- “When the country went cold turkey”: Tyler Cowen reviews Last Call, Daniel Okrent’s history of Prohibition [Business Week]
- Phrases never to put in email, e.g., “We Probably Shouldn’t Put This in Email” [Balasubramani, SpamNotes]
- “My biggest wish was that I would get a cease and desist from the company that publishes Marmaduke” [Walker, Reason “Hit and Run”]
- California proposal to jail parents for kids’ truancy [Valerie Strauss/WaPo via Alkon] Parents arrested on charges of forging doctor sick note to excuse third grader [Glenn Reynolds, Dan Riehl]
- UK judge: NHS need not fund transsexual’s breast enlargement [Mail]
- “Charitable Foundation Leader Alarmed by Government Intrusions into Philanthropy” [WLF Legal Pulse]
- Missed earlier: “Stalking Victims’ Duty to Warn Employees, Lovers, Visitors, and Others?” [Volokh]
- “Overturning Iqbal and Twombly Would Encourage Frivolous Litigation” [Darpana Sheth, Insider Online]
Posts Tagged ‘California’
June 8 roundup
- Bay City, Mich. business finds itself the target of frequent litigant [Faces of Lawsuit Abuse (auto-plays video) via NJLRA]
- An “all-Taco-Bell future”: government nutrition guidelines press restaurants toward “standardization of recipes and methods of preparation” [Suderman, Reason “Hit and Run”]
- Class actions: thoughts on “professional objectors” [Ted at CCAF]
- Report on business influence on California politics smuggles in trial lawyers as “business” [Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee via CJAC]
- Those local homeowners protesting Wal-Mart may be getting support from a supermarket chain [WSJ via Coyote, Dan Mitchell]
- “Medicare soon to go after liability settlements” [Korris, LNL]
- “Use Your Law Deferment to Work for Liberty!” [Shapiro, Cato] And Cato’s also hiring for some video and new media positions;
- U.K.: “Drivers could be over limit after less than a pint under new law” [Daily Mail]
“Uninsured motorist law foils hot coffee suit”
A lawsuit over a hot coffee mishap in the fast-food drive-through lane turns out to be barred by California’s financial responsibility law, which “prohibits uninsured motorists … from collecting noneconomic damages in any action arising out of the operation or use of a motor vehicle.” [Pat Murphy, Lawyers USA “Benchmarks”]
June 1 roundup
- Some California attorneys hoping to restart lucrative construction-defect litigation [Frith, Cal Civil Justice]
- Jury awards Seattle bus passenger $1.3 million for stair mishap [KOMO, Seattle Times]
- “Louisiana Bill Would Outlaw Insulting an Under-17-Year-Old By E-Mail” [Volokh, earlier] Update: bill watered down before passage, but still bad news for speech;
- “Attorney Fee Fight Gets Ugly in World Trade Center Litigation” [Turkewitz and more]
- Preventive detention law shows why we need to confine Congress [Sullum, Greenfield]
- Mass Fifth Circuit recusals in Comer v. Murphy Oil global warming case [Wood/PoL, Jackson] More: Shapiro, Cato, Wood/ShopFloor (a strategy to provoke recusals?)
- “By some estimates, circa 40 percent of cases in the Central African court system are witchcraft prosecutions” [Graeme Wood, The Atlantic]
- Lawyers who sued Facebook over “Beacon” to get $2.3 million in fees, class $0.00 [Balasubramani, SpamNotes]
Public accommodation laws
David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy recalls a 2006 lawsuit over whether neo-Nazis had a right to wear swastika pins in a Southern California restaurant against its management’s wishes, and extensive reader discussion ensues.
California: “Elaborate, decade-long towing scam”
According to prosecutors in Santa Clara County, a “lawsuit mill” formed part of an extensive “tow-and-sue” criminal scheme in which a towing operator sold towed cars without notifying the owners and then added insult to injury by going after the owners for storage and handling fees. Paul Stephen Greer, also known as Vincent Cardinalli Jr., pleaded no contest to fifty-nine felonies. Prosecutors say Greer, who operated tow trucks in Clovis, Gilroy and Hollister, sued parties that did not own the vehicles, arranged for falsified proof of service so as to obtain quick default judgments against defendants never apprised of his suits, and engaged in perjury. [San Jose Mercury-News, press release]
Agency agrees: political expression isn’t fair-housing violation
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has agreed to stop investigating citizens on the theory that their political speech in and of itself constitutes a potential violation of housing discrimination laws. I’ve got more on the case at Cato at Liberty. Related earlier here and here.
May 12 roundup
- Charged $21K at purported “gentleman’s” club: “Plaintiff Has No Recollection of What Transpired in the Private Room” [Lowering the Bar]
- Census Bureau sued for discriminating against applicants based on criminal, arrest records [Clegg, NRO] Class action against Accenture for screening job applicants based on criminal records [Jon Hyman]
- Virtual indeed: “Virtual Freedom” author wants government to regulate Google’s search engine [ConcurOp]
- Contingency fees for public sector lawyering could take California down dangerous path [CJAC]
- “Harvard Law vs. free inquiry: Dean Martha Minow flunks the test” [Peter Berkowitz, Weekly Standard]
- There’ll always be an AAJ: seminar for trial lawyers on “Injuries Without Evidence” [ShopFloor] More: The Briefcase.
- Congress may expand law to enable more age-bias suits [BLT]
- “FTC Closes First Blogger Endorsement Investigation” [Balasubramani, Spam Notes; Citizen Media Law]
Making defibrillators available
A bill in the California legislature held out hope for encouraging wider adoption of the lifesaving devices, but couldn’t make it past the Litigation Lobby. [John Frith, California Civil Justice Blog]
Downfall of the Orange County Register
Lenders have taken over control at a newspaper that for decades served as a libertarian voice whose influence extended far beyond Southern California; lawsuits between members of the founding family played a key role in the paper’s downfall, and an employee classification suit filed on behalf of carriers didn’t help either.