family law – Overlawyered

December 12 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 10:59:29 +0000

“Scott Gottlieb’s FDA Is Moving Toward a Stealth Ban on Cigarettes and Cigars” [Jacob Grier, Reason]
Supreme Court should take Melissa and Aaron Klein cake-refusal case from Oregon and resolve the issues of free expression it dodged in Masterpiece [Ilya Shapiro and Patrick Moran, ABA Journal, earlier on Melissa and Aaron Klein cake-refusal case including oppressive $135,000 fine levied by Oregon BOLI (Bureau of Labor and Industries)]
“Administrative Law Is Bunk. We Need a Bundesverwaltungsgericht” [Michael Greve, responses from Mike Rappaport, Philip Wallach, and Ilan Wurman, and rejoinder from Greve]
New York’s family court system is failing children and their families [Naomi Riley/City Journal, thanks for quote]
“The Emmys People Are Opposing A Pet Products Company Named After A Dog Named ‘Emmy'” [Tim Geigner, TechDirt]
Metaphor alert: “Lawmaker Injured by Flying Constitution” [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar, and funny throughout]

Tags: administrative law, constitutional law, family law, FDA, tobacco

December 12 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

February 21 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 10:50:19 +0000

Minimum 18 age for marriage, stadium subsidies, bill requiring landlords to distribute voter registration material, dollar-home programs, and more in my latest Maryland policy roundup [Free State Notes; earlier on NJ first-in-nation ban on under-18 marriage]
Now shuttered by California regulation: startup that allowed home cooks to sell meals directly to neighbors [Baylen Linnekin]
Guess who’s hosting a program of his own on Russia’s RT network? Tub-thumping plaintiff’s lawyer, sometime RFK Jr. pal and longtime Overlawyered favorite Michael Papantonio;
“Should the governments give LGBT-owned businesses a leg up in public contracts?” (Answer: no. Set-asides and preferences are unfair in themselves and deprive taxpayers and those served of the best price/value proposition.) [Bobby Allyn, NPR Marketplace]
“Network effects” bogeyman gets deployed to bolster many an antitrust nostrum [David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee, Cato “Regulation”] “The Future of Antitrust” Federalist Society video with Ronald Cass, Daniel Crane, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, Jonathan Kanter, Barry Lynn, moderated by Judge Brett Kavanaugh;
Arguments fated to lose: “After 4th DWI, man argues legal limit discriminates against alcoholics” [Chuck Lindell, Austin American-Statesman]

Tags: antitrust, California, family law, food safety, Maryland, sexual orientation

February 21 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Advocates seek tighter state reins on homeschooling

Walter Olson — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 10:05:10 +0000

Pointing out that it sometimes turns out badly for the kids involved, an emerging group of advocates critical of homeschooling “want stronger oversight, methods to monitor the quality of the education and ways to protect children from the dangers that can unfold behind a family’s closed doors.” One lesson of the American past — which has included long periods in which most states either banned homeschooling outright or subjected it to onerous legal restrictions — is that there’s an inherent conflict of interest when the state is allowed to regulate a substitute (home-based schooling) that competes directly with the state’s own educational enterprise. [Washington Post] More: Charlotte Allen, Weekly Standard.

Tags: family law, schools

Advocates seek tighter state reins on homeschooling is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 25 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 04:05:38 +0000

Yikes: Nevada supreme court is nearly broke because it relies on traffic ticket revenue and cops are writing fewer [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
Forced marriage in immigrant communities happening not just in places like English Midlands, but in U.S. as well; those who assist resistant teenage girls risk “aiding delinquent minor” charges [Washington Post]
“Posner informs pro se litigant that the queen of England did not absolve him of need to pay taxes” [ABA Journal]
Panel at Federalist Society on president’s power not to enforce the law [Randy Barnett, background on panel]
Inside grand jury’s investigation of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane [Philadelphia Inquirer] “Referral fees paid to wife of former Pa. Supreme Court justice questioned” [Harrisburg Patriot-News]
Have you or a loved one been attacked by a Zebra? [Arkansas Matters] “Louisiana Man on Trial for Murder Says He Thought the Victim Was an Alligator” [People]
Sneaky Oregon law will divert unclaimed class action dollars to legal aid and not incidentally boost legal fees [Sen. Betsy Johnson, East Oregonian]

Tags: animals, attorneys general, cy pres, executive orders, family law, folk law, law enforcement for profit, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Richard Posner

March 25 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Forgotten but not gone: filial responsibility laws

Walter Olson — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 04:05:40 +0000

“An elderly Pennsylvania husband and wife are being asked to pay their deceased adult son’s medical bills under a law making family members responsible for a loved one’s unpaid bills. The case is a reminder that such ‘filial responsibility’ laws may go both ways – requiring parents to pay the debts of adult children as well as the children to pay for their parents’.” 28 states have laws obliging adult children to pay the nursing home and medical bills of their parents or more rarely, as in this story, vice versa. The filial-responsibility laws have not been much enforced, “but lately states and health care providers have started taking a second look at them to recover medical expenses.” [Elder Law Answers; Paul Muschick, Allentown Morning Call]

Tags: debtor-creditor law, family law, Pennsylvania

Forgotten but not gone: filial responsibility laws is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 05:05:33 +0000

Pennsylvania has passed that grotesque new law seeking to muzzle convicts from discussing crimes when “mental anguish” to victims could result. Time for courts to strike it down [Radley Balko, earlier]
“First Amendment challenge to broad gag order on family court litigants” [Eugene Volokh]
Federally funded Indiana U. program to monitor political opinion on Twitter didn’t much like being monitored itself by critics [Free Beacon, earlier (project “intensely if covertly political”)]
Holocaust denial laws abridge the freedom of speech. Do they even accomplish their own aims? [Sam Schulman, Weekly Standard]
Is it defamatory to call someone a “censorious a**hat”? [Adam Steinbaugh, Eric Turkewitz, earlier on Roca Labs case]
We should take up a collection to translate Voltaire into French [Reason, Huffington Post on Dieudonne case, yesterday on talk of “Fox maligned Paris” suit]
Some would-be speech suppressers upset over Citizens United ruling also quite happy to drown out Justices’ speech [Mark Walsh, SCOTUSBlog] “Campaign finance censors lose debate to Reddit” [Trevor Burrus] Citizens United “probably the most misunderstood case in modern legal history.” [Ilya Shapiro]

Tags: campaign regulation, family law, France, free speech, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Supreme Court

Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Divorce Corp.”

Walter Olson — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 15:20:20 +0000

Tracy Oppenheimer at Reason profiles a new reformist book and documentary on the costly business of divorce. “It’s the fourth most common cause of bankruptcy in the United States,” says filmmaker Joseph Sorge. Coverage: Paul Raeburn/Huffington Post, IMDb, Hollie McKay/Fox News, Nicolas Rapold/New York Times.

Tags: divorce, family law

“Divorce Corp.” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Unwed dads in court

Walter Olson — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 13:35:00 +0000

A New Jersey judge has ruled that a mother-to-be doesn’t have to notify the estranged unwed father that she is going into labor or let him into the delivery room [ABA Journal] Meanwhile, a suit filed on behalf of unwed fathers is challenging Utah’s adoption laws, which they say improperly enable mothers from out of state to visit Utah for purposes of depriving unwed fathers of rights of notification or objection they would otherwise enjoy under their home state’s law [Salt Lake Tribune]

Tags: adoption, family law, New Jersey, Utah

Unwed dads in court is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Student, 18, sues parents for tuition

Walter Olson — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 10:49:47 +0000

“A New Jersey couple does not have to pay — for now — for their 18-year-old daughter’s college education, a judge ruled Tuesday evening.” [CBS New York, ABC News, NY Daily News, AP]

Tags: family law, New Jersey

Student, 18, sues parents for tuition is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

A slippery slope to polygamy?

Walter Olson — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 14:43:28 +0000

I don’t think everyone who supports same-sex marriage is logically obliged to support polygamy, and say so in this post taking issue with columnist Mona Charen. She responds here.

P.S. More thoughts from Eli Lehrer at Huffington Post (“Gay marriage is increasingly accepted precisely because its results, to date, have been good for society. Polyamory on a large scale would have negative short-term results and that’s a good reason to think it’s just not going to happen.”).

Tags: family law, same-sex marriage

A slippery slope to polygamy? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system