A “federal lawsuit filed Wednesday on the 12-year-old’s behalf alleged that the Girl Scouts abruptly disbanded Megan [Runnion's] Schaumburg troop early this year in retaliation for her mother’s efforts to keep the 100-year-old organization paying for the interpreter.” [Chicago Tribune]
Breaking: Industrial organization is the latest field of economics in which Eliot Spitzer shows himself clueless [Eugene Volokh on Slate proposal, and more]
I’ve been writing more lately on policy issues arising in my adopted state, such as the boat tax and Baltimore’s fight with liquor stores, and you can keep up by following my local Twitter account @walterolsonmd:
After the state’s high court stigmatized pit bulls as distinctively dangerous, the state legislature has (as warned of in this space) reacted by extending liability to owners of all dogs, “first bite” or not [WaPo] “The trial lawyer’s expert just testified he sees dogs as a man or woman’s ego on the end of a leash.” [Mike Smigiel]
A Washington Post article asks: “Is the ‘nanny state’ in Montgomery working?” (No, but it makes councilors in the affluent liberal redoubt feel good about themselves.) And even in Montgomery, councilman George Leventhal (D-At Large) spots a Laffer Curve [Dan Mitchell, Cato at Liberty]
Also in Montgomery, county slates vote next month on union-backed bill to require service contractors to take over employment of displaced workers for 90 days [Gazette] Leventhal is caustic: “I do not only work for SEIU 32BJ. My colleagues may feel they do.” [Rachel Baye, Examiner]
Despite its solicitude for the SEIU, the county’s concern for low-income workers has its limits, as when property owners seek to increase the stock of affordable housing near jobs by dividing one-family residences into two-family [Ben Ross, Greater Greater Washington]
“Doctors, hospitals concerned about hefty malpractice awards” [Baltimore Sun]
“Legal commentator Walter Olson sounded the battle cry in his recent post: ‘Abolish the Law Reviews!,’ arguing that most exist so students can edit them, rather than to be read by lawyers and judges.” (more)
Buckyballs are highly popular supermagnetic desktop toys for adults and labeled against use by kids. Nonetheless, some kids obtain the tiny balls and swallow them, with harmful or even lethal results. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has responded with an unusually aggressive show of legal muscle to force the product off the market: while suing the manufacturer, it strong-armed retailers into suspending Buckyball sales, thus cutting off the manufacturer’s revenue while a court decides whether the commission had an adequate basis in law and fact for its action. [Nick Farr, Abnormal Use; manufacturer statement; Time; ABA Journal; Michelle Malkin; Point of Law]
More: “CPSC wants to put a child-proof cap on your life.” [@radleybalko]
“After achieving a university entry rank of 99.95, winning fifth place in the state for chemistry and a place at the University of Sydney studying medicine, the former Abbotsleigh student Sarah Hui Xin Wong believed she could have done better in the [Higher School Certificate].” A New South Wales administrative tribunal has now turned down her complaint that she suffered disability discrimination by not being allowed further accommodations on the test, specifically a computer and extra time. But Australia does have loser-pays: “Ms. Wong has been ordered to pay some of the Board of Studies’ costs, including a proportion of the fees of the leading Sydney barrister Chris Ronalds, SC.” [Sydney Morning Herald]
In other Australia schools litigation news, a “former student who is suing Geelong Grammar School says she decided to seek damages after she failed to qualify for her preferred university course. Rose Ashton-Weir, 18, alleges Geelong Grammar gave her inadequate academic support, particularly in maths.” [Melbourne Age] More in update at The Age (“was perpetually disorganised and failed to attend classes, a tribunal has heard.”)
“Travyon Martin’s mother is suing the homeowner’s association of the gated community where her son was killed and is also seeking money from a state fund set up to help crime victims with funeral expenses and counseling. …Benjamin Crump, attorney for Trayvon’s mother and the Martin family said they are looking into possible claims with ‘all the insurance companies that might be applicable’ and was looking to find out the exact limitations of the insurance, the Orlando Sentinel reported.” [Inquisitr]
Francesco Piserchia and another suspect were speeding away from the scene of a botched burglary when the police caught up with them. Piserchia’s suit claims he was trying to surrender when he was shot. [CBS New York]
The American Family Association’s zany yet high-profile Bryan Fischer is in the news for calling for an “Underground Railroad” by which his fellow believers would “rescue” kids from gay parents. In my new Huffington Post piece, just up, I trace two main threads in his argument — that gay parents are a menace to their kids, and that extralegal steps are called for to put “God’s law over man’s” – and show how the same messages have been emanating lately from some rather more respectable social-conservative quarters, in Princeton, N.J. and elsewhere. The controversy develops in part from the Miller-Jenkins custody and kidnapping case, long a topic of coverage in this space; in the latest development, Mennonite clergyman Kenneth Miller (applauded by Fischer) has just gone on trial for allegedly abetting the spiriting of Isabella Miller-Jenkins (no relation), now 10, out of the country in defiance of court orders.
Fischer now says he wasn’t suggesting that kids of same-sex couples be abducted from their beds by Christians unrelated to those children, but he definitely is encouraging believers to use extralegal force in cases that pit one of theirs against a gay parent in a custody dispute. He hints broadly that the next test case after Miller-Jenkins will be that of a divorced woman he describes who is losing custody to her gay ex-husband, and who just might disappear with the child into the “Underground Railroad” he promotes. Meanwhile, the Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg, Va., whose faculty has multiple connections with Lisa Miller’s side of the Miller-Jenkins litigation, stirred criticism when related civil-disobedience precepts reportedly emerged as part of the curriculum in a class.
It might be added that this, like so many unsettling developments on the Right, is not without its parallels on the Left. Since the 1980s and the famous Elizabeth Morgan case, some feminists have operated a so-called Underground Railroad to enable mothers to defy court orders and abduct their kids away from fathers with shared custody or visitation orders. Usually some allegation is made of abuse, but the tactic has been used and applauded even where a judge has considered the abuse allegations and declined to accept them. (Law prof Nancy Polikoff discusses her mixed feelings about the Miller-Jenkins case here).
Unfortunately, the Bush administration failed to rescind the Department of Education’s disparate-impact regulation, guaranteeing that the next Democratic administration would again unleash it upon hapless school districts. Advocates inside and outside the executive branch are now celebrating the resuscitation of disparate impact.
Also includes a sidebar on the feds’ somewhat contrasting “anti-bullying” campaign. More: Hans Bader, plus a letter from him in the Frederick News-Post.
Domestic law enforcement use of drones should require a warrant [Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial] “Are license readers an invasion of privacy? ACLU asks police agencies to elaborate on use of readers, data collection” [Baltimore Sun]
“Sheriff Joe Arpaio is hands down my favorite Sacha Baron Cohen character” [Matt Oswalt, background]
“Protester accused of bank robbery for holding ‘You’re Being Robbed’ sign” [CBS Philadelphia]
“How a Single Oxycontin Pill Nearly Ruined One Man’s Life” [Mike Riggs, Reason] Good Samaritan shields could help in overdose emergencies [Reason] Milton Friedman on the Drug War [Tim Lynch]
After Washington Post exposed widespread unreliability in forensics, DoJ, FBI to investigate thousands of cases [WaPo]
Lynne Stewart 10-year rap upheld: “stark inability to understand the seriousness of her crimes” [Reuters, earlier]
“Illinois Supreme Court Upholds Eight-Year Sentence for Taking Pictures of Legal Sex” [Reason] One family’s nightmare with the sex offender registry [Mary DeVoy, Virginian-Pilot via Lenore Skenazy]
“For operational purposes, ‘states’ are best understood as undercapitalized health care and pension funds that write speeding tickets on the side.” [Law and Liberty]
You really do need to be careful what you say about the casino magnate and political donor. Why? Among those in a position to explain (earlier coverage) is Las Vegas newspaper columnist John Smith, who wrote about Adelson in a book, was sued, and after years of litigation managed to get a judge to dismiss the action, though not before declaring bankruptcy. Alison Frankel has details of that and other Adelson legal adventures [Reuters]
Expanding, as is so often the case, at the expense of the rights of contract and property: “Australia’s hotel industry has been rocked by a court’s ruling that a prostitute was illegally discriminated against by a motel owner who refused to rent her a room to work from. The ruling has stunned hotel and motel owners, who thought they had a right to decide what sort of businesses were operating from their premises. … Prostitution is legal in Queensland, and discrimination based on lawful sexual activity is outlawed.” [Telegraph, U.K.]
Discussion: Catallaxy Files (“Australia’s leading libertarian and centre-right blog”).
Kerri Smith came up with a new design for a maternity support pillow and decided to sell it online. Then came the unpleasant surprise: 15 states require “law tags” on pillows and each charges its own fee, ranging from $5 to $720 a year. First year cost of complying with those state laws in order to start taking orders from anywhere in the country: $4,660. And that’s before more states join the 15 that currently exact fees. [Becket Adams, The Blaze/WTAM] As for a pillow intended for the actual baby, don’t even ask.
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