Posts Tagged ‘Wisconsin’

Labor and employment law roundup

  • Gov. Walker’s public sector labor reforms popular with Wisconsin voters, and have saved taxpayers a fortune [Morrissey, Fund, Marquette poll (public favors new law by 50-43 margin] What would FDR say? [Dalmia, The Daily]
  • “Why you should stop attending diversity training” [Suzanne Lucas, CBS MarketWatch, following up on our earlier post]
  • The gang that couldn’t regulate straight: “Court rebuffs Labor Department on sales rep overtime” [Dan Fisher, Forbes] Lack of quorum trips up NLRB on “quickie”/ambush elections scheme [Workplace Prof]
  • Not all claimed “gun rights” are authentic, some come at expense of the vital principle of at-will employment [Bainbridge]
  • Brace yourself, legal academics at work on a Restatement of Employment Law [Michael Fox]
  • “Why Delaware’s Proposed Workplace Privacy Act Is All Wrong” [Molly DiBianca]
  • USA Today on lawyers’ role in growth of Social Security disability rolls [Ira Stoll]

Lilly Ledbetter back in news

Mitt Romney, following a long tradition of GOP candidates unable or unwilling to resist the continued expansion of employment discrimination law, has pre-emptively blessed Congress’s 2009 enactment of the ill-advised Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act gutting statutes of limitation. Hans Bader offers reasons why he should consider drawing the line. [Examiner] More: Ted Frank.

Related: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signs bill repealing duplicative damages law passed by his Democratic predecessors, thus contradicting the accepted narrative in which the scope of available damages in job-bias suits is supposed to be revisable only in an upward direction.

“Wisconsin’s reforms are working”

Sensible changes to the ground rules on labor relations — including the option to go around the union’s monopoly provider of health care insurance — are saving local governments hundreds of millions of dollars. [John Steele Gordon]

P.S. Bill McGurn on public employee unions in the still very unreformed state of New Jersey [Hillsdale “Imprimis”] And: how some public employees “spike” their pensions in California [L.A. Times via Amy Alkon]

February 24 roundup

  • Melissa Kite, columnist with Britain’s Spectator, writes about her low-speed car crash and its aftermath [first, second, third, fourth]
  • NYT’s Nocera lauds Keystone pipeline, gets called “global warming denier” [NYTimes] More about foundations’ campaign to throttle Alberta tar sands [Coyote] Regulations mandating insurance “disclosures” provide another way for climate change activists to stir the pot [Insurance and Technology]
  • “Cop spends weeks to trick an 18-year-old into possession and sale of a gram of pot” [Frauenfelder, BB]
  • Federal Circuit model order, pilot program could show way to rein in patent e-discovery [Inside Counsel, Corporate Counsel] December Congressional hearing on discovery costs [Lawyers for Civil Justice]
  • Trial lawyer group working with Senate campaigns in North Dakota, Nevada, Wisconsin, Hawaii [Rob Port via LNL] President of Houston Trial Lawyers Association makes U.S. Senate bid [Chron]
  • Panel selection: “Jury strikes matter” [Ron Miller, Maryland Injury]
  • Law-world summaries/Seventeen syllables long/@legal_haiku (& for a similar treatment of high court cases, check out @SupremeHaiku)

Labor and employment law roundup

  • “Off-clock work: Flintstone laws in a Buck Rogers world” [Robin Shea] “NY Times offers unpaid internships after reporting on their questionable legality” [Poynter]
  • Walker labor reforms in Wisconsin get results [Christian Schneider: City Journal, NY Post] “Watch the Walker recall election” [John Steele Gordon, Commentary]
  • No prize for spotting fallacy: complaints that too many Europeans are collecting state disability payments construed as “demonizing disabled people” [Debbie Jolly, ENIL]
  • “What could be worse than a self-righteous TSA agent? Answer: A TSA agents’ union advocate.” [Ken, Popehat]
  • “Why Mitt Romney likes firing people” [Suzanne Lucas]
  • Free speech and union dues: Tim Sandefur on the oral argument in Knox v. SEIU [PLF Liberty Blog] More: Jack Mann, CEI.
  • My book on employment and labor law, The Excuse Factory, is alas still not available in online formats but you might find a bargain on a hardcover [Free Press/Simon & Schuster]

December 27 roundup

  • Exoneree’s ex sues him for share of state’s wrongful-imprisonment payout [Dallas Observer via Balko]
  • Gibson’s alleged crime: ebony veneer too thick [Andrew Grossman, earlier here, here]
  • About that flap over “free” lawyer representation of Wisconsin high court justice [Rick Esenberg, Shark and Shepherd]
  • Allegation: Binder & Binder, largest Social Security advocacy firm, used red stickers to flag clients’ unfavorable medical info, often withheld it from disability-claim judges [WSJ]
  • “Judge Dismisses Landmark Bribery Conviction, Rips DOJ” [WSJ Law Blog, Lindsey order, more, my Cato post] FCPA reverse for federal prosecutors in arms trade case [BLT]
  • Congress passes bill clarifying jurisdiction, venue [Howard Wasserman, Prawfs]
  • Important reason to record cop-citizen interactions: to protect police from false claims [Scott Greenfield]

Wisconsin considers curbing “one-way” attorney fees

American legislatures since the 1970s have widely employed “one-way” fee provisions — under which courts award fees to prevailing plaintiffs, but not to prevailing defendants — as a way of encouraging plaintiffs and their lawyers to bring a maximum of legal action; especially when the fee shifts are generously calculated, such provisions also put strong pressure on defendants to settle potentially defensible cases rather than take the risk of a big fee award that may exceed the sums in controversy. Now Wisconsin lawmakers are thinking of making the playing field a bit more level by reining in one-way awards, especially those that exceed the underlying dispute; another way of approaching the issue, of course, would be to make the shifts two-way. [Rick Esenberg]