A sardonic congratulations to the Washington DC lawyers who won a $1.4 million federal jury verdict against the Kroger subsidiary “King Soopers”, a Colorado grocery store that dared to give a 7-cents/gallon gasoline discount to customers who purchased $100 in groceries. Because of the “unfair trade” verdict, Colorado Safeway stores have announced that they will stop offering 10-cent/gallon discounts to customers who purchase $50 in groceries. Consumers everywhere will rest happy knowing that they have to pay more for gasoline and that lawyers profited from the experience. (Greg Griffin, “Safeway, too, caps customers’ gas savings”, Denver Post, Nov. 8). At least the Rocky Mountain News was sufficiently disgusted that it called for a repeal of the perverse 1937 law.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
UK free speech, cont’d
Too much liberty of expression survives in that country for the government’s liking:
New laws to clamp down on racism are being prepared by the Government after the leader of the far-right British National Party was cleared of stirring up racial hatred by attacking Islam.
Gordon Brown swiftly pledged to bring in tougher powers to raise the chance of convictions in similar cases, calling the BNP’s statements offensive.
His intervention came after an all-white jury decided that Nick Griffin, the BNP chairman, broke no law when he condemned Islam as “a wicked, vicious faith” at a secretly filmed meeting.
Plans for an offence of incitement to religious hatred were thrown out in a rare Commons defeat for the Government in February after a campaign led by the comedian Rowan Atkinson.
(Andrew Norfolk and Greg Hurst, “Race-hate laws to be changed after BNP case fails”, Times Online, Nov. 11). More: Feb. 4, etc. Comment: Rod Liddle.
Update: “Gentle Wind drops lawsuit against couple”
The Kittery, Me.-based Gentle Wind Project “has agreed to drop a defamation lawsuit against two former members who wrote articles comparing the self-styled spiritual healing group to a ‘mind control cult.'” (see Aug. 30, 2004). Last year a federal court threw out the group’s lawsuit against Jim Bergin and Judy Garvey, a married couple from Blue Hill, Me. (see Jan. 19, 2006), but the family of project director John Miller refiled the action in state court. Miller “claimed that he could communicate with the ‘spirit world’ [and] said he received designs for ‘healing instruments’ that resembled cards and hockey pucks, and could cure physical and emotional damage caused by illnesses ranging from alcoholism to paralysis.” (Gregory D. Kesich, Portland Press-Herald, Nov. 10).
“Shameful, discouraging, tragic”
That’s restaurant bad boy Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential), on Chicago’s foie gras ban. Bourdain told interviewer Baylen Linnekin that if America does turn into a Singapore-style nanny state, “I can only hope we’ll have food as good as they do.” Asked about fast food: “People should be teased and humiliated for eating at McDonald’s,” he says. “I don’t think we should legislate them out of business.” (“Anthony Bourdain, Just Like Me: Is the Kitchen Confidential author-turned-television star a libertarian?”, AFF DoubleThink, Oct. 29).
Oops — we sued our own viral marketers
A classic, from TechDirt (Oct. 30):
It appears that Universal Studios recognize that the followers of the cult favorite TV show Firefly would be a great source of viral marketing for the movie based on the show, Serenity. They put together a huge viral marketing campaign…. However, as with so many of these things, it appears that the marketers at Universal forgot to tell the lawyers at Universal, who recently decided to send out cease and desist letters to a bunch of the guerilla marketers they had pushed to promote the film.
More: Tijir, Oct. 28.
Breaking: Obnoxious Chi Psi frat boys sue Borat
Two of my least favorite things—misogynistic frat-boys and frivolous lawsuits—together at once. Three Chi Psi fraternity brothers from the University of South Carolina, after signing waivers and getting paid $200, got caught drunkenly wishing for slaves and making other obnoxious sexist and racist remarks on film to Sasha Baron Cohen in his character of Kazakh journalist Borat; those scenes appeared in the movie. They’re now suing, wanting takebacks. TMZ has the Los Angeles Superior Court complaint, which asks for an injunction, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees. (I look forward to the discovery on the “false light” claims that suggest that the plaintiffs never would say such things as they were recorded being said.) Earlier, a friend of one of the frat boys asked Metafilter for advice. The complaint is filed by John Does, but Chi Psi David Corcoran has already bragged about the experience to FHM. Frat president Todd Bailey talks about the story to the local paper.
(Update: Upon further review, I see that the complaint alleges that the movie “falsely depicted them as insensitive to minorities.” There is no allegation that the movie falsely depicted them as insensitive to women. In the trade, that’s known as a negative pregnant.)
(Second update: Bashman with a roundup of links and Lat with sardonic commentary.)
Cops sue over pot-sprinkled burgers
Police officers Mark Landavazo and Henry Gabaldon say three rogue employees at the Burger King in Los Lunas, N.M., spitefully (or was it company policy?) put marijuana on their hamburgers, so they want the fast-food chain to pay them money for “personal injury, negligence, battery and violation of fair practices”. (“N.M. Cops Sue Burger King Over Marijuana-Laced Hamburgers”, AP/FoxNews.com, Nov. 7).
CAN-SPAM Act
Didn’t work very well, it seems:
While there has been some progress in the fight against spam, it’s mostly come from improving filter technology. In the meantime, however, CAN SPAM’s continued uselessness is highlighted in this new report showing that the amount of spam that “complies” with CAN SPAM disclosure rules is at an all-time low of 0.27 percent.
(TechDirt, Nov. 1)(via Jim Harper, Cato-at-Liberty).
November 7 roundup
- My informal debate with Professor Silver over the effect of reform on physician supply continues. [Point of Law; Silver]
- If you’ve been intrigued by Professor E. Volokh’s idea of medical self-defense (and thus payment for organs) as a constitutional right, he’ll be discussing it with Richard Epstein and Jeffrey Rosen at AEI. [Volokh; Harvard Law Review @ SSRN; AEI]
- Peter Wallison on how over-regulation and over-litigation is killing American competitiveness in the capital markets. [Wall Street Journal @ AEI]
- Press coverage is finally starting to break through in the Milberg Weiss scandal with a lengthy Fortune profile. [Point of Law]
- Economists and scholars file Supreme Court amicus brief calling for federal preemption of state “anti-predatory lending laws” in important Watters v. Wachovia case. [Zywicki @ Volokh; CEI]
- One-sided coverage by the New York Times on the issue of web accessibility for the blind. Earlier: Oct. 27; Feb. 8. [New York Times]
- Deep Pocket Files update: MADD tries to intervene in stadium vendor case where appellate court tossed $105 million verdict because of unfair trial. See Aug. 4 and links therein. [New Jersey Law Journal]
- Lawsuit: my dead father’s baseball card mischaracterizes his nickname. [Lattman]
- Lawsuit: I have legal right to the letter W. [Times Record News via Bashman]
- Samuel Abady and Harvey Silverglate on libel tourism. [Boston Globe via Bashman]
- Another roundup of Justice Robert Thomas libel lawsuit stories. [Bashman]
- $15M Minnesota verdict blaming a delayed delivery for cerebral palsy, despite evidence it was caused by an unrelated infection. [Pioneer Press]
No on state marriage amendments
“The irony in Virginia is that conservatives fearful of an out-of-control judiciary are in fact inviting the judiciary to get involved in micro-managing family law.” (David Boaz, “Marriage measure is an amendment too far”, Examiner.com, Oct. 30). For more of the many, many reasons to vote no, see Sept. 20, 2006, May 31 and Nov. 2, 2004, etc., etc.
Update: David Frum gloats — and quite prematurely, it would seem.