Texas – Overlawyered

March 11 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 09:56:33 +0000

Slightly afield from law, but good watching: Yale’s Nicholas Christakis speaks at Cato on his new book Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society [Cato Forum]
Tech platform regulation: “The ‘EARN IT’ Act Is Another Terrible Proposal to ‘Reform’ Section 230” [Eric Goldman and more] “Why Does The NY Times Seem Literally Incapable Of Reporting Accurately On Section 230?” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
Author of new book, a Fordham lawprof, “wants the U.S. Supreme Court (and other federal courts) to enforce international law standards against backward American states and localities.” It’s a no-go, says Jeremy Rabkin [Law and Liberty reviewing Martin Flaherty, Restoring the Global Judiciary]
Police transparency, Annie E. Casey Foundation, county liquor stores and bicycle licenses in Montgomery County, and more in my new Maryland policy roundup [Free State Notes]
Yikes: former BigLaw partner who specialized in product liability subrogation claims sentenced to five years on charges of defrauding almost $3.5 million from insurers, manufacturers and others [Judy Greenwald, Business Insurance]
Somehow missed this in 2018: Texas lawyer disbarred for barratry is re-elected while in jail [Lowering the Bar]

Tags: fraud, insurers, international human rights, Maryland, product liability, Texas

March 11 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Libel, slander, and defamation roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:58:36 +0000

Texas trims back its SLAPP law after complaints it was being used in circumstances far from original design [John G. Browning, D Magazine] Howard Wasserman on John Oliver on SLAPP suits [Prawfsblawg]
In the U.S., sovereign governments can’t sue for libel. Does that include Indian tribes? [TMZ, Eugene Volokh]
“Your Periodic Reminder that Blogging About Litigation Can Generate More Litigation” [Eric Goldman]
Virginia emerges as libel tourism destination in high-profile cases [Justin Jouvenal, Washington Post; Paul Alan Levy, Public Citizen on Devin Nunes action, earlier]
“Virginia Legislator Joe Morrissey Gets Called “Fool,” Sues, Arguing He’s Not a Fool” [Eugene Volokh] “Retired Law Professor Sues Lawyer-Commenters on Law Blog” [same]
“Kansas senate leader ordered to pay nearly $39,000 in legal fees to The Kansas City Star after a judge dismissed his defamation lawsuit” [Katie Bernard, Kansas City Star]

Tags: forum shopping, Indian tribes, Kansas, libel slander and defamation, Texas, Virginia, watch what you say about lawyers

Libel, slander, and defamation roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Nice work if you can get it, opioids-suit dept.

Walter Olson — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 04:05:35 +0000

Salaried attorney for Texas county helps himself to contingency-fee deal representing same county in opioids litigation. Following press accounts raising the question of whether the arrangement was consistent with the Texas Local Government Code, the county amended the contract to remove its attorney’s role in the representation [David Yates, Southeast Texas Record and followup update; Brooks County, Tex.]

Tags: contingent fee, opioids, Texas

Nice work if you can get it, opioids-suit dept. is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Discrimination law roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 09:56:22 +0000

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs into law two doubtfully constitutional bills applying to campuses an overbroad, subjective definition of sexual harassment, and requiring all college employees to report such conduct on pain of criminal penalty [Tyler Coward, FIRE]
New York adopts workplace harassment law that’s much more speech-hostile than federal, including a dropping of the requirement that prohibited expression be “severe or pervasive” [Hans Bader; Wiggin & Dana, NLR; Douglas Oldham, Barnes & Thornburg]
One to watch: SCOTUS will decide standard for proving s. 1981 discrimination claims, in case accusing Comcast of bias in not carrying programming of black network [ABA Journal]
A thumbs-down review: “The Kamala Harris Plan to Address the Gender Pay Gap,” Cato Daily Podcast with Ryan Bourne and Caleb Brown;
Even when there’s nothing unlawful about an eviction, city bars landlords from telling tenants they’re being evicted for discriminatory reasons. Laws banning truthful business speech about lawful conduct should trip First Amendment review [Ilya Shapiro on Cato amicus brief in Seeberger v. Davenport Civil Rights Commission]
Second Circuit withdraws decision that held landlords liable for tenant-on-tenant harassment under Fair Housing Act [Scott Greenfield, earlier]

Tags: discrimination law, harassment law, housing discrimination, Kamala Harris, New York state, Supreme Court, Texas

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

Campus speech roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 09:59:50 +0000

At UCLA as elsewhere, pledges and obligatory statements about diversity threaten academic freedom [Robert Shibley, Minding the Campus, Paul Caron/TaxProf, Christian Schneider, New York Post, earlier]
2019, 1673, whatever: By calling ourselves “inclusive,” Cambridge explains, we mean “there is no place here for” those who fail to accept key tenets of faith and morals [Robby Soave] He “had just chosen to move from Australia, the country where he earned his degrees and spent most of his career, to China. Why? Because, as a researcher, he has more freedom in China.” [Peggy Sastre, Quillette] Heresy hunts in American academia aren’t exactly new, consider what happened fifty years ago to once-lauded “culture of poverty” anthropologist Oscar Lewis [Bryan Caplan]
Remarkable glossary of terms “intended to structure and referee conversations on campus” circulates at Amherst College, whose Office of Diversity and Inclusion has a staff of 20, more than one for every hundred of the institution’s 1800 students [Rand Richards Cooper, Commonweal via Christina Sommers] University of Michigan has at least 82 full-time diversity officers at payroll cost of $10.6 million, a sum would cover full in-state tuition for 708 students [Mark Perry on Twitter] At the University of Texas, diversity-related staffers cost $9.5 million annually [Derek Draplin, College Fix]
Some conservatives do their bit to undermine academic freedom when they try to get professors fired for bad speech unrelated to teaching and scholarship [David French, Robby Soave]
Law schools debate whether to be even more ideological, although the product of the academy is supposed to be knowledge rather than activism [John McGinnis responding to Samuel Moyn] Outcry after Emory Law School suspends professor who had uttered racial slur in context of critically describing others as using the slur [Paul Caron/TaxProf, more]
Rhode Island student drummed out of state college for not advancing “value of social and economic justice” can take his case to a jury, rules state’s high court; Cato Institute had filed amicus brief on his behalf [Ilya Shapiro and Patrick Moran]

Tags: Australia, colleges and universities, diversity oaths, free speech, law schools, Michigan, political correctness, Rhode Island, Texas, wrong right

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

February 27 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 10:59:17 +0000

In move to protect itself against patent trolls, Apple plans to close retail stores in the troll-favored Eastern District of Texas [Joe Rossignol, MacRumors; Sarah Perez, TechCrunch]
Don’t: “Civil Rights Lawyer Faked Cancer to Delay Cases, Illinois Bar Authorities Say” [Scott Flaherty, American Lawyer]
Don’t: “* lies about joint stipulation for extension * FABRICATES OPPOSITION BRIEF * constructs false chain of emails, forwards to partner. Dude, just doing the work would have been WAY less effort.” [Keith Lee thread on Twitter, with punch line being what the New York courts did by way of discipline; Jason Grant, New York Law Journal]
I’m quoted disagreeing (cordially) with Sen. Mike Lee on whether criticism of judicial nominees at hearings based on their religious views oversteps Constitution’s Religious Test Clause [Mark Tapscott, Epoch Times; my 2017 post at Secular Right]
Colorado may become 13th state to enact National Popular Vote interstate compact, an attempted workaround of the Electoral College. This critique of the idea is from 2008 [John Samples, Cato; Emily Tillett, CBS]
New York law imposes strict liability on simple possession of a gravity knife, leaves enforcement to official whim, and lacks a mens rea (guilty mind) requirement. The Constitution demands better [Ilya Shapiro on Cato Institute cert amicus brief in Copeland v. Vance, earlier and more on such laws]

Tags: Apple, don't, patent trolls, religious liberty, Texas

February 27 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Asset forfeiture: Philly, Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi

Walter Olson — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 16:59:30 +0000

Investigation of asset forfeiture outrages in Philadelphia, where the D.A. “pursued nearly door-to-door confiscation of real estate” on some blocks [Ryan Briggs, Plan Philly] Texas police made more than $50 million in 2017 from seizing people’s property, but not everyone was guilty of a crime [Texas Tribune] How police departments in South Carolina make millions by seizing property [Anna Lee, Nathaniel Cary and Mike Ellis, Greenville News] “Civil Asset Forfeiture: An Overview & Conversation”, short video featuring Stefan Cassella and Darpana Sheth [Federalist Society] And this is how the Governor of Mississippi, Phil Bryant, defends forfeiture [@PhilBryantMS on Twitter]

Tags: forfeiture, Mississippi, Philadelphia, South Carolina, Texas

Asset forfeiture: Philly, Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 10:59:25 +0000

“How the Reformulation of OxyContin Ignited the Heroin Epidemic” [William N. Evans and Ethan Lieber, Cato Research Briefs in Economic Policy] Antiquated regulations on methadone need revision [Jeffrey Singer, Cato] Concept of addiction is constantly run together with that of dependence, and applied in such dubious areas as “social media addiction” [Singer]
EEOC sues Tennessee hospital over lapse of religious accommodation in its mandatory flu shot policy (but is a mask as effective as the vaccine?) [EEOC press release]
Free to Choose Medicine: a review [Thomas Hemphill, Cato Regulation magazine]
Texas law limiting med-mal suits: “Fifteenth Anniversary of Proposition 12” [Texans Against Lawsuit Abuse]
Time to include electronic components in the BAAA: “Biomaterials Access for the 21st Century” [Jim Beck]
Affordable Care Act’s incentive program punishing hospitals for readmissions had unintended consequences, we know now. Were some of them lethal? [Tyler Cowen on Rishi K. Wadhera, Karen E. Joynt Maddox and Robert W. Yeh, New York Times]

Tags: EEOC, FDA, hospitals, medical malpractice, ObamaCare, opioids, Texas, vaccines

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

Forensics roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 10:59:02 +0000

“It should not be ‘customary’ for police investigators to attend autopsies, hover over a medical examiner as he works, and point out things they believe fit their theory of the crime. It shouldn’t happen at all.” [Radley Balko on Fifth Circuit ruling in Dean v. Phatak]
Dubious forensics were central to the federal government’s litigation onslaught seeking to pin blame on forestry company for Moonlight Fire damage in California [Robert Nelson, Law and Liberty, earlier]
“Memory experts … were significantly more skeptical about repressed memory compared to practitioners, students and the public.” [Lawrence Patihis et al., Memory]
Child abuse panic 20 years later: “San Antonio Four” women finally exonerated after wrongful conviction [Elizabeth Zavala, San Antonio Express-News] More: panel finds actual innocence in case of Steven Chaney, imprisoned for 31 years after being convicted of murder on unreliable bite-mark evidence [Michael Hall, Texas Monthly]
Yes, police body cams can make a difference in exonerating the officer [Ashley May, USA Today, Scott Greenfield] Or not [Joe Setyon, Reason on Detroit home invasion]
Re-examining the Tennessee conviction of Claude Garrett for arson murder [Liliana Segura, The Intercept, earlier on arson forensics]

Tags: child abuse, forensics, Texas

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

Liability roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:59:42 +0000

$101 million in Texas could be biggest trucking damages award in history; crash victim had “told the responding police officer he was not injured and continued on with his journey” [John Kingston, FreightWaves]
“Lawyers For Texas Counties In Opioid Cases May Not Have Valid Contracts” [Daniel Fisher, earlier on Texas scramble here, here, here, and especially here]
Arbitration defended [Ross A. Marchand, Economics21]
“Madden NFL 19 Jacksonville shooting victim sues Electronic Arts, claiming negligence” [Cyrus Farivar. ArsTechnica]
“Prosecutors Are Said to Issue Subpoenas Over Pelvic-Mesh Surgery Financing” [Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, New York Times, earlier and more]
Federal courts split on whether SCOTUS’s Bristol-Myers Squibb limits on personal jurisdiction apply to class actions [Bradley, Akin Gump, Carlton Fields]

Tags: arbitration, class actions, deep pocket, litigation finance, opioids, Texas

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