Sidelight: A new San Diego ordinance that took effect August 1 “orders violators to pay three times the advertised monthly rent to eligible plaintiffs who saw the ad, plus punitive damages, as well as a plaintiff’s attorney fees and costs if a judge so orders. Even after the offending ad is taken down or changed, exposure to liability from anyone who saw the illegal ad lasts for a year.” Soon thereafter enterprising attorney Christian Curry filed more than 50 lawsuits under the ordinance and has obtained many settlements, although critics suspect his clients weren’t always intent on living in properties with challenged ads; they also say some ads were targeted that were written before the law changed and not intentionally left online afterward. A spokeswoman for a property group “likened the new Section 8 cases to ‘drive-by’ lawsuits over violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.” [Ashly McGlone and Jack Molmud, Voice of San Diego]

Section 8 Landlording Should Be Voluntary is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

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

“Pop goes a tradition: county cracks down on free popcorn in hardware stores” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Plus: “New Mexico Ended Civil Asset Forfeiture. Why Then Is It Still Happening?” [NPR] A car is stopped for “swerving,” and soon police have confiscated the $18,000 its owner was carrying for payroll and other expenses of her southern California janitorial business [ACLU of San Diego, p. 7, “It happened to me: Janitorial business”]

Frontiers of forfeiture: emptying pre-paid bank cards is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

In his rambling remarks, Trump also referred to Judge Curiel as “Mexican”: the jurist, previously the chief federal prosecutor for drug cases in southern California, was born in Indiana. Stoking by repetition, as his crowd of thousands booed, Trump called the federal judge “a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He’s a hater,” and said he should be placed under investigation by the court system. I wonder whether anyone will be shocked if the judge requests personal protection for himself and his family as the trial proceeds.

Obama’s 2010 State of the Union remarks railing at the Justices of the Supreme Court in their presence regarding Citizens United were bad. This is far worse: the case is still in progress, Trump is a party, and the attack is on a single judge who will now find his task of ensuring a fair trial complicated. Trump, who speaks regularly around the country, chose to unleash the diatribe in the locality where the judge and others who will participate in the case, such as jurors, work and live. [More: David Post]

Law professor Josh Blackman, active in the Federalist Society, writes as follows:

His jaw-dropping comments reflect an utter ignorance about what judges do, and amounts to a dangerous attacks on the fairness of our court system. Whatever negligible good will he built up by nominating a list of solid potential nominees to the Supreme Court was squandered with this scurrilous attack. Those who defended his selection process should immediately rebuke him for these baseless insults….

I am speechless. Absolutely, and totally speechless. I was highly critical of President Obama’s attacks on the Court. I cringe to think what will happen when the Supreme Court rules against [Trump].

This might be a good time to catch up, if you haven’t, on the legal saga of Trump University, which I’ve been following for more than a year (when I first looked into it as part of my research into the work of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman). Some coverage: Jillian Kay Melchior/NRO last July, Emma Brown/Washington Post last September, Ian Tuttle/NRO in February, Roger Parloff/Fortune, Joe Mullin and Jonathan Kaminsky/ArsTechnica. In the San Diego proceedings, one law firm ranged against Trump is Robbins Geller, descendant of convicted class-actioneer Bill Lerach’s Lerach Coughlin, and the subject of some less than flattering coverage in these columns over the years.

Donald Trump inveighs against federal judge hearing Trump U. case is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

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

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

December 30 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

More: Jon Hyman (damage to company’s reputation likely more serious than eventual actual payout).

Pick a number, any number: $185 million for pregnancy bias is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Police and prosecution roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system