Read this article on that topic by Stephanie Greene and Christine O'Brien. Here is the abstract: If you spend time at work checking Facebook or shopping online you might be violating your employer’s computer policy. But you might also be committing a federal crime. For the past decade or so, courts have disagreed over the […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
Ever make a plane reservation well in advance, try to pick a seat on-line (which the airline suggests that you do), and find out that the only "free" seats are a few crappy middle seats? All the others are "grayed out," indicating that they have already been reserved. Hmm. That's funny, I just bought that […]
I remember when "full employment" was considered achieved when unemployment did not exceed 4 or 4.5%. Now, it seems that people think of full employment as unemployment of 6 or 6.5%. The Hamilton Project has released a report on how long it will take to get to 6.5% unemployment, assuming various rates of job growth. […]
Here is the FTC's press release, which praises Vladeck's record of achievement as the agency's top consumer enforcer. Vladeck was in the position for the Obama Administration's first term and is returning to Georgetown Law School. The press release also announces Vladeck's successor, Charles Harwood, who will serve in an "acting" capacity. Pat Bak will […]
by Brian Wolfman Indiana University medical school professor Jon Duke and two co-authors have published this study entitled "Consistency in the safety labeling of bioequivalent drugs." The study could have been entitled "Inconsistency in the safety labeling of bioequivalent drugs" because it finds that the warnings on generic drug labels often deviate from the brand-name […]
In Devlin v. Scardelletti, the Supreme Court held that a class member who objects in a federal district court to a proposed class-action settlement may appeal approval of that settlement without moving for (and being granted) intervention. As I explained in this article, despite efforts by settling parties to limit Devlin to members of non-opt-out classes, […]
In this piece, Bruce Bartlett has the audacity to bring facts to the discussion of the so-called budget crisis. It's mainly about how "entitlements" are a small part of the problem despite what we hear from the Republicans. Here's an excerpt about social security, where he explains that if we simply subjected the same percentage […]
Read about it here in a piece by William Alden. We discussed the possibility right after her election. Now it looks like a certainty. An excerpt from Alden's piece: Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor who won a Senate seat in November, is officially on track to join the Senate Banking Committee, after the Democratic Steering […]
by Brian Wolfman We have now posted twice (here and here) about the Second Circuit's Caronia decision, in which the court ditched the misdemeanor conviction of a drug company prescription drug representative, saying that his promotion of one of the company's products was protected by the First Amendment. I've posted about the case because it […]
Last week, we posted about the Caronia decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and David Lazarus's critique of the decision in the LA Times. Recall that, in Caronia, the court threw out a misdemeanor conviction of a drug company prescription drug rep on First Amendment grounds. The Times has now […]