- No, ma’am, I’m not going to diagnose your kids with PTSD after your low-speed auto accident, but I’m sure some other doc will [White Coat]
- In time to avert catastrophe? “FDA reboot of antibiotic development” [David Shlaes] Role of price controls in shortages of sterile injectables [ACSH]
- Trial lawyers launch campaign to roll back MICRA, law that has limited California med-mal payouts [KPBS, L.A. Times]
- DNA panopticon beckons: “Mississippi law requires cord blood from some teen moms” [Emily Wagster Pettus, AP, earlier]
- Dear N.Y. Times: please make up your mind whether it’s OK to break health privacy laws [SmarterTimes]
- Committee of AMA decides on schedules by which doctors are paid. And you were expecting it to be done how? [Arnold Kling]
- “The more your doctor worries about getting sued, the more you’ll end up spending on medical tests” [MarketWatch on Michelle Mello study in Health Affairs] Oklahoma high court used strained rationale to strike down certificate of merit law [Bill of Health]
Posts Tagged ‘California’
Public employment roundup
- “Retirement benefits cost Connecticut more than half of payroll” [Raising Hale] Jagadeesh Gokhale, “State and Local Pension Plans” [Cato] “In the report Krugman cites, the researchers note (repeatedly) that the trillion-dollar figure is very likely a dramatic understatement of the size of the unmet liability.” [Caleb Brown]
- California: “Bill would reinstate state workers who go AWOL” [Steven Greenhut]
- Eyebrow-raising federal salaries at unaccountable-by-design CFPB [John Steele Gordon, Commentary]
- “North Carolina Ends Teacher Tenure” [Pew StateLine]
- Not all states would benefit from a dose of Scott Walkerism, but Massachusetts would [Charles Chieppo, Governing]
- “Prison Ordered to Hire Back Guards Fired over an Officer’s Murder Because Everybody Else Was Awful, Too” [Scott Shackford]
- “New York State Lags on Firing Workers Who Abuse Disabled Patients” [Danny Hakim, New York Times] NYC educators accused of sex misconduct can dig in for years [New York Daily News]
- “Pennsylvania’s GOP: Rented by Unions” [Steve Malanga, Public Sector Inc.] NYC’s Working Families Party expands into Connecticut [Daniel DiSalvo, same]
Labor and employment roundup
- Following KMart settlement, new California suitable-seating class action filed against Costco [Recorder, Law360, Canela v. Costco, PDF; earlier here, etc.]
- Judge enjoins Teamsters: “members had disrupted funeral of a child, harassed mourners” [Bill McMorris, Free Beacon] “How would you feel if someone you never met from a ‘worker center’ went to your boss and said he represents you?” [Diana Furchtgott-Roth, earlier here and here] More: Eric Boehm, Watchdog.org;
- “Business Fears Of The New National Labor Relations Board Are Justified” [Fred Wszolek]
- Layoff package much nicer if you’re at Boeing, courtesy taxpayers [Seattle Times via Amy Alkon]
- “European Court of Human Rights: Religious Autonomy Trumps Right to Unionize” [Becket Fund]
- “Drink and Drive. Get Fired. Collect Unemployment Benefits? Yep, Says [Connecticut Supreme] Court.” [Daniel Schwartz]
- Judge strikes down NYC prevailing wage law [Bloomberg]
The perfect arrangement
It seems Colorado lawmakers are given special license plates that don’t get speed-camera tickets or parking ticket collections. [CBS Denver] Five years ago the Orange County Register reported that hundreds of thousands of state and local employees, spouses and children in California were covered by programs allowing them to exclude their addresses from the system, supposedly to safeguard them against criminal threat — though a great many of the jobs were exceedingly low-risk — with the incidental benefit that toll and red-light-ticket collectors could not reach them, and many parking tickets were left unenforced as well. “This has happened despite warnings from state officials that the safeguard is no longer needed because updated laws have made all DMV information confidential to the public.”
Class action roundup
- Judge Alsup “shopping for new plaintiffs lawyers” for class action against Wells Fargo “because he isn’t happy with the team that brought suit”
[Recorder] - “Sixth Circuit Rejects Class Settlement in Pampers Case” [Adler] More: William Peacock, FindLaw (“something stinks”)
- Supreme Court to decide whether quasi-class-actions spearheaded by state attorneys general (“parens patriae”) can dodge CAFA’s mandate of removal to federal court [Deborah Renner, WLF]
- Channeling Google settlement funds to the Google-favored Lawrence Lessig center at Stanford is already a dubious use of cy pres, but thanking the lawyers makes it worse [Ted Frank]
- “Class actions ending in ‘ridiculous results’ continue to plague California, critics say” [Legal NewsLine]
- Big Ninth Circuit win for Ted Frank big win in inkjet coupon class action [Recorder, PoL, more]
- “Sixth Circuit Can’t Take A Hint From SCOTUS, Reinstates Whirlpool Smelly-Washer Case” [Daniel Fisher; earlier on Sears v. Butler, Business Roundtable; PoL, Fisher and our coverage]
California inmates sue outside businesses
An inmate serving a long term at Solano state prison in California “has filed a lawsuit against a Sacramento-area car-repair-shop owner asking for $15,000 in damages for the lost use of his transmission.” While a 1996 federal law places limits on suits by federal prisoners, inmates in state prison systems like California’s, what with indulgent filing rules and plenty of time on their hands, “can tie up the court system with cases that would strike most anyone as frivolous. Their court fees are typically paid for by California taxpayers.” [Steven Greenhut, San Diego Union-Tribune]
June 28 roundup
- Record-setting tenure of bullying Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) “nothing to celebrate” [Dan Calabrese, Detroit News] Compare: “How to shut down a restaurant in Mexico” [Rob Beschizza]
- How far does discrimination law go? Bill Baldwin interviews John Donohue [Forbes, and thanks for further-reading link]
- Claim: bonding company responsible for actions of criminal after tracking failed [Insurance Journal, S.C.]
- Memo to California legislature: don’t abolish statute of limitation on abuse claims [Prof. Bainbridge]
- Here Come the Other “Happy Birthday” Lawsuits [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
- SCOTUS story someone should cover: Christian-right legal groups backed “right to advocate prostitution” brief in AID case [Volokh, earlier]
- “A TSA employee spotted [the beautiful jeweled lighter] and I swear his eyes lit up.” [David Henderson]
Prospering under ObamaCare
Well, at least health care regulatory lawyers are prospering [Ira Stoll] And if California is any indication, the bland-sounding state-level “health insurance exchanges” are going to engineer a transfer of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to “outreach” efforts conducted by interest groups politically allied with the Obama administration, including the SEIU, AFL-CIO, NAACP, and various community activist groups. “The Obama health law creates a permanent stream of funding for unions and community activists by outsourcing insurance enrollment to them. Assisters will also guide the uninsured to sign up for whatever non-health social services they may be eligible for, including welfare, food stamps and housing assistance, according to the manual prepared by the Community Health Councils for California’s implementation.” [Betsy McCaughey, Investors’ Business Daily]
Discrimination law roundup
- Next big church-employee bias case? Teacher signed “abide by Catholic teachings” contract, wins $170K anyway [AP] ACLU, which cheers that ruling, upset that new ENDA version would give more liberty to religious entities [BuzzFeed]
- “Employee Who Changed Word Secretly in Severance Agreement Allowed to Proceed With Discrimination Claim” [Daniel Schwartz]
- Sleeper Supreme Court case, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, tackles mixed-motive retaliation, oft-recurring fact pattern [podcast with Emory lawprof Charles Shanor, Fed Soc Blog]
- You needn’t be anti-gay to oppose ENDA [Coyote, Scott Shackford] Case for public-accommodations version in state of Washington must be symbolic since it’s light on substance [Shackford]
- English-only policies at workplace an “interesting and seldom litigated issue.” [Jon Hyman]
- Bad, unfair move: “California Senate Passes Law to Revoke Status of Nonprofits With Anti-Gay Policies” [Philanthropy News Digest; Scott Walter, Philanthropy Daily]
- Among those seeking broad religious exemptions from anti-bias laws, prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion ought to be more controversial [BTB] Arizona bill carving out religious exception to bias laws also authorizes new suits against business [AZCentral]
- “Across the country, human rights commissions cause more harm than they prevent.” [Scott Beyer, City Journal; Mark Hemingway, Weekly Standard]
- New Colorado law allows workers to collect from small businesses in discrimination lawsuits [Judy Greenwald, Business Insurance]
“Why Can’t We Get Rid of Bad Teachers?”
Los Angeles: “As LAUSD agrees to pay out 30 million dollars to the families victimized by the Miramonte Elementary School teacher molestation scandal, FOX 11 investigates why school districts seem to have such a difficult time firing teachers who’ve committed lewd acts.” Even the teacher charged with committing mass sex crimes in the Miramonte case managed to get a $40,000 payout from his district to quit. The powerful California Teachers Association (CTA) managed to scuttle a modest bill by Sen. Alex Padilla to streamline dismissals in extreme cases. Instead, it’s backing an alternative measure that reformer and former Sen. Gloria Romero describes as a joke that “wouldn’t really do anything.” [KTTV; CTA’s side]