Apparently a successful cause of action, according to today’s Wall Street Journal Law Blog: Law Firm Hamburger War Heats Up Powerhouse D.C. law firm Steptoe & Johnson has won an order to force a neighboring burger restaurant to stop omitting hamburger fumes into the firm’s air intake system. See and Post Comments: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/08/26/law-firm-hamburger-war-heats-up?mod=djemlawblog_t
Archive | 2010
Ellipsis: . . . or * * *?
The normal way to indicate omitted text is using three dots (“. . .”). But sometimes, especially in some documents filed with the Supreme Court, I see “* * *” used instead. Any sense of why this is so, and which tends to be preferred, and by whom? Is there some difference in meaning that […]
Reason.tv on “Wheat, Weed, and ObamaCare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful”
Here is a nice explanation of how the commerce power has been expanded over the years, which features John Eastman, Erwin Chemerinsky . . . and E.G. Marshall! I might quibble a little with how Wickard and Raich are interpreted here, but on the whole I found this to be nice way to explain to […]
Oops, Bad Choice of Polling Company
I tried using Survey Monkey for my two polls below, given the weird formatting issues I’ve been having with Pollhost, but I didn’t realize that the software puts very strict limits on how the free software is used (it only registers 100 responses per poll, and charges $200 per year if I want to use […]
A Quick Poll for Our Conservative Readers
Here’s a quick poll for readers who self-identify as politically conservative. You can click on as many reasons as you think apply, and can enter any additional reasons not mentioned. [Poll Suspended]
A Quick Poll for Our Liberal Readers
Here’s a quick poll for readers who self-identify as politically liberal. You can click on as many reasons as you think apply, and can enter any additional reasons not mentioned. [Poll Suspended]
Do Law Schools Seek the “Wrong Stuff”?
The faculty hiring season is well under way. The first distribution of AALS FAR forms are out, appointments committees are dissecting reams of resumes and scheduling interviews, and pre-meat-market anxiety is building. Do faculty hiring committees focus on the “right stuff” in prospective faculty hires? Georgetown adjunct (and Sentencing Commission deputy staff director) Brent Newton […]
Selling Endorsements for Campaign Cash
The Sunlight Foundation reports on Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) innovative approach to raising campaign funds: selling endorsements to other politicians. The Los Angeles-area representative, who faces ethics charges in the House for intervening on behalf of a bank in which her husband had invested heavily, has found a way to take large sums of money […]
A Billionaire Corporate Welfare Cheat?
Sportswriter Jeff Passan describes evidence indicating that billionaire Miami Marlins owner Jeff Loria may have lied about the team’s finances in order to secure massive public subsidies for the construction of the Marlins’ new stadium [HT: VC reader Eric Robinson]: A look at the leak of the Marlins’ financial information to Deadspin confirmed the long-held […]
District Court Adopts “Technical Barriers” Approach to California Computer Crime Law
The case is Facebook, Inc. v. Power Ventures, Inc., 2010 WL 3291750 (N.D. Cal 2010) (Ware, J.), handed down July 20. It’s largely a replay of the legal issues raised by the Lori Drew case but under the California computer crime statute, Cal. Penal Code Sec. 502. In the case, Facebook sued a company (Power […]
Stem Cell Shock #2: The Preliminary Injunction
In a post yesterday, I described why I think Judge Royce Lamberth’s decision on Monday that the Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibits the federal government from funding human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research is wrong on the merits. Technically, however, the decision was not a ruling on the merits. Lamberth actually granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a […]
Conglomerate Junior Scholars Workshop:
The Conglomerate is now knee-deep in their annual junior scholars workshop. Today’s paper is Jim Hawkins’s nifty piece “Regulating the Fringe” on which I was delighted to have an opportunity to comment. It is a really well-done paper and I find the central claim quite compelling. Other discussants appear less persuaded. You can pick up […]
Coffin Cartel Knocks Casket-Making Monks
The Benedictine monks at St. Joseph Abbey in Covington, Louisiana, saw much of their timber felled by Hurricane Katrina. To make the best of the situation, they began turning their downed trees into hand-crafted caskets. Business was brisk, prompting complaints from funeral homes and an investigation by the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral […]
Why Small Business Isn’t Hiring
My Case Western colleague, Scott Shane, has a brief item linking the lack of hiring by small businesses to the collapse in home prices. Specifically, he identifies five reasons the “residential real-estate mess” is holding back small business job creation: Declining house prices have softened demand for small businesses’ products and services. Small businesses are […]
Scott Sumner on Liberaltarian Progress
I have generally been pessimistic about the prospects of the “liberaltarian” project of forging an alliance between libertarians and liberals (e.g. here and here). Economist Scott Sumner, however, makes a good case that this effort has achieved a lot if you look at it from a longterm perspective. Ultimately, the difference between Sumner’s view and […]