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Category Archives: Uncategorized
This week, New York's highest court has confirmed the right of towns to ban fracking. Though legally a case about the power of localities versus the preemptive effect of state law, the result is that opponents of fracking have a powerful tool — local ordinances — to prevent fracking in their communities. (Fracking is a […]
This week, the Seventh Circuit reversed the denial of class certification in Zanetti v. IKO Mfg., a case about roof tiles marketed with the allegedly false claim that they met a certain industry standard. The district court denied class certification — in the words of the Seventh Circuit — "under a mistaken belief that 'commonality […]
As the country reflects on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which went into effect on July 2, 1964 –50 years in, read this op-ed by Georgetown law prof Sheryll Cashin.
You may remember that, last September, we told you about a 9th Circuit decision holding that Google violated federal Wiretap Act when it collected individual consumers' unencrypted wi-fi data while capturing "Street View" photographs. Here's what the 9th Circuit said at the time: In the course of capturing its Street View photographs, Google collected data […]
NPR reporter Steve Henn (who has covered both economics and technology) conducted an experiment: he asked a couple computer experts to follow his internet traffic for a week and see how much they could learn. The answer? A whole lot. They ended up knowing so much about Henn and his movements that they could have […]
When a group of class-action objectors appealed the settlement of the privacy case against Facebook for (among other things) the unlawful use of minors’ images for advertising without parental consent, class counsel sought to impose on each objector-appellant an appeal bond of $32,000. (For more background, see here.) One of class counsel’s arguments was that […]
As we've recounted, this is the case of the company that tried to litigate in secret and under a pseudonym in challenging the Consumer Product Safety Commission's decision to post a product report on its product safety database, saferproducts.gov. The district court granted the seal and permission to use a pseudonym, and at the same […]
Key holdings of today's 5-4 decision: corporations are entitled to protection under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act; requiring closely-held corporations to pay for contraception despite their owners' have sincere religious objections is a substantial burden on religious freedom; government's program is not narrowly tailored. However, the majority opinion suggests that the Department of Health […]
As we hit the middle of the U.S. major-league baseball season, I wanted to update our readers on the latest baseball-related (but not baseball-inherent) tort. As any major-league baseball consumer knows, at many major-league stadiums, between innings, fans are bombarded with hot dogs (and/or t-shirts) propelled into the stands from large bazooka-style air guns. At […]