Jury finds Avenatti guilty in $20 million Nike extortion attempt

A jury has found celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti guilty of two counts of extortion and one of honest services fraud related to his hold-up of apparel company Nike [earlier here, see also]

“And it’s worth more in exposure to me to just blow the lid on this thing. A few million dollars doesn’t move the needle for me. I’m just being really frank with you … I’ll go take $10 billion off your client’s market cap. But I’m not f—ing around.”

Avenatti demanded more than $20 million from Nike while keeping his client in the dark, testimony revealed. He said the company should hire him and another prominent attorney representing Franklin, Mark Geragos, to conduct an internal investigation.

A lawyer trying to extort a fortune from a deep pocket target. The things that go on in this world. [Stephen Rex Brown, New York Daily News;

Filed under: legal extortion

Wage and hour roundup

Second thoughts about torpedoing one of the city’s best-known attractions? “New York Decides To Keep Restaurants’ Tip Credit” [Peter Romeo, Restaurant Business] “Sacramento Restaurants Closing Due To Imminent Minimum Wage Increase” [CBS Sacramento]
Toughened set of overtime rules, though less drastic than what the Obama administration tried to impose, went into effect January 1 [Ryan Golden, HR Dive]
U.K. Labour Party leadership contender Rebecca Long-Bailey “has called for an end to ’24/7 work culture’, where workers will be given the right to switch off digital devices outside their work hours to alleviate stress and anxiety. Journalists received the embargoed press release at 19:25 last night…” [Guido Fawkes]
“Recent historical episodes suggest that many workers experiencing an income shock treat the ridesharing platform as a short-term option.” Paper tests how Uber’s entry affects labor markets [Vyacheslav Fos, Naser Hamdi, Ankit Kalda, and Jordan Nickerson, Cato Research Brief]
“Give Me A Break: DOL Regulations Need Updating to Afford Workers Desired Flexibility” [Gregory Jacob, Michael Lotito, and Tammy McCutchen, Federalist Society Regulatory Transparency Project]
“What Bernie Sanders Gets Wrong About the Minimum Wage” [John Stossel] “How Seattle’s $15 minimum wage killed entry-level jobs.” [John Stossel and Maxim Lott] Minimum wage rests on a moral belief about the citizens and the state that is to say the least contestable [Pierre Lemieux]

Filed under: Bernie Sanders, minimum wage, New York, restaurants, taxis and ridesharing, wage and hour suits

Hearing might be required before city can close business under nuisance-abatement law

Earlier this month we linked the story of a Dallas car wash owner whose business was shut down by the city under a nuisance abatement law because it was deemed to attract crime, even though the owner was not alleged to have done anything to further the crime and in fact had called police many times to complain about it.

Last month a Sixth Circuit panel, over a dissent, ruled that the city of Saginaw, Mich. may have violated Rita Johnson’s rights when it shut down her Rita’s Southern Soul Café without first according her a hearing. Johnson had rented out her restaurant one evening to a private party; “For unknown reasons, individuals unaffiliated with her or the party emerged from a vehicle that night and began shooting at the restaurant.” Police surmise that rivalry between gangs might have prompted the attack, but neither perpetrators nor motive were established. The case now goes back for further litigation in which Johnson will be allowed to argue that a hearing before shutting down her café would have been warranted. [Johnson v. Morales via Institute for Justice “Short Circuit”]

Filed under: crime and punishment, nuisance, Sixth Circuit

Lawyer billed over 6,600 hours in year

Plausibility matters: “to hit $600,000 in two years Lester [a court-appointed defense lawyer in Charleston, W.V.] would have had to bill 13,333.3 hours during that time. This of course would be an average of 6,666.6 hours per year. Is that a lot? No. It’s an awful lot.” And when discovered, it got him in trouble, especially after an investigation found at least 17 days for which he had billed more than 24 hours. [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar]

Filed under: attorneys' fees, West Virginia

February 12 roundup

Did the Supreme Court err in Employment Division v. Smith when it ruled that the Free Exercise Clause provides no exemption from burdens on religious conscience resulting from neutral and generally applicable laws? [Federalist Society Rosenkranz Debate with Michael McConnell and Philip Hamburger] Will the Court revisit Employment Division, as four Justices (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh) recently suggested? [Eric Baxter on Ricks v. Idaho Contractors Board]
Maryland: “Don’t suspend drivers’ licenses over fines/fees unrelated to road safety” [my new Free State Notes]
“A motley group of powerful companies have their knives out for Section 230, which shields platforms from lawsuits over content posted by users.” [David McCabe, New York Times; Gigi Sohn on Twitter]
Did U.S. Customs destroy an African musician’s uniquely crafted instrument, or was it damaged in transit? Stories differ [Isobel van Hagen and Sarah Kaufman, NBC News; earlier here, here, here, etc.]
R.I.P. David N. Mayer, emeritus professor at Capital Law and constitutional scholar who did important work on the views of the Founders and on the Contracts Clause [Roger Pilon, Cato]
Another Emoluments suit fizzles for lack of standing, as I predicted three years ago [Megan Mineiro, Courthouse News (suit on behalf of individual members of Congress); sage advice from Grover Norquist]

Filed under: Maryland, music and musicians, petty fines and fees, religious liberty, social media, traffic laws

“He told a kid to slide. Then he got sued.”

Junior varsity baseball player in New Jersey “suffered a brutal ankle injury on a slide, and his family sued the coach who told him to do it.” The seven-year legal battle that resulted “threatened to change youth sports forever.” [Steve Politi, NJ.com via Peter Bonilla]

Filed under: baseball, New Jersey, sports

Louisiana: a remedy for fake subpoenas?

The district attorney in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, which includes the city of New Orleans, pressured witnesses and crime victims into cooperating through the use of fake “subpoenas” warning them of fines or jail time for nonappearance. “The documents were neither authorized by a judge nor issued by a county clerk…. Cannizzaro’s office was producing them itself. Worse yet: Even though the subpoenas were unlawful, he really did jail people who didn’t obey them.” Can they sue him? [Zuri Davis, Reason]

Filed under: Louisiana, prosecutorial abuse, subpoenas

Schools and childhood roundup

Most kids find whole milk the most palatable and there’s now evidence that it can also be a healthier choice for many. So why should the federal school lunch program prevent localities from offering it? [Change.org petition, Alice Park, Time 2016; Skeptical Cardiologist; Philip Gruber, Lancaster Farming] Don’t expect much from new changes to federal school lunch program [Baylen Linnekin]
Even when one parent’s a pediatric emergency room doc, a family can still be vulnerable to having their infant seized by Child Protective Services over ambiguous indicators of physical injury. A Wisconsin nightmare [Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC News; Lenore Skenazy]
Economist Emily Oster speaks on her book Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool [Cato event video, joined by Julie Gunlock and Chelsea Follett, and related Cato Daily Podcast with Oster and Caleb Brown]
“A 2019 report found that the number of small family child care providers (one person caring for children in his/her own home) declined by 35 percent from 2011 to 2017. … Unsurprisingly, during this same time child care licensing requirements increased dramatically.” [Angela Rachidi, AEI; earlier here, here, here, etc.]
On requirements for “community service hours” before graduation: “My line is that community service is for convicted criminals, but high school students are innocent.” [Arnold Kling]
“Florida 6-year-old arrested, handcuffed for elementary school tantrum” [Ebony Bowden, New York Post in September] “Pointing a finger gun lands 12-year-old Johnson County student in handcuffs” [Mará Rose Williams, Kansas City Star]

Filed under: Child Protective Services, school lunch, schools

“L.A. leaders weigh a new idea to halt rent hikes: Force landlords to sell their buildings”

Los Angeles council members propose using eminent domain to seize apartment buildings to prevent rent hikes. The complex was built under a deal that required the developer/owner to hold rents below market levels for thirty years, and that period has now expired. [David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times; Christian Britschgi, Reason]

I think the scheme is premised in part on sponsors’ knowing that the city could proceed to make a low-ball offer premised on some combination of 1) uncertainty about whether judges would in fact award a fair market value sum that reflected actual market values, 2) the expected cost of litigation, and 3) other leverage the city might be able to bring to bear on the owners. Gideon Kanner, emeritus professor at Loyola L.A. Law and land use expert, has had a running feature for years at his blog called “Lowball Watch” with many examples of the low-ball offers routinely made in eminent domain proceedings.

Filed under: eminent domain, landlord tenant law, Los Angeles, real estate

The unstable politics of religious accommodation

Claims for accommodation of religious conscience are not inherently a “right” or “left” phenomenon, any more than is religion itself. That’s an old story — in case anyone had forgotten the sides Justices Brennan and Scalia took on the constitutional angle — but it comes to mind once more with an Arizona federal court’s decision in favor of four liberal believers moved to violate federal law out of sympathy for persons illegally crossing the southwest border. David French, The Dispatch:

Using RFRA [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, oft a target of liberal wrath in recent years], it overturned the convictions of four people affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Church who were prosecuted for “violations of the regulations governing the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge.” The defendants were convicted after entering the refuge without the necessary permits and “leaving supplies of food and water in an area of desert wilderness where people frequently die of dehydration and exposure.”

Questions of entitlement to religious exemption and accommodation from otherwise applicable law are best decided according to impartial principle, not on the basis of which team stands to benefit in the case at hand.

Filed under: religious liberty