Highly recommended: David Bernstein’s new book You Can’t Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws. David, who is a professor of law at George Mason and a contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy (and has collaborated with us in the past on a number of projects), does a great job of documenting a theme dear to our hearts, namely the persistent clash between harassment law (and antidiscrimination law more generally) and freedom of speech, conscience and personal association. The book seems to be doing deservedly well on Amazon and can be purchased here (& see Dec. 7).
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Subsidized brush-fire insurance
“Should the state and federal government encourage Californians to build houses in high-risk brush-fire zones? The brain says ‘no,’ but the policy means ‘yes.'” Matt Welch at Reason (Oct. 22; see our Oct. 31 post) further investigates the so-called FAIR insurance program, which (among its other flaws) tends to redistribute wealth to the residents of affluent Malibu and Topanga Canyon. Glenn Reynolds comments (Nov. 6).
Latest you-didn’t-throw-me-out gamblers’ suit
“Two problem gamblers have filed a potential class-action lawsuit alleging that Detroit’s three casinos have failed to enforce a state program designed to permanently bar gambling addicts from their properties. … Virginia Ormanian of Wyandotte and Norma Astourian of Taylor asked to be barred from the casinos in the summer of 2002. But they couldn’t stay away.” They are now suing the establishments for not doing enough to enforce the program, under which “gamblers who sign up for the program and return to the casino are subject to up to a year in prison, a fine of up to $1,000 or both.” (Becky Yerak and Kim Kozlowski, “Gamblers sue Detroit casinos for not barring them”, Detroit News, Nov. 5). For earlier you-didn’t-exclude-us cases, see Sept. 7, Aug. 1 (Canada).
Updates (blog division)
Our Oct. 28 entry, “Slower saint-making”, about how fear of being sued has slowed down efforts to advance Australia’s Mary MacKillop toward canonization in the Catholic church, has been mentioned on numerous sites and is featured in the latest Carnival of the Capitalists, which rounds up noteworthy business and economic posts. Economic commentator Donald Luskin has withdrawn his speech-chilling demand letter (see Oct. 30) and has issued a curiously worded joint statement with anonyblogger Atrios attributing their dispute to “a series of misunderstandings” and putting it behind them (Kevin Drum, Nov. 4). And Curmudgeonly Clerk (Nov. 2, Nov. 3, Nov. 5) has made himself the one-stop source for information on the seedy saga (see Oct. 31) of how a British reality TV crew organized male contestants to go on camera vying for the affections of “Miriam”, a curvaceous gal who turned out not to be a gal at all, with results that are pregnant at least legally. Update May 26: cases settled.
Whoops
That story about Fox threatening to sue itself, picked up by much of the media and featured in our Oct. 31 item, turns out to have been, um, embellished at a minimum by “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, and the show’s producers have issued an apology (Washington Post, Oct. 31)
Chuck badgers a witness
Fox v. Fox
Quoth Ernie the Attorney (Oct. 31): “Fox News will sue anyone at the drop of a hat, but it does have some standards. For example, Fox won’t sue itself. But that doesn’t mean it won’t threaten to sue itself.” (See “Fox nearly sued itself over ‘Simpsons’ parody: Matt Groening”, AFP/Yahoo, Oct. 30). Whoops! Original story turns out to have been, um, embellished at a minimum by “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, and the show’s producers have issued an apology (Washington Post, Oct. 31)
Calif. inferno: gotta follow those regs
“The first helicopter pilot to see the patch of flames that would become the catastrophic Cedar Fire radioed for aerial water drops, but state firefighters rejected his request because it came minutes after such flights had been grounded for the night. Within hours, the flames cascaded out of control and killed 13 residents between the mountains east of San Diego and the city. It eventually became the largest wildfire in California history. …
“The problem was that under state safety guidelines, no flights can go up into waning daylight. On Saturday, the cutoff was 5:36 p.m., said California Department of Forestry Capt. Ron Serabia, who coordinates the 12 tankers and 10 helicopters now battling the 272,000-acre blaze. The sun set that day at 6:05 p.m.” (Justin Pritchard, “State firefighters rejected air drop request for Cedar Fire because of night regulations”, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 30). (Via Arthur Silber). More: Matt Welch at Reason “Hit and Run” (Oct. 31) has a roundup of other instances in which bad policy decisions may have worsened damage from the wildfires: “near the top of my list is the 1968 state law that specifically orders insurance companies to pool together and offer homeowner policies to people who live in high-risk brush fire zones, a non-market last resort enjoyed by 20,000 people, most of whom live in the foothills of Southern California.” Yet more: Gregg Easterbrook (Oct. 31) on forest management and wildlands.
Not the date they expected
Latest tabloid/reality TV case apparently headed for court, this time from the U.K.: “Six men who competed for the affection of an attractive brunette called Miriam for a reality television program have threatened legal action after discovering that the object of their attention was a transsexual.” The male contestants, who are said to have signed release forms before the show’s filming, “were invited to pick the most attractive woman from a line-up. They were then filmed on dates with her. All of them chose Miriam, who, unknown to them, was born a man.” To make matters worse, some of the men “are believed to have been intimate with Miriam before discovering at the end of the show that she was a pre-operative transsexual. … Lawyers for the six men have written to Sky and Brighter Pictures accusing them of conspiracy to commit a sexual assault, defamation, breach of contract and personal injury.” (Catriona Davies, “TV suitors shocked as dream girl turns out to be a man”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 31). Update Nov. 5: more links via Curmudgeonly Clerk and May 26: cases settled.
Conspiracy to keep you scared and silent?
Economics commentator Donald Luskin, who operates a website entitled The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid, is known for his furious and unremitting attacks on New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman. So furious and unremitting have these attacks been as to raise the question of whether Luskin was actually daring Krugman to sue for defamation, as when Luskin declared on “Hannity and Colmes” Oct. 27 that Krugman “masquerades as an economic scientist” (whatever one thinks of his politics, Krugman is exceptionally well credentialed as an academic economist; by comparison, columnist Robert Novak let himself in for years of hard-fought litigation when he printed an assertion that Bertell Ollman, a much less well-known economic scholar, “has no status within the profession”). And two months ago Luskin alleged (“Lights-out economics”, National Review Online, Aug. 20) that a statement by Krugman about the Northeast electrical blackout was “one of the few truthful statements I can ever recall him uttering” — inevitably recalling, for defamation-law buffs, Mary McCarthy’s talk-show gibe at Lillian Hellman, which led to one of the American literary world’s most bitter and celebrated lawsuits: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ ”
Now, however, it seems that Luskin pictures himself appearing in court as a plaintiff rather than a defendant. Recently he was verbally savaged in the comments section of the left-wing anonyblog “Eschaton” (http://atrios.blogspot.com) and now attorney Jeffrey J. Upton, claiming to represent Luskin, has (“http://atrios.blogspot.com/2003_10_26_atrios_archive.html, scroll to Oct. 29) written to that site’s proprietor (“Atrios”) demanding that the entire comments section in question be taken down within 72 hours on pain of “further legal action”. The threat has provoked a widespread outcry in the blog world, with dozens of sites commenting since yesterday (examples: Mark A.R. Kleiman, Armed Liberal, David Neiwert, Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler). We don’t know how much money Luskin has made on Wall Street, but we would be nervous on behalf of his prospective targets if his pockets prove deep. More: Jack Balkin points out that courts have found website proprietors not liable for hosting outsiders’ libels in their comments section, which leaves us wondering all the more about what happened to AVWeb, above. Stuart Levine discusses possible homeowner’s insurance coverage. (& welcome Curmudgeonly Clerk readers) Update Nov. 5: dispute settled. (& letter to the editor Aug. 16, 2004).