check out this funny NYU Law Revue teaser. Thanks to Sasha and Chelsea Rosenthal for the pointer.

"A Muscovite with digits in his name has been declared outside the law," reads the headline. The offender, БОЧ РВФ 260602 (I hope this encoding works for you folks) is now six and a half, but the government has refused to give him a birth certificate, which I take it portends more refusals of important documents in the future. The name is an abbreviation for "biological object of a person of the families Voronin and Frolov, [born] 26 June 2002."

I don't get it: They allow backwards Rs and upside down Vs, but balk at at a few digits? For more on U.S. decisions on the subject, see here (though they are about name changes, not initial naming decisions).

Thanks to Victor Steinbok for the pointer.

Reuters, among others, reports:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Russia's foreign minister on Friday, symbolically presenting him with a red "reset" button to improve ties that sank to a post-Cold War low during the Bush administration....

"I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice-President Biden and I have been saying and that is: 'We want to reset our relationship and so we will do it together,[']" said Clinton, presenting Lavrov with a palm-sized yellow box with a red reset button.

Clinton and Lavrov had dinner on the 18th floor of the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva.

They joked about the Russian misspelling of "reset" on the button before sitting down at an oval table with aides. "We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?" Clinton asked. "You got it wrong," said Lavrov, telling her "Peregruzka" meant "overcharge." ...

How does that happen? Unless I'm unfamiliar with some alternative meaning — and one that the Russian foreign minister was unfamiliar with, too — "peregruzka" doesn't remotely mean "reset." "Gruz" means "load," and "pere-" means "over-"; "peregruzka" means "overload." (I take it that "overcharge" is used in the story to mean an excess of an electric charge, which is to say an electrical overload, not "overcharge" in the more common English sense of charging too much money.) Doesn't the State Department have fluent translators to do such things? Or am I indeed missing some alternative meaning?

Thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer to the story.

One of the cool things about my part-part-part-time gig with Mayer Brown LLP is that I get to help my colleagues on some of the most fascinating constitutional law cases around. One very recent example is the certiorari petition in Empress Casino v. Giannoulias, a case involving a pretty deep split on the important question of when a monetary exaction becomes a taking for Takings Clause purposes. The split has been aggravated by the Court's fractured opinion in Eastern Associates v. Apfel (1998) — 4-1-4 decisions tend to do that — though it existed even independently of that case.

Our very own Ilya Somin, together with Eric Claeys, Richard Epstein, Nicole Garnett, and Eric Kades, has also signed on to a law professors' amicus brief in support of the petition, written by Stephen B. Kinnaird and his Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker colleagues; and this amicus brief from the Mountain States Legal Foundation, one of the oldest pro-property-rights (among other things) public interest law firms, is also very good. If you're a Takings Clause buff, check them out — this is important and very interesting stuff.

is just fine, holds the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Plona v. UPS. This is the latest phase in a case I noted two years ago (though that post came before it became clear that the parking lot was indeed company-controlled). Here's the relevant discussion:

Ohio has traditionally adhered to the employment-at-will doctrine, which permits an employer to terminate an at-will employment relationship “for any cause, at any time whatsoever, even if done in gross or reckless disregard of [an] employee’s rights.” But ... the Ohio Supreme Court [has] carved out an exception to the employment-at-will doctrine for situations where the employee’s discharge contravenes public policy. To maintain [such a] claim, a plaintiff must establish: (1) the existence of a clear public policy manifested in a state or federal constitution, statute or administrative regulation, or in the common law (the “clarity element”); (2) that a dismissal under circumstances similar to the plaintiff’s dismissal would jeopardize the public policy (the “jeopardy element”); (3) that the plaintiff’s dismissal was motivated by conduct related to the public policy (the “causation element”); and (4) that the employer lacked an overriding legitimate business justification for the dismissal (the “overriding justification element”). The clarity and jeopardy elements are questions of law to be decided by the court.

Here, Plona asserts that the “clear public policy” at issue is manifested in the Ohio Constitution, Article I, § 4, which states that “[t]he people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security ....” He reasons that UPS violated this policy by terminating him for possessing an unloaded firearm in a parking lot that he characterizes as quasi-public property by virtue of its use by UPS customers and its ownership by a party other than UPS.

Plona’s argument is without merit. Although the Ohio Constitution provides a general right to bear arms, the state certainly does not have a “clear public policy” of allowing employees to possess firearms on the premises of their private employers. To the contrary, the Ohio legislature has specifically provided that employers may limit their employees’ rights to bear arms:

Nothing in this section shall negate or restrict a rule, policy, or practice of a private employer that is not a private college, university, or other institution of higher education concerning or prohibiting the presence of firearms on the private employer’s premises or property, including motor vehicles owned by the private employer.

Plona does not dispute that the parking lot in question is owned by UPS’s wholly owned subsidiary BT-OH, or that the lease between UPS and BT-OH affords UPS full control over the parking lot. UPS was thus plainly within its rights, as codified in § 2923.126(C)(1), to prohibit its employees from possessing firearms in the parking area. Because Plona cannot show that UPS violated a clear public policy of the state of Ohio, his wrongful-termination claim fails as a matter of law.

By the way, to anticipate the likely "of course no court would ever hold this as to other rights, such as free speech" arguments: In most states, nongovernmental employers are allowed to fire employees based on their speech, even speech that's entirely outside employer property. (For a list of the states that take a contrary view, see this post chain; I had hoped to blog about more of the statutes than I noted there, but didn't have a chance to.) There's certainly no constitutional constraint on firing employees for their off-the-job speech -- the Bill of Rights generally applies only to government entities, not private employers -- and there's no federal statutory constraint on it (except as to a few types of speech, such as union advocacy).

The matter varies as to other constitutional rights:

1. Free exercise of religion: Federal antidiscrimination statutes (and similar statutes in many states) generally does bar employers from firing employees based on the employees' religion, including the employees' religious practices, and even some on-the-job practices (though it depends on whether accommodating the practice would be unduly burdensome to the employer).

2. Right to get pregnant, and right to abortion: A federal antidiscrimination statute (and similar statutes in many states) also generally bans discrimination based on pregnancy, which some courts have interpreted as covering discrimination based on abortion. See, e.g., Doe v. C.A.R.S. Protection Plus, Inc., 527 F.3d 358 (8th Cir. 2008).

3. Right to marry, or not to marry: Quite a few states' statutes also bar employers from firing employees based on employees' marital status.

4. Right to sexual autonomy: Quite a few states' statutes bar employers from firing employees based on employees' sexual orientation, which would presumably cover firings based on at least certain kinds of exercises of the right to sexual autonomy. Some states also ban discrimination based on lawful off-premises recreational conduct, which might cover some firings for sexual activity.

5. Other rights: I know of no laws that bar employers from firing employees for the exercise of a right to self-incrimination, or a right to refuse to allow the police to search the employee's property, and the like.

So courts generally have not barred private employers from firing people based on the exercise of their constitutional rights (or, to be precise, their rights to do things free of government restriction). Congress has, as to a few rights (free exercise of religion, free speech as to labor matters in many contexts, reproductive rights). Some but by no means all state legislatures have, as to a few more rights (right to marry, right to sexual autonomy, and, in fewer states, freedom of speech). And a few states have done this as to the right to bear arms, even in some states on company parking lots. But the only general pattern here is that these rules are almost always created by legislatures and not by courts (with a few exceptions for things such as jury service and whistleblowing to government agencies, and even that not always).

Thanks to How Appealing for the pointer to the Sixth Circuit decision.

That's what Sayers v. Prugh, Holliday & Karatinos, an Eleventh Circuit decision from earlier this week, suggests. Sayers sued her employer for alleged failure to pay overtime, but her lawyer didn't even call the defendant to negotiate a payment before filing suit. The defendant ultimately accepted a small settlement:

Sometime after discovery closed, Defendants tendered an offer of judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 for $3,500 plus any attorney’s fees and costs to which the district court determined Plaintiff was entitled. Defendants denied all liability in the Rule 68 offer. Plaintiff accepted the Rule 68 offer.... Plaintiff, through her lawyer, timely moved for her litigation expenses [which were potentially available under the federall overtime statute]. She asked the district court to award her $13,800 in attorney’s fees and $1,840.70 in costs....

[T]he district court denied attorney’s fees and costs. The district court wrote that “there are some cases in which a reasonable fee is no fee” and found that this case was such a case.

Now it may well be reasonable to award little or no money in fees and costs when a plaintiff's lawyer fails to use less expensive dispute resolution techniques — calling or writing — and instead files suit right away. But what troubles me is that the court's rationale didn't focus on protecting defendants generally, or protecting courts from having to deal with needless lawsuits generally. Rather, it focused chiefly on civility between lawyers (albeit with an eye towards eventually reducing litigation overhead as a result of such greater civility):

Defendants are lawyers and their law firm. And the lawyer for Plaintiff made absolutely no effort — no phone call; no email; no letter — to inform them of Plaintiff’s impending claim much less to resolve this dispute before filing suit. Plaintiff’s lawyer slavishly followed his client’s instructions and — without a word to Defendants in advance — just sued his fellow lawyers. [Footnote: This explanation counts for little: a lawyer’s duties as a member of the bar — an officer of the court — are generally greater than a lawyer’s duties to the client. See Malautea v. Suzuki Motor Co., 987 F.2d 1536, 1546 (11th Cir. 1993) (“An attorney’s duty to a client can never outweigh his or her responsibility to see that our system of justice functions smoothly. This concept is as old as common law jurisprudence itself.”); Thomas v. Tenneco Packaging Co., 293 F.3d 1306, 1327 (11th Cir. 2002) (“Independent judgment is an essential ingredient of good lawyering, since attorneys have duties not only to their clients, but also, as officers of the court, to the system of justice as a whole.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).]

Plaintiff’s lawyer showed little concern for the district court’s time and energy and no courtesy to his fellow lawyers. As the district court saw it, this conscious disregard for lawyer-to-lawyer collegiality and civility caused (among other things) the judiciary to waste significant time and resources on unnecessary litigation and stood in stark contrast to the behavior expected of an officer of the court. [Footnote: The customs of professional courtesy were important to the district court. In its written order, the district court used these words: “This Court is not ruling that a pre-suit letter is always required, but in this case, the Plaintiff’s lawyer did not even make a phone call to try to resolve the issue before filing suit. The Defendant is a law firm. Prior to filing suit in this local area, it is still reasonable to pick up the phone and call another lawyer so it won’t be necessary to file suit. The defense proffered by Plaintiff’s lawyer for not doing so is that his client instructed him to file suit first and ask questions later.... [T]he Court reminds him that the lawyer is the officer of the Court, not the client. This [C]ourt will not permit lawyers to file unnecessary litigation and palm it off on their clients.”]

The district court refused to reward — and thereby to encourage — uncivil conduct by awarding Plaintiff attorney’s fees or costs. Given the district court’s power of oversight for the bar, we cannot say that this decision was outside of the bounds of the district court’s discretion. [Footnote: We have said that a court may not sanction a lawyer under its inherent powers absent a showing “that the lawyer’s conduct constituted or was tantamount to bad faith.” We have assumed that awarding no attorney’s fees and costs constitutes some informal sanction. Nevertheless, even if bad faith is required, we conclude that the conscious indifference to lawyer-to-lawyer collegiality and civility exhibited by Plaintiff’s lawyer (per his client’s request) amounted to harassing Defendants’ lawyers by causing them unnecessary trouble and expense and satisfied the bad-faith standard.]

We strongly caution against inferring too much from our decision today. These kinds of decisions are fact-intensive. We put aside cases in which lawyers are not parties. We do not say that pre-suit notice is usually required or even often required under the FLSA to receive an award of attorney’s fees or costs. Nor do we now recommend that courts use their inherent powers to deny prevailing parties attorney’s fees or costs. We declare no judicial duty. We create no presumptions. We conclude only that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to award some attorney’s fees and costs based on the facts of this case. [Some paragraph breaks added.]

Much of what the court says is quite reasonable, to a point. A lawyer's duties as officer of the court may well be greater than the lawyer's duties to the client — consider for instance the duty of candor to the court. And uncollegial behavior between lawyers as representatives of the parties can indeed waste the time of the court as well as hurting the clients.

Litigation is often a long process, in which many steps — for instance, discovery — can be done either very expensively, through repeated arguments before the court, or less expensively but often with the same practical result, by agreement between the parties and their lawyers. Human nature being what it is, such agreement is much less likely if the lawyers have been needlessly unpleasant to each other. So rudeness among lawyers may indeed lead to unnecessary consumption of the court's time and of the clients' money, often without even any real tactical advantage to either client. (Sometimes hardball or even unpleasant behavior does benefit the lawyer's client, but often it doesn't.)

But all those things apply regardless of who the clients are. Better treatment of lawyer-defendants than doctor-defendants or businessperson-defendants strikes me as much more troublesome, whether the treatment is justified as a matter of "civility" or otherwise. Lawyers should be civil to nonlawyer adversaries as well as to lawyer adversaries. And nonlawyer defendants should be as entitled as lawyer defendants to the benefit of either rules or (as here) discretionary judicial decisions calling for (for example) prelitigation discussion rather than immediate and expensive filing of lawsuits.

This having been said, I acknowledge that there can be nonlaughable public-regarding justifications for better treatment of lawyer defendants: It's possible, for instance, that the ill will generated by uncivil treatment by lawyer A of lawyer defendant B will cause acrimony between A and B in future cases, and will thus waste future courts' time and future clients' money. That wouldn't play out the same way if B weren't a lawyer. But it seems to me that such speculation shouldn't suffice to justify legal decisions that expressly discriminate in favor of lawyers-as-defendants.

Thanks to How Appealing for the pointer.

A new I/P Colloquium podcast hosted by my colleague Doug Licthman, with Prof. Charlie Nesson (Harvard), RIAA lawyer Steven Marks (RIAA), Prof. Catherine Sharkey (NYU), Prof. Thomas Colby (GW), and Dan Markel (Florida State):

Joel Tenenbaum looks a lot like every other defendant who has been accused by the music industry of illegally sharing copyrighted work online, but with one key difference: his defense attorney is Harvard Law School Professor Charlie Nesson, and Nesson is out to turn his case into a public referendum not only on the music industry's efforts to enforce copyright through these direct-infringer suits, but also on the copyright rules that make the industry litigation possible. In this program, we engage Nesson's key arguments, focusing especially on Nesson's claim that copyright law's statutory damages regime runs afoul of constitutional protections against excessive and/or arbitrary civil damages awards.

I too know Ted, who's running for Texas Attorney General, and think very highly of him: He is extremely smart, an "outstanding advocate" (as Orin notes), and in general the very sort of serious, accomplished, and highly professional lawyer that I wish we had more of in elected politics. (As Orin points out, he clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist, has served as Texas Solicitor General, and is now the head of the Morgan Lewis appellate practice.)

Ted's views are more solidly conservative than mine. But I would have gladly voted for him if I were a Texan; not being a Texan, all I could do was contribute to his campaign, and I would encourage others to do the same.

UPDATE: Prof. Rick Garnett (Mirror of Justice) writes:

My friend and co-clerk (with Chief Justice Rehnquist), Ted Cruz, is running for Attorney General (he served for several years as the state's Solicitor General), as a Republican, in Texas. Ted is -- no surprise, for a Republican running in Texas -- a conservative, and he and I have not always seen eye-to-eye on policy matters (including capital punishment. MOJ readers in Texas should know, though, that -- besides being a stalwart friend and a prince among men -- Ted is solid as a rock, and inspiringly passionate, when it comes to school choice and education reform. In fact, the first conference I ever organized I organized with Ted. It was a big event, in Ohio, which dealt with the social-justice and religious-freedom aspects of the school-choice issue. To have such a committed advocate, on such an important matter, in the AG's office, in one of the largest states, would be a very good thing.

I remember that conference, too, and I remember how forceful and effective Ted's speech on the subject was. I think that was only the second time I'd met Ted, and it made me think that here was a man who was going to go far -- which he is indeed doing.

Patterico, the blogger involved, quotes the message from the lawyer.

are in this memo I wrote to my colleagues (with pie charts). Summary:

With this in mind, let me offer a few suggestions to my fellow professors:

(1) If you think a no-laptop policy might help, experiment with it. I’ve noted above some reasons why my experience might not be generalizable from the sexy first-semester Criminal Law class. But if some of us get and report more data in other classes, all of us will get a better perspective.

(2) If you want to try a no-laptop policy, tell students up front about the generally positive reaction my students have reported. This should make them more open to the experiment, and at least decrease any immediate flak you might get from the students. No need to start the semester by making your students resentful.

(3) Warn students in the syllabus about the policy, and briefly explain that it’s an experiment from which you’re trying to learn, for the benefit of future students. My sense is that this will help students feel open to the policy, and will help deflect skepticism about whether the policy will work: I’m not sure whether it will work myself, you can tell them — that’s why I’m trying this as an experiment, though I also have some tentative feedback from others that leads me to think it will be a successful experiment.

(4) For the second- and third-year classes, note the policy in the class description, so that students won’t be surprised — or, if they will be surprised, you can politely convey to them that the surprise was their fault.

(5) If you do try such a policy, please conduct a survey after the end of the course, follow up with the students at least once to get a decent response rate, and share the results with the rest of us.

The New York Times Caucus blog reports (quoting Prime Minister Gordon Brown) that the Queen of England "has awarded an honorary Knighthood for Sir Edward Kennedy." A couple of people have asked: Does this require Congressional approval, under article I, § 9 of the Constitution, "no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State"?

I'm no expert on the subject (though I'm not sure whether anyone is), but my tentative thinking is that membership in the Senate or the House is not an "Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States]." Three pieces of evidence for this:

1. Article II, § 1 provides that "no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector." This strongly suggests that "Senator or Representative" and "Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit" are two different things.

2. Article I, § 6, provides that "no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office." This likewise suggests that "Office under the United States" doesn't include membership in Congress.

3. There's 1790s Senate precedent for the proposition that a Senator is not a "Civil Officer[] of the United States" for purpose of impeachment, though the question is not free of controversy.

Note that the situation with Alcee Hastings, an impeached and removed federal judge who became a Representative, doesn't shed light on the subject. Article I, § 3 does allow the Senate to include "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" as part of the "Judgment in Cases of Impeachment"; the Hastings situation might thus have tested whether membership in Congress is an "Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" -- but it didn't, because the Senate didn't include such a disqualification within its judgment (a decision that was for the Senate to make).

If any of you have more information on this, please do pass it along, since this post is the result of only a bit of quick research on my part.

Benjamin Wolf (The Elliot Schlissel New York Law Blog) has a guest-post from the petitioner in Maloney v. Cuomo that reports this.

Kirkland & Ellis (which is doing this case pro bono) is a top-notch law firm, with a top-notch Supreme Court practice. My guess is that the Supreme Court would prefer to consider the incorporation question in a case that involves more common facts, and that doesn't raise the additional legal question of whether nunchakus qualify as "arms" for Second Amendment purposes. But it's hard to tell for sure: It's possible for the Justices to use the case to decide the purely legal question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and thus constrains the states to respect an individual right to keep and bear arms. The Justices must be aware that the question is out there in lots of cases.

Moreover, the main criterion for choosing whether to decide a case -- whether there's a split among federal circuit courts or state supreme courts on the subject -- may well not arise on this issue: The existence of late 1800s Supreme Court precedent against applying the Second Amendment to the states (in a case that also held the same as to the First Amendment, a view that the Court has long since rejected) may keep a split from developing in the first place, as lower courts conclude that they're bound by the precedent despite the Court's relatively broad embrace of incorporation throughout the 1900s. So it's possible that the Court might conclude that there's no time like the present to decide the issue, though I'd still guess the odds are against it, even with Kirkland involved.

Ben Sheffner (Copyrights & Campaigns) has the story, with all the links you can want. Patrick Frey confirms that the commenter does indeed seem to be the lawyer (something that's generally worth checking on the Internet). Here's an excerpt from Sheffner's long and detailed post:

Patrick Frey is a Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney. He also has a blog called "Patterico's Pontifications," which features news, analysis, and commentary on subjects including politics, the criminal justice system, and media bias. Frey's blog includes a disclaimer on the front page making clear that his blogging is completely separate from his work as a prosecutor ....

Frey recently wrote a long and detailed post about allegations that 2 prosecution experts in a Louisiana murder case manufactured evidence that helped send the defendant, Jimmie Duncan, to death row. Frey's post included extensive analysis of the forensic evidence, and the results of an interview he conducted with a prosecution expert witness (who was not accused of manufacturing evidence)....

Duncan's appellate attorney[,] ... Kathy Kelly of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana left the following comment on Frey's blog:

I’m am [sic] Mr. Duncan’s lawyer. This case is currently on appeal. You are not the prosecutor, the judge or a forensic expert. You have noted contacting several people who are potential witnesses in the case and who will be called as witnesses later on in an evidentiary hearing. As a lawyer you should no [sic] that you have no business talking to witnesses when you are not a party to this case. Cease immediately or I will file an ethics complaint with your state bar.... You are a memeber [sic] of the general public you have no right to be demanding that this child’s autopsy or medical records be turned over to you. Again you are neither the DA or the JUdge [sic] in this case.

What? It's an ethical violation for an attorney who blogs as a hobby to act exactly as a reporter: interviewing witnesses and seeking relevant documents? On a case in which he has no official involvement as an attorney? ...

Sheffner analyzes the California Rules of Professional Conduct, and concludes there's nothing at all unethical in Frey's opining on the case. I'm not expert enough on the Rules to verify this, but I can say that First Amendment law should and likely does protect Frey's speech even if Sheffner is mistaken and the Rules do indeed purport to restrict Frey here (which I have no reason to believe is the case). The Court has upheld (in Gentile v. State Bar) some restrictions on lawyer speech about his client when there's an impending trial, chiefly because of concerns that the speech may unduly influence jurors. But this rationale certainly doesn't apply to speech by someone who isn't a lawyer for one of the parties, and who is speaking while the case is on appeal (and thus before judges, who presumably know enough not to be unduly influenced by public comments about the case).

Frey's response, which is much to his credit: "I don’t intend to cease exercising my First Amendment right to speak about matters of legitimate public concern because some lawyer who is mis[re]presenting the content of my post threatens a bogus complaint to my State Bar."

UPDATE: Prof. David Hricik (Legal Ethics Forum) agrees with Sheffner.

From the New Jersey Code, §§ 2C-39.3(k), 2C-39.9.2:

Any person who knowingly has in his possession handcuffs [defined as "a device, conventionally used for law enforcement purposes, that can be tightened and locked about the wrists for the purpose of restraining a person's movement"] under circumstances not manifestly appropriate for such lawful uses as handcuffs may have, is guilty of a disorderly persons offense.

You can guess what my question is.

According to the Institute for Justice (also reported in this Dallas Observer blog (Robert Wilonsky):

A Dallas judge yesterday ordered that nationally renowned law professor Richard Epstein be dismissed from a defamation lawsuit brought by Dallas developer H. Walker Royall. In that lawsuit, Royall claimed that Epstein defamed him merely by writing a blurb on the back cover of Bulldozed: “Kelo,” Eminent Domain, and the American Lust for Land. Carla Main, the author of Bulldozed, and Encounter Books, the book’s publisher, remain targets of Royall’s lawsuit.

Bulldozed tells the story of eminent domain abuse in Freeport, Texas, and ties that story to the larger issue of eminent domain abuse in America after the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Kelo v. City of New London. Royall was a key player in the Freeport debacle, having signed an agreement with the city of Freeport whereby the city would take land owned by a local seafood business through eminent domain and transfer it to Royall’s company for a luxury marina development project. During that dispute, Royall sued the targets of the takings, the Gore family, over statements they made about Royall on a website opposing the taking. When Carla Main wrote a book about eminent domain abuse in Freeport, Royall sued her, too, along with her publisher. When Epstein contributed a blurb to the back cover, Royall sued him. Royall also sued a local newspaper that ran a review of Bulldozed and the writer who wrote the review.

Epstein is now out of the lawsuit. Dallas Judge Carlos Cortez ordered Epstein’s dismissal after Royall failed to show that the Texas court had jurisdiction over the Illinois resident, who has not been to Texas in more than 13 years.

Epstein is a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and New York University School of Law. Ironically, he is the author of a prominent book on eminent domain, as well as a torts casebook that is used in law schools across the United States.... [A]lthough Epstein has now been dismissed, Main and Encounter remain as defendants....

Generally speaking, modern defamation law applies only to false statements; but at some point a literally true statement may so strongly carry a false connotation that the speaker could be held liable for the implied falsehood despite the literal truth. I've often looked for a good example of this, and I just found one, in an early 1960s case (though it's been around outside the defamation context at least since 1916): The first mate who, upset by his teetotaling captain, writes in the ship's log,

Captain sober today.

H.P. Grice's work on conversational implicatures, by the way relates to this.

A simple tip -- if you're going to have food laid out on a buffet table, especially before a talk, don't put the table flush against the wall unless you absolutely have to.

Rather, move it out from the wall, so that there can be two lines (one on either side of the table) instead of one. This will speed things up dramatically, and let the non-food part of the event start more quickly. A very simple suggestion, but I've noticed that many organizations neglect to do things this way.

A second tip, if you implement the first tip, though this requires a little more foresight: Make sure that you have two serving utensils for each platter or bowl that requires serving utensils. The two-line solution will still work even without the double utensils, but it will work better with the double utensils.

Do any of you know of arguments that New York Times v. Sullivan departed from the original understanding of the freedom of speech and of the press as to state action (as opposed to whether broad libel liability was constitutionally permissible state action)?

I'm looking for claims that the Framers understood the freedom of speech and of the press as not applicable to civil damages liability, at least under common-law torts. I should note that my sense is that this historical claim is mistaken -- but I'm just looking for evidence of it. Many thanks!

An interesting story from the Louisville Courier Journal:

Since Feb. 3, a local law firm has paid ... a cadre of ... students and stay-at-home moms to wait outside the [Jefferson County's sheriff's] office, ... 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The goal is to be first in line April 6 -- the first day that the firm's client, an unnamed investment company, can make an offer to buy Jefferson County's delinquent property tax roll.

As part of a system that may soon be ended by the Kentucky General Assembly, the company that's first in line pays the county what it's owed -- in recent years, an average of about $14 million on about 15,000 delinquent bills -- and then can make money by charging the derelict owners 12 percent interest a year until they pay their debts.

If the owners still don't pay, after one year, the company could foreclose on their properties.

For its part, the law firm -- Albrektson & Wakild, of Crestwood -- can reap collection fees of up to 100 percent of the amount owed on small bills, and smaller percentages on larger bills....

Not my field, but seemed like an interesting story, so I thought I'd pass it along. Thanks to reader William Ridlon for the pointer.