May It Please The Court: Weblog of legal news and observations, including a quote of the day and daily updates
 Bookstore:        |
Quote of the Day - No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
Will Tort Reform Or A Tsunami Suit Lead To Safety? Sign Up Now.Tort reform is tough when you're not the chancellor of Germany or Austria.President Bush has been pushing his agenda for some time, and there are those who oppose it. Whether you support it or not, the issue is now squarely in front of us. In what's likely to be the first of many, there's a new lawsuit by German and Austrian individuals who lost relatives in the tsunami. They're suing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Tsunami Warning Center and a hotel chain for not providing warnings about the tsunami. As you probably already suspect, there's a website dedicated to a tsunami class action lawsuit. The two suits do not appear to be related. Apart from whether you support tort reform or not, there's a practical side to all of this, and it's available to you immediately. You don't need to wait for the consequences of whether the lawsuit or tort reform will make the world a safer place. You can learn more about the physical and natural effects of the tsunami from the International Tsunami Information Center, and if you're traveling to an area near the ocean, you may want to sign up to get earthquake (tsunami) warnings from PubSub. Be safe out there. 
Who's On First, What's On Second And I Don't Know Is On Third"Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop."That's the message that the Motion Picture Association of America want people who download movies to get. Apparently, the MPAA got a Court order to take over LokiTorrent.com. When it did, it posted this message: "You can click, but you can't hide." That message may be more literal than downloaders think. As part of the MPAA's case against LokiTorrent, the file server owner was ordered by the Court to give up his computer server logs and data. Some 750,000 users registered on LokiTorrent. That user data is now in the hands of the movie industry. Late last week, the MPAA announced that it initiated round two of litigation against several other sites, including host indexes for BitTorrent, eDonkey and DirectConnect and some individual computer users. According to the MPAA, if you want to download movies, you can go to MovieLink, CinemaNow or MovieBeam. It's easier to just turn on the radio. We already know the players.
Can I Have Some Salt With My Diesel Exhaust?If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you likely know I occasionally enjoy a good cigar. But not with my food. Or, for that matter, anybody else's food.Many of you don't either, even in Tasmania. But I'm getting slightly off track. You'll understand, then why it was a bit surprising to read that the Washington Supreme Court doesn't agree. They decided not to enforce a local ban prohibiting smoking in restaurants in favor of a state statute that allowed businesses to make the the decision whether to allow smoking or not. I'll get to the legal issue in a moment, but one immediately interesting aspect of reading this case was who disagreed with the Washington Supreme Court: The American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, the AMA, and a lesser-known group, Americans for Non-smoker's Rights, along with a host of other amicus curiae. To understand this decision, we begin at the beginning. The State of Washington enacted the "Clean Indoor Air Act" back in 1985. So what does the act prevent? Smoking indoors in a public place. Or so it would seem. Don't get too far ahead: there's an exception for restaurants. The local health board in Tacoma was not too happy with the exception, and passed a stricter ban that prevented smoking in restaurants. The Entertainment Industry Coalition in Washington challenged this ordinance enacted by the health board: "{S}moke free air is mandated in all indoor public places, including a presumptively reasonable minimum distance . . . of twenty-five (25) feet from entrances, exits, opening windows and ventilation intakes . . . ." The EIC claimed that the state's Clean Indoor Air Act allowed restaurants to designate smoking areas, but the ordinance eliminated their ability to do so under state law. They screamed "conflict preemption," arguing that a local agency cannot enact legislation that prohibits what is permitted by state law.1 State law, they said, has to control. The health board countered with a novel argument. It claimed that by allowing business owners to determine whether and where to designate smoking areas, the state impermissibly delegated its legislative authority to private parties. I would have added to that argument that if the state had delegated such authority to private parties, then the health board's regulation of such conduct was within its legislative authority to regulate local activity. That last argument likely would have lost, too. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed an article about the decision this past Thursday. It featured an interesting statistic not cited by the Washington Supreme Court: "Sitting in a smoky bar exposes people to more air pollution than sitting behind a diesel truck at rush hour, according to a study published in the September issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine." Just think. When you eat at a restaurant in Washington, you might as well just sit outside at a truck stop. Footnote 1 If you're following that bouncing ball, here's where we are: An ordinance regulating an exception to a ban. In other words, the health board tried to eliminate a loophole in the state's smoking ban statute. back
Woburn Redux?This article regarding the indictment of W.R. Grace in Montana happened to catch my eye as I just finished writing a response to A Civil Action by Jonathon Harr for my CivPro class. My professor made it required reading for the semester and I am glad that he did. It was nice to spend a little time away from the casebooks reading a novel and still feel like I was learning and being productive. However, in the end, I was left wanting to know what really happened in Woburn. For an interesting follow-up check out the following site sponsored by W.R. Grace.Hopefully the people of Libby, MT have had the opportunity to read Mr. Harr’s book since it provides at least a glimpse of what lies ahead. Even though this indictment is not a civil case, I would imagine that the people of Libby are just as invested in the outcome as the people of Woburn were two decades ago. The indictment lays out a host of counts including the to-be-expected USEPA violations and a less obvious count of wire fraud. It also includes data regarding cancer levels in Libby that appears intriguing. This case should be one to watch. In the end, didn’t a crafty U.S. government take down Al Capone for tax evasion?
MIPTC's Friday Series: Grape Radio's Winemaker Spotlight: Greg SandersAs a companion service to MIPTC's Friday At The Movie series, my other buddies want to encourage you to drink some wine with that popcorn. So, give a listen to their podcast spotlighting a winemaker. Here's what the guys have to say:Grape Radio #6: Get up close and personal with an actual winemaker. Greg Sanders, Owner of White Rose Wines is our special guest. Greg discusses his personal approach, wine making operations, and much more. The Oregon wine regions are producing world class wines. You can find more information about Greg’s wines at: White Rose Wines
MIPTC's Friday At The Movies Series: Reel Reviews Looks At: RushmoreIt's Friday again, and time for another installment in the Friday At The Movies series, brought to you by my friend Michael Geoghegan. Here it is:Reel Review #19: Sic transit gloria - glory fades. I figured we’d start off with a little Latin in honor of the first Reel Review for 2005 - Rushmore. This is another personal favorite that I often recommend. Rushmore is a film that you can always count on for a good time. It is Wes Anderson’s sophomore effort after gaining critical success for his first film Bottle Rocket. Best of all, you get to enjoy a home run performance by Bill Murray. Check out Rushmore - a film worth watching. DVD - Rushmore - Criterion Edition Collection DVD - Rushmore IMDb
Momma, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be CriminalsFresh out of law school, I volunteered for the San Bernardino County District Attorney as a Deputy DA prosecutor. After having tried small-time criminal cases in law school (with a professor in tow) for the public defender's office, it was quite a mindset switch.I prosecuted drunk driving cases, prostitution cases, petty theft and a host of other misdemeanor crimes. The underbelly of civilization. One case I remember most was a mother who taught her 12-year old son how to switch the price tags on jeans at the Sears store in the local mall. Shoplifting was the charge. For about $10.00. Sears was adamant to prosecute the matter. Most people thought it wasn't a big deal, and not a big case. Most of the other DAs in the office thought I'd lose it. I was up against a very experienced criminal lawyer who was good at charming juries. I was a wet-behind-the-ears, first-year lawyer. It wasn't until I started to make my closing argument to the jury that I figured out how to pitch the case. It wasn't the $10.00 that was the point. It was the fact that a mother was teaching her child to steal. Now before you go any further, check out that last link. Think about why the trial court judge in that case didn't get it, and why it took five justices on an appellate court to drive the point home. By the way, my 12-person jury got it. Mom was convicted, and the sentence involved counseling for both Mom and son.
Your Opportunity To Fill In The Blank For The FCCYou may not know it, but your television isn't going to get any bigger. At least if you have cable.What you say? There's already 13 channels on my TV, and there's nothing on? The Federal Communications Commission just voted not to require cable companies to carry more than one digital signal from local television stations. I love the quote offered in the FindLaw link above: "The commission's only dissenter, Republican Kevin Martin said, 'The public could have benefited from more free programming.'" Just what we need. More (you fill in the blank) on the TV.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
| Text-Only Site | ||||||||||||||||||||||
