Travails of French employers under the Code du Travail — though it’s not as if America doesn’t have plenty of firms that follow the same strategy of keeping head counts below a certain regulatory-trigger threshold. [Business Week]
Author Archive
Maryland pit bull ruling, cont’d
It’s presumably an intended effect of the recent court ruling that landlords will threaten families with eviction unless they stop keeping the dogs as pets, and that skittish insurers will hike rates on such households sharply or refuse to insure them entirely. But there is much uncertainty as to exactly which dogs count as “pit bulls”; will Maryland pet owners need to shell out for DNA testing, at $120 a pop? And is it also an intended effect of the ruling that unoffending, well-trained dogs end up being euthanized in droves? “Ohio recently repealed its statewide breed-specific legislation because it was ineffective and inequitable,” notes my Cato Institute colleague Nita Ghei. [Daily Caller, earlier]
“‘People’s Rights Amendment’ Would Knock Out People’s Rights”
George Will gets to the essence of this grotesque assault on civil liberties, fed by demagoguery over the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision:
McGovern [Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.] stresses that his amendment decrees that “all corporate entities — for-profit and nonprofit alike” — have no constitutional rights. So Congress — and state legislatures and local governments — could regulate to the point of proscription political speech, or any other speech, by the Sierra Club, the National Rifle Association, NARAL Pro-Choice America or any of the other tens of thousands of nonprofit corporate advocacy groups, including political parties and campaign committees.
Newspapers, magazines, broadcasting entities, online journalism operations — and most religious institutions — are corporate entities. McGovern’s amendment would strip them of all constitutional rights.
Incredibly, versions of this radical rights-stripping measure has been endorsed through resolutions by the state legislatures of Vermont, Hawaii, and New Mexico, with backing from groups like Public Citizen. [Ilya Shapiro and Kathleen Hunker, Cato; Hans Bader, CEI; earlier] More: Professor Bainbridge (“utterly moronic”)] Among sponsors of this extraordinary measure: Reps. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), David Cicilline (R.I.), Steve Cohen (Tenn.), John Conyers, Jr. (Mich.), Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Peter DeFazio (Ore.), Eliot Engel (N.Y.), Sam Farr (Calif.), Bob Filner (Calif.), Gene Green (Tex.), Raul Grijalva (Ariz.), Janice Hahn (Calif.), Martin Heinrich (N.M.), Maurice Hinchey (N.Y.), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (Ill.), Walter B. Jones, Jr. (N.C.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Jim McDermott (Wash.), Christopher Murphy (Ct.), Richard Neal (Mass.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.), John Olver (Mass.), Chellie Pingree (Maine), Louise McIntosh Slaughter (N.Y.), Adam Smith (Wash.), John Tierney (Mass.), and Peter Welch (Vt.). Murphy is running for an open U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut.
“He couldn’t prove it was legitimate”
Nice $22,000 you’re carrying, Mister Motorist, but I think it would look nicer in the police department’s bank account [News Channel 5 Nashville via Radley Balko]. Driver George Reby, a professional insurance adjuster from New Jersey, was then permitted to go on his way since he “hadn’t committed a criminal law [violation],” as the police officer later explained to a reporter. It happened in Monterey, Tenn., not Monterrey, Mexico.
Wal-Mart sued over teen’s bogus P.A. announcement
At a Wal-Mart store in Turnersville, N.J. in 2010, a 16-year-old visitor got hold of the store’s public address system momentarily and announced to shoppers, “Attention Walmart customers: All black people must leave the store.” “A manager quickly made his own announcement, apologizing for the message. … The teenager was charged with harassment and bias intimidation, but now Donnell Battie, who is black, is suing Walmart claiming the store was negligent and reckless and showed deliberate indifference by not keeping the P.A. system safe from abuse.” [Gloucester County Times]
Law schools roundup
- Yale lawprof Peter Schuck reviews Schools for Misrule [American Lawyer last November, alas behind subscription paywall]
- Look at bright side: Prof. Warren “did not list herself with the AALS as the rightful Empress of France” [Popehat; Seth Mandel, Commentary]
- Jeffrey O’Connell, greatly admired and influential torts scholar at the University of Virginia, retires from teaching [via Robinette]
- New Brian Tamanaha book on law schools stirs wide interest [Orin Kerr, Scott Greenfield, Chron of Higher Ed via TaxProf, Bill Henderson]
- In recent criminal law and procedure cases, high-level academic opinion did sway Supreme Court [Jack Chin, Prawfs]
- “75 Years of Law Professors as Pundits” [Kyle Graham; and thanks for Schools For Misrule reference)
- Kindle version of Charles Reich’s “Greening of America” omits super-embarrassing stuff. It’s 80% shorter [Ann Althouse]
Man says custody battle cost life savings
Canine custody, that is: Craig Dershowitz says he’s spent $60,000 suing his ex-girlfriend over who will get their dog. “It’s worth it,” he says. [NY Post via Elie Mystal, Above the Law]
New Jersey woman sued over sending text to someone who was driving
A judge in Morris County, N.J. is expected to rule soon whether to dismiss Shannon Colonna as a defendant in a lawsuit over a car crash. Colonna was far from the scene at the time, but plaintiffs said she had sent a text message to the driver whose inattention caused the accident, and thus aided and abetted his negligence. [The Record; AP; NJLRA] Update: judge dismisses claims against Colonna.
May 15 roundup
- “Fan sues Insane Clown Posse after injury at Illinois concert” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] “As Insanity is not a defense to the claim, the Clowns are now adding litigation counsel to their Posse.” [@colinsamuels]
- Suit on behalf of school-cheat son “wouldn’t have been much of a story” if dad had left argument to hired gun [Mark Bennett, earlier]
- If you can’t buy a Coke with your debit card any more, this may be why [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason] Related: “a ‘do-nothing Congress’ is sort of like a ‘do-nothing arsonist.'” [IowaHawk]
- L.A. judge reverses much-publicized Honda small claims award [CBS Local, earlier]
- Harris County judge deems pig “common, traditional” pet in homeowner association suit [Houston Chronicle]
- Plaintiffs, not just defendants, can use Daubert to exclude opponents’ scientific theories that fall short of general acceptance by the relevant scientific community. Why is this news when it was clearly part of the intended and expected effect of Daubert from day one? [guestposter Mark Bower at Turkewitz]
- “The unfair attack on ALEC” [Ted Frank and Jim Copland at PoL] More: Wendy Gramm and Brooke Rollins, WSJ.
DoJ: Wells Fargo biased in maintenance of foreclosed properties
Kevin Funnell at Bank Lawyers Blog is a bit cynical about the Department of Justice’s headline-ready threats of enforcement action:
[The DOJ claims] appear to be based upon consumer advocates’ claims that the bank takes better care of foreclosed-upon real estate it owns in neighborhoods where white people live than it does in areas where minorities live. I suspect that the bank will assert that (a) any rational real estate owner is only going to invest money in a piece of real estate where the owner has a realistic chance of recouping that investment through a higher sales price, (b) that such recoupment decisions are made on a property-by-property basis based upon objective data like recent comparable sales prices and fair market valuations, (c) that the economic reality-driven facts of life are that many more such properties are located in majority-white neighborhoods than in minority neighborhoods, and (d) there has been no intent to discriminate, merely to minimize losses…. As we’ve previously noted, the DOJ is on a jihad against lenders based upon “disparate impact” theories that the DOJ knows, in its heart-of-hearts, are highly fragile when exposed to the light of logic, the kind of logic applied by the US Supreme Court. Justice will likely pursue Wells Fargo and try to squeeze some dough out of it before the highest court eventually shuts down this racket.