by Paul Alan Levy Until recently, a Dallas, Texas pet-sitting service called Prestigious Pets enjoyed a fairly high rating on Yelp – most of the reviews gave it five stars. There were, however, two one-star dissents, one from Michelle D and one from Tatiana N, each of whom objected, in fairly mild terms, to some […]
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It's tragic, but not news, that rich people live longer than poor people. What is news is this new Brookings Institution study that finds that the life-expectancy gap between rich and poor has grown a good bit in recent years. This article by Sabrina Tavernise summarizes the Brookings findings and notes: In the early 1970s, a 60-year-old man […]
The FBI's demand that Apple help it unlock the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone — and Apple's refusal to do so — have been big news over the last few days. The Huffington Post has a helpful guide to the arguments on each side, including everything from what it could mean for the cybersecurity of ordinary […]
A new Gallup report links the tax burden in U.S. states with the desire of residents of those states to move to other states. Check out the following two charts. (In the second chart, "quintile 1" refers to the 10 states with the lowest tax burdens, and "quintile 2" refers to the 10 states with the next […]
We have posted often on self-driving (or autonomous or driverless) cars. Go, for instance, here, here, and here. We've also posted on liability questions — that is, who pays for the costs of crashes involving driverless cars? Now, Brian Fung has written this article on the topic.
Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) oversaw nearly 900 vehicle safety recalls affecting 51 million U.S. cars. Many recalled cars must be fixed to eliminate or mitigate the safety concern. So, for the recall system work, the consumer must, first, know that the vehicle is the subject of a recall. (The consumer should […]
Law prof Elizabeth Chamblee Burch and Federal Judicial Center senior researcher Margaret Williams have written Repeat Players in Multidistrict Litigation: The Social Network. Their research found based on limited data "reason to be concerned" that plaintiffs are being shortchanged at the expense of plaintiffs' lawyers and defendants. Here is the abstract: To promote pretrial efficiency, the […]
Prof. Ryan Rebe has written Analyzing the Link between Dollars and Decisions: A Multi-State Study of Campaign Contributions and Judicial Decision Making. Here is the abstract: This article examines the causal connection between attorney contributions and judicial decisions in elective states. The results show that contributions are a significant predictor of appellant success in state supreme […]
by Paul Alan Levy In an opinion that bristles with significant issues, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver asserting that a Hollywood studio could not release a film based, in part, on a fictional portrayal of important public events in which he […]