Paul Levy gave us his perspective on Robert Bork last week. Historian Stanley Kutler, known for his works on Richard Nixon, now gives us his. Kutler thinks little of Bork's judicial philosophy of original intent (finding it at odds with what history tells us about the Founders' intent), but he thinks history has treated Bork unfairly […]
David Korn and David Rosenberg of Harvard have written Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing of the Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution. Here's the abstract: By mandating that numerous plaintiffs litigate their common question claims separately in individual arbitrations rather than jointly in class action arbitrations, the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion created a […]
The crisis tally so far: about 4.7 million completed foreclosure sales from July 1 2007 through 2012 (extrapolating the 4th quarter), and more than 12 million foreclosure starts. Adding short sales brings the total home losses to well above 5 million. If we define the shadow inventory as mortgages presently more than 90 days delinquent […]
Earlier this month, Professor Margaret Jane Radin put out a new book called Boilerplate: The Fine Print, Vanishing Rights, and the Rule of Law. Publisher Princetion University Press describes Professor's Radin's argument as follows: Margaret Jane Radin examines attempts to justify the use of boilerplate provisions by claiming either that recipients freely consent to them […]
We told you last June that a panel of the D.C. Circuit had largely upheld the Environmental Protection Agency's greenhouse gas rules issued after the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. EPA demanded regulatory action on greenhouse gases. The panel's 82-page opinion, written by Judge Per Curiam (Sentelle, Rogers, and Tatel), was pretty comprehensive. Yesterday (nearly […]
We posted yesterday about a recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that authorized non-class members to intervene for the purpose of objecting to a district court's certification and settlement of a class action that might affect their interests. Class action lawyer Rob Bramson has made an interesting comment on […]
Today, the Washington Post reported on a new study quantifying how often surgeons make "never" mistakes, i.e., mistakes that should never happen, such as leaving an object in a patient, performing the wrong procedure, or performing the procedure on the wrong body part. Apparently, between 1990 and 2010, about 500 "never" events were reported to […]
by Jeff Sovern According to an article in Evan Hendricks's Privacy Times from October 24 (I'm behind in my reading), the FTC is working on a standardized privacy label akin to the nutrition facts labeling on food. The label is to focus on five main items. Not so readable as a single grade, but it […]
Chris Jay Hoofnagle and Jennifer M. Urban, both of Berkeley Law, and Su Li of Berkely’s Center for the Study of Law and Society, have written Privacy and Advertising Mail. Here’s the abstract: In this paper, we consider why Americans may frame the generation and receipt of unsolicited advertising mail as a privacy violation. We then present data […]
by Paul Alan Levy The death of Robert Bork today has revived the old debate about the defeat of his nomination to the Supreme Court, but I am sorry to see many of the ordinarily reliable sources missing the boat in their discussions. The New York Times, for example, talks about how liberals opposed him […]