Like others who’ve looked at the question of how to close the federal government’s vast budget deficit, it finds promise in the idea of curbing liability payouts and defensive medicine. Trial lawyers are vowing to fight. [National Law Journal, Point of Law]
Author Archive
“Counsel shall not make any derogatory remarks generally about trial lawyers”
A breach-of-contract trial under way in D.C. this week “pits the trial lawyers group American Association for Justice against its would-be lender, Wachovia Bank.” [ABA Journal]
The new (and very activist) Obama EEOC
Jenna Greene at American Lawyer reports on the “ambitious agenda” the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has taken up lately under Chairwoman Jacqueline Berrien, and quotes me as saying the new group in charge of the commission “make the Carter [administration] EEOC look like a Chamber of Commerce operation.” Related: “EEOC reports record charge filings for 2010” [Hyman]
Booze-laced whipped cream
Alcohol and obesity risk, together: Jacob Sullum may have identified the next target of ire for the disapprovers of fun. [Reason “Hit and Run”] Related: “The Case Against Health” [Richard Klein, Chronicle of Higher Education]
Cato podcast on food safety bill
I’m interviewed by Caleb Brown in this audio feature. It’s about seven minutes long and was taped on Monday, before the Senate’s vote in favor of S. 510.
“I never thought we’d be trademarking a high school logo”
IP worries filter down to the junior football scrimmage. [New York Times]
Tort liability for property losses
The Washington Supreme Court opens a product liability can of worms by abandoning a traditional doctrine that prescribes that when there was a contract between the parties, remedies for purely economic loss blamed on product defectiveness must be based on principles of contract law, not tort law. [Russell Jackson]
CPSIA: the new consumer-complaint database
A 3-2 vote at the Consumer Product Safety Commission last week ensures that the federal government will put its imprimatur behind allegations about supposed hazards in consumer products — whether true or not. I explain in a new post at Cato at Liberty.
P.S. Kelly Young comments: “I wonder if they’d be willing to maintain a public database of complaints against federal employees?” More: Coyote (comparing relative sophistication of Amazon, TripAdvisor consumer ratings systems with primitive nature of CPSC’s); letter from Rep. Joe Barton, PDF; Washington Post; ACSH.
Brian Aitken case, cont’d
A seven-year New Jersey gun-possession sentence gets coverage in the Philadelphia Daily News [via TigerHawk; earlier here and here]
Plus: David Rittgers, Cato at Liberty (urging pardon by Gov. Chris Christie).
Employers and the newly expanded ADA
In the ADA Amendments Act, signed by then-President George W. Bush in 2008 and taking effect the next year, Congress drastically expanded the scope of disabled-rights law, to cover, for example, persons “regarded as” disabled, as well as other formerly uncovered categories. According to one attorney advisor, employers from here out should basically assume everyone in their workforce is going to qualify as “disabled” if push comes to shove: “Challenging the employee’s ‘disability’ status is a waste of time with the new expanded definition of ‘disability’.” [Robin Shea, Employment and Labor Insider]