- Shameless: House leadership exempts NRA lest it sink bill to regulate political speech [John Samples, Cato]
- Employment law: “Arbitration Showdown Looms Between Congress, Supreme Court” [Coyle, NLJ]
- “Wake Up, Fellow Law Professors, to the Casualties of Our Enterprise” [Tamanaha, Balkinization]
- Move to allow international war crimes trials over “aggression,” a notoriously slippery term [Anderson, Brett Schaefer/NRO “Corner” via Ku]
- Litigation slush funds: “Cy pres bill in Ohio House” [Ted Frank, CCAF]
- “Recent Michigan Prosecutions for ‘Seducing an Unmarried Woman’” [Volokh]
- Scalia: “…least analytically rigorous and hence most subjective of law-school subjects, legal ethics” [LEF]
- Silicosis settlement scandal update: “As 2 Insurance Execs Admit Bribes, PI Lawyer Says He Can’t Be Retried” [Houston Chronicle via ABA Journal, earlier]
Posts Tagged ‘Houston’
“I’ve always thought people would be very concerned if they knew what we were doing”
A Texas DWI lawyer speaks incautiously to the press, and fun ensues [Houston Press, Above the Law, Defending People and more]
October 14 roundup
- Uh-huh: new report from federal Legal Services program calls for gigantic new allocation of tax money to, well, legal services programs [ABA Journal]
- “Judge: Man’s a ‘vexatious litigator'” [Cincinnati.com]
- Wisconsin governor signs bill requiring prescription to buy mercury thermometer [Popehat]
- “Injured by art?” Woman sues Museum of Fine Arts Houston after fall in artist-designed light tunnel [Mary Flood, Houston Chronicle “Legal Trade”]
- On Carol Browner and the cry of “environmental racism” (a/k/a “green redlining”) [Coyote]
- New York: “Lawyers implicated in $9 million mortgage fraud” [Business Insider]
- In Canada, as in the U.S., medical privacy rules hamper police investigations [Calgary Herald]
- Stalin’s grandson loses lawsuit in Russia against newspaper that supposedly defamed the dictator [WSJ Law Blog, Lowering the Bar, Volokh]
September 23 roundup
- There are “almost certainly” many innocent persons in prison today wrongly convicted of shaking a baby to death [Radley Balko, Reason] Harris County, Texas forensic examiner under scrutiny [same, Reason “Hit and Run”] L.A. Times on forensics reform [same]
- Feds order large private insurer Humana to pull criticisms of Obama health plan from its website [David Henderson, Eugene Volokh and followup]
- Why would anyone market lawyers’ services through blog comment spam? Especially at Popehat? [first and second posts]
- “Revolving door” for officials of regulatory agencies tends to lead to law firms [Naked Capitalism]
- Tenure trouble: teacher’s union head “would protect a dead body in the classroom” [Ron Bailey, Reason on Brill “Rubber Room” article, earlier]
- Google asked to unmask user in another defamation suit (Turks & Caicos developer) [Brian Kumnick, FindLaw “Injured”]
- “Fired Ave Maria Law Prof Gets Tenure in Whistle-Blower Settlement, Lawyer Says” [ABA Journal, background Washington Monthly]
- Ted Frank on Ameritrade settlement [Center for Class Action Fairness, earlier]
Developer: we don’t want an unregulated land-use climate like Houston
Because without some sort of barriers to entry, how are you supposed to make the really big bucks? [Antiplanner via Coyote]
“EEOC says age bias behind firing of strip-club waitress”
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Mary Bassi was 56 when she was allegedly subjected to age-based discrimination at the Cover Girls club where she waited tables. “According to the lawsuit, which was filed last week in federal court, she was frequently called ‘old’ by managers and endured comments about experiencing menopause and showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease.” Younger waitresses were also given shifts that Bassi had customarily worked. An EEOC lawyer says Bassi had been a successful waitress and is now working in that capacity for a competitive club; Cover Girls burned down in 2007 and has not been rebuilt. [Houston Chronicle via Tim Eavenson; Richard Connelly, Houston Press “Hair Balls”] We’ve covered earlier age-bias complaints by exotic dancers themselves (as opposed to support staff) in 2000 and last year (both in Ontario, Canada).
Teacher’s ordeal began when cops found two pills in her car
59-year-old Melinda Herrick, an art teacher who had been a Teacher of the Year honoree in the Houston schools, was charged with violating the “drug-free zone” law after cops found two Xanax pills in her car; the drug is often prescribed for panic disorder. Herrick protested that the car had been in the shop for repairs for more than a month before the incident; her daughter also drove the car. Students rallied on her behalf and the charges were finally dropped after she underwent a drug test which indicated that she did not use drugs. [Houston Chronicle via Obscure Store]
Update: Insurance law Hall of Fame
“An insurance company with a potential $25 million liability from a fatal 2007 Houston office fire announced [Jan. 21] that it will drop its legal argument” that it shouldn’t have to pay for smoke inhalation deaths because they supposedly resulted from “pollution”, a risk excluded under the policy, as opposed to the actual flames. [Houston Chronicle; earlier].
Insurance law Hall of Fame
“An insurance company with a potential $25 million liability from a 2007 Houston office fire is claiming smoke that killed three people was ‘pollution’ and surviving families shouldn’t be compensated for their losses since the deaths were not caused directly by the actual flames. Great American Insurance Company is arguing in a Houston federal court that the section of the insurance policy that excludes payments for pollution — like discharges or seepage that require cleanup — would also exclude payouts for damages, including deaths, caused by smoke, or pollution, that results from a fire.” (Mary Flood, “Insurance loophole claimed in fire deaths”, Houston Chronicle, Dec. 17).
“Judge’s daughter sues driver she ran into during crash”
“Convicted last year of intoxication manslaughter for the death of her boyfriend, the 21-year-old daughter of a state district judge is suing the truck driver she ran into during a drunken driving crash. …[Elizabeth] Shelton had a blood alcohol concentration more than three times the legal limit, two tests showed.” (Brian Rogers, Houston Chronicle, Dec. 18). Feral Child has been digging up all sorts of interesting stuff about the lawyer representing Elizabeth Shelton, too — his name is Mark Sandoval — and his past dealings with her father, Harris County Judge Pat Shelton. He wonders whether it has something to do with standards being lower in Texas, although, unfortunately, we can think of this sort of thing going on in many other states too. And then Mark Bennett of Defending People jumps in and does even more research about Sandoval’s disciplinary record. And does he ever find stuff.
The Houston Chronicle deserves credit for breaking the original story, but as you may have noticed it took only hours for two skillful bloggers, SSFC and Bennett, to push it much farther. The blogosphere is proving itself extremely powerful in shedding a quick and bright light on some of the darker corners of the legal system.