Faculty Blog Aggregator
Many Georgetown Law faculty members contribute to blogs covering diverse legal subject areas. Following is a collection of these blog posts from our faculty.
Mandatory Pro Bono Proposed For New Jersey Bar Admission
Mike Frisch, May 20, 2013
The New Jersey Supreme Court has asked for comments on a report of a Working Group that calls for mandtory pro bono as a condition for admission in the Garden State. The report identifies three primary goals: increase pro bono...
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Never steal anything from someone you can't outrun: Warner Bros. defeats infringement claim
Rebecca Tushnet, May 20, 2013
Fortres Grand Corporation v. Warner Bros. Entertainment
Inc., No. 3:12-cv-00535 (N.D. Ind. May 16, 2013)
McCarthy has said that there’s “surprisingly little” case
law on whether a fictional company or product using the same name/brand as a
real one constitutes trademark infringement.
If this is surprising, as the court here agreed, it’s only because we’ve
started expecting overreach as a baseline.
This case adds to the small but obviously correct body of case law
rejecting such c[...]
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Mortgage fraud settlement money not getting to consumers
May 20, 2013
We have covered extensively the large mortgage fraud settlements brokered by the federal government under which major mortgage servicers were, among other things, supposed to pay money directly to consumers harmed in the mortgage meltdown. Go, for instance, here, here,...
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Allegedly false equivalence statement triggers insurer's duty to defend
Rebecca Tushnet, May 20, 2013
JAR Laboratories LLC v. Great American E & S Ins. Co.,
2013 WL 1966386 (N.D. Ill.)
JAR sued its insurer seeking a declaration of a duty to
defend it in an underlying suit filed by its competitor TPU, which distributes Lidoderm,
a pharmaceutical product. TPU claimed injury from allegedly false and
misleading representations JAR made in promoting its own LidoPatch. Great American’s policies cover “advertising
injury,” which is injury arising out of “[o]ral or written publication, in[...]
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No reasonable consumer would think diet soda "all-natural"
Rebecca Tushnet, May 20, 2013
Viggiano v. Hansen Natural Corp., --- F.Supp.2d ----, 2013
WL 2005430 (C.D. Cal.)
Viggiano brought the usual California claims, along with
federal warranty claims, based on Hansen’s diet Premium Sodas labeled as
containing “all natural flavors.” Each soda
allegedly contained two synthetic ingredients, acesulfame potassium (“ace-k”)
and sucralose, used as sweeteners and/or “flavor enhancers.” Each soda also contained at least one natural
fruit extract flavor. Viggiano alleged that[...]
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bewildering complexity of modern world makes class certification difficult
Rebecca Tushnet, May 20, 2013
Red v. Kraft Foods, Inc., 2012 WL 8019257 (C.D. Cal.)
Plaintiffs sued Kraft under the UCL, FAL, and CLRA based on
allegedly false marketing of Teddy Grahams, many varieties of Ritz Crackers,
Original Premium Saltine Crackers, Honey Maid Graham Crackers, Vegetable Thins
and Ginger Snaps, as healthy, though they contain high levels of partially
hydrogenated vegetable oil and other “unhealthy, highly-refined,
highly-processed, and nutritionally empty ingredients,” and thus allegedly
cause healt[...]
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Legal Theory Lexicon: Conduct Rules and Decision Rules
Lawrence Solum, May 19, 2013
Introduction
Substantive rules of law (such as the rules of torts, contract, and property) are usually assumed to be addressed to two audiences. As conduct rules, the substantive law is addressed to everyone (citizens, officials, and noncitizens). Thus, property law tells us who has dominion over which resources. If this land is mine, then the law communicates the message that I can use my land and exclude others from its use. These very same legal rules also serve as decision rules, they tell c[...]
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A Hoosier Horror Story: The Fall Of The House Of Usher
Mike Frisch, May 18, 2013
The Indiana Supreme Court has imposed a suspension of at least three years without automatic reinstatement of an attorney named Arthur Usher. The court found he had "engag[ed] in a pervasive pattern of conduct involving dishonesty and misrepresentation that was...
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Legal Theory Bookworm
Lawrence Solum, May 18, 2013
The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends The Health Care Case: The Supreme Court's Decision and Its Implications
, edited by Nathaniel Persily, Gillian E. Metzger, & Trevor W. Morrison. Here is a description:
The Supreme Court's decision in the Health Care Case, NFIB v. Sebelius, gripped the nation's attention during the spring of 2012. No one could have predicted the strange coalition of justices and arguments that would eventually lead the Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act's principal[...]
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Download of the Week
Lawrence Solum, May 18, 2013
The Download of the Week is The Pigou-Dalton Principle and the Structure of Distributive Justice by Matthew D. Adler. Here is the abstract:
The Pigou-Dalton (PD) principle recommends a non-leaky, non-rank-switching transfer of goods from someone with more goods to someone with less. This Article defends the PD principle as an aspect of distributive justice — enabling the comparison of two distributions, neither completely equal, as more or less just. It shows how the PD principle flows from a p[...]
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Eleftheriadis on Democracy & the Eurozone
Lawrence Solum, May 17, 2013
Pavlos Eleftheriadis (University of Oxford - Faculty of Law) has posted Democracy in the Eurozone (WG Ringe and P Huber (eds), Legal Challenges Arising out of the Global Financial Crisis: Bail-outs, the Euro, and Regulation (Oxford: Hart Publishing) (2013, Forthcoming)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In December 2012 Four Presidents of the European Union (of the European Council, the Commission, the Central Bank and the Eurogroup) issued a paper outlining steps for a ‘genuine monetary union’ p[...]
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No New Rule 8.4(h) For Tennessee
Mike Frisch, May 17, 2013
The Tennessee Supreme Court has entered an order denying the petition of its Board of Professional Responsibility to amend its Rule 8.4 to add a subsectuon (h) prohibiting engaging "in a professional capacity, in certain discriminatory conduct." The court concluded...
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Monster un-mash: no class action for YouTube plaintiffs
Rebecca Tushnet, May 17, 2013
Football Ass'n Premier League Ltd. v. YouTube, Inc., ---
F.Supp.2d ----, 2013 WL 2096411 (S.D.N.Y.)
Interesting not just because of the intersection of class
actions and copyright, but because neither side apparently had the incentive to
clarify matters with respect to statutory damages, thus enabling some sloppy language, though nothing that ought to make a difference to this
case.
The court began by suggesting that this case was a
“Frankenstein monster posing as a class action” (citing[...]
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The 14 Percent Chance
Mike Frisch, May 17, 2013
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has reinstated an attorney suspended for two years in 2010 for possession of heroin and felony bail jumping. The court described the situation that led to the conviction Attorney C. began using illegal drugs around 2006,...
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Suspended Despite A Great Lawyer Name
Mike Frisch, May 17, 2013
An attorney who had converted funds and failed to maintain required records had been suspended for nine months with reinstatement conditioned on probation by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Nothing particularly notable about the case other than the fact that...
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Suspension For Failure To Return Unearned Fee
Mike Frisch, May 17, 2013
The Indiana Supreme Court has imposed a suspension of 30 days without automatic reinstatement in a case involving fee misconduct. The attorney charged a flat fee of $12,000 for a criminal matter and was paid $6,000 up front. After a...
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Tailored Sanction
Mike Frisch, May 17, 2013
An attorney who had misappropriated funds held in connection with the sale of tailoring business was permanently disbarred by the Ohio Supreme Court. The attorney initially defaulted on the charges and then tried to resign. The court did not accept...
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YJL&H 24:2 (2012)
Dan Ernst, May 17, 2013
We just realized that the latest issue of the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities has two works of legal history, The first is Personal and Official Authority: Turn-of-the-Century Lawyers and the Dissenting Opinion, by Hunter Smith:Around the turn of the last century, many American lawyers wanted to ban dissenting opinions in all courts of last resort. They derided dissenting opinions as a pernicious waste of time, one that caused uncertainty in the law, shook the public's faith in the courts[...]
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Helie on Multiculturalism, Liberalism, Veils, & Harm to Women
Lawrence Solum, May 16, 2013
Anissa Helie (CUNY, John Jay College of Criminal Justice) & Marie Ashe (Suffolk University Law School) have posted Multiculturalist Liberalism and Harms to Women: Looking Through the Issue of 'The Veil' (19 U.C. Davis Journal of International Law & Policy 1 (2012), pp. 1-65) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In response to recent mandates, prohibitions, or “choices” relating to veil-wearing by Muslim girls and women, this essay raises and responds to the question: “How should civil government tre[...]
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Compelled disclosures and the first amendment
May 16, 2013
That's the topic of "Compelled Disclosures," a new article by law professor Caroline Corbin. Here is the abtract: Courts have faced a wave of compelled disclosure cases recently. By government mandate, tobacco manufacturers must include graphic warnings on their cigarette...
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Ethics Charges Filed After Murder Conviction
Mike Frisch, May 16, 2013
The Illinois Administrator has filed a complaint based on the following factual averments: On or before October 16, 2006, Respondent agreed to represent Nova Frances Henry ("Henry") in matters related to her pending paternity suit against the father of her...
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Driving Offenses Draw Suspension
Mike Frisch, May 16, 2013
From the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court: The Supreme Court of Ohio today imposed an indefinite suspension against the law license of Massillon attorney Dale Alan Zimmer for multiple violations of state attorney discipline rules. The court voted...
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Judicial Candidate Sanctioned For False Statements
Mike Frisch, May 16, 2013
A judicial candidate has been publicly reprimanded and barred from judicial office for five years by the Indiana Supreme Court. The candidate ran for a circuit court judgeship against an incumbent. The judge had modified the sentence of a convicted...
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CFPB launches Spanish language website
May 16, 2013
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has launched a Spanish-language website. (To read its English-language homepage go here.)
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Large Wells Fargo judgment reinstated
Rebecca Tushnet, May 16, 2013
Via the Consumer Law & Policy Blog. Previous coverage of the legal response to Wells Fargo's reprehensible practices here (9th Circuit) and here (earlier district court opinion). More from me likely next week, post-grading.
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