- Nomination of David Weil as Labor Department wage/hour chief could be flashpoint in overtime furor [Terence Smith, Hill] Another reaction to President’s scheme [Don Boudreaux, Cafe Hayek, earlier here and here]
- Oregon: longshoreman’s union says NLRB charges of blinding, threatened rape meant “to distract” [Oregonian]
- Who thinks hiking the minimum wage would kill jobs? Company chief financial officers, to name one group [Steve Hanke, Cato]
- Tourists’ casual naivete about union politics at NYC hotel made for tension, hilarity [How May We Hate You via @tedfrank]
- Just for fun: Wichita business’s creative responses to union’s “Shame On…” signs reach Round 2 [Volokh on first round, Subaru of Wichita on second round]
- Workers’ comp claims at government agencies in Maryland can be odd [Baltimore Sun via Jeff Quinton]
- Are unions losing their grip on the California Democratic Party? [Dan Walters]
Posts Tagged ‘hotels’
Great moments in rent control
Some “affordable housing”/squatting enthusiasts in San Francisco are encouraging the stratagem of renting someone’s apartment for a night or two on AirBnB, declining to leave, and settling in for what might prove a prolonged process of eviction under the city’s highly pro-tenant landlord-tenant laws. [@marketurbanism]
Sweden: hotel made of ice ordered to install smoke alarms
Following the rules wherever they lead? The newly installed alarms did promptly catch a guest smoking in a cleaning closet. [Independent]
Schneiderman demands 225,000 NYC AirBnB users’ records
Because you thought he was some kind of big privacy advocate or something? “Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed the data as part of an investigation into the website stemming from a 2010 law that makes it illegal to use such sites to rent out your own apartment.” He says he’s after the 15,000 or so customers who used the service to let guests stay on their premises for a fee. Next: Craigslist? [New York Daily News, Matt Welch/Reason]
Lawyers can’t scrub hotel epithet
“A federal appeals court has tossed a $10 million defamation suit by a resort in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., that was ranked No. 1 on a 2011 ‘dirtiest hotels’ list by TripAdvisor.” The Sixth Circuit “said the list is opinion protected by the First Amendment.” [ABA Journal, Digital Media Law]
If your city suppresses social-lodging options like AirBnB…
…maybe City Hall is not your friend [Arnold Kling, Nick Sibilla/IJ, earlier here and here]
Maryland roundup
- “Montgomery County firefighters can earn overtime pay while on vacation, or while taking sick days.” [Washington Post via @radleybalko]
- Will Maryland Court of Appeals overturn contributory negligence in favor of comparative negligence? [Michael Schearer page on pending case of Coleman v. Soccer Association of Columbia]
- “City Council postpones vote on Styrofoam container ban” [Baltimore Sun]
- Extensive political ties of Maryland speed camera vendor [Mark Newgent, WatchdogWire]
- Scheme to extend “Maintenance of Effort” regulations, which forbid counties from cutting budgets, from education to other service areas [Brian Griffiths, WatchdogWire]
- Fiscal sink: “Failed ‘Green’ Boutique Hotel Received Millions in State Loans” [Mark Newgent, WatchdogWire]
- Maryland ranks among states with most onerous occupational licensing burdens [Institute for Justice, “License To Work,” scroll to p. 78]
- Nice Chamber you got here in this state, be a shame if you didn’t sign this letter backing our guy Perez [Sean Higgins, Washington Examiner]
- Old but good: property tax cuts have revitalized other cities, and Baltimore needs one too [Steve Walters]
May 31 roundup
- The American Illness: Essays on the Rule of Law, new book from Yale University Press edited by Frank Buckley, looks quite promising [Bainbridge]
- So the New York Times gets spoon-fed “confidential” (and disappointingly tame) documents from the old Brady Campaign lawsuits against gunmakers, and then nothing happens;
- IRS commissioner visited White House 118 times in 2010-11. Previous one visited once in four years. Hmmm… [John Steele Gordon, more] (But see reporting by Garance Franke-Ruta and commentary by Yuval Levin.) Did politics play role in 2011 Gibson Guitar raid? [IBD]
- Supreme Court of Canada: “Judges may ‘cut and paste’ when writing their judgments” [Globe and Mail]
- Lack of proper land title and registration holds Greece back [Alex Tabarrok]
- I try not to clutter this blog with links to memoir-ish personal pieces of mine, but if you’re interested in adoption, or in how America manages to be at once the most conservative and the most socially innovative of great nations, go ahead and give this one a try [HuffPost]
- Big Lodging and hotel unions don’t like competition: New York City’s war against AirBnB and Roomorama [John Stossel, Andrew Sullivan]
May 7 roundup
- In quiet retreat from STOCK Act, Congress dispenses with trading transparency for its staff [Prof. Bainbridge]
- Deep-pocket quest: hotel named as additional defendant in Florida A&M hazing death [Orlando Sentinel, earlier]
- “Keynes didn’t expect to have kids so he didn’t care about the future” wheeze long predates Niall Ferguson [Kenneth Silber; my new post at IGF, where I’ve also been posting lately on the topic of adoption]
- Ten and five (respectively) reasons for a plaintiff’s lawyer to turn down a personal injury case [Eric Turkewitz, Max Kennerly]
- Setback for man seeking to trademark “Eat More Kale” [AP, earlier]
- Gawker is now on the UK “Warning: This bag of nuts may contain nuts” case [earlier]
- Overlawyered’s Twitter feed just passed the 7,000-follower mark, while our Facebook page, which recently stood at 1,000 likes, has now surged to nearly 2,500. Thanks for following and liking, and if you’d like to engage with other parts of Cato on social media, check out this nifty guide by Zach Graves.
Torts roundup
- Despite sparseness of evidence, lawyers hope to pin liability on hotel for double murder of guests [Tennessean]
- Celebrated repeat litigant Patricia Alice McColm sentenced after felony conviction for filing false documents in Trinity County, Calif. [Trinity Journal, more, Justia, earlier] Idaho woman challenges vexatious-litigant statute [KBOI]
- “2 Florida Moms Sentenced for Staged Accident Insurance Fraud” [Insurance Journal, earlier]
- With Arkansas high court intent on striking down liability changes, advocates consider going the constitutional amendment route [TortsProf] Fifth Circuit upholds Mississippi damages caps [PoL]
- What states have been doing lately on litigation reform [Andrew Cook, Fed Soc] Illinois lawmakers’ proposals [Madison-St. Clair Record] Head of Florida Chamber argues for state legal changes [Tampa Tribune]
- Crowd of defendants: “Ky. couple names 124 defendants in asbestos suit” [WV Record]
- A bad habit of Louisiana courts: “permitting huge recoveries without proof of injury” [Eric Alexander, Drug and Device Law]