Richard Posner – Overlawyered

Does existing law ban workplace bias against gays? SCOTUS will decide

Walter Olson — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 04:05:24 +0000

My new post at Cato covers the Supreme Court’s decision to resolve three cases in which it is argued that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act bans private workplace discrimination against gay and transgender employees. I cite a 2017 Seventh Circuit showdown on the question between Judges Richard Posner and Diane Sykes: “These philosophical divides on statutory interpretation — which of course play out every term in lower-profile cases — are likely to be on the Court’s mind next fall.” More: Jared Odessky, On Labor (rounding up commentary).

Tags: Richard Posner, sex discrimination, sexual orientation, Supreme Court, transgender

Does existing law ban workplace bias against gays? SCOTUS will decide is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

September 13 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 10:01:52 +0000

Scranton, Pa. federal judge “denies ‘exorbitant’ request for nearly $1M in attorney fees after $125K recovery” [ABA Journal; arose from bad faith insurance action on underlying uninsured motorist claim that settled for $25,000]
As PETA settles monkey selfie case with hapless photographer, details confirm that “Naruto is really just a prop to be deployed in the case as PETA sees fit.” [Ted Folkman, Eriq Gardner, earlier] A sad catalogue of litigation abuse enabled by PETA’s donors [Frank Bednarz thread]
Lively First Circuit opinion upholds extortion conviction of small town police chief [Bob Dunn, Berkshire Eagle, U.S. v. Buffis via IJ’s John Ross, “Short Circuit“; Lee, Mass.]
She beat DOMA and the IRS too, and all in great style. My appreciation of Edith Windsor [Cato at Liberty]
“North Carolina’s Fickle Finger of Redistricting” [also by me at Cato at Liberty]
Me: “Posner was the judge lawyers really didn’t want to run into if they had bad class action settlements to defend” [Jonathan Bilyk, Cook County Record, earlier]

Tags: animal rights, class action settlements, feeing frenzy, First Circuit, North Carolina, photography, redistricting reform, Richard Posner, sexual orientation, WO writings

September 13 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Utterly worthless,” “no better than a racket”

Walter Olson — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 16:01:05 +0000

7th Circuit judges take carving knife to lawyers’ “footlong” class action settlement with Subway sandwich chain, after objections from Ted Frank [Lowering the Bar, CEI, earlier]

Speaking of the Seventh Circuit, Judge Richard Posner, among the most influential legal thinkers and jurists of the past half-century, is stepping down. He changed my thinking and if you hang out around law or policy probably yours too [our past coverage and tag; Evan Bernick on Twitter; Cass Sunstein (“I have my disagreements with Judge Posner, but let’s give credit where it is due: His influence has made the law much better, and the world is a lot better off as a result.”)]

Tags: class action settlements, Richard Posner, Seventh Circuit, Ted Frank

“Utterly worthless,” “no better than a racket” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Judge Posner and the much-too-pampered cats

Walter Olson — Mon, 27 Mar 2017 09:51:54 +0000

Eike v. Allergan, a consumer class action certification case about allegedly over-generous allotments of fluid in eyedrop dispensers, raises two questions: how’d this case get past the motion-to-dismiss stage? And, second, how did Judge Richard Posner manage to go out on such a very extended cat metaphor in a case having nothing to do with cats? [Lowering the Bar, Chicago Tribune, ABA Journal]

Tags: advertising, class actions, Richard Posner

Judge Posner and the much-too-pampered cats is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

First Amendment roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 02 May 2016 04:05:25 +0000

How the courts came to extend First Amendment protection to art, music, movies, and other expression not originally classed as “press” or “speech” [new Mark Tushnet, Alan Chen, and Joseph Blocher book via Ronald Collins]
Cato amicus: church enterprises should be eligible for recycling program on same terms as secular businesses [Ilya Shapiro and Jayme Weber]
“A Political Attack On Free Speech And Privacy Thwarted — For Now” [George Leef, Forbes on AFP v. Harris, earlier] Bill filed by Rep. Peter Roskam would keep IRS from collecting names of donors to nonprofits [Center for Competitive Politics]
Newly enacted Tennessee conscience exemption for psychological counselors and therapists avoids some of the dangers of compelled speech [Scott Shackford, Reason]
Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart, benchslapped by Judge Richard Posner after sending credit card companies letters urging them to cut off dealings with Backpage.com, now seeks Supreme Court certiorari review [Ronald Collins, earlier here, here, and here]
One problem with that Mississippi law: it gives extra protection to some religious beliefs about sex and marriage but not others [Popehat; my guest appearance on Mike Slater show, San Diego’s KFMB]

Tags: Chicago, churches, First Amendment, Kamala Harris, Mississippi, on TV and radio, religious liberty, Richard Posner, Tennessee

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

Bloomberg profiles Ted Frank

Walter Olson — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 04:15:52 +0000

Ted Frank, who directs the Center for Class Action Fairness and was long a co-blogger here at Overlawyered, is the subject of this Bloomberg/BNA profile from Steven Sellers of Class Action Litigation Report. A master key to Ted’s analysis of class action settlement incentives? “The Posner and Easterbrook decisions on class actions… pervade everything I do,” he says, referring to economically informed Seventh Circuit judges Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, both also associated with the University of Chicago law school, where Ted studied. Chicken offsets get a mention, too.

Tags: class action settlements, Frank Easterbrook, Richard Posner, Ted Frank

Bloomberg profiles Ted Frank is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Posner upholds dismissal of online-poker suit

Walter Olson — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 05:15:57 +0000

Under an old Illinois law, not only can persons who lose at unlawful gambling sue the winners to claw back their losses, but if they fail to act, literally any other person can sue demanding that money. Citing this law, two women sued online-poker operators seeking to recover gambling losses of men who happened to be their sons (but could as easily under the law have been strangers). A Seventh Circuit panel, Judge Posner writing, has now upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the case (an intended class action) on the grounds that the Illinois law by its terms allows suit only against the other gamblers who won the poker games in question, not the house that collected a fee for presiding. [Courthouse News, Rakebrain; opinion in Sonnenberg v. Amaya Group Holdings via John Ross, Institute for Justice “Short Circuit”]

While on the subject of Judge Posner, Harvard Magazine has a Lincoln Caplan interview with him that is worth a read.

Tags: gambling, Illinois, law enforcement for profit, Richard Posner

Posner upholds dismissal of online-poker suit is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

New Richard Posner book on law schools and the judiciary

Walter Olson — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 05:15:52 +0000

Paul Horwitz finds Richard Posner’s new book, Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary, full (inevitably) of provocative ideas and high-quality digressions. About the recommendations, Horwitz is less convinced: the book “wants to turn law schools into a device for the large-scale industrial cloning of Richard Posner himself.”

Plus: Noteworthy interview with Harvard lawprof Duncan Kennedy, of Critical Legal Studies fame [Tor Krever, Carl Lisberger and Max Utzschneider, Unbound: Harvard Journal of the Legal Left] And: “Why Are There So Few Conservative/Libertarian Law Profs, Even Though They Are More Productive Than Liberal Law Profs?” [Paul Caron/TaxProf, Jonathan Adler on James Cleith Phillips, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy/SSRN]

Tags: law schools, Richard Posner

New Richard Posner book on law schools and the judiciary is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Schools roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 05:05:25 +0000

“A legal challenge at Scotland’s top civil court failed earlier this year, but the No To Named Persons (NO2NP) campaign group has secured a hearing at the Supreme Court in London in March.” [Scotsman, earlier on named person scheme]
“The auditors found students in two schools who carried contraband salt shakers” [WSJ editorial on 4.5% drop in participation in school lunch program]
Teachers’ union AFT spends tens of millions a year on politics, policy, influence [RiShawn Biddle]
“A Short, Sad History of Zero-Tolerance School Policies” [Nick Gillespie, Reason]
Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary is a new Richard Posner book forthcoming from Harvard University Press [Paul Caron, TaxProf] Shouldn’t the program offerings at the Association of American Law Schools include at least as much range of diversity of thought as, for example, the panels at the Federalist Society convention? [John McGinnis, Liberty and Law] Heterodox Academy is a new website and project with its goal to “increase viewpoint diversity in the academy, with a special focus on the social sciences.” [Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz] More: Jonathan Adler on a widely noted Arthur Brooks op-ed on ideological imbalance in the academy. And don’t forget my book;
“Judge Tosses Concussions Lawsuit Against Illinois Prep Group” [Insurance Journal]
In case you were wondering, yes, law school trade associations did support that “law school’s a bargain, there’s no real economic crisis for grads” research [Outside the Law School Scam]

Tags: colleges and universities, law schools, Richard Posner, school lunch, schools, zero tolerance

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

March 25 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 04:05:38 +0000

Yikes: Nevada supreme court is nearly broke because it relies on traffic ticket revenue and cops are writing fewer [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
Forced marriage in immigrant communities happening not just in places like English Midlands, but in U.S. as well; those who assist resistant teenage girls risk “aiding delinquent minor” charges [Washington Post]
“Posner informs pro se litigant that the queen of England did not absolve him of need to pay taxes” [ABA Journal]
Panel at Federalist Society on president’s power not to enforce the law [Randy Barnett, background on panel]
Inside grand jury’s investigation of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane [Philadelphia Inquirer] “Referral fees paid to wife of former Pa. Supreme Court justice questioned” [Harrisburg Patriot-News]
Have you or a loved one been attacked by a Zebra? [Arkansas Matters] “Louisiana Man on Trial for Murder Says He Thought the Victim Was an Alligator” [People]
Sneaky Oregon law will divert unclaimed class action dollars to legal aid and not incidentally boost legal fees [Sen. Betsy Johnson, East Oregonian]

Tags: animals, attorneys general, cy pres, executive orders, family law, folk law, law enforcement for profit, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Richard Posner

March 25 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system