“The driver of a bus on which Florida A&M University drum major Robert Champion was beaten to death in November stood guard while he was assaulted by fellow band members, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Orlando by Champion’s family.” The bus was parked in a hotel parking lot with the driver not aboard during the incident. The president of the sued company disputes the contentions, saying the driver “did not see any hazing aboard the bus on which Champion collapsed. ‘If she would have seen that, we definitely would have stopped it,'” he said. [Orlando Sentinel]
Author Archive
The STOCK Act and Congressional inside trading
DealBreaker and Prof. Bainbridge try to clarify what the proposed ban would do, and address fears that it would criminalize stock trading by persons not employed by Congress who learn of impending legislative developments. Related: Jim Copland.
February 17 roundup
- Mortgage robo-signing settlement not actually as punitive toward the banks as you might think, succeeds in sticking costs onto various parties not at table [FT, more (US taxpayers could wind up covering much of write-down costs through HAMP program); Felix Salmon (write-downs of underwater mortgages should not be assessed at face value); Mark Calabria, Cato and more, Bloomberg (banks managing to offload much of the cramdown onto investors such as pension funds); Daniel Fisher/Forbes one, two, three (banks get covert benefits, politicos get social engineering and fees — shades of the collusive tobacco settlement!); Above the Law (Schneiderman steers money to legal services programs); Linette Lopez, BI (banks still exposed on many issues). More: Hans Bader, John Steele Gordon.
- “Burned at mediation by my own Facebook post” [Stuart Mauney, Abnormal Use]
- As anti-discrimination law advances, religious liberty retreats [Roger Pilon, Cato] Two views on the birth control mandate [Cathy Young, David Henderson] More: Adler, Frum.
- Motel Caswell case from Tewksbury, Mass. heads to court, could test forfeiture law [Balko] More: Washington Post editorial.
- Which is more unreasonable, OSHA regulation or FAA’s? Open to dispute [John Cochrane, Grumpy Economist]
- Indiana becomes a right to work state. On to Michigan next? [Shikha Dalmia, Reason]
- Warning! Tale of trial psychologists in wizard garb comes from a sinister source, namely me [“In the News,” forensic psychologist Karen Franklin, handsome illustration swiped from Cato site]
Obama administration: we’ve created many regulatory-compliance jobs
If there’s something a little off in the phrase “job-killing regulation,” there’s something much more off in the notion of job-creating regulation, or so I argue in my new Cato post (& WLF, Above the Law).
Newest health scare: organic brown rice syrup
Traces of arsenic occur naturally in many foodstuffs, and apparently syrup derived from brown rice can have one of the higher concentrations [Chicago Tribune] Next shoe to drop: steak, creme brulee turn out to be good for you.
Great moments in jail litigation
Washington: “Lawyers on Monday spent more than two hours arguing over whether a woman charged with aggravated murder should have access to coffee, tea, Cocoa Puffs and candy bars while she’s locked up in the Snohomish County Jail.” [Diana Hefley, “Murder suspect wants Cocoa Puffs in jail,” Everett Herald]
Metro-East’s own Gothic horror?
To the editors of the Chamber-backed Madison County Record, some of the courthouses in the section of Illinois east of St. Louis recall Daphne Du Maurier’s “Jamaica Inn” and its gang of cutthroat shipwreckers.
Law schools roundup
- “It’s time for the ABA to deregulate law schools” [Richard Painter, Legal Ethics Forum]
- Curb schadenfreude please, it’s just class action entrepreneurship: “Law Schools Sued for Lying About Lawyering” [NY Magazine]
- “AALS President: Law Professors Should Be ‘Cheerleaders’ for ‘Our Way of Life.'” [Instapundit]
- “Widener Law settles with Prof. Lawrence Connell” [William Jacobson, Legal Insurrection, earlier here, here, here, etc.] Sensitivity camp at U. of Idaho Law [ATL] Peter Wood on Teresa Wagner case [Chronicle]
- Perspective of a practitioner turned professor [David Hricik] Claim: proliferation of “soft” curriculum really isn’t something to worry about [Brad Wendel] “Justice Scalia makes up with University of Chicago” [Chicago Sun-Times]
- “The coming crash in legal education” [Richard Bourne, Creighton Law Review/University of Baltimore/SSRN via Caron] Could law schools recover from adversity the way dental schools did? [Eric Chiappinelli, Faculty Lounge] “Why Occam’s Razor cuts in favor of making law an undergraduate degree” [Russ Pearce, LEF]
- US News changes rating methodology, and law schools’ part-time day programs suddenly dry up [Caron]
- Attention New Yorkers: if you missed my talk Tuesday at Fordham on Schools for Misrule, I’ll be back in town next Wednesday (Feb. 22) for a 1 p.m. talk at Brooklyn Law School before that school’s Federalist Society chapter; also that evening at Yale with distinguished Prof. John Fabian Witt commenting.
Seats too small: the sequel
An overweight customer in Rockland County, N.Y. has dropped his Americans with Disabilities Act suit against White Castle after a Nanuet, N.Y. outpost of the hamburger chain put in new free-standing chairs that could accommodate him [NY Post, December via Lowering the Bar, earlier]
Child support for adult college students, cont’d
Two years ago a public outcry helped defeat a Virginia proposal that would have required that divorced noncustodial parents continue to support children in college through age 23. (Our post at the time.) Now, as Hans Bader of CEI points out, Maryland’s legislature is considering a bill (up for hearing Feb. 23) to impose this obligation on parents. It doesn’t look as radical as the Virginia bill — the support obligation would only extend through age 21, not 23, for example — and it’s easy to see why it might appeal to the state university and its budgeters, as well as to pro-custodial-parent constituencies in family law. But it still raises some of the same questions of fairness and practicality, given that children past 18 are legally independent and need not be even on speaking terms with the estranged parents, who may be in no financial position to consider, say, finishing their own delayed college plans, yet are expected to foot college bills for their estranged offspring.