Posts Tagged ‘family law’

“Get the government out of marriage”

Okay, “get the government out of marriage” makes a nice slogan, with a libertarian-sounding ring to it. But what happens on contact with legal reality, where countless existing legal relations are predicated on marriage’s functional role as an on/off switch as opposed to a sliding continuum of statuses customized by private contract? [Scott Shackford, Reason]

Also on the marriage question, I have a new blog post at Cato recapitulating why social conservatives are deluding themselves if they imagine the GOP can use the issue to harvest many new black votes.

Yet more: video of a Friday Cato panel in which I join Mary Bonauto of GLAD, Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute, and Kathryn Lehman of Holland & Knight; I talk about how public opinion on same-sex marriage is increasingly boxing in the national Republican Party, and how it might bid to get out of the box.

Filed under: family law, marriage contracts, same-sex marriage

State of Kansas hits sperm donor for child support

William Marotta and the recipient of his donation signed an agreement that he would have neither rights nor obligations with respect to any offspring that resulted. But the state of Kansas says that shouldn’t insulate him from paying child support for the three-year-old daughter on whose behalf the state picked up $6,000 in medical bills unpaid by the mother, who had fallen on hard times. [Topeka Capital-Journal, Huffington Post]

Filed under: child support, family law, Kansas

Torts roundup

Adventures in causation: Per $19 million Mississippi verdict, fumes from leftover gasoline caused birth defects, asthma [Insurance Journal]
Legal academia watch: lawprof proposes massive expansion of liability for parents [TortsProf]
University of Virginia’s torts giant: “A Tribute To Jeffrey O’Connell” [U.Va. Dean Paul Mahoney, Virginia Law Review (PDF) via TortsProf]
“Proposed civil justice reform in Canada” [Ted Frank]
“Town Owes $10M To Pupil Paralyzed In School Beating” [New Jersey Law Journal; Irvington, N.J.]
Businesses steer clear of Philadelphia litigation climate [Jim Copland, Inquirer; Trial Lawyers Inc. update]
Longtime West Virginia attorney general Darrell McGraw, disliked by business, toppled in re-election bid [Charleston Gazette-Mail]

Filed under: family law, law schools, Mississippi, Philadelphia, third party liability for crime, tort reform, toxic torts, Virginia, West Virginia

Man says custody battle cost life savings

Canine custody, that is: Craig Dershowitz says he’s spent $60,000 suing his ex-girlfriend over who will get their dog. “It’s worth it,” he says. [NY Post via Elie Mystal, Above the Law]

Filed under: animals, family law

February 6 roundup

“A 4-Page Playdate Waiver? Is This the New Normal?” [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids; our 2000 post on “Rise of the High-School Sleepover Disclaimer”]
Spirit Airlines sets what it calls DOTUC fee, for “Dept. of Transportation Unintended Consequences” [Stoll]
How fairly are fathers treated in family court? [Nina Shapiro, Seattle Weekly via Alkon]
“‘Insider’ Trading by the Representative Plaintiff in Shareholder Litigation” [Bainbridge]
“Donation controversy focuses attention on Madison County asbestos litigation” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chamber-backed LNL]
Update: Appeals court reinstates Duluth doc’s defamation claims [DNT, earlier here, here, here; “bedside manner” criticism]
U.K.: “‘Psychic’ Sally Morgan Sues Critics for £150,000 After Refusing $1 Million to Prove Her Powers” [D.J. Grothe, HuffPo] “She’ll be calling witnesses such as ‘an uncle, or father, or a man… with a b in his first name’.” [@thegagthief]

Filed under: airlines, asbestos, divorce, family law, libel slander and defamation, Madison County, recreation, Seattle, securities litigation, United Kingdom

International law roundup

More on John Fonte’s new book Sovereignty or Submission [FrontPage interview, W. James Antle III/Washington Times, Clifford May via Israpundit, earlier here and here] U.N. Human Rights Council finds much to criticize about U.S. rights record, including inadequate attention to rights of clean water and sanitation; State Department response to “universal periodic review”;
“The President Can’t Increase Congress’s Power Simply by Signing a Treaty” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato, on Supreme Court case of U.S. v. Bond]
Another “international norms vs. American sentencing practices” showdown headed to SCOTUS? [Hans Bader]
France, Turkey restrict talk of Armenian genocide in opposite ways, and both are wrong [Walter Russell Mead]
Transnational prosecutions on an inexorable upward arc? Depends on how you count them [Jeremy Rabkin, TAI]
International law pressed into use to remake family law and gender customs [Stephen Baskerville]
“Time to Fix the European Court of Human Rights?” [Julian Ku, Opinio Juris]
“We are fighting the caste system with capitalism”: open market in India helps Dalits [NY Times]

Filed under: Europe, family law, France, India, international human rights, international law, Supreme Court, Turkey

Adventures in abortion regulation

A proposed Michigan law would apply legal scrutiny to men’s motives for walking out of relationships. [Fathers and Families via Amy Alkon]

Filed under: family law, Michigan

The gender skew of academic family law

“I only dabble in family law with my reproductive technology work, but my experience with the various conferences I attend has led me to believe that the number of heterosexual men who primarily write and teach in the area and have joined the academy in the last 10 years or so is extremely small, and even when I teach family law topics I can feel myself performing my sexuality to some extent as if it were a ritual to get access or credibility.” [Glenn Cohen, Prawfsblawg]

Filed under: family law, law schools

October 7 roundup

Prodded by UNICEF and the Hague Convention, countries cut back on international adoption, leaving kids to future of orphanage life [Reason.tv video, interviewing among others Harvard’s Elizabeth Bartholet; more]
Critics: lawyers are main winners in NYC rent settlement [NYDN] NYC rent stabilization rules gave landlords incentive to do luxury conversions [FWIW]
Breast-aurant rivals in court: “Hooters Suing Twin Peaks, Which Previously Sued Grand Tetons” [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
Jonathan Chait: it’ll be “useful” for debate if CEOs “fear for their personal safety” [Matt Welch, related, similar (see “Patterns of Intimidation”), also related to “occupation” as tactic]
Ethics complaint charges that boilerplate affidavits led to fee approval for lawyer in Bronx Surrogate’s Court [ABA Journal]
“Widow allowed to sue tobacco companies [whose products] husband didn’t use” [Florida, DBR] Appeals court: manufacturer not under legal duty to warn of asbestos injury caused by another manufacturer’s products [Business Insurance]
Debit card fee: made in D.C. [Glenn Reynolds; related, Joe Weisenthal]

Filed under: asbestos, banks, family law, NYC, product liability, tobacco

Child welfare/protection roundup

Oh, American Academy of Pediatrics, why are you so consistently wrong? On videogames, on food-ad bans, on guns, CPSIA…
New book by Annette Fuentes, Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse [John Harris, Guardian]
There are genuine problems with some countries’ international adoption practices, but should UNICEF really be pushing toward a “leave the kids in orphanages” alternative? [Nick Gillespie on Reason documentary to be released tomorrow]
At expense of both federalism and religious accommodation, bill entitled “Every Child Deserves a Family Act” (ECDFA) would impose anti-bias rules on state adoption and foster care programs [Washington Blade]
Cash-for-kids Pennsylvania judge: “Former Luzerne judge Conahan sentenced to 17.5 years” [Times-Tribune, our earlier coverage]
“Met a guy who works at my old summer camp. Bunks still do raids on other bunks, but their counselors have to file raid forms first. How sad.” [@adamlisberg]
Sex offender registry horror story #14,283 [Skenazy]
“Safety rules rob pupils of hands-on science, say MPs” [Independent, U.K.]
Gee, who could’ve predicted that? NJ’s aggressive “anti-bullying” law leads to new problems [NYT, Greenfield, PoL, NJLRA] Rapid growth in bullying law assisted by push from Obama administration [WSJ Law Blog, Kenneth Marcus/Federalist Society, Bader]

Filed under: bullying, child protection, CPSIA, family law, guns, Luzerne County judicial scandal, recreation, science and scientists, sex offender registries, United Nations, zero tolerance