The Women’s Institute in Shepperton, Middlesex, England, volunteered to tend the flowers around a war memorial on a traffic roundabout when budget cuts threatened elimination of the landscaping. “They were told by councillors that it would be too dangerous” to cross the road to the roundabout, although pedestrians traverse the same path in getting from one street to another. Telegraph]
Posts Tagged ‘United Kingdom’
July 10 roundup
- Jury rejects Jamie Leigh Jones rape claim against Halliburton/KBR. Next, a round of apologies from naive commentators and some who used the case to advance anti-arbitration talking points? [WSJ; Ted Frank/PoL and more; WSJ Law Blog (plaintiff’s lawyers sought shoot-the-moon damages)]
- Time magazine vs. James Madison on constitutional law (spoiler: Madison wins) [Foster Friess via Ira Stoll]
- Andrew Trask reviews new Curtis Wilkie book on the Dickie Scruggs scandal;
- “Right to family life” evolution in human rights law deters UK authorities from deporting various bad actors [Telegraph]
- Paging Benjamin Barton: How discovery rules enrich the legal profession at the expense of the social good [PoL]
- USDA heeds politics, not science, on genetic crops [Henry Miller/Gregory Conko, PDF, Cato Institute Regulation]
- “Legal Questions Raised by Success of Monkey Photographer” [Lowering the Bar]
U.K. court rebukes “Edge” trademark-asserter
We’ve reported several times on the doings of a litigant who has asserted trademark rights over the use of the word “Edge” in videogames and related products and aggressively gone after many outfits whose names include that not-unusual word. Now another court, this time in Britain, has handed him a stinging rebuke. [Rob Beschizza, BoingBoing]
“Lawyers should never come between a nation and its troops”
Charles Moore, writing in the U.K. Telegraph, is dubious about Conservative proposals to turn a British “Military Covenant” of fair treatment for troops into enforceable law.
U.K.: Woman’s hobby of filing bias complaints costs others dearly
The Telegraph profiles a “race equality campaigner [who] has cost taxpayers more than £1 million by bringing a string of discrimination claims – several of them against anti-racism groups.”
U.K.: “Butlins bans bumping on the bumper cars”
The best-known operator of British amusement parks has ordered its staff “to ban anyone found guilty of bumping into each other in the electric cars equipped with huge bumpers. Bemused customers who assume that the ‘no bumping sign’ is in jest are told to drive around slowly in circles rather than crash into anyone else for fear of an injury that could result in the resort being sued.” [Louise Gray, Telegraph via Free-Range Kids]
Also: California appellate court rejects assumption of risk defense and denies summary judgment to bumper car injury claim [Bill Childs, MassTort.org]
U.K.: “Judge issues gag order for Twitter”
May 2 roundup
- In suit over weird, elaborate online hoax, court allows fraudulent-misrepresentation claim despite lack of motive of tangible gain [Chi Trib]
- Service animal rodeo: “A trained rat probably would have had a good case in California” [AP/Statesman-Journal] Broward County, Fla. backs lonely widow’s right to keep “prescription Chihuahua” against rules of condo board [AOL, Sun-Sentinel] Oklahoma: “Depressed Woman Fights to Keep Therapy Kangaroo” [Newser] Earlier on recent change in federal rules;
- Should lawmakers screen bills for constitutionality? Ms. Lithwick has trouble sticking to a position [AEternitatis]
- Human-relations complaint leads to arrest of U.K. man for singing “Kung Fu Fighting” [MSNBC]
- Barney Frank: Yes, let’s talk about med-mal reform [The Hill] Ringing the bell: Roundups of more big med-mal verdicts [White Coat, more]
- “Expert Witnesses Stripped Of Immunity From Negligence Suits In The UK” [Erik Magraken]
- “Sustainability”: an empty idea? Or perhaps actively wrongheaded? [David Friedman via David Henderson]
Anti-speech “superinjunctions” in the U.K.
The so-called superinjunction is a gag order that “prevents the media from even reporting that an injunction was obtained,” and runs against the public generally rather than merely organizations named in the legal action. In Britain, which lacks a tradition equivalent to our First Amendment, courts regularly hand down these orders on the grounds of protecting litigants’ privacy, and controversy is mounting as a result. [Guardian and editorial, Kampfner/Independent, Katya Wachtel/Business Insider (on RBS executive case)]
U.K. auto insurance rates soar
A House of Commons select committee “identified the principal cause as ‘a rapid growth in the number of personal injury claims management firms, which are using direct cold-call marketing techniques to encourage people to make claims who otherwise would not have done so'”. [Philip Johnston, Telegraph]