Greenwich, Ct. lawyer/businessman Tom Gallagher, the main force pushing for the bad bill in the Connecticut legislature that would compel the Roman Catholic Church to submit its parishes to the control of layperson boards, also figured in these columns (though not by name) last year in the locally famous “wiffle ball field” controversy; he was the homeowner complaining about the property used by local kids to play wiffle ball. (Stamford Advocate via Fountain).
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“A man serving a five-year sentence for a fatal traffic accident in Kansas City has filed a lawsuit against Tulane fraternity Signa Alpha Mu, claiming hazing led him to take ‘unwise actions.’ … [The lawsuit] claims [Curtis] Mertensmeyer was hazed at Tulane two months before the incident [a fatal hit-run while speeding after drinking] and that he has developed post-traumatic stress disorder that caused him to ‘take unwise actions because of a breakdown in his decision-making process in stressful situations.’” [AP/Nola.com]
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CPSIA-reminiscent: a pending proposal to require all owners of livestock and poultry to tag each creature with a radio ID, and do a lot more paperwork besides that, could spell an end to small-scale backyard animal husbandry. (Shannon Hayes, “Tag, We’re It’, New York Times, Mar. 10). More: Timothy Carney, D.C. Examiner; Jack Kittredge, Mother Earth News, 2007.
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The Searle Center at Northwestern is out with a new study of consumer arbitration that suggests it’s not the bogeyman trial lawyers have been painting it as (we’ve touched on the topic before). I’ve got a summary excerpt and a few more links over at Point of Law.
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Losses are mounting and anger rising in the world of youth minibikes and powersports, where CPSIA has kept an entire industry shut down for more than a month now, as dealers sit on $100-million-plus inventories now rendered unlawful to sell. 
On Sunday the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a substantial piece on the CPSIA debacle which focused on motorsports (while also mentioning in passing such disaster areas as thrift stores and kids’ books). The rising outcry is putting Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar on the hot seat: after taking a prominent role as co-sponsor of the law, she now blames the Consumer Product Safety Commission for the way it’s working out in practice. Aside from the general popularity of kids’ motorsports in Minnesota, ATV manufacturer Polaris, whose Outlaw 50 model was suddenly banned, is headquartered in that state.
On Wednesday the CPSC confirmed that (per its lawyers’ advice) it was turning down an exemption for youth power vehicles, in that it could not certify what the law requires it to certify, namely that keeping them legal would not result in “any” absorption of lead by a person under 12, ever, or any other risk to public safety or health. Cycle News delves into the details here (with a funny picture) and here. Ryan Leyba at ESPN/FMX also surveys the situation in Congress — where they’re refusing to do anything and, like Klobuchar, blaming the CPSC’s lawyers — and quotes one dealer:
“Business was already slow, and now we’re just dead,” says Gus Saba, general manager of Corona Motorsports in Corona, California. “A lot of people want to get back into the sport [ATVs or dirtbikes] with their kids, and if they can’t buy a bike for their kid, they might not buy one for themselves, either. It’s a mess. We can’t order parts, we can’t service anything. We don’t know what’s going to happen; no one can put a timetable on it.”
Missouri is another state where the minibike community has been hard at work organizing, and the Associated Press, which in general has been a poor place to turn for news on CPSIA, covered the resulting rally in Jefferson City, in an article that got good national pickup. The Missouri House of Representatives has passed a resolution of support. And 2WheelTuesday offers “Stories of a Motocross Generation“: first-person responses to the ban.
Some miscellaneous CPSIA reading: Rick Woldenberg is introducing “our fabulous new Future World Collection of exciting educational materials for the post-CPSIA world. Our products will be lead-free and phthalates-free and in the case of most products, entirely play value-free.” The tongue-in-cheek “catalogue” can be seen here (PDF). At Politico, conservative columnist Hugh Hewitt blasts Congress for its inaction. The Hill covers the Washington wrangling. Punditry by the Pint says “it’s time to repeal this law.” And Scott Greenfield writes, “The Real Risk is the Loss of Childhood Happiness“.
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“Prisoners released early under a government scheme to cut jail overcrowding have been paid more than £5m in ‘compensation’ for losing free board and lodging. The figures — disclosed by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, after Tory pressure – have prompted a political row.” [Times Online]
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“Charles W. Silveira, in a lawsuit filed in Morristown on Monday, claims Ava T. Miller of Mendham required large cash payments to buy enough gold to make a statue that would ward off the negativity allegedly surrounding him.” [Morristown, N.J. Daily Record via Obscure Store, Newark Star-Ledger] For another New Jersey lawsuit over disappointment with psychic services with even more colorful facts, see Jun. 20, 2001.
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“The [New Jersey appellate] panel declined to adopt a best-interests-of-the-pet standard as urged by amici in the case.” Judge Jane Grall wrote that in the absence of legally cognizable abuse or neglect to an animal, there might not be “judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving questions of possession from the perspective of a pet”. [New Jersey Law Journal]
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Lawyer Scott Harris is appealing the Patent Office’s rejection of US Patent Application No. 09/387,823, in which he had hoped to obtain a patent on the concept of a “marketing company devoted to selling/marketing products produced by other companies in return for a share of their profits”. [Slashdot]
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I posted yesterday over at Secular Right about the origins of that strange, deplorable proposal in the Connecticut legislature to prescribe control of the Roman Catholic Church by boards of laypeople. The proposal is just as bad and unconstitutional as it has been rumored to be, but its origins are rather different than you might think from reading some conservative publications.
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Yale student Jesse Maiman says US Airways lost his XBox videogame console and he thinks $1 million would make a fair exchange. [Cincinnati Enquirer]
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Fewer options for kids in Santa Rosa, California:
We are sorry to report that Eleven 11 Kids has been forced to close its doors as of February 10, 2009 due to the new federal children’s environmental law, CPSIA, (HR4040) that went into effect on 2/10/09.
And then the store explains in some detail why it felt it had to close. It is too polite, perhaps, to mention that both California senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, played prominent roles in getting CPSIA passed, with Boxer in particular pushing the retroactive phthalates ban that has been notably harmful to resellers.
At ShopFloor, Carter Wood writes that the Senate version of the bill was (even) more extreme in its provisions than the House version, and that the Senate version unfortunately “wound up playing a bigger role in the writing of the final bill”. The Hospice of Amador and Calaveras Thrift Store, in California’s Sierra Nevada, is still operating but has stopped carrying children’s items.
In Ellensburg, Washington, north of Yakima, Cheryl Smith was “living the American dream” with her store Hailina’s Closet, which “opened last April and [sold] gently used children’s clothing and toys.” But it is just a memory now. The Kitsap Sun reported that Perfect Circle, a Bremerton children’s consignment store, also had to go out of business.
A few more reports from Goodwill: Roanoke, Virginia, Le Mars, Iowa (rare good news, some items being put back on shelves), Rock County, Wisconsin.
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At the indispensable American.com, I find some similarities between Patrick Leahy’s proposal and a fiasco of a publicity stunt 75 years ago.
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My Manhattan Institute colleagues James Copland and Paul Howard are the authors of a just-released paper which proposes comprehensive federal preemption of state product liability drug litigation, combined with a new administrative compensation program for persons injured by unforeseen drug side effects, modeled on the existing vaccine injury compensation program. Their paper is here, and the section on administered compensation begins here. A summary, and early reaction: Medical News Today, Legal NewsLine, their Washington Times op-ed, AmLaw Daily (”makes for interesting reading”), Drug and Device Law (cross-posted from Point of Law).
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Former state Superior Court judge Michael Joyce, of Erie, “was sentenced this afternoon to nearly four years in prison.” Joyce’s bogus claims of neck and back pain after a rear-ending had netted him $440,000 in settlements; “the judge filed his claims on judicial letterhead, [Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian] Trabold said, and referred to himself as a judge 115 times in the letters.”
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Social conservative Maggie Gallagher, with whose views we have been known to differ, suggests a tort of “facilitating” adultery that would apply to businesses that “that intentionally and explicitly attempt to profit from acts of adultery”. [NRO "Corner", first, second posts]
P.S. Eugene Volokh now has a more lengthy and serious treatment: “you can love marriage and hate adultery without thinking that more tort liability will make things better.”
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