- Congress again debates bad idea of race-based government for native Hawaiians [Ramesh Ponnuru, Ilya Shapiro/Cato; earlier here, etc.]
- “I could have been killed for blogging.” [Patterico, Scott Greenfield] Latest blogger “swatting” (bogus police call) hits RedState’s Erick Erickson [same] Incivility is a hazard for bloggers, but fear for families’ physical safety shouldn’t be [Jonathan Adler, Amy Alkon] Dear authorities in Montgomery County, Md. and elsewhere: you should know it’s not every day Radley Balko calls for tougher law enforcement. Earlier here and here.
- More dying from guns than from car crashes? Eugene Volokh skewers some misleading arguments from the Detroit Free Press;
- Mississippi: Judge dismisses Dickie Scruggs’s motion to vacate bribery conviction [AP; Tom Freeland and more]
- Washington Times kindly cites coverage in this space on Maryland “structuring” prosecutions [editorial]. Maryland delayed foreclosures and is now paying the price in slower housing recovery [Hayley Peterson, Examiner]
- Andrew Pincus defends arbitration and SCOTUS decision in Concepcion [NYTimes “DealBook”; NLJ] Effort in Florida to ease use of arbitration in med-mal disputes [Miami Herald]
- Michigan Supreme Court judge Diane Hathaway, elected via 2008’s most unfair attack ad, is now in a spot of ethical bother [Ted Frank]
Posts Tagged ‘Michigan’
Creative class actions: gas in repossessed cars
Lawyers representing a White Lake, Mich. woman say that whether or not Ally Financial was within its rights to repossess her 2006 Pontiac, it was not entitled to the half-tank of gas it carried. They are asking class-action status on behalf of Michigan customers and seek $5 million. [Detroit News]
February 17 roundup
- Mortgage robo-signing settlement not actually as punitive toward the banks as you might think, succeeds in sticking costs onto various parties not at table [FT, more (US taxpayers could wind up covering much of write-down costs through HAMP program); Felix Salmon (write-downs of underwater mortgages should not be assessed at face value); Mark Calabria, Cato and more, Bloomberg (banks managing to offload much of the cramdown onto investors such as pension funds); Daniel Fisher/Forbes one, two, three (banks get covert benefits, politicos get social engineering and fees — shades of the collusive tobacco settlement!); Above the Law (Schneiderman steers money to legal services programs); Linette Lopez, BI (banks still exposed on many issues). More: Hans Bader, John Steele Gordon.
- “Burned at mediation by my own Facebook post” [Stuart Mauney, Abnormal Use]
- As anti-discrimination law advances, religious liberty retreats [Roger Pilon, Cato] Two views on the birth control mandate [Cathy Young, David Henderson] More: Adler, Frum.
- Motel Caswell case from Tewksbury, Mass. heads to court, could test forfeiture law [Balko] More: Washington Post editorial.
- Which is more unreasonable, OSHA regulation or FAA’s? Open to dispute [John Cochrane, Grumpy Economist]
- Indiana becomes a right to work state. On to Michigan next? [Shikha Dalmia, Reason]
- Warning! Tale of trial psychologists in wizard garb comes from a sinister source, namely me [“In the News,” forensic psychologist Karen Franklin, handsome illustration swiped from Cato site]
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]
Court: IVF clinic cannot turn away single customers
“A single woman who was denied treatment by a west Michigan in vitro fertilization clinic can proceed with a lawsuit claiming unlawful discrimination, the state Court of Appeals ruled in a decision released today. The case against Grand Rapids Fertility and IVF was filed after a doctor there told Allison Moon that his clinic could not provide the service out of concern that Michigan paternity law is so vague that a child conceived by IVF and born to a single mother could successfully sue the clinic for child support.” [Dawson Bell, Detroit Free Press] The appeals court said Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which prohibits services of public accommodation from discriminating on the basis of marital status among other grounds, extinguishes doctors’ common law right to decide with whom to undertake a physician-patient relationship. [Michigan Health Law Link]
Who was that court-appointed expert again?
“Macomb County Probate Court officials can’t explain how a man falsely claiming to be a medical doctor was allowed to decide whether people were mentally competent to handle their own estates and whether jail inmates needed mental health care.” [Detroit News]
“Upset Moviegoer Sues Over ‘Misleading’ Trailer”
Sarah Deming has sued the distributor of the critically acclaimed Ryan Gosling thriller DRIVE under Michigan’s Consumer Protection Act, saying it was promoted “as very similar to the Fast and Furious, or similar, series of movies” but “bore very little similarity to a chase, or race action film…having very little driving in the motion picture.” The suit aims for class-action status. [Lawyerist, Guardian]
“How To Make A Mockery Of Your Own Law School: Sue Your Critics”
Which is good advice for many other touchy sorts of plaintiffs too, not just for the Thomas M. Cooley Law School of Lansing, Michigan [Mike Masnick, TechDirt, earlier]
July 29 roundup
- Don’t: “Lawyer Disbarred for Verbal Aggression to Pay $9.8M Fine for Hiding Cash Overseas” [Weiss, ABA Journal]
- Loser-pays might help: “Dropped malpractice lawsuits cost legal system time and money” [Liz Kowalczyk, Boston Globe]
- “Kim Kardashian and the Problem With ‘Celebrity Likeness’ Lawsuits” [Atlantic Wire]
- Kim Strassel on the Franken-spun Jamie Leigh Jones case [WSJ]
- Peggy Little interviews Prof. Lester Brickman (Lawyer Barons) on new Federalist Society podcast;
- Worse than Wisconsin? “Weaponizing” recusal at the Michigan Supreme Court [Jeff Hadden, Detroit News]
- New York legislature requires warning labels for sippy cups [NYDN]
July 25 roundup
- Nice going, sex offender registries [Brian Dickerson, Detroit Free Press] And I’m quoted in a syndicated column by Lenore Skenazy (and thence by Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing) on the registries’ tendency to sweep in much wider circles of offender than many advocates originally had in mind. More: a tale of child-abuse registries [Skenazy];
- New York Times exposes scandal: businessman holds seat in Congress. Quick, replace him with another lawyer! [Ribstein]
- Race separation’s unlawful for school attendance. So why’s it OK for school voting districts? [Quin Hillyer, Mobile Press-Register]
- Speech and property rights in peril: “Fear of a Muslim America” [Cathy Young, Reason]
- Before blaming bank dereg for “Too Big To Fail,” read this [Mark Calabria, Cato at Liberty]
- After fatal one-car crash, drunk driver’s survivors sue popular Irish bar that served him [NJLRA; Trenton, N.J.]
- Scotland: Thief wants victim prosecuted for keeping gun in her house [Daily Record]