Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘libel slander and defamation’

U.K.: 2013 nastygram to Grenfell Action Group

“Grenfell Tower tenants repeatedly complained about safety concerns; their landlord hired a lawyer who threatened to sue them for libel.” [Bruce E.H. Johnson on Twitter] A fast-spreading fire at the North Kensington high-rise public housing tower resulted in more than 70 fatalities earlier this month.

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June 7 roundup

  • “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]

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May 31 roundup

  • “Heir hunters” chase missing relatives entitled to inherit unclaimed fortunes, for a share of the recovery. Some relatives might not even be relatives [James Fanelli, New York Daily News first, second stories]
  • Put up a statue of Clarence Darrow for the Scopes case? OK, but then take it back down for the L.A. Times case [Mark Pulliam, Law and Liberty]
  • Lawyer who founded Prenda Law is disbarred [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica]
  • “Escaping the ICWA Penalty Box: In Defense of Equal Protection for Indian Children” [Timothy Sandefur, Children’s Legal Rights Journal]
  • “Russian bank owners sue BuzzFeed over Trump dossier publication” [Josh Gerstein, Politico]
  • On OMB regulatory management, Trump administration is headed in its own new direction [Andrew Grossman]

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Free speech roundup

  • “There are about 10 to 20 [criminal libel] prosecutions each year throughout the country” [Eugene Volokh on criminal defamation complaint by Montana judge against election opponent who had accused him of misconduct]
  • “Shutting down Fake News Could Move Us Closer to a Modern-Day ‘1984’” [Flemming Rose and Jacob Mchangama, Washington Post/Cato]
  • Glad to be in America with our First Amendment: EU acts to adopt Europe-wide rules requiring social media companies to take down so-called hate speech [Mashable, Engadget] More: DW. And a decree ordering media to take down news officially dubbed false is one that would *not* read better in the original German [Flemming Rose, Cato]
  • Idaho defends its ag-gag law against First Amendment challenge before Ninth Circuit [Baylen Linnekin]
  • “The playing field for independent speech has improved, but there are challenges still for small groups that want to influence elections.” [Cato podcast with campaign attorneys Michael G. Adams and Neil Reiff]
  • On the origins of “no-platforming” [Mark Peters, Boston Globe, quotes me]

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May 24 roundup

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Grad student to sue over portrayal in Laura Kipnis book

Laura Kipnis, who wrote a widely read article on the problems with the Title IX accusation process on campus and then herself had to fend off a Title IX complaint based on having written the article, is now being sued by the same Northwestern University graduate student who pursued the earlier Title IX complaints. The woman says she was portrayed under a pseudonym in Kipnis’s new book Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes To Campus and was unfairly characterized as, among other things, “litigious.” [Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, Robby Soave, earlier on Kipnis]

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Free speech roundup

  • Howard Dean, in hole re: grasping legal status of “hate speech,” keeps digging [Eugene Volokh (“No, Gov. Dean, There Is No ‘Hate Speech’ Exception to the First Amendment”), more (Chaplinsky and “fighting words”), Ronald K.L. Collins (will Dean publicly debate Volokh?]
  • White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus gets asked on a talk show about Trump’s much-criticized hopes for libel law. Did he say much that was new? [Volokh]
  • “Don’t Compel Doctors to Promote State-Favored Programs” [Ilya Shapiro and Thomas Berry on Cato amicus brief supporting Supreme Court certiorari in National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra]
  • “Newspapers and magazines tend to bury stories about libel settlements. Don’t want to give readers ideas.” [@jackshafer on Twitter]
  • Until courts definitively smack down New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s war on wrongful climate advocacy, this interim freedom-of-information win is nice [CEI] Related: Leo Doran, Inside Sources.
  • First “alternative facts,” now this: “Students Have an ‘Alternate Understanding’ of the First Amendment.” [Stephanie Castellano, Newseum]

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Free speech roundup

  • “Keeping this case in a pending status gives us one hell of a club” — how Nixon used antitrust to intimidate media [Guy Rolnik, Stigler Center ProMarket] For ruthlessness in bullying hostile press, Nixon and LBJ had nothing on FDR and his New Dealers [David Beito]
  • In which I display impatience with Claremont Colleges student no-platformers who signed a letter defending speaker shout-downs and demanding that conservative student journalists be disciplined [Scott Greenfield, more from Heather Mac Donald, earlier on shout-down of Mac Donald] More: statement by FIRE president Greg Lukianoff on situation at UC Berkeley. And: the campus speech wars reach Hood College [my new Free State Notes post]
  • Three reasons, none of them flattering, why GOP lawmakers might sign onto wacky tollgate-for-adult-material scheme [Elizabeth Nolan Brown; Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny, Daily Beast with more on promoter Chris Sevier and so-called Human Trafficking Prevention Act]
  • American Legislative Exchange Council, conservative group of state legislators that has itself been a target of anti-speech campaigns, launches Center to Protect Free Speech with focus on campus speech, donor privacy and commercial speech;
  • Flemming Rose: “I’m Not Willing to Sacrifice Freedom of Expression on the Altar of Cultural Diversity” [Reason interview with Nick Gillespie]
  • “But is it not shocking that virtuous characters should be defamed?” replied the Baron. “Let their actions refute such libels,” continued the President. An anecdote of Jefferson and Humboldt [David Post]

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