- Time to put teeth back into sanctions: more on reintroduction in Congress of LARA, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act [Wajert, Wood, more, earlier]
- RFK-Jr.-&-friends watch: Environmentalists wrangle in court over “keeper” monicker [Coleman]
- More on Chicago school that bars home-brought lunches [Adler, Welch, earlier]
- Definition of “cyber-bullying” in newly passed Arkansas bill could imperil legitimate speech [Volokh] Related: Harvey Silverglate video.
- Thoughts on a new Hungarian constitution [Ilya Shapiro, Cato at Liberty]
- Court reveals Righthaven’s operating agreement with client newspaper chain [Legal Satyricon, PaidContent, Las Vegas Sun]
- Cops: Ohio man stole gavel from judge [Lorain Chronicle-Telegram, Smoking Gun]
Search Results for ‘righthaven’
April 14 roundup
- “Raging Bitch”: Frederick (Md.) brewery says its beer label is a First Amendment issue [Frederick News-Post]
- UK soccer: Sunderland fan sues club after being hit by stray Djibril Cissé shot [Guardian]
- DirectBuy: “When 36 AGs Object to Your Class Action Settlement, That’s Not a Good Sign” [Karlsgodt] “Court reduces fees after CCAF objection to HP settlement” [Ted Frank] Russell Jackson on ink-cartridge settlements;
- Time for Congress to repeal the Uniform Federal Drinking Age Act [Glenn Reynolds/WSJ via WSJ Law Blog]
- Claim: business investment isn’t really much impaired by regulatory uncertainty [Lardner]
- Update: “Righthaven drops suit against mildly autistic hobby blogger” [Romenesko, earlier] And it sues, then drops suit against, writer based on his article about one of its suits [ArsTechnica, PaidContent]
- George Wallace hosts Blawg Review #304 at Declarations and Exceptions and #305 at A Fool in the Forest;
- Suspicious website promotes nonexistent law firm [Brian Baxter, AmLaw Daily]
March 23 roundup
- New Yorker suing boss for $2M because working in New Jersey caused him “anguish” [Biz Insider]
- British lawyer’s libel threats impede UK publication of Paul Offit vaccine book [Respectful Insolence]
- Lawsuit settlement leads to Florida push to curb tobacco discounter [WSJ; background, Jeremy Bulow]
- Allegation: attorneys made personal use of cy pres fund in Armenian genocide settlement [PoL]
- “Telecommuting employees raise special wage and hour issues” [Hyman]
- UK bias cops wonder whether to ban gay-preferred along with gay-not-preferred guesthouses [Ed West, U.K. Telegraph]
- Copyright mills: “Local law firm wants to defend people sued by local law firm” [TBD] Related: [Citizen Media Law, Coleman]
- “Top 10 Reasons to Not Open a Bar or Restaurant in NYC” [NY Enterprise Report]
October 7 roundup
- Lawsuit of the Day: Partner Booted From Three Firms Sues ‘Em All! [Legal Blog Watch]
- Drawing wrong lessons from the Rutgers suicide [Greenfield and more (proposed “Tyler’s Law”), John Schwartz/NYT (quoting Orin Kerr), Volokh and more, Above the Law]
- John Sullivan leaving after 15 years at helm of Civil Justice Association of California [L.A. Times]
- Maybe consumers don’t feel so victimized by overdraft “protection” after all [Bank Lawyer’s Blog]
- Yes, it’s another dust-up pitting all sensible Supreme Court commentators against Dahlia Lithwick, if you like that sort of thing [Kerr, Bodie/Prawfs, Ponnuru, Frank; bonus, Richard Epstein on Erwin Chemerinsky and Hans Bader on a prize flight of Lithwick fancy]
- Blog post relatively sympathetic to Righthaven copyright trollery draws many responses [Robert Zelnick, Patently-O]
- “Should they have let the guy’s house burn down?” [Tyler Cowen; Firey, Cato]
- “Drunken man passes out, wins $850K from police” [six years ago on Overlawyered]
August 10 roundup
- Oregon 7-year-old gets apology, she can go on running her lemonade stand after all [Skenazy, Josh Blackman]
- “Judicial recusals and politics make a bad mix” [Bainbridge]
- Sypher guilty in extortion trial [Above the Law and followup, earlier]
- “Chevron’s Explosive Filing on Collusion Between Plaintiffs and the Ecuadorian Court-Appointed Expert” [Roger Alford, Opinio Juris and more, Alison Frankel/American Lawyer, Anderson, Volokh, ShopFloor]
- Meet author of “How to Sue Your Doctor … and Win!” [Media Matters via Popehat]
- FBI writes to Wikipedia demanding removal of representation of its official seal [Ron Coleman]
- “Kagan’s Confirmation Could Be High-Water Mark for Big Government” [Shapiro, Cato]
- “Righthaven’s lawsuits are ‘the McDonald’s coffee cases of copyright litigation'” [Las Vegas Sun via Romenesko]
“Good Lord, people are complaining because they can’t see a taco, get a life”
Much reaction in the comments at the San Francisco Chronicle to the Ninth Circuit’s “Chipotle Experience discriminates against the disabled” ruling. Earlier here. And Ted at PoL notes this significant passage rejected by the appeals court:
The [district] court found that Antoninetti had failed to show irreparable injury because he had not revisited either restaurant after Chipotle adopted its written policy and because his “purported desire to return to the [r]estaurants is neither concrete nor sincere or supported by the facts.” It also stated that Antoninetti’s “history as a plaintiff in accessibility litigation supports this Court’s finding that his purported desire to return to the [r]estaurants is not sincere. Since immigrating to the United States in 1991, Plaintiff has sued over twenty business entities for alleged accessibility violations, and, in all (but one) of those cases, he never returned to the establishment he sued after settling the case and obtaining a cash payment.”
More on ADA filing mills here. And I’ve now got a longer post up at Cato at Liberty comparing the policy problem of serial ADA complaints to that of patent trollery, mass filing of “citizen suits”, and the business model of recently formed copyright-holder RightHaven. More: Carl Horowitz, NLPC.
Slowing down the copyright trolls
How to respond to the emergence of assembly-line copyright-suit filers without undermining the right of content owners to stop unauthorized reprints that go beyond fair use? Max Kennerly raises the possibility of steering rights owners into agency complaints or arbitration as an alternative, or at least precondition, to court action. That might slow down the business model of groups like RightHaven, which has demanded in terrorem sums from mom-and-pop bloggers and other infringers and even asked courts to order seizure of the domains of otherwise legitimate target websites.