John Culbreath Blog

“Woman catches her shoe in groove in pavement at Tewksbury, Mass. gas station; she falls, is injured. Woman: The station had a duty to warn me of the danger, perhaps by painting the grooves (which are mandated by state law to contain spills) brightly. First Circuit: There is no such duty. But here’s a Judge Selya vocab quiz for your trouble: pellucid, behoof, animadversions, and rescript.” [ John Kenneth Ross, Short Circuit on Potvin v. Speedway LLC ] Tags: First Circuit , oil industry No duty for gas station to paint pavement grooves is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system No duty for gas station to paint pavement grooves curated from Overlawyered

After parking lot shooting Pinellas County, Florida sheriff “claim[ed] his hands were tied by Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. But that is not true” [ Jacob Sullum, Reason , more ; David French, NRO ] Major USA Today story on origins of Baltimore’s devastating crime and murder wave [ Brad Heath ; Jonathan Blanks, Cato ] Related: in Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force police scandal, plea bargains punished the innocent [Capital News Service investigation by Angela Roberts, Lindsay Huth, Alex Mann, Tom Hart and James Whitlow: first , second , third parts] California Senate votes 26 to 11 to abolish felony murder rule, under which participants in some serious crimes face murder rap if others’ actions result in death [ ABA Journal , bill ] New Jersey’s reforms curtailing cash bail, unlike Maryland’s, seem to be working reasonably well [ Scott Shackford ; longer Shackford article on bail in Reason ; earlier here , here , etc.] “Miami Police Union Says Head-Kicking Cop ‘Used Great Restra...

“Sheldon Silver, the disgraced ex-speaker of the New York state Assembly, was sentenced to seven years in prison — less than the 12 years he was sentenced to previously” before an appeals court ordered retrial [ Kaja Whitehouse, New York Post , more (wanted to keep some of the money); Adam Klasfeld/Courthouse News ; our coverage over the years] Tags: scandals , Sheldon Silver “Sheldon Silver sentenced to 7 years in prison for corruption” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system “Sheldon Silver sentenced to 7 years in prison for corruption” curated from Overlawyered

“San Francisco Bans Straws, Cocktail Swords” [ Christian Britschgi ; more (funny memes proliferate)] Sharper distinction between legal treatment of “threatened” and “endangered” species would help species recovery efforts and line up with Congress’s intent [ Jonathan Wood, PERC Reports ] “It’s really interesting to me that the conversation around vegetarianism and the environment is so strongly centered on an assumption that every place in the world is on the limited land/surplus water plan.” [ Sarah Taber Twitter thread ] New podcast from Cato’s Libertarianism.org on eminent domain and civil forfeiture, with Tess Terrible and Trevor Burrus. More/background at Cato Daily Podcast ; “OMG cellphone cancer coverup” piece in Guardian’s Observer “strewn with rudimentary errors and dubious inferences” [ David Robert Grimes ; David Gorski, Science-Based Medicine corrects piece by same authors, Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie, that ran in The Nation] Oh, that pro bono: despite talk of ...

Right on schedule, here come claims that doctors may have an actual generalized legal duty (not just a right) to ask about guns in the home [ Elisabeth J. Ryan, Petrie-Flom Center “Bill of Health” ] Tags: guns , medical malpractice Claim: doctors should be obliged to ask patients about guns is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Claim: doctors should be obliged to ask patients about guns curated from Overlawyered

About the recent “U.S. opposes breast feeding at the World Health Organization” flap [ Joan B. Wolf, New York Daily News ; Susan Yoshihara, The Hill ; Hanna Rosin’s 2009 Atlantic piece ] Tags: pharmaceuticals , United Nations Infant formula is not a health crime is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Infant formula is not a health crime curated from Overlawyered

“The U.S. Labor Department on Tuesday officially rescinded the Obama administration’s ‘persuader rule’ that would have required lawyers and consultants to report on advice given to employers about persuading employees on union issues.” Among its numerous other problems, the rule drew fire from the American Bar Association and other groups as an infringement on lawyer-client confidentiality. [ ABA Journal , earlier ] Tags: bar associations , labor unions Good riddance, Persuader Rule is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Good riddance, Persuader Rule curated from Overlawyered

“American firms cheering for protectionism in the form of tariffs on their foreign competitors should be careful what they wish for. As they say, ‘What goes around comes around.’ Case in point: The American washer and dryer manufacturer Whirlpool Corp.,” which applauded tariffs on imports of washing machines and then found its own costs of production soaring when steel and aluminum imports also came under tariffs. [ Veronique de Rugy, syndicated ; @SoberLook on Twitter ] Tags: competition through regulation , free trade Caught in their own wringer is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Caught in their own wringer curated from Overlawyered

Occasionally lawyers still call in asking if it’s ethically permissible to place data in the cloud and often wanting to talk about the associated risks. I get it. For those who haven’t intentionally moved to the cloud already, trying to understand the risks and learning how to responsibly manage them can be a bit intimidating. Thankfully, a number of ethics opinions have been issued on this topic over the years so the answer to their questions is usually a rather straight forward one. Basically, it’s yes as long as you do your due diligence on the vendor and couple that with taking appropriate steps to see that your data is properly secured in transit as well as when at rest. Written by Mark Bassingthwaighte Data Security Due Diligence and All the Other Lawyers curated from Solo Practice University®

“Two city legislators on Tuesday are expected to announce legislation banning on-site workplace cafeterias in an effort to promote and support local restaurants.” The Golden Gate Restaurant Association, embracing the role of villains in an Ayn Rand novel, are backing the measure, sponsored by San Francisco supervisors Ahsha Safai and Aaron Peskin. The bill would be prospective only, so that while the famed in-house dining options at tech headquarters like Twitter’s could continue, new corporate arrivals would not be allowed to start anything similar. [ Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, San Francisco Examiner ] Tags: competition through regulation , restaurants , San Francisco , workplace Appalling: “Supervisors move to ban workplace cafeterias” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Appalling: “Supervisors move to ban workplace cafeterias” curated from Overlawyered

Not using someone’s preferred pronoun — “whether it’s he, she, ‘ze’ or something else” — could become a disciplinary offense, escalating up to firing and expulsion, at the University of Minnesota under a proposed policy [ Maura Lerner, Minneapolis Star-Tribune ] I’m quoted as saying that although protecting transgender members of its community from purposeful insult or breach of privacy is a legitimate purpose, the university is likely to fare poorly in court if it presumes to punish community members for not using new-coined gender pronouns on demand [ Sarah George, The College Fix ]: “As a public institution with an educational mission to uphold, Minnesota can appropriately make some demands of its members, such as respecting norms of collegiality, refraining from insult, observing consistent standards in filling out paperwork, and so forth,” Olson told The Fix via email. “But this does not constitute a blank check to police and punish language use generally, especially not in pol...

“Reference levels” aren’t poisoning, Flint at the height of the episode had lower blood-lead incidence in children than many other communities large and small, the number of cases with lead exposure calling for therapeutic measures appears to have been zero, and so forth. “It is not possible, statistically speaking, to distinguish the increase that occurred at the height of the contamination crisis from other random variations over the previous decade.” In short, everything you know about the Flint water episode is wrong. [ Hernán Gómez and Kim Dietrich, New York Times ; earlier here , here , and here ] Tags: environment , Michigan , toxic torts Everything you know about Flint water is wrong is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Everything you know about Flint water is wrong curated from Overlawyered

After Lucia was decided, Seth Barrett Tillman and I recognized that a line draw in Morrison v. Olson may have been destabilized. We analyze this issue on Lawfare: Is Robert Mueller an “Officer of the United States” or an “Employee of the United States” ? Here is the introduction: Recent debates over the constitutionality of Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel turn on whether he is a principal or inferior “officer of the United States.” Steven Calabresi contends that Mueller is in fact a principal officer, who, as a result, must be nominated by the president, and confirmed by the Senate. George Conway, writing for Lawfare, counters that Mueller is an inferior officer, who may be appointed by the assistant attorney general—the relevant department head—without Senate confirmation. There may be a third option. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lucia v. SEC explains that if a federal position is only “temporary,” then such a position is likely not an “office of the Uni...

Posting will be slow over the next week as I work on a writing deadline. Tags: about the site Posting slowdown is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Posting slowdown curated from Overlawyered

If you figured the British Medical Journal would take the side of individual liberty against the nanny state, you might soon be fated to miss the point . Tags: guns , nanny state , United Kingdom British Medical Journal article: ban pointy knives is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system British Medical Journal article: ban pointy knives curated from Overlawyered

More kids find homes when government doesn’t stand in the way: videos are now online from Thursday’s successful Cato adoption conference. They include a first panel on discrimination law and religious agencies: A keynote address on international adoption by Harvard law Prof. Elizabeth Bartholet: And a final panel on policy obstacles to adoption. I figure in all three sessions, in the first as introducer/panelist and in the other two as moderator. Tags: adoption , Cato Institute , live in person , religious discrimination , sexual orientation Cato adoption conference now online is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Cato adoption conference now online curated from Overlawyered

“Judge John F. Keenan of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote that climate change must be addressed by the executive branch and Congress, not by the courts. While climate change ‘is a fact of life,’ Judge Keenan wrote, ‘the serious problems caused thereby are not for the judiciary to ameliorate. Global warming and solutions thereto must be addressed by the two other branches of government.'” Not only was Mayor De Blasio’s widely publicized suit pre-empted by the Clean Air Act, but demands for transnational change are the province of U.S. foreign policy rather than courts [ John Schwartz, New York Times ] Less than a month ago federal judge William Alsup threw out climate suits by San Francisco and Oakland. Suits of this sort, based on theories of public nuisance law, “have generally been considered long shots.” I wish some people who ought to know better would stop trying to dress up this sort of legal action as somehow in the historical mains...

I joined Rick Sincere on his podcast The Score for the Bearing Drift site (Virginia politics) for what turned out to be a two-part interview. You can listen to part 1 on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, and part 2 on why the Court is unlikely to overturn its Obergefell decision on same sex marriage. Tags: on TV and radio , same-sex marriage , Supreme Court On Rick Sincere’s The Score podcast is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system On Rick Sincere’s The Score podcast curated from Overlawyered

Florida law firm that served drinks isn’t responsible for death of employee who walked home intoxicated and was hit by train [Florida appeals court, Salerno v. Del Mar Financial Service ] Family speaks out after local motels hit with Scott Johnson ADA suits [Allison Levitsky, Palo Alto (Calif.) Daily Post first and second posts] “When third-party funders weigh in on settlements, they may pressure plaintiffs and their attorneys to settle early” to make Wall Street numbers [ Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, New York Times ] More/related: Miles Weiss, Bloomberg on George Soros involvement; Chris Bryant and Federalist Society teleforum with Travis Lenkner and John Beisner on proposed amendments to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to require disclosure of litigation financing arrangements; Phone-answering for dollars: “Man who has filed at least 83 TCPA lawsuits loses one in Tennessee court” [ John O’Brien, Legal Newsline , earlier ] “RICO case settled with TCPA firm...

The state of Mississippi insists that a company called Vizaline, by selling a program that uses satellite imagery to translate “metes and bounds” language into polygonal lines on a map, is practicing land surveying without a license, and should be made to shut down and refund all money it has earned in the state. Attorneys from the Institute for Justice say that virtual land measurement is not only not part of an occupation subject to licensure, but is a form of expression and communication and subject to First Amendment protections. [ Cyrus Farivar, ArsTechnica ] Tags: First Amendment , Mississippi , occupational licensure , property law , real estate Mississippi: drawing digital lines on satellite map requires surveyor’s license is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Mississippi: drawing digital lines on satellite map requires surveyor’s license curated from Overlawyered

In a powerful new article, Jonathan Mitchell lays to rest one of the biggest myths on Constitutional Law: that the power of judicial review is akin to a veto, wherein the Court can “strike down” or render “void” a duly enacted statute. In The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy , Mitchell states what should be an obvious fact: But the federal judiciary has no authority to alter or annul a statute. The power of judicial review is more limited: It allows a court to decline to enforce a statute, and to enjoin the executive from enforcing that statute. But the judicially disapproved statute continues to exist as a law until it is repealed by the legislature that enacted it, even as it goes unenforced by the judiciary or the executive. And it is always possible that a future court might overrule the decision that declared the statute unconstitutional, thereby liberating the executive to resume enforcing the statute against anyone who has violated it. Judicial review is not a power to suspend or “str...

“You are in breach of condition 15.4(c) of your agreement with PayPal Credit,” the letter said, “as we have received notice that you are deceased.” Not only that, it continued, “[t]his breach is not capable of remedy.” Despite the recipient’s status as no longer living, the letter included an instruction to “READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY.” [ Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar ; Leo Kelion, BBC ] Tags: contracts PayPal says U.K. customer breached her contract by dying is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system PayPal says U.K. customer breached her contract by dying curated from Overlawyered

Summer is here and with it two opportunities to join us as a guestblogger for a week of posting, beginning as early as next week. Authors of newly published books and scholarly work in our fields of interest are particularly welcome. If you’re interested, contact editor – at – overlawyered – dot – com. Tags: guestbloggers Be a guestblogger for Overlawyered is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Be a guestblogger for Overlawyered curated from Overlawyered

MGM Resorts, which operates the Mandalay Bay hotel casino in Las Vegas, has invoked a law passed by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks to ask for a ruling that it is not liable to more than 1,000 victims of the Oct. 1, 2017, massacre during which a gunman in a Mandalay Bay room killed 58 people and injured nearly 500. The Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies (SAFETY) Act of 2002 limits claims against some makers of security equipment and sends lawsuits against such firms by terror victims to federal court. According to a critic, MGM is taking a broad view of the law’s provisions, claiming its protection because it employed a security vendor with SAFETY Act certification and because the shooting was an act of “mass violence.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security “has not designated the Las Vegas shooting a terrorist attack.” The use of declaratory judgment and similar processes, familiar from fields like insurance law, can lead to public relations da...

Protected class designation as departure from viewpoint neutrality: D.C. council proposal would make support for (but not opposition to) abortion a discrimination-law protected category in health care employment [ Abortion Provider Non-Discrimination Amendment Act of 2017 , Bill 22-0571 , via Katie Glenn, Washington Examiner ] You’ve heard of space junk, here’s statutory junk [ David Schoenbrod, Cato Regulation magazine ] “The Regulation of Language”: “countries that adopt a planned order approach to language, also do so in their law, and similarly rely on a planned order approach in their economy” [ Yehonatan Givati, Journal of Law and Economics forthcoming/SSRN ] “You typically don’t think of pizza chains as being recipients of government bailouts, but in a sense, that’s what happened here.” [ Dan Lewis, Now I Know , cheese promotion] Federal judge in Southern District of Mississippi wants race and gender hiring set-asides for legal work in receivership case, which is not fair t...

Three years ago I took a critical view of the trend in many states and cities toward excluding from publicly funded adoptive placement of kids in public care relatively conservative religious agencies that decline to handle placements to families outside their belief group, to non-traditional families such as same-sex couples and single parents, or both. In recent years the ACLU and like-minded groups have stepped up the pressure with lawsuits in states like Michigan aimed at excluding these groups from access to public money unless they take all kinds of families. Now a bill called the Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act (H.R. 1881/ S.B. 811 ), passed by the House of Representatives as a rider on the pending Labor/HHS appropriations bill, would prohibit states from taking adverse action against foster care and adoption agencies on the grounds that they refuse to engage in referrals, placements or other services that conflict with their religious or moral convictions. States found t...

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“Why It Was Proper (and Necessary) to Overturn Old Precedent” [ Ilya Shapiro and Aaron Barnes, Cato , earlier on Janus v. AFSCME case] Mackinac Center has launched national exit-encouraging campaign [ My Pay My Say ] Class action suits in several states against government unions seek refund of fees paid [ Bill McMorris, Free Beacon ] Proposal to have public employers simply pay unions directly could eliminate workers’ choice in the matter [ Benjamin Sachs and Sharon Block, Vox (favoring idea); Eugene Volokh ] “California’s Government Unions Take Steps to Obliterate Janus Impact” [ Edward Ring, California Policy Center , earlier on California aftermaths] “How NY will thwart Janus rights” [ Ken Girardin, Empire Center ; Eric Boehm ; earlier on evasion] When right to work came in, “Michigan unions didn’t simply refrain from identifying the exits. They actively worked to make leaving difficult and onerous.” [ Joseph G. Lehman and John R. LaPlante, USA Today ] And now for somethi...

A noteworthy podcast : I join Dr. Saurabh Jha [ @RogueRad on Twitter ] for an lengthy discussion of how American tort and medical malpractice law has changed over the past century, similarities and differences with Britain, how ethics in the legal field stacks up against ethical trends in medicine and the pharmaceutical business, contingency fees, the successes and shortcomings of legislated tort reform, trends in the courts, incentives for medical testing, and much more. It’s all part of Dr. Jha’s podcast series, associated with the Journal of the American College of Radiology. You can listen here . Tags: contingent fee , defensive medicine , ethics , medical , medical malpractice , on TV and radio I join Dr. Saurabh Jha to discuss law, medicine, and American tort history is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system I join Dr. Saurabh Jha to discuss law, medicine, and American tort history curated from Overlawyered

Political fight brewing in California over ballot initiative that would pave way for bringing back rent control [ Michael Hendrix, City Journal ] “Metes and bounds” method of describing legal property boundaries has been much derided, but new archival research from American colonial period suggests its benefits then were greater and costs lower than might appear [ Maureen (Molly) Brady, SSRN , forthcoming Yale Law Journal] Just for fun: street grid orientation (or lack thereof) in major cities expressed as polar charts [ Geoff Boeing ] “Alexandria, Virginia Gets Housing Affordability Wrong” [ Vanessa Brown Calder, Cato ] Houston does not zone but it does subsidize deed restrictions. Is that good? [ Nolan Gray, Market Urbanism ] Great moments in historic preservation: “Silver Lake gas station moves toward landmark status” but connoisseurs say it’s not nearly as choice as the three service stations previously landmarked in L.A. [ Curbed Los Angeles ] “America’s Ugly Strip Malls Wer...

An earlier cyberbullying bill in New York was struck down by the state’s highest court as in violation of the First Amendment, and now a new version… well, let’s just say that it has free speech problems too, which don’t get conjured away just because a person named in and distressed by speech is a minor [ Eugene Volokh , Eric Turkewitz first post with explanatory followup , Scott Greenfield first and second posts, earlier ] Tags: bullying , New York , online speech New York’s very broad cyberbullying bill 2.0 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system New York’s very broad cyberbullying bill 2.0 curated from Overlawyered

More, this time from Michigan, on how guardianship in the wrong hands can turn into a “completely legal, utterly grotesque system for undermining the rights of the elderly,” cutting out kids and legitimate heirs. Last fall the New Yorker ran a chilling investigative piece by Rachel Aviv exposing guardianship abuses in Nevada. [ Gretchen Rachel Hammond, Tablet ; coverage last October of the Rachel Aziz piece] Tags: disabled rights , judicial system , Michigan , wills and trusts “Guardians from Hell” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system “Guardians from Hell” curated from Overlawyered

“Why does an economy car rent for an astonishing $161 per day in Manhattan? Because New York strangled the mom-and-pop rental car companies that helped keep prices down.” [ Jim Epstein, Reason ] We covered New York’s one-of-a-kind (and now defunct) vicarious liability law in these columns . Tags: autos , NYC NYC no place for mom-and-pop car rental is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system NYC no place for mom-and-pop car rental curated from Overlawyered

The Third Circuit has ruled that TSA (Transportation Security Administration) screeners are largely immune from being sued for overly intrusive handling of travelers’ persons, false imprisonment, and similar offenses. “The majority said it was ‘sympathetic’ to concerns that its decision would leave fliers with ‘very limited legal redress'” for abuse, but said its hands were tied by the terms of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA); TSA screeners, it said, were shielded from liability because they were not “investigative or law enforcement officers” but more akin to — and I am not making this up — federal meat inspectors. [ Jonathan Stempel, Reuters ; Fredrick Kunkle, Washington Post (meat inspector reference; court “acknowledged that as a result, passengers have very limited legal options even in the face of outrageous TSA misconduct.”); Pellegrino v. TSA ] Tags: airlines , public employment , sovereign immunity TSA agents mostly can’t be sued is a post from Overlawyered - Chroni...

Today, I submitted a letter to the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which proposed adopting Rule 8.4(g) with certain modifications. I have submitted similar letters in the past to the relevant stage agencies in  Louisiana ,  Nevada ,  Tennessee ,  Arizona ,  Maine ,  New Hampshire . (To date, only Vermont has adopted ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) in its entirety.) This most recent letter , however, provided my first opportunity to consider  NIFLA v. Becerra . Here is the relevant analysis: . . . [T]hese concerns were highlighted by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra . 138 S.Ct. 2361 (June 26, 2018) ( NIFLA ). NIFLA considered whether California could require certain medical facilities (both licensed and unlicensed) to display messages concerning the availability of public funding for abortions. In recent years, several circuit courts of appeals have strictly regulat...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) proposes to regulate social media bots, or to put it differently, to regulate a form of speech carried on through automated mechanisms [ John Samples, Cato ] “The State of New Jersey Wants to Subsidize News. Uh-oh.” [ Jack Shafer, Politico ] Canada, farther down this road, moves toward outright government subsidies to newspapers [ Mylene Crete and Jordan Press, Canadian Press ] “Court tosses disbarred lawyer’s suit over newspaper article on his ethics case with a ‘crime’ header” [ ABA Journal ] Compelled speech in NIFLA v. Becerra: “A First Amendment Win in a Case That Was NOT about Abortion” [ Ilya Shapiro and Meggan DeWitt , Eugene Volokh , Erica Goldberg ] New Nadine Strossen book on hate speech challenges some conventionally accepted ideas about its effects [ John Samples , earlier ] Man in Pennsylvania charged with felony ethnic intimidation after calling officers who were arresting him Nazis, skinheads, and Gestapo [ Joshua Vaughn, The Appeal...

Readers who watched the  Cato forum last November  on prosecutorial fallibility and accountability, or my  coverage at Overlawyered , may recall the story of how a Federal Trade Commission enforcement action devastated a thriving company, LabMD, following a  push from a spurned vendor . Company founder and president Mike Daugherty, who took part on the Cato panel, wrote a book about the episode entitled The Devil Inside the Beltway: The Shocking Exposé of the U.S. Government’s Surveillance and Overreach into Cybersecurity, Medicine and Small Business. Last month two separate federal appeals courts issued rulings offering, when combined, some consolation for Daugherty and his now-shuttered company. True, a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, finding qualified immunity, disallowed the company’s claims that FTC staffers had violated its constitutional rights by acting in conscious retaliation for its criticism of the agency. On the other hand, an Eleventh Circu...

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What?! A bill passed 61-0 in the New York senate, and promoted as curbing elder abuse, “makes it a crime for caregivers (including family) to post photos on social media if elderly, vulnerable seniors aren’t able to give consent.” [ Eric Turkewitz ] Tags: First Amendment , New York , photography New York bill would ban many instances of photo-sharing as elder abuse is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system New York bill would ban many instances of photo-sharing as elder abuse curated from Overlawyered

Yesterday was a two-podcast day for me. The first was a discussion at FIRE on prospects for free speech at the Supreme Court after Anthony Kennedy’s retirement and the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. Other panelists were First Amendment experts Robert Corn-Revere and Paul Sherman and the moderator was FIRE’s Nico Perrino. At the Cato Daily Podcast, Caleb Brown interviewed me about what we know from nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s career as a judge, which has been spent on the influential but atypical D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. That means we know a lot about his views on some subjects (regulatory and administrative law, separation of powers, national security law) but much less about his approach toward issues that loom larger as a share of the docket in other circuits, such as disputes involving schools, land use, police abuse and prisoner cases, torts, and so forth. Related to both podcasts, Ken at Popehat assesses Kavanaugh’s record on the First Amendment and finds it quite speech-...

“For years, [Illinois] cops used the state’s eavesdropping laws to arrest citizens who attempted to record them. This practice finally stopped when three consecutive courts — including a federal appeals court — ruled the law was unconstitutional when applied to target citizens recording public servants.” But the law is “still being used by government officials to punish people they don’t like. Illinois Policy reports a 13-year-old student is facing felony charges for recording a meeting between him and two school administrators.” [ Tim Cushing, TechDirt ; Austin Berg, Illinois Policy , related ] Tags: Illinois , schools , surveillance “Illinois 13-year-old charged with eavesdropping felony for recording meeting with principal” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system “Illinois 13-year-old charged with eavesdropping felony for recording meeting with principal” curated from Overlawyered