- “A new target for tech patent trolls: cash-strapped American cities” [Joe Mullin, Ars Technica] Crowdsourcing troll control [Farhad Manjoo, Slate] “Why patent trolls don’t need valid patents” [Felix Salmon] “Why Hayek Would Have Hated Software Patents” [Timothy Lee, Cato] Et tu, Shoah Foundation? [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- Cory King case: “Not Everything Can Be a Federal Crime” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- “Ban on smoking in cars with young children clears Md. Senate” [WaPo]
- On religious exemption to birth control mandate, NYT wrestles with unwelcome poll numbers [Mickey Kaus]
- “Undocumented Law Grad Can’t Get Driver’s License, But Hopes for Fla. Supreme Court OK of Law License” [ABA Journal]
- Department of Justice launches campaign against racial disparities in school discipline [Jason Riley, WSJ via Amy Alkon]
- James Gattuso and Diane Katz, “Red Tape Rising: Obama-Era Regulation at the Three-Year Mark” [Heritage]
Author Archive
Lawyer: ER “simply not permitted to discharge” without ruling out life-threatening conditions
That’s what Connecticut plaintiff’s lawyer Craig Yankwitt said on filing a lawsuit against Stamford Hospital’s Tully immediate-care unit for allegedly missing pulmonary embolisms in a Greenwich man who came in complaining of flank pain. [Connecticut Post] White Coat analyzes what it would mean for emergency departments to hold on to patients until any possible life-threatening conditions had been ruled out.
Hotel pools and the ADA: a 60-day deadline extension
Following a substantial outcry (see Mar. 14), the Department of Justice has announced a 60-day stay of its new regulations requiring costly lifts and other fixes at hotel pools. It will also consider a six-month extension to address what it insufferably describes as “misunderstandings regarding compliance with these ADA requirements.” Translation: “opponents were persuading the public that the mandate was unreasonable.” Hotel and insurance officials had confirmed that many operators were considering closing pools or smaller water features such as whirlpools, which must often be given their own separate permanent lift installations under the rules. [Barbara De Lollis, USA Today] On the notion that it doesn’t pay lawyers to sue over uncompliant hotel pools, see this 2007 coverage of what was even then a busy litigation docket in California and elsewhere.
Marc Randazza
Marc Randazza is a prominent First Amendment lawyer who has been a friend to this site and many others. Popehat, Eric Turkewitz, Amy Alkon and back-in-commission Scott Greenfield are all posting well-merited appreciations.
Finally! Overlawyered on Facebook
Great news: thanks to Zach Graves and Cato’s new media department, Overlawyered finally has a working Facebook page with post updates and everything. Please take a moment to Like it now (& Tom Freeland (“Overlawyered celebrates discovery of world’s dumbest Facebook user by joining Facebook”)).
Using federal bucks to lobby for food nannyism
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offers no apologies for what might seem a disturbing breach of the principle that taxpayer funds should not go to lobbying [Caroline May, Daily Caller] Earlier on the oughta-be-controversial federal food-policy grant program here, here, etc. More: Abby Schachter on CDC’s Thomas Frieden [NY Post].
Jacket toggles that could get caught on doorways
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) stands guard against them. [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids]
March 15 roundup
- Part III of Radley Balko series on painkiller access [HuffPo]
- “Note: Add ‘Judge’s Nameplate’ to List of Things Not to Steal” [Lowering the Bar]
- California’s business-hostile climate: if the ADA mills don’t get you, other suits might [CACALA]
- Bottom story of the month: ABA president backs higher legal services budget [ABA Journal]
- After string of courtroom defeats, Teva pays to settle Nevada propofol cases [Oliver, earlier]
- Voting Rights Act has outstayed its constitutional welcome [Ilya Shapiro/Cato] More: Stuart Taylor, Jr./The Atlantic.
- Huge bust of what NY authorities say was $279 million crash-fraud ring NY Post, NYLJ, Business Insider, Turkewitz (go after dishonest docs on both sides)]
ADA: Everyone out of the pool
Unless hotels have moved to install expensive and cumbersome wheelchair lifts, they face new fines and litigation exposure under new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations taking effect today. I explain why many pools will close as a result — and trace some of the ideological background — in my new post at Cato at Liberty (& Adler, Alkon, Frank, Adam Freedman/Ricochet (“the regulators have truly gone off the deep end,”) George Leef/Locke).
More: Notwithstanding my comments about Congressional Republicans being unhelpful, Sen. DeMint has filed a bill that would prevent the regulations from taking effect on their March 15 date. [Daily Caller] And Prof. Bagenstos defends the regulations in a way that I much fear will mislead newcomers to the topic. He emphasizes, for example, that hotel payouts resulting from federally mandated damages to complainants are for the moment unlikely. But as we know, the incentive of (one-way) attorneys’ fees has all by itself been enough to fuel a sizable volume of ADA complaint-filing, while in states like California the availability of piggyback damages under enactments like the Unruh Act turn many nominally zero-damage federal cases into highly profitable extraction propositions. As for the limitation of exposure to what is “readily achievable,” the USA Today report illustrates how uncertainty over the meaning of that term can leave pool operators exposed to risky and high-cost litigation. In the real world, fixes that wipe out the economic viability of a given pool (or the facility of which it is a part) are indeed asserted by advocacy groups to be “readily achievable.” That makes it cold comfort that some facilities can stave off liability for the moment by pledging to install the equipment by some future date.
Canada: lender’s inspection may create liability to third parties
A British Columbia court has allowed a suit to proceed arguing that a government lending program which included inspection of the property to be renovated could incur a duty to third persons who might later fall on a staircase whose faults allegedly would have been detected had inspection not been negligent. [Erik Magraken; Benoit v. Banfield]