Posts Tagged ‘Europe’

April 20 roundup

March 31 roundup

  • Funniest string cite ever? Judge Alex Kozinski has a field day [Lowering the Bar]
  • Lawyer: panic attack explains why I settled my bias complaint for a mere $350K [ABA Journal]
  • Curious EU heritage sign: “plants, wild animals and leprechauns (little people) are protected in this area” [SkyNews]
  • “She asked me if she should go back to earning $25,000.” Caught in the poverty trap [Megan Cottrell, Urbanophile]
  • Jury rejects claim that formaldehyde emissions from FEMA Katrina trailer caused man’s throat tumor [Courthouse News]
  • Update: McDonald’s settles nude-photos-left-on-cellphone case [OnPoint News, earlier]
  • Canadian psychiatrist accused of human rights violations in South Africa suppressed public discussion of his past for years by threatening to sue news organizations [Guardian]
  • Judge throws out Texas law limiting quick solicitation of accident victims [Houston Chronicle]

“Zurich hospital turns away US health tourists”

“Zurich University Hospital has stopped treating North American ‘medical tourists’, fearing million-dollar claims from litigious patients if operations go wrong. Hospitals in canton Valais have also adopted measures to protect themselves against visitors from the United States, Canada and Britain.” [Swissinfo.ch via Mark Perry and Coyote]

“EU to Extinguish Lightbulb Art?”

This fall’s proposed European ban on incandescent bulbs, barbed with $70,000 fines, apparently makes no allowance for the upkeep of “works that take the lightbulb as a primary material, such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Light-Space-Modulator, which uses 140,” among works by Rauschenberg, Olafur Eliasson and a long list of other well-known artists. Another unpleasant effect on the art world will be to constrain the way installations can be lit, even if curators and others believe particular works are best served by incandescent illumination. [ARTINFO.com via Andrew Hazlett]

U.K.: Europe court says prisoners have right to use artificial insemination

“Six prisoners in British jails are applying to give sperm to their wives and partners after a landmark European court ruling concluded that their human rights were breached if they were stopped from having children. The inmates, all serving long terms, are basing their applications on claims they will be too old to become fathers once they have finished their sentences.” [The Guardian]

Microblog 2008-10-30

  • Days of “Clean up your room or I’ll drop you off in Nebraska” threat may be numbered [NY Times; earlier] #
  • Bigger jury verdicts during the holidays? A bit of legal folklore is disproved (at least if you posit that the cases docketed at that time of year are a random selection) [Point of Law] #
  • NY budgeters, dependent on Wall Street tax revenue, built a public sector house of cards [McMahon/City Journal] #
  • Funniest Photoshop: “Toto, I have a feeling we are not in Alaska anymore” [Zincavage] #
  • Why they call it Euro-sclerosis [Coyote] #

“EU wants to ban ‘sexist’ TV commercials”

Members of the European Parliament “want TV regulators in the EU to set guidelines which would see the end of anything deemed to portray women as sex objects or reinforce gender stereotypes. This could potentially mean an end to attractive women advertising perfume, housewives in the kitchen or men doing DIY [do-it-yourself].” (Chris Irvine, Daily Telegraph, Sept. 5).

July 16 roundup

  • Another compilation of the hundred best law blogs, with a familiar name among the nine “general” picks, so thanks for that [“Criminal Justice Degrees Guide” via ABA Journal]
  • Europe has a transnational association of personal injury lawyers, funded by the EU, but with no wheeler-dealer, masters-of-the-universe vibe in evidence [PoL]
  • Delta wasn’t liable in Kentucky Comair crash, but some plaintiffs sued it anyway in what their lawyer describes as an “abundance of caution” — that’s a diplomatic way to put it [Aero-News Net; link fixed now]
  • U.K.: Mom told she’d need to pass criminal record check before being allowed to take her own son to school [Telegraph]
  • Regular coverage of the litigious exploits of delusional inmate Jonathan Lee Riches, if you’ve got the stomach for them [Dreadnaught blog]
  • Federal Circuit reverses $85 million infringement verdict won by Raymond Niro, blasted by critics as original “patent troll” [AmLaw Daily]
  • “Determined to defeat lawsuits over addiction, the casino industry is funding research at a Harvard-affiliated lab.” [Salon]
  • Hired through nepotism by in-laws, then fired after divorce, sues on grounds of “marital status discrimination” [eight years ago on Overlawyered]