- Judge Posner cites a Cato amicus brief: Cook County sheriff can’t browbeat Visa and MasterCard into dropping business with sex ad site [Ilya Shapiro, Eugene Volokh] And Daniel Fisher speculates that Posner’s thoughts on how far law enforcers can push around private actors on First Amendment-related subject matter (but without filing charges against them) might carry over to Eric Schneiderman’s ExxonMobil climate-advocacy inquisition [Forbes]
- “How To Blog: A Primer (And Not A Boring Primer, Either)” [Jim Dedman, Abnormal Use]
- What the campus protests are about: power [Jonathan Last, Weekly Standard]
- Eric Turkewitz draws a connection between the debate on guns and my recent work on redistricting, and Ken White at Popehat has more on the debate on guns;
- Vibrations from “ridge-like” BMW motorcycle seat said to have had unwanted stimulative effect on male user [Marin Independent Journal]
- Why are Republicans not moving to block Department of Justice settlement slush funds “funneling more than half-a-billion dollars to liberal activist groups” that in some cases route dollars “back to programs that congressional Republicans deliberately stripped of funds”? [Kim Strassel, WSJ]
- What happens at CLE stays at CLE: doings get wild at a famous mass torts seminar in Las Vegas [Above the Law]
Search Results for ‘settlement slush funds’
Anthem data breach class action, cont’d — and a cy pres opportunity
“When you add up all the legal fees and costs, the lawyers would come out of the settlement with more money than the class members they represented. The payout to all the lawyers involved would be about $63 million.” More details on the Anthem data breach case discussed earlier here, and Ted Frank’s role in calling it into question [Bob Dorigo Jones]
Also, for those with access, Ted has written a piece for the Wall Street Journal on the need to rein in abuse of the cy pres doctrine in disbursing lawsuit proceeds, with a suitable vehicle on the horizon:
A bipartisan coalition of 16 state attorneys general is also urging the Supreme Court to hear Frank v. Gaos. They agree that the Ninth Circuit has created a standard that will make it far too easy for attorneys to siphon millions of dollars of consumers’ money into their own slush funds. Chief Justice John Roberts has previously expressed concern about cy pres abuses. We hope the Supreme Court will protect consumers who take part in class actions from being preyed upon by their attorneys.
Judge Janice Brown on cy pres, cont’d
In the D.C. Circuit case of Keepseagle v. Perdue, mentioned in this space last month, Judge Janice Rogers Brown had some choice words regarding the constitutional status of class-action slush funds arising from the settlement of a suit against the federal government on behalf of Native Americans claiming discrimination against them by the Department of Agriculture:
$380,000,000 is, to use the late Senator Dirksen’s wry phrase, “real money.” That is what has been left on the table for private disbursement in this case. Perhaps one day, I will possess my colleagues’ schadenfreude toward the Executive Branch raiding hundreds-of-millions of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury, putting them into a slush fund disguised as a settlement, and then doling the money out to whatever constituency the Executive wants bankrolled. But, that day is not today….
The Executive Branch may wish to favor certain interests on the taxpayer’s dime. It may wish to use the Judicial Branch’s enforcement of settlement agreements to avoid asking Congress for an appropriation. But the Constitution’s design gives the People’s elected representatives a means to thwart these “overgrown prerogatives.” . . . By limiting the “judicial Power” to resolving “Cases” and “Controversies,” . . . the Constitution ensures the Judicial Branch has “no influence over . . . the purse.” . . . Expenditures toward the fulfilment of public policy are integral to policymaking itself, and policymaking is left to the legislature. . . . In short, congressional control over the People’s purse is a structural limit on both the Executive and Judicial Branches.
Alas, the analysis came in a dissent. Mark Pulliam writes up the case at Liberty and Law.
November 23 roundup
- Big win for Ted Frank against cy pres slush funds [CCAF, Fisher, Zywicki, CL&P, @tedfrank (“Ninth Circuit rules in my favor … but I still think I’m right”.)]
- “Can the Vatican Be Subject to ICC Prosecution?” [Ku/OJ]
- “Tennessee: ATS Sues City Over Right Turn Ticket Money” [The Newspaper]
- “Law firms dominating campaign contributions to Obama” [WaPo]
- Does that mean it’s an entitlement? Punitive damage limits face constitutional challenges in Arkansas, Missouri [Cal Punitives]
- Businessman sues to silence critical blogger, case is dismissed, now files suit #2 [Scott Greenfield]
- Going Hollywood? “The Supreme Court should move to Los Angeles” [Conor Friedersdorf]
Update roundup
Further on stories we’ve noted in the past:
- Objectors including CCAF and CEI challenge Cobell Indian trust settlement [Legal Times, PoL, earlier]
- Post-mortems continue on Ohio S.B. 5 labor measure [Daniel DiSalvo, Christian Schneider, earlier]
- More on divorced man’s dogged pursuit of case against wedding photographer [Above the Law, earlier]
- Arkansas AG McDaniel: I’ll stop steering cy pres funds to charities [Arkansas Project, PoL, earlier]
- Rochester: “Police Union Punishes DA’s Office for Not Illegally Charging Woman Who Recorded Cops” [Radley Balko, earlier]
- “Men at Work lose appeal over Kookaburra riff” [Guardian via Legal Blog Watch, earlier here, etc.]
- Wash. Supreme Court overturns woman’s horn-honking conviction [Seattle Times, opinion PDF, earlier here, here]
August 16 roundup
- Former producer at “Oprah” show — yearning for the simpler life? — takes job at rough blue-collar outfit. One $500K harassment settlement later… [Des Moines Register]
- “Insurer writing ‘loser pays’ policies to defendants” [LNL]
- “$1.4 Million Award Reversed due to Attorney’s ‘Inflammatory’ Comments” [DBR]
- New book examines shaky evidentiary basis of international criminal law convictions [Nancy Combs]
- Litigation slush funds, cont’d: new Department of Justice rules steer public settlement money to private advocacy groups [York, Examiner]
- Second Circuit upholds Judge Weinstein’s steps to curb conspiracy to evade protective order in Zyprexa case [Drug and Device Law, Dan Popeo, NYLJ] More from the busy Dr. David Egilman: “Plaintiff’s Expert Files Appeal in ‘Popcorn Lung’ Lawsuit” [On Point News and more] Also: “Being an Expert Expert Doesn’t Make You an Expert” [Zacher, Abnormal Use]
- “FTC Seeks to Clarify — and Justify — Its Blogger Endorsement Guidelines” [Citizen Media Law]
- “Winnebago cruise control” and suchlike urban legends are purposely devised and spread by sinister interests, or so claim L.A. Times and Prof. Turley [five years ago on Overlawyered]
June 16 roundup
- Shameless: House leadership exempts NRA lest it sink bill to regulate political speech [John Samples, Cato]
- Employment law: “Arbitration Showdown Looms Between Congress, Supreme Court” [Coyle, NLJ]
- “Wake Up, Fellow Law Professors, to the Casualties of Our Enterprise” [Tamanaha, Balkinization]
- Move to allow international war crimes trials over “aggression,” a notoriously slippery term [Anderson, Brett Schaefer/NRO “Corner” via Ku]
- Litigation slush funds: “Cy pres bill in Ohio House” [Ted Frank, CCAF]
- “Recent Michigan Prosecutions for ‘Seducing an Unmarried Woman’” [Volokh]
- Scalia: “…least analytically rigorous and hence most subjective of law-school subjects, legal ethics” [LEF]
- Silicosis settlement scandal update: “As 2 Insurance Execs Admit Bribes, PI Lawyer Says He Can’t Be Retried” [Houston Chronicle via ABA Journal, earlier]
December 10 roundup
- Joe Nocera’s recent column on the Vioxx settlement infuriated loyalists of the plaintiff’s bar, and they won’t like his new one on lead paint litigation much better [NY Times]
- Trial of Overlawyered favorite Jack Thompson over ethical charges leveled by Florida bar wraps up, but judge won’t rule right away [GamePolitics earlier, more recent posts]
- Two joggers hit by driver alongside Pacific Coast Highway will share $49 million from city of Dana Point — allegedly the bike lane was too wide — so now here come the concrete barriers [LA Times]
- Do makers of anti-PC documentary “Indoctrinate U.” owe cash to Indiana U. for infringing on its logo? [Maloney, OpinionJournal, Coleman] Update Dec. 11: settled.
- Casselberry, Fla. cop who sued parents after boy’s near-drowning in pool has now lost her job following public outcry over the incident [Orlando Sentinel; earlier]
- Lawyer who says he was defamed by commenters on DontDateHimGirl.com is back in court [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ambrogi, On Point; earlier here, here, etc.]
- Outspoken blog of BU prof Dr. Michael Siegel ticks off “tobacco control” activists [Beam, Globe]
- Warning label alert: old Sesame Street episodes unsafe for children? [Stier, Wash. Times]
- Furor mounts in and out of Canada over “human rights” complaint against Maclean’s over Mark Steyn book excerpt [Wente, Globe and Mail; Eteraz, UK Guardian; Steyn, NRO; Kimball]
- Judge rejects lawsuit by animal rights group challenging UCSF animal testing [SF Chronicle]
- New at Point of Law: How do all those big cases wind up in Judge Jack Weinstein’s court, anyway?; latest Richard Epstein podcast is on antitrust, Microsoft, AT&T, etc.; abuse of the Family and Medical Leave Act; welcome new contributor Marie Gryphon; Yale Law clinic sues Yale-New Haven Hospital; bar official dismisses concerns about cy pres slush funds; breastfeeding accommodation on the job, via lawsuit?; just what New York needs, a new state law school at Binghamton; and much more.