The Washington Post reports that the paper and associated media properties will be sold to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Durbin Amendment Decision — Good Law, Bad Policy
Last week, a federal district court threw out a regulation implementing the so-called Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial sector reform law. This amendment imposes limits on the fees banks and other issuers may charge merchants for the use of debit cards. The amendment is bad policy, for reasons Todd Zywicki explained here. Likely because […]
Congress Will No Longer Be Upset with the PPACA as It Applies to Them
Last week, the NYT reported on how members of Congress and their staff were upset that they would be required to obtain health insurance within insurance exchanges without financial support from their employer. Not to worry. On Thursday, Politico reported that the President has encouraged the federal Office of Personnel Management to find a solution. Accordingly, OPM […]
The Costs of Delaying the Employer Mandate
Just before the July 4 holiday, the Obama Administration announced that it had decided to delay enforcement of the PPACA’s employer mandate, despite the lack of clear legal authority for this move. I discussed some of the implications of this decision here. Last week, the CBO released its initial assessment of this decision. According to […]
Interesting Division in Sixth Circuit Qualified Immunity Case
On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided Kovacic v. Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services. The panel consisted of Judges Boggs, Moore and Sutton. The panel split on the question of qualified immunity for social workers who removed children from their mother’s home. (You know where this is going, […]
Sixth Circuit Rejects Class Settlement in Pampers Case
Yesterday, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit threw out a proposed settlement in a class-action suit against Proctor & Gamble. Judge Kethledge wrote the opinion for the court, joined by Judge Thapar (sitting by designation). Here is how he summarizes the opinion: Class-action settlements are different from other settlements. […]
How Not to Convince Republicans to Address Climate Change
It’s fair to say that only one political party today considers climate change to be a problem worth addressing. As readers know, I wish it were otherwise and believe there is a conservative case for addressing climate change. I welcome others to this cause. This NYT op-ed, “A Republican Case for Climate Action,” is not the sort […]
About that McDonald’s “Study”
HuffPo: McDonald’s could double all salaries and would only have to raise prices by 17 percent. Not quite. Tom Maguire takes the story apart. He also asks the obvious question: If McDonald’s could raise prices without lowering sales, why haven’t they done it already? UPDATE: The Huffington Post has now replaced the original story with […]
Lawmakers Upset with PPACA as It Applies to Them
Today’s NYT had an amusing story about how members of Congress and their staffs are concerned about a provision in the PPACA that requires them to obtain insurance through exchanges because, among other things, it will require a substantial increase in out-of-pocket costs. Under a wrinkle that dates back to enactment of the law, members […]
Sixth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Suit Against Cooley Law
By Jonathan H. Adler on July 30, 2013 9:55 pm in Law School Tuition and Loans, Law Schools, Legal Profession
Today, in MacDonald v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the SIxth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit by several former students at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Here’s the court’s summary of its opinion. The plaintiffs, twelve graduates of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, sued their […]
Hearing on IRS Health Insurance Tax Credit Rule
Tomorrow the Energy Policy, Health Care and Entitlements subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding a hearing on “Oversight of IRS’s Legal Basis for Expanding ObamaCare’s Taxes and Subsidies.” The issue is whether the IRS rule purporting to extend tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies for the purchase of qualifying health insurance […]
Boyce Martin’s Final Death Penalty Opinion
Judge Boyce Martin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is retiring. Martin, a former chief judge, has long been the Circuit’s liberal lion. He was a central player in some of the Circuit’s internecine squabbles and, over time, became a forceful critic of capital punishment. Today in Nichols v. Heidle, a […]
How Not to Correct the Record – TNR Edition
Earlier this month, The New Republic posted an article by Stanford law professor Richard Thompson Ford on the Zimmerman trial. As noted by my co-blogger David Bernstein and Michelle Meyer at The Faculty Lounge, this article included some factual inaccuracies. Most notably, the article (as originally published) contained the following sentence: . . . Zimmerman […]
Skeel on Detroit Bankruptcy
Professor David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania has an op-ed in Thursday’s WSJ discussing some of the legal issues raised by Detroit’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing and the potential conflict with the Michigan constitution. Skeel writes: Article IX, Section 24, of the Michigan state constitution says: “The accrued financial benefits of each pension plan and […]
Debating the Value of a Law Degree
By Jonathan H. Adler on July 24, 2013 8:16 pm in Law School Tuition and Loans, Law Schools, Legal Profession
The new study by Michael Simkovic and Frank McIntyre estimating the value of a law degree has sparked a substantial amount of debate and commentary, as I noted here and here. Most recently, WUSTL’s Brian Tamanaha, author of Failing Law Schools, went after the study on Balkinization arguing it systematically overstates the value of a […]