How Government Works (or doesn’t):
This foundational regulation that affects all of government is completely and totally broken. One need only look at CIO-Of-The-Federal-Government Vivek Kundra’s desk for the evidence. Last time I was in there, he had a 17″ all in one Gateway computer sitting on it because regulations prohibit him from buying a reasonable machine. He’s the CIO!
Really, Washingtonians could do without a grandstanding politico type as chief city legal officer, argues Carter Wood at Point of Law.
So goodbye to the open-air restaurants of suburban Bethesda, Maryland, now put on notice by the Montgomery County health department. [TBD]
“From 2007 to 2009, the District [of Columbia] paid more than $50 million in legal settlements, according to a database of city records obtained by The Washington Post. In that period, Montgomery County – which has 972,000 residents vs. the District’s 599,000 – paid $8.5 million in settlements. … ‘There are more lawyers per capita in this city than any other city in the world,’ [District attorney general Peter] Nickles said. ‘And what do lawyers like to do?'” [Washington Post; sidebar charts]
Glenn C. Lewis, a divorce lawyer who “boasts that he is the most expensive lawyer in the [Washington, D.C.] region,” sued a former client “for an additional $500,000 in fees and interest, although he’d already been paid $378,000.” Lewis says the case was a demanding one and that he earned the money fair and square, but things did not go particularly well for his cause before judges in suburban Fairfax County. [Washington Post via Above the Law]
And the resulting lawsuit by the bomb victim names as defendants the parking garage as well as the family member. A panel of the D.C. Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the garage owners, however, ruling that a car bombing was not reasonably foreseeable at their location on Wisconsin Ave. in the District of Columbia. [Sigmund v. Starwood, Findlaw, via The Briefcase]
Arlington, Virginia taxpayers have managed to pay a law firm $744,000 to pursue it [Sun-Gazette via Ted at PoL]
Things you’re missing if you’re not following my other site:
Among the consequences of the District of Columbia’s ordinance meant to encourage recycling: a bookstore stops selling mints at the checkout counter to avoid being defined as a food store. [WSJ via Hodak Value] More: Washington Post on consumer reactions, via Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason “Hit and Run”.
Washington, D.C. wants to grab unused minutes on phone calling cards. [Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”] Related: Scott Smith, Washington Legal Foundation.