a Prince song in 2007.” [Cyrus Farivar, ArsTechnica, earlier]