Germany – Overlawyered

COVID-19 pandemic roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 10:12:12 +0000

“Inside America’s mask crunch: A slow government reaction and an industry wary of liability” [Jeanne Whalen, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger, Washington Post; Melissa Chen; earlier here, here, here, here, and here] “To Help Solve the Surgical Mask Shortage, Get the FDA out of the Way” [Paul Matzko, New York Daily News] “FDA Prevents Import of Masks” [Alex Tabarrok] Was the World Health Organization/Centers for Disease Control position that face masks don’t reduce transmission outside medical contexts meant as a noble lie? [Alex Nowrasteh; but see Scott Alexander (agencies declared against mask usage before shortages were an issue; my long Twitter thread advocating masks for all)]
Its woeful mask advice aside, there’s little margin left for confidence in the World Health Organization [Jim Geraghty; Dan Blumenthal and Nick Eberstadt (“The very fact that truth-seekers are left counting urns is an indictment not only of the Beijing regime, but also of the WHO.”)]
Defense Production Act, often imprecisely described in popular coverage, empowers federal government to get its orders placed first in line at suppliers [Christina Jewett and Lauren Weber, Kaiser Health News, earlier] Some federal sharp-elbowing: Bill Bowman, Franklin Reporter and Advocate (35,000 masks destined for Somerset County, N.J.); Richard Lough, Andreas Rinke, Reuters (supplies bound for Canada, Germany, Latin America); Alex Tabarrok and links; Nancy Asiamah, WWLP (3 million masks bound for Massachusetts); Sam Tabachnik, Denver Post (Colorado ventilators);
Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is the target of a writerly hit job and I contribute to its correction [Tim Carney, Washington Examiner]
Comparative federalism: Germany, with relatively decentralized, competitive, and local health care arrangements, offers lessons in tackling the crisis [Rob Schmitz, NPR (no central government approval needed for new diagnostic tests); Kai Weiss, CapX]
This is not going to help: “Hospital Liability for Ventilator Shortages” [Michael Abramowicz]

Tags: COVID-19 virus, Germany, United Nations

COVID-19 pandemic roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

German court: search engines must deindex reports of 1981 double murder

Walter Olson — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 05:05:26 +0000

In case you were wondering exactly where the supposed “right to be forgotten” leads in Internet regulation:

A convicted murderer in Germany has the right to get all mention of his crime deleted from internet search results under the EU’s “right to be forgotten” provision, Germany’s highest court has ruled.

Let’s hope the United States never decides to follow Europe’s path by restricting speech rights in the name of personal data erasure. [Bill Bostock, Business Insider]

Tags: Europe, free speech, Germany, privacy, search engines

German court: search engines must deindex reports of 1981 double murder is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Pharmaceutical roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 09:59:28 +0000

Starting in mid-1990s German doctors began writing many more opioid prescriptions. But addiction and overdose rates did not skyrocket. What made Germany different? [Jeffrey Singer, Cato; Jacob Sullum, Reason]
Will the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Merck v. Albrecht manage to clarify preemption law? [Beck, Drug & Device Law and more; Jonah Knobler, Washington Legal Foundation]
Money didn’t go into state treasury: “Oklahoma Lawmakers not so Happy About Purdue Pharma Settlement” [Sean Murphy, Insurance Journal, more] “Nevada AG’s old law firm can make up to $350 million on his opioid lawsuit” [Daniel Fisher, Legal Newsline] “List of firms handling Louisiana’s opioid lawsuit balloons to 17, including politically connected ones” [Sam Karlin, The Advocate] Richard Epstein on opiate litigation [Ricochet]
National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: “Where Calls for Overturning Bruesewitz v. Wyeth Go Wrong” [Dorit Reiss, Petrie-Flom “Bill of Health”]
“Drug lawsuit ads are scaring seniors to death” [P. Roosevelt Gilliam III and Susan Peschin, STAT]
Senate Republicans file bill to fast-track FDA consideration of over-the-counter birth control pill [Elizabeth Nolan Brown]

Tags: FDA, Germany, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, opioids, pharmaceuticals, preemption, Supreme Court

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

Wage and hour roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 10:58:36 +0000

Decision time coming up for administration on whether to reverse one of Obama’s worst initiatives, overtime for junior managers [Veronique de Rugy; Robin Shea]
California observes different rule on overtime for offshore oil workers than does federal government, exposing employers to huge retroactive back pay liability [Washington Legal Foundation, Supreme Court granted certiorari last month in Newton v. Parker Drilling]
Today in bad ideas: Philadelphia becomes latest jurisdiction to regulate shifts and scheduling in retail, hospitality [Juliana Feliciano Reyes, Philadelphia Inquirer/WHYY, Drinker Biddle/National Law Review, Max Marin/BillyPenn]
“I’m a restaurant employee in a city with a $15 minimum wage; here’s how it’s hurt me” [Simone Barron, Washington Examiner] Virginia could wind up with a $15 minimum law before long, tough luck for rural parts of state [Hans Bader]
“Nurses allege Corona, Calif. underpaid them, rounding down their time to the nearest quarter hour. Ninth Circuit: This can proceed as a class action. Five judges, dissenting from denial of en banc review: The only evidence in support of the nurses’ claim is a declaration from plaintiffs’ lawyers’ paralegal, which is plainly not admissible. ‘This doesn’t pass the straight-face test.'” [Short Circuit on Sali v. Corona Regional Medical Center, Ninth Circuit panel, denial of en banc rehearing]
“The Impact of The New German Minimum Wage” [Ryan Bourne]

Tags: California, Germany, minimum wage, Philadelphia, wage and hour suits

Wage and hour roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Schools and childhood roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 11:05:06 +0000

“It also highlights the shortcomings of federal education [privacy] laws that protect even admitted killers like [the Parkland, Florida school gunman] who are no longer students.” [Brittany Wallman, Megan O’Matz and Paula McMahon, South Florida Sun Sentinel]
Germany forbids homeschooling and the European Court of Human Rights has just upheld the removal of four children from their parents’ home over the issue [BBC] Is there a constitutional right to homeschool in the U.S.? [Eugene Volokh]
By contrast, claims of a federal constitutional right to education tend to amount to a contemplated way for courts to order spending hikes for public schools, as many already do under state constitutions, a bandwagon the U.S. Supreme Court declined to join in San Antonio v. Rodriguez [Alia Wong, The Atlantic on Rhode Island suit]
Read and marvel at a waiver and indemnity form for letting an 8 year old walk home a block by herself [Let Grow] “Nine-Year-Old Boy Leads The Way As Colorado Town Legalizes Snowball Fights” [Bill Galluccio, iHeartRadio]
Texas school district settles case of student expelled for not standing during Pledge of Allegiance [Massarah Mikati and Gabrielle Banks, Houston Chronicle via Sarah McLaughlin and Popehat (“Alternative headline: Expensive, Uncertain, Stressful Federal Lawsuit Required To Force Texas School To Acknowledge Right Unequivocally Established By Supreme Court In 1943; Taxpayers To Pay Costs Of Lawsuit; Lawless Administrator Will Face No Consequences”)]
Latest leave-kid-in-car-for-a-few-minutes horror: mom arrested, charged with contributing to delinquency of minor (to whom nothing had happened) [Lenore Skenazy]
“The Trump administration got it right on school-discipline policy” [Hans Bader letter, Washington Post]

Tags: Germany, Rhode Island, school discipline, schools

Schools and childhood roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Sen. Warren: make American business more European

Walter Olson — Sat, 18 Aug 2018 16:10:05 +0000

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a new scheme to impose employee co-determination and an assortment of other forcible corporate governance alterations on American business. My new Cato post argues that it would expropriate huge sums in shareholder value while undercutting incentives for economic dynamism. Alternatives to the U.S. corporate governance system, “European or otherwise, simply do not have as good a track record of supporting a dynamic economy that generates world-beating enterprises across a wide range of business sectors.” Other views: Donald Boudreaux (“deeply truly scary”), Matt Yglesias/Vox (taking favorable view of scheme, including its destruction of perhaps 25 percent of current shareholder value). More on the “stakeholder” and co-determination angles: Samuel Hammond, and Megan McArdle on the latter.

Tags: corporate governance, Denmark, Elizabeth Warren, Germany, WO writings

Sen. Warren: make American business more European is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

German social media law: early takedowns spur outcry

Walter Olson — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 05:05:05 +0000

“A new law meant to curtail hate speech on social media in Germany is stifling free speech and making martyrs out of anti-immigrant politicians whose posts are deleted, the top-selling Bild newspaper said on Thursday” under the headline “Please spare us the thought police!” [Michelle Martin, Thomson Reuters] In one probably intended effect of the draconian law — drafted by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats — Twitter moved to take down some pronouncements by politicians from the nationalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. But the NetzDG enactment, as it is known, has quickly had a number of less expected applications, including the blockage of a satirical publication that had mimicked the tone of an AfD leader, and even the deletion of a years-earlier tweet by Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a champion of the law, in which he had called an author an “idiot.” [Reuters; AFP/The National; DW; Tim Cushing/TechDirt; earlier here, here, here, here, and here]

Tags: Facebook, free speech, Germany, social media, Twitter

German social media law: early takedowns spur outcry is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Regulating “fake news”

Walter Olson — Sun, 10 Sep 2017 16:05:14 +0000

Legally penalizing the circulation of “fake news,” misinformation and faulty rumor, newly popular in Europe especially as regards social media, is not a new idea at all. It’s a very old one, which again and again results in governments’ enshrining their particular version of orthodoxy as truth [Jacob Mchangama, Quillette]

More: on the German experience, earlier here and here.

Tags: free speech, Germany, newspapers, publishers, social media

Regulating “fake news” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 09:59:46 +0000

ACLU of Oregon has it right: even in near aftermath of violent Portland attack, government cannot revoke rally permits because of disapproval of the message being sent [Ronald K.L. Collins, Scott Shackford/Reason, John Samples/Cato]
“The ‘eye for an eye’ theory of respecting free speech is particularly pernicious because it represents the worst sort of collectivism, something the principled Right ought reject.” [Ken White, Popehat] Courts have been doing a stellar job of upholding free speech. Other sectors of U.S. society, less so [same]
tl:dr version: yes, legally it can. “Can Charlotte Pride parade exclude Gays for Trump float?” [Eugene Volokh]
“California AG agrees: Calif. law does not preclude private citizens from displaying Confederate battle flag at county fairs” [Volokh, earlier]
“Germany Raids Homes of 36 People Accused of Hateful Postings Over Social Media” [David Shimer, New York Times] Per David Meyer-Lindenberg, German police launched 234,341 investigations over insult or other hurtful speech last year [Scott Greenfield] A vigilant comrade has reported your tweet of Wednesday last to the constabulary as doubleplus ungood [Matt Burgess, Wired, last August on Met Police plans in U.K.]
On inviting controversial speakers: “A response to Scott Alexander” [Flemming Rose, Cato]

Tags: ACLU, free speech, Germany, Oregon, social media

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

June 7 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 04:05:40 +0000

“Copyright Troll’s Tech ‘Experts’ Can Apparently Detect Infringement Before It Happens” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt] “Judge Alsup Threatens To Block Malibu Media From Any More Copyright Trolling In Northern California” [Mike Masnick, same]
“The Truth About Seattle’s Proposed Soda Tax and its Ilk” [Baylen Linnekin quoting my piece on the Howard County, Maryland campaign against soft drinks; my related on Philadelphia soda tax] Update: measure passes;
“Judge calls attorney a ‘lowlife’ in tossing defamation suit, says ‘truth is an absolute defense'” [Julia Marsh, New York Post]
Rent control in Mumbai, as closer to home, brings strife, litigiousness, and crumbling housing stock [Alex Tabarrok] “How Germany Made Rent Control ‘Work'” [Kristian Niemietz, FEE]
Together with Judge Alex Williams, Jr., I wrote an op-ed for the Baltimore Sun on the Maryland legislature’s misbegotten scheme to require a six-state compact before fixing its gerrymander-prone redistricting system;
Inefficient land title recording leaves billions on table, but lawmakers show scant interest in reform [Arnold Kling]

Tags: copyright, Germany, India, landlord tenant law, libel slander and defamation, Maryland, real estate, redistricting reform, Seattle, soft drinks

June 7 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system