Overlawyered.com

“Any errors are the fault of no-one in particular; rather, society itself is to blame.” And: “All errors are the authors’ sole responsibility, but persons aggrieved by any such errors are encouraged to sue the companies which manufactured our computers.” [Kopel/Volokh]

• Worst footnoted fine-print disclaimer ever (0)
• Widow of murdered fly seeks White House compensation (1)
• Why JetBlue can’t crack a smile (3)
• When business arrives (0)
• Statutory interpretation for nine-year-olds (6)

Bruce Nye (Cal Biz Lit) and Michael Pappas (at Law.com Corporate Counsel) count the ways: “Why do I have to tell everyone that my grilled chicken, which is made the same way as my grandmother used to make it, may cause cancer?” (The answer being California-specific Proposition 65.)

• New warnings at McDonald’s (4)
• April 3 roundup (4)
• Wounded in shootout, sheriff’s deputies sue widow (13)
• Worker’s comp in California (1)
• Welcome Wall Street Journal readers (1)

The Washington Post — unlike some other newspapers we might think of — doesn’t mind letting its editorial stance catch up with the facts on the ground as they appear to NHTSA staff. We’ve been on the story for quite a while.

• NHTSA, Toyota and “speed control” (0)
• “Lawyers Ask Court To Stop Toyota From Fixing Cars” (5)
• U.S. News: Toyota death toll rises! (0)
• Toyotathon roundup (1)
• Toyota show trials, cont’d (2)

The other day the Obama administration came out with the first official U.S. response to the United Nations’ “periodic review” critique of human rights practices within the United States. To the surprise of many — though not of those who’ve been following this area carefully — it presented as human rights imperatives worthy of international attention a wide range of initiatives that would earlier have been seen as domestic policy matters, from ObamaCare (whose passage — including a penalty on individuals for failing to buy health insurance — it depicted as a human rights advance) to labor law (where it suggested that Congress might be putting the U.S. human rights record at risk if it declines to expand the organizing rights of labor unions).

One of the major themes of my forthcoming book Schools for Misrule is the role of thinkers in the law schools in preparing the way for new and transformed (and gravely mistaken) conceptions of international human rights. Today on the Cato Institute’s daily podcast series, Caleb Brown interviews me about the ongoing redefinition of international human rights and how we got to this point. The interview audio is available here.

My Cato Institute colleague Roger Pilon, who directs the Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies and served under Reagan as policy director for the State Department’s office on human rights, has been active in recent days in advancing a critique of the Obama administration’s approach in a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed as well as at Cato at Liberty.

And coincidentally: today’s NYT reports that George Soros is giving $100 million to Human Rights Watch, a group in the forefront of advancing novel human rights claims.

• Ready, set, cringe (15)
• Iroquois “passports” (22)
• War crimes trials? No thanks (2)
• U.K.: Europe court says prisoners have right to use artificial insemination (2)
• Shot in Kosovo, collects £2.4m from British defense ministry (1)

• “If someone wants to sue you, they can. Easily, too.” Amy Wallace on being sued over her vaccine story [Reporting on Health, earlier]
• Jury tells Ford to pay $131 million after minor league ballplayer crashes Explorer at 80 mph+ [WaPo]
• Winnipeg judge scandal has sex, race, coercion and most riveting of all a legal ethics angle [Alice Woolley, LEF]
• “$667M Nursing Home Verdict Surprised Even the Plaintiffs’ Lawyers” [ABA Journal, earlier]
• “Maryland Woman Sues After Being Banned by Facebook” [Kashmir Hill/Forbes, MSNBC "Technolog"]
• The trouble with (some) defense-side trial lawyers [Ted Frank, CCAF] And: defense bar briefing prosecutorial agencies on ins and outs of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Ethics/loyalty problem in that, or no? [Koehler]
• Bow-tied troll? Patent-marking suits hit the big time [WSJ Law Blog and more, ABA Journal, Glenn Lammi/Forbes]
• “A girl named Sue who sues and sues and sues” [SE Tex Record]

• October 13 roundup (3)
• Microblog 2008-12-09 (0)
• Microblog 2008-11-25 (0)
• March 24 roundup (3)
• June 10 roundup (1)

This week the traveling carnival of law-related posts is hosted by Ron Coleman at Likelihood of Confusion.

• Who was the first legal blogger? (2)
• When lawyers’ blogs proclaim their expertise (0)
• Volokh just wants an aspirin (5)
• Veterinary malpractice, cont’d (2)
• Update: Bring me the identity of Patent Troll Tracker (1)

Is it imperiled by a recent Supreme Court decision? A paper to be presented at the Cato Institute’s Sept. 16 Constitution Day conference looks into the question. [Josh Wright, Truth on the Market; date now fixed]

• February 3 roundup (0)
• Wright on Frank on Chemerinsky on Roberts (0)
• When is a court decision “pro-business”? (1)
• What newspapers need, and why antitrust law may block it (2)
• Update: suing Madison taverns again (0)

Famed for playing (among others) the tough Nanny McPhee, the actress has this to say (BabyCenter interview via FreeRangeKids):

I think it’s good to be brave because then you’re also slightly more able to cope with failure and failure of course is your best friend in every regard really. Children are brave and they’re more likely to take risks and they’re more likely to learn really important lessons.

That’s really what I mean by being brave, you know. That we take care of our children very carefully and that’s absolutely right, but in certainly my culture children are being so, I think, stifled by sort of health and safety so that they’re not climbing trees anymore, they’re not taking risks, physical risks anymore.

• U.K.: “Scouts banned from carrying knives” (5)
• You mean it’s not the videogames? (0)
• Update: New trial for Julie Amero (2)
• Unintended results of bicycle helmet laws (4)
• UK: Keep kids away from library seniors (1)

“Ahern may look at higher ATM fees after €300,000 robbery and kidnap” [Irish Times]

• Zoning against fast food (1)
• Welcome KION-AM Salinas listeners (0)
• U.K.: A one-man bias-suit industry (6)
• U.K.: “Even mathematicians run scared of our libel laws now” (1)
• The Bloomsday litigants (0)

Should the North Carolina tax department really behave as if it regards them as that? [Patrick at Popehat]

• Worst judges, cont’d (2)
• What have they done with the old Rose and Crown? (2)
• Welcome KION-AM Salinas listeners (0)
• Update: trial win rates understate success of ADA plaintiffs (2)
• Update: custard finger-finder sues (0)

No disrespect to any actual dentists intended, honest. It’s just an example (from Eric Goldman) from an article on the proliferation of suits charging online defamation. “‘It was probably inevitable, but we have seen a steady growth in litigation over content on the Internet,’ said Sandra Baron, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York.” [L.A. Times]

P.S.: “A Duluth physician is suing the son of a former patient for publicly criticizing his bedside manner.” [Duluth News Tribune via Citizen Media Law, McKee v. Laurion]

• Why defamation law protects opinion (2)
• Update: Schenectady BBS defamation (0)
• Update: Dow Jones settles online defamation suit (0)
• Update: CAIR using litigation to silence critics? (2)
• Unmasking anonybloggers, cont’d (0)

• TSA asserts security-line authority against … suspected embezzlers? [Coyote, Ken at Popehat]
• “How the Next Hurricane Could Bankrupt Florida” [Eli Lehrer, Frum Forum]
• In Yahoo settlement “vast majority of the class gets nothing” [Frith, Cal Civil Justice]
• Royal road to legal riches: work for the federal prosecutor in Manhattan [David Zaring, Conglomerate]
• Taxpayers, get ready to bail out union pension plans [The Lid]
• Japan moving closer to U.S.-style securities litigation? [D&O Diary]
• “Is the Contemporary Supreme Court Really That Conservative?” [Bartels, ConcurOp]
• “EEOC encourages anonymous harassment complaints” [eleven years ago at Overlawyered]

• Update: “Judge declares Adorno violated Bar rules” (0)
• The donations of Scott Rothstein (0)
• Ted on the SEC and Stoneridge (3)
• Stoneridge: Wherein I am a footnote (1)
• Stoneridge order (1)

What were they drinking when they came up with this idea? “The fact is that the current cocktail renaissance is coming about because, rather than despite, the fact that cocktail recipes are easily shared and remixed.” [Felix Salmon]

• October 14 roundup (0)
• June 18 roundup (5)
• “I’ve always thought people would be very concerned if they knew what we were doing” (0)
• YouTube: “They are going to be toasted” (1)
• YouTube users at legal risk? (0)

In Cabell County, West Virginia, “in part because of lawsuits over injuries.” [AP] More: Investor’s Business Daily (editorial). Another view: Eric Turkewitz.

• When obtaining medico-legal diagnoses… (0)
• West Virginia Supreme Court benchslap (1)
• West Virginia M.D.s (0)
• West Virginia Attorney General Involved in Medicaid Fraud? (1)
• Welcome to West Virginia: Joe Meadows v. Go-Mart (6)

• Elevator-injury case: “Citing Attorney’s Inflammatory Language, Court Erases Most of Jury Verdict” [Daily Business Report]
• “Obama’s zealous civil rights enforcer gets busy” [Byron York, Examiner]
• “Trend: Helicopter parents win kids in divorce” [Theresa Walsh Giarrusso, Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Momania"]
• Faculty fracas: “An Angry Professor Mounts His Own Labor Protest in Alabama” [Chronicle of Higher Ed]
• An opportunity for the Seventh Circuit to curb derivative strike suits? [CCAF]
• Emily Bazelon on Phoebe Prince school-bullying story, cont’d [Slate, earlier]
• Controversy as Louisiana governor Jindal hires longtime Overlawyered favorites Baron & Budd for BP suit [Dan Fisher, Forbes]
• “Oz: A$100K for prisoner who fell out of bed” [seven years ago on Overlawyered]

• Unauthorized paintings depicting college football (14)
• May 2000 archives, part 3 (1)
• March 17 roundup (1)
• July 27 roundup (3)
• July 25 roundup (2)

I’m a guest on tonight’s John Stossel program on the Fox Business Network, on the subject of the consequences of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The show was shot live to tape yesterday in New York and was fascinating throughout; even those who think they know this subject well will learn a lot. I’m also quoted in John’s latest syndicated column on the same issue.

Among the highlights of the taping: a disabled-rights lobbyist defended several extreme applications of the law, including the notion that it might be appropriate to force networks to hire someone who suffers from stuttering as on-air television talent. We also shed some light on the state of California’s up-to-$4,000-a-violation bounty system for freelancers who identify ADA violations in Main Street businesses, and the case for at least requiring complainants to give business owners notice and an opportunity to fix an ADA violation before suing. (The disabled-rights lobby has managed to stifle that proposal in Congress for years.) Also mentioned: the suit against the Chipotle restaurant chain recently covered in this space.

Other recent coverage of the ADA here and here (cross-posted from Cato at Liberty). More: Amy Alkon notes some New York City examples from a commenter.

• Yet more on privacy/disability laws and Seung Hui Cho (2)
• Yet more from the publicity file (0)
• Wheelchairs, theaters, and “comparable viewing angles” (0)
• Welcome New Zealand radio listeners (0)
• Welcome New York Times readers (0)

Now see if you can guess how one man has managed to play the system given that generous policy [Tyler Cowen]

• Wrongful birth reaches Germany (11)
• Woman’s DNA showed up at 39 crime scenes (1)
• Vioxx roundup, January 15-17 (1)
• Updates (1)
• Update: German court dismisses licorice-addiction suit (0)

Jon Hyman at Ohio Employment Law spots a potentially significant ruling, and has a followup.

P.S. The topic is also discussed on Thursday’s John Stossel show, with guests Katherine Mangu-Ward of Reason and Steve Lonegan of Americans for Prosperity.

• Yet more on privacy/disability laws and Seung Hui Cho (2)
• Yet more from the publicity file (0)
• Wheelchairs, theaters, and “comparable viewing angles” (0)
• Welcome New Zealand radio listeners (0)
• Welcome New York Times readers (0)

Forwarded by Pete Warden with the comment, “This post sums up why I’m a pretty liberal guy *and* a strong supporter of Overlawyered.”

• June 2000 archives, part 3 (0)
• Welcome Dutch readers (0)
• Valerie Lakey v. Sta-Rite (0)
• Update: Judge throws out Milwaukee lead paint case (0)
• Upcoming in Milwaukee, Oklahoma City (0)

• Florida AG probes foreclosure lawyers [Neil, ABA Journal; related, Mother Jones]
• “ABA Ponders Accrediting Offshore Law Schools” [Mystal, AtL]
• DC pressured states to mount those signs heralding stimulus projects [Tad DeHaven, Cato "Downsizing the Federal Government"]
• “Epidemiologist Fired for Reporting Unhelpful Results” [Sullum, Reason "Hit and Run", update]
• Critique of barber licensing crosses ideological lines [Tabarrok]
• “Oops! Cheerleader sued wrong company” [Fox Sports]
• “Trial Lawyer: Raise an ‘Army’ to Pressure Ecuadorian Court” in Chevron case [ShopFloor] Parallels between Chevron-Ecuador & Dole-Nicaragua litigation episodes [California Civil Justice channeling sub-only Recorder]
• “Access suit closes landmark California eatery” [105-year-old On Lock Sam in Stockton; seven years ago on Overlawyered]

• November 7 roundup (8)
• WLF on Rhode Island lead paint verdict (1)
• What happened to the slavery reparations movement? (27)
• What Elizabeth Wurtzel tells us about the XOXOHTH lawsuit (3)
• War is peace, freedom is slavery, and trial lawyer earmarks are “consumer-friendly” (8)