Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘safety’

CPSIA, continued

On Friday there was a noteworthy development on CPSIA: Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) sent a letter to Nancy Nord, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, endorsing some softenings in the law’s regulatory interpretation, which seems to represent a modest shift (if not an admitted one) from their earlier position. At the same time, Waxman, Rush et al held the line against any demand to revise the law itself, despite the outcry being heard from small producers, retailers and secondhand sellers across the country (more: my recent Forbes piece, some reactions).

threebears

On the same day they sponsored a closed-door briefing for Hill staffers which was billed as correcting supposed misreporting and confusion about the law and its onerousness. Such briefings are common when members’ offices are being hit by a torrent of constituent inquiries and want to know how to respond.

An editor at a large publication has asked me to write something about these new developments, so I’ll be working on that piece over the next day or two. In the mean time, let me recommend as a good place to start two excellent blog posts by Rick Woldenberg of Learning Resources Inc. (first, second).

The first post responds to the apparent new strategy of Waxman and Co. of proposing to exempt a couple of categories of generally safe products (ordinary children’s books, fabric-only garments with no plastic or metal fasteners) in the apparent hope that 1) Congress will look like it’s reasonable and “trying to do something”; 2) a few of the more visible (and politically salient) critics of CPSIA will be placated, at least for the moment. (One might add a third objective, whether consciously formulated or not: running the clock until Feb. 10 in the expectation that many of those protesting will at that point be out of the game — no longer in the kids’ product business — and so in less of a position to cause them political mischief.)
Read On…

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January 8 roundup

  • “You’ve got to be alive to be inconvenienced”: some thoughts on the withdrawal of an emergency battlefield therapy [GruntDoc]
  • Yes, let’s all have a nice scare over “third-hand” tobacco smoke, or actually let’s not [Sullum, Siegel, Greenfield] And you knew they were coming: “smokeasies” [Tuccille, Examiner]
  • “We are fully cooperating with the government in its investigations” (Hey, I never said “we” included my client) [WSJ Law Blog on Madoff case]
  • Speech so precious it must be rationed: Yale Law Journal author proposes “Tort Liability on Websites for Cyber-Harassment” [via TortsProf]
  • Rick Hills on Richardson probe: federally criminalizing state-level pay-to-play is a bad idea [Prawfs]
  • Paul Alan Levy: Martin Luther King Jr. estate, much criticized for its aggressive trademark assertions in the past, deserves due credit for its handling of a case where free speech was implicated [CL&P]
  • Lawyers on Craigslist: “If you practice as well as you spell, we’re golden” [Nicole Black, Legal Antics]
  • Yes, I’m overhauling Overlawyered’s look and feel with the aid of Thesis, a powerful “theme” (way of changing presentation) for WordPress. Expect my tinkering to go on for a while.

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Hokey Religions and Ancient Weapons are No Match for a Good Blaster at Your Side, Kid

Aspiring Jedi in the United Kingdom are out of luck this holiday season (assuming that Jedi have an analogue to Christmas), as the Woolworth’s retail chain, still a going concern over there, has restricted light sabers for purchase by adults only.  The store’s fear?  The Star Wars themed toys might be mistaken for firearms.

“A toy”                                                                     “An automatic pistol”

While even firearms opponents in the UK concede this decision is over the top, is it more appropriate to blame retailers, who may suffer liability in the event that a child was, I don’t know, injured because some fool mistook a light saber for a real firearm, or the activists and Labour government who have created laws that make such liability a real worry?  After all, the chain, like most merchants, presumably weighed its own risks, and found profits from sale of toy light sabers wanting in the balance.

You’re on your own, kid.

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Unhappy holidays for American toymakers?

The Consumer Product Safety Act of 2008, sponsored by Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush and quickly signed into law by President Bush, soon goes into effect.  Sold as a measure to protect children from the perils of Chinese and other foreign-made toys which may contain lead paint, the law was written with good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions sometimes produce bad consequences.  While this law may never save a child, it will certainly have consequences for small businesses which produce toys, as well as other products intended primarily for children under 12.

As always, the devil is in the details, and Publius Endures has given the details careful scrutiny.  Among other little details, this law may require toy manufacturers and importers to perform costly outside testing, at a cost of over $4000, on each lot of toys shipped.  If the law is so interpreted by the people who draft its enabling regulations, that will simply put small manufacturers out of business, leaving the American toy market to giants such as Mattel or driving more of the business to overseas competitors who produce on a larger scale and can absorb the cost.  The result, probably not intended at all by lawmakers, may be monopoly or oligopoly in the American toy market, accomplished through regulation rather than market forces.

For more on this example of unintended consequences of hasty lawmaking in response to a panic, see Upturned Earth, which suggests that congress or regulators might be persuaded to amend or sensibly interpret the law, if only they understood what a potential monster they’ve created.

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French cafés in decline

You have to get down to paragraph 8 in the New York Times account before you begin to learn about the effect of a nationally legislated smoking ban. “So, there it is. Your café culture is inconsistent with the safety world you have chosen.” (Althouse, Nov. 23; Steven Erlanger, “Across France, Cafe Owners Are Suffering”, New York Times, Nov. 22).

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U.K.: Tories vow to roll back police workplace-safety rules

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said if the Conservatives return to power they will amend the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974, sections of which have applied to police work since 1997. The much-criticized results have included refusals to allow police officers to venture into potentially dangerous crime scenes and rescue situations. The party also pledges to curtail a trend toward the filing of official charges against citizens who intervene in efforts to stop crimes. (James Kirkup, “Tory conference: Dominic Grieve promises to scrap police health and safety laws”, Telegraph, Sept. 30). See also Jun. 30, 2003 (police not warned that climbing on roofs was dangerous).

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Calif. lawmakers ban workplace bias against medical-pot users

Direct from prohibited to protected-class status, making no local stops: “The idea that the government should just stay out of the matter and leave both private employers and medical marijuana users alone is apparently beyond the comprehension of most California legislators, who think that everything permitted must be made mandatory,” notes Hans Bader. Apparently a narrow exception will be allowed “for ‘safety-sensitive’ positions that employers can prove would ‘clearly’ be highly risky.” (CEI OpenMarket.org, Sept. 8).

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Loose-fitting clothes and food machinery

Industrial safety specialists have long warned of the hazards of letting employees wear baggy garments around assembly-line machinery, hence the snug uniform, including pants, prescribed for both sexes by Mission Foods at its tortilla-making plant in New Brighton, Minn. Fatuma Hassan, an employee of Somali descent, claims it’s religious discrimination not to let her wear traditional garb. Thanks in part to activist groups eager to provide backup, Minnesota has become a flashpoint for Muslim employees’ demands for religious accommodation on the job: the cab drivers who refused to transport arriving airline passengers carrying duty-free alcohol and the Target cashiers who declined to scan pork apparently never made it to court, but complainants in the state filed 45 other cases with the EEOC last year. A class action is in progress against circuit-board maker Celestica on behalf of 22 employees, many of whom “were fired or suspended for taking unauthorized breaks at sunset. The changing Islamic prayer schedule was a key reason.” (“Cultural traditions can lead to conflict on the job”, AP/Rochester (Minn.) Post-Bulletin, Jun. 17)(via Michelle Malkin).

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