John Culbreath Blog

Under a California bill introduced by Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderone and backed by the L.A. Times, restaurants would be permitted to give plastic straws only to patrons who ask for them. A widely cited statistic in support of the measure turns out to be based on research done by a 9 year old. [ Christian Britschgi, Reason ; who updates the story to say the sponsor now intends to revise the bill to take out the fines] Tags: California , environment , restaurants California scheme to fine waiters $1,000 for offering plastic straws is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system California scheme to fine waiters $1,000 for offering plastic straws curated from Overlawyered

Class 6 Enumerated Powers III – The Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) Watch NFIB v. Sebelius Video on Casebook Connect The Affordable Care Act (305) NFIB v. Sebelius: Commerce, Necessary and Proper, and Taxing Power (306-338). NFIB v. Sebelius: The Spending Power (339-346) Excerpt  (Foreword and Introduction) from  Unprecedented: A Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare The lecture notes are here . Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare from Josh Blackman ConLaw Class 6 – Enumerated Powers III – The Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) curated from Josh Blackman's Blog

Class 6 – 1/30/18 Property in Yourself Moore v. Regents of the University of California, 167-177 Notes, 177-178 Today we will discuss how you can own property in yourself. The lecture notes are here . To learn more about property rights in cell lines, I highly commend you read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This article in Salon discusses it. In 2013 , the National Institute of Health reached an agreement to honor Lacks’s memory: On Tuesday, the National Institute of Health announced it was, at long last, making good with Lacks’ family. Under a new agreement, Lack’s genome data will be accessible only to those who apply for and are granted permission. And two representatives of the Lacks family will serve on the NIH group responsible for reviewing biomedical researchers’ applications for controlled access to HeLa cells. Additionally, any researcher who uses that data will be asked to include an acknowledgement to the Lacks family in their publications. Th...

FATCA, the expatriate financial reporting law, may soon vex the British royal family ; Passenger asked to leave US Airways flight after emotional support pig becomes disruptive ; Quebec lawmakers to shopkeepers: don’t greet customers with “Bonjour hi,” might make English speakers feel too welcome; “Now unsealed: official report on Wisconsin John Doe probes “; Philadelphia city council votes to ban bulletproof glass in many delis, and more ; D.C.’s ordinance requiring child care workers to have degrees in early childhood development: the year’s worst law ? Penalties mount skyward: Oregon appeals court upholds $135,000 cake fine . Tags: best of Best of Overlawyered — December 2017 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Best of Overlawyered — December 2017 curated from Overlawyered

Internet is a huge money making tool. If you know your game, you are good at it then you will reap millions out of this thing called advertisements on your website. Besides making millions of revenue on your website you can now make generate income separately on by selling ads directly to the advertisers. Usually when you have reached a certain point in your business you are good to start selling advertisements directly to the advertisers. Prerequisites for Selling: There is no defined number of audiences that you require for taking that step. You do not have to oblige a huge code of business and definition to hit selling your ads because no number is assigned in most cases. You may not always have a large traffic inflow on your website to help you with that but having traffic would definitely mean you are in for luck, you are good to receive good share of income from selling those ads to your desired audience. Some advertisers require you to hit a certain number and viability quoti...

Two new podcast series on free speech: “ Make No Law ,” from Ken White (Popehat) on Legal Talk Network; Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free Speech from Jacob Mchangama for FIRE and other groups; No, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not require tech companies to provide a “neutral public forum.” Has Sen. Ted Cruz been properly briefed on this? [ John Samples ] “Arizona naturopath Colleen Huber is suing me in Germany for defamation over my opinions about her so-called natural cancer treatments and research.” [ Britt Hermes, Naturopathic Diaries ] “Should the Government Get to Define ‘Native-American’ Art? One Woman’s Free Speech Fight” [ Paul Detrick, Reason ] “Minnesota prohibits any insignia deemed to be “political” — as determined solely at the discretion of the on-site election judges—from being worn into a polling place.” Overbroad? [ Ilya Shapiro and Reilly Stephens on Cato brief in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky] Free speech was under fire in...

Eugene Volokh : Illinois “stalking” and “cyber-stalking” statutes criminalize (among other things), “knowingly engag[ing] in [2 more or acts] directed at a specific person,” including “communicat[ing] to or about” a person, when the communicator “knows or should know that this course of conduct would cause a reasonable person to” “suffer emotional distress,” defined as “significant mental suffering, anxiety or alarm.” The statute expressly excludes, among other things, “an exercise of the right to free speech or assembly that is otherwise lawful.” Despite that last exclusion, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the provisions as unconstitutionally broad under the First Amendment. (The Cato Institute and the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project had filed an amicus brief). Shouldn’t Illinois lawmakers have known better ? [ People v. Relerford ] Tags: First Amendment , Illinois , online speech Court strikes down overbroad Illinois ban on stalking/cyberstalking is a ...

Lakehead University law faculty member Ryan Alford has filed a challenge to the new Ontario bar rule requiring all lawyers to prepare and submit personal “Statement of Principles” avowing their support for equality, diversity, and inclusion. The rules have drawn fire across Canada as compelled speech, but the bar association turned down a request that individual lawyers be allowed exemptions if they believe the requirement violates their conscience. I’ve got a write-up at Cato at Liberty noting the parallels with Model Rule 8.4 (g) , adopted by the ABA in 2016, which makes a vaguely defined category of discriminatory conduct, including speech, the subject of discipline as “professional misconduct,” and which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warns would be unconstitutional if adopted into state regulation. I write: The “Test Acts” were a series of enactments of England that excluded from public office and penalized in other ways those who would not swear allegiance to the prevailin...

The usual suspects among mass tort trial lawyers are in charge of opioids litigation seeking recoupment for local governments, union funds and other health payers [ Daniel D. Fisher, Legal NewsLine/Forbes ] Earlier here , here , here , here , here , and generally . Tags: opioids Painkiller payday is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Painkiller payday curated from Overlawyered

Class 5 – 8/29/17 Enumerated Powers III – The Rehnquist Court The Spending Power (260) South Dakota v. Dole (261-265) The Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause (267-268) United States v. Lopez (268-281) United States v. Morrison (281-285) Gonzales v. Raich (285-304) The lecture notes are here . South Dakota v. Dole This case involved Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole, whose husband (Viagra spokesman) Bob Dole, was a long-time Senator from Kansas, and Republican nominee for President in 1996. United States v. Lopez This is Thomas Edison High School in San Antonio, Texas, the site where Alfonso Lopez, Jr., brought a gun to school in violation of the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. I obtained these (blurry) photographs from Lopez’s high school yearbook. The caption reads “Rushing down the field, Alfonzo Lopez warms up before the game.” United States v. Morrison This is Christy Brzonkala, the plaintiff in what would become United States v. Mor...

This semester I will be travelling across the country, talking on a variety of topics, including the travel ban, the confirmation process, DACA, Obamacare, and others. If you are in the area, please stop by to say hi. Also, if you are interested in hosting me this semester, please contact me, as my schedule is nearly full. 2/2/18 – Rhode Island Federalist Society Lawyer’s Chapter 2/5/18 – DePaul University College of Law Federalist Society Chapter 2/5/18 – Chicago-Kent College of Law Federalist Society Chapter 2/9/18 – Dallas Federalist Society Lawyer’s Chapter 2/12/18 – Southern Illinois School of Law Federalist Society Chapter 2/13/18 – Washington University (St. Louis) School of Law Federalist Society Chapter 2/28/18 – BYU Law School Federalist Society Chapter 3/5/18 – Santa Clara Law School Federalist Society Chapter 3/6/18 – UC Davis School of Law Federalist Society Chapter 3/7/18 – McGeorge School of Law Federalist Society Chapter 3/10/18 – Federalist Society Student...

From the comments: Braille at drive-through ATMs ; “If the Law Is This Complicated, Why Shouldn’t Ignorance Be an Excuse? ” Burger workers class action makes Happy Meal for lawyers ; HOA mailbox spat turns into three-year court battle ; “Why the trial by ordeal was actually an effective test of guilt”; “ Robot Patrols Grocery Store To Prevent Slip-and-Falls”; Will regulation submerge Baltimore’s favorite cookie? A drama in two acts . Tags: best of Best of Overlawyered — November 2017 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Best of Overlawyered — November 2017 curated from Overlawyered

Following a series of safety incidents that included the mauling of a passenger last year by a 70-pound dog, Delta Air Lines has tightening its onboard policies on emotional support and other service animals, requiring additional documentation of their role and training and excluding some species altogether, including “‘farm poultry,’ hedgehogs and anything with tusks.” [ Karin Brulliard, Washington Post/PennLive ; earlier here , here , etc.] The carrier said there had been “a 150 percent increase in the number of service and support animals carried onboard since 2015.” [ Alana Wise/Reuters ] Employers are bracing for a rising number of demands to let employees bring service animals with them into the workplace, with the likes of the EEOC litigating in support [ Patrick Dorrian, BNA/Bloomberg , earlier ] And New York has joined a number of other states in passing a law against service animal fraud. [ Kevin Fritz and John Egan, Seyfarth Shaw ] Tags: airlines , service animals Delta: n...

“”Administrative State Is THE Leading Threat to Civil Liberties of Our Era'”: Nick Gillespie interview with Philip Hamburger at Reason ; Beyond the deference debates: White House Counsel Don McGahn speaks on Chenery I v. Chenery II, fair notice and retroactivity [ Aaron Nielson, Yale Journal on Regulation “Notice and Comment” ; related, Josh Blackman ] Federalist Society convention videos includes panels on the administrative state and agencies and the judiciary with Steven Calabresi and Gillian Metzger, Congress with C. Boyden Gray and Keith Whittington, the executive branch with Susan Dudley and Neomi Rao, and recent regulatory rollbacks with John Allison and Philip Hamburger; Michael Rappoport writing at Law and Liberty lately on such topics as reconfiguring administrative law to promote deregulation , a reformed REINS Act , insisting on stricter separation of powers within agencies including adjudication , and deference doctrines including Chevron ( contra preferentum? ...

Bryan Caplan and Arthur Brooks on international adoption, the Hague Convention, and Type I and Type II error [ Caplan/EconLog , Brooks/NYT ] It’s about the pecking order: enrolling a 3-month-old chicken in a “distinguished lawyer” marketing program [ Conrad Saam ] West Baltimore police checkpoints, Montgomery County rent control proposals, taxes, regulations, gerrymandering and more in my latest Maryland policy roundup [ Free State Notes ] Also from me: with Oprah Winfrey in the news, I recall the time I was on her talk show [ Frederick News-Post ] Yet more from me: as part of a symposium on Trump’s first year, his administration’s centrist course on gay issues ; More work for age discrimination lawyers? “The New York Times is looking for young writers” for paid positions according to its ad [ archived original , and updated current page with legally safer wording, via @jackshafer ] “Copyright Troll Gets Smacked Around By Court, As Judge Wonders If Some Of Its Experts Even Exis...

Have you ever noticed how important are competency and strong headedness for any job? It is not just the preliminary interview that requires you to answer competency based questions but even in your career you may be put through situations where you need to qualify as a competent candidate. Competency test or physician's statement of mental competency is a declaration of how competent and sound an individual is when it comes to performing a task of huge responsibility. Letter of mental competency template would carry a statement from a reputable physician or an institute stating that the persona is able to perform all tasks with a sound mind and he or she qualifies to be a competent individual who has a high likelihood of delivering greats tasks. Importance of Competency Letter: This does sound a little perplexing at start but once you get a grasp of how it works, you are good to go. Competency letters are important because they are a way to make sure for an organization that...

We ask the single most important question - can lawyers fail and survive and go on to thrive? Our position, failure is not a bad thing. What matters is what you do after your failure. Listen and learn. Written by Susan Cartier Liebel Can Entrepreneurial Lawyers Fail and Survive…Even Become Successful? Guest Lecture with Jared Correia curated from Solo Practice University®

Class 4 – 8/22/17 Enumerated Powers II – The New Deal and Warren Courts The New Deal Court Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (218-223) The New Deal Court (223-225) NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (226-229) United States v. Darby (229-232) Wickard v. Filburn (232-237) Cushman, Rethinking the New Deal (237-239) The Warren Court The Warren Court (246-255) Hearts of Atlanta Motel (246-255) Katzenbach v. McClung (255-260) The lecture notes are here . Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States In Schechter Poultry , often referred to as the Sick Chicken Case, the Supreme Court unanimously invalidated the National Recovery Act, which was a centrla plank of President Roosevelt’s New Deal program.   The  Brooklyn Daily  Eagle  from May 28, 1935, after  Schechter Poultry was decided . The caption reads: “Pictorial flashes in the life of the Blue Eagle [the symbol of the National Recovery Act]. Left—Thousands line the streets of...