Under newly enacted legislation, “Canada is now the first country in the world to require that for every new regulation introduced one of equivalent burden must be removed.” [Financial Post via Alex Tabarrok]
Posts Tagged ‘Canada’
Likelihood of Moose confusion?
Outdoorsy Lake George, N.Y., has several local businesses with moose-related names. So “when John Carr, the owner of the local Adirondack Pub & Brewery, wanted to come up with a fun name several years ago for his home-crafted root beer, he settled on — what else? — Moose Wizz.” When he tried to register the name as a trademark, however, he drew a lawsuit from Canadian brewer Moosehead, which says the soft drink’s name and label of a grinning cartoon-like moose creates likelihood of confusion. [National Post]
March 4 roundup
- “Woman who lost $500K calls ex-lawyer’s 5-year sentence for stealing $10M ‘a joke'” [Alabama; Martha Neil, ABA Journal]
- Canada: “Mom Lost Custody After She Left Her Kid Alone at Home for 90 Minutes” [Lenore Skenazy and Paul Best, Reason] “New British Law Will Call All Sorts of Things ‘Child Abuse.'” [Skenazy]
- “If I End Up On Life Support, My Family Knows The Type Of Long, Protracted Legal Battle I Would Want” [The Onion]
- Stiff training mandates for new drivers? Don’t be surprised if trainers develop into lobby in favor of keeping program going [Maggie Thurber, Ohio Watchdog, thanks for quote]
- “Law prof’s Garlock testimony details asbestos lawyers’ change in strategy” [Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine on Lester Brickman analysis] Plus, new ATRA website on asbestos litigation abuse;
- “BakerHostetler 2014 Year-End Review of Class Actions (and what to expect in 2015)” [via Paul Karlsgodt]
- R.I.P. legal ethicist Monroe Freedman [Washington Post; a 2012 post of his I admired, re: showboat prosecutors]
“In a perfect world, of course, all risks could be avoided…”
While in a perfect world all risks could be avoided, in the actual world we live in, life comes with risks that may be unavoidable, obvious, or both, Ontario’s highest court has unanimously ruled. It declined to assign liability to the town of Cayuga over a 2001 incident in which a teenager climbed a popular climbing tree in a public park, fell off, and was rendered a paraplegic. He sued, saying the town should have taken measures such as prohibiting climbing or warning of danger.
“Trees, being by their very nature things which can be climbed and therefore fallen from, are potentially harmful,” the court said. “Any danger posed by this tree was an obvious one. If you chose to climb it, you could fall and be injured.”
A lower court judge dismissing the suit in 2013 declined to create a municipal duty to prevent injuries by developing and enforcing a ban on tree climbing in the park. “There has to be a reasonable limit to such prohibitions on human activity,” he said. [Toronto Star; note the pioneering 2003 English case Tomlinson v. Congleton Borough Council discussed here and here]
Labor and employment roundup
- Loosen constraints on local and state deviation from the NLRA labor law model? Idea gathering force on right also draws some interest from left [Ben Sachs, On Labor, on James Sherk/Andrew Kloster proposal for right to work laws at city/county level]
- Justice Alito dissents from Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in Kalamazoo “employee buyer’s regret” case where asked-for transfer was later construed as retaliation [Jon Hyman]
- NLRB’s franchise power grab could prove costly to small business [Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Connor Wolf]
- A very different country: Supreme Court of Canada constitutionalizes a right of public employees to strike [On Labor]
- Average full-time California municipal employee got 2013 compensation package of nearly $121,000 [Steven Greenhut]
- Perfect, now let’s mandate sick day banking nationwide: “Montgomery [County] fire department has history of sick-day abuse among workers due to retire” [Washington Post]
- Yet more unilateralism: Obama administration tightens regs on federal contractor sex discrimination [Roger Clegg]
February 13 roundup
- Government of Canada alleges bill-padding by “king of class action lawsuits” in Indian residential schools compensation case [CBC; earlier here, here, and here]
- P.F. Chang’s sued over surcharge on gluten-free menu [Yahoo, John O’Brien/Legal NewsLine]
- Town consolidation as a cure for fragmented North County woes? Not so fast [Jesse Walker] Would it help if the towns went broke? [Megan McArdle, related on “taxation by citation”] St. Louis Post-Dispatch has gathered its coverage of the Ferguson story at a single portal;
- “It was (Scottish) land law’s greatest ever day on twitter” [@MalcolmCombe Storify]
- Billion-dollar lawsuit over natural gas collapses after “lawyers discovered that a key piece of evidence had been fabricated.” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
- “Double Platinum Rapper Shilling For Local Lawyer Now” [Above the Law; Mark Jones, Columbus, Ga.]
- She stoops to instruct: “Read the briefs,” Linda Greenhouse tells SCOTUS regarding high-profile King v. Burwell ObamaCare case [James Taranto, WSJ “Best of the Web”]. More: Robert Levy.
Woman snapped in skimpy top can collect from Google View
A judge in Quebec has told Google to pay C$2250 to a woman caught by a Google Street View camera on her front porch in revealing, though legal, attire [Syracuse.com via Stewart Baker]
CBC warns Canadians against American forfeiture
Canadians should be careful of carrying large sums of currency on their trips south of the border, warns the CBC’s senior Washington correspondent, Neil MacDonald, since “U.S. police are operating a co-ordinated scheme to seize as much of the public’s cash as they can. … if you’re on an American roadway with a full wallet, in the eyes of thousands of cash-hungry cops you’re a rolling ATM.”
Labor and employment roundup
- Latest NLRB jaw-dropper: ban on retaliation against “concerted” labor action extends to employee acting alone in self-interest [Fresh & Easy case; Hackman/Barley, Vorys, Ian Gabriel Nanos/Management Memo]
- Connecticut Law Tribune assails workplace arbitration, and in so doing reveals lawyerly prejudices [Schwartz]
- Religious-discrimination complaint to EEOC demands reinstatement of newspaper editor out of step with views of paper’s owner [Romenesko]
- Unfair to reveal to customers costs of policy they may favor? [WCCO; Coyote, who relatedly is disrespectful to Paul Krugman] “Why is there such a difference of opinion on the employment effects of a minimum wage increase?” [Pierre Lemieux, Cato Regulation magazine, PDF]
- “NLRB goes rogue against small business” [Rick Manning, The Hill]
- Among biggest legal headaches of telecommuting for employers: wage-and-hour law implications [Joseph Leonoro, Steptoe & Johnson]
- Canada: “Farmers’ Kids are ‘Underage Labor’ and Must Stop Working” [Lenore Skenazy]
Banking and finance roundup
- Following public furor, are feds backing off “Operation Choke Point” program discouraging banking services to lawful but disfavored enterprises? [Daily Signal] Or does the choking continue? [Washington Business Journal (Capital One cuts off check-cashing firms)]
- FATCA challenge: “Ontario women sue Ottawa over compliance with new U.S. banking law” [Winnipeg Free Press, earlier]
- Corporate tax inversions: yes, journalist Jonathan Alter really did recommend “McCarthy-era loyalty oaths” [Taranto/WSJ] Obama admininstration was for them (in Delphi case) before it was against them [Bloomberg] And they’re popular with President Obama’s donors even aside from Warren Buffett [same] More: Charles Krauthammer.
- WSJ editorial on sanctions against Robbins Geller in Boeing securities suit. More: Daniel Fisher;
- Profile of Vanguard tax informant David Danon [Philadelphia Inquirer, earlier]
- Some Denver foreclosure lawyers settle overcharge case [Kevin Funnell, earlier]
- Contains real juice: “$35 million will go to groups that provide legal, housing and community development programs.” [AP/The Saratogian on New York’s share of Bank of America settlement; Stephen Bainbridge]