"Quaker Oats sends cease/desist to actual Quakers"

Overlawyered:  Making the rounds, on Mental Floss and elsewhere, a story of how an overzealous lawyer for the Quaker Oats company sent a cease/desist letter to the Quaker Oaks (that’s “Oaks”) Christmas Tree Farm in Visalia, California, led by actual members of the Society of Friends and named after the tree under which religious services had been held for a time. The letter provoked this amusing and not un-peaceful response from William Lovett (“Our business is 100% owned and operated by Quakers. I suspect that your firm employs considerably fewer, if any, Quakers.”)

While the Deseret News sets the tale in 2012, it seems to have been in circulation longer than that, as seen in this 2006 posting. But since names in the story, including that of a lawyer for the food company, do check out as names of real persons, my guess is that the story is genuine.

"Judge orders entire DOJ to remedial don't-lie-to-me class over WH executive amnesty case"

Washington Examiner:  A federal judge has ordered annual ethics classes for Justice Department attorneys as a punishment for being "intentionally deceptive" during litigation over President Obama's executive immigration orders.

"Such conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word 'Justice,'" U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote in a withering order released Thursday.

Justice Department attorneys misled the court about when the Department of Homeland Security would begin implementing President Obama's executive order granting "deferred action" to illegal immigrants whose children are citizens. In doing so, they tricked the 26 states who filed a lawsuit into "foregoing a request for a temporary restraining order," according to the judge. (read more)

"If Two Cars Crash and No One Is Driving Them, Does It Make a Sound? Yes: Ka-Ching!"

Bloomberg: Imagine a robot car with no one behind the wheel hitting another driverless car. Who’s at fault?

The answer: No one knows. But plaintiff’s lawyers are salivating at the prospects for big paydays from such accidents. If computers routinely crash, they say, then so will cars operated by them. And with no one behind the wheel, lawyers say they can go after almost anyone even remotely involved.

“You’re going to get a whole host of new defendants,” said Kevin Dean, who is suing General Motors Co. over its faulty ignition switches and Takata Corp. over air-bag failures. “Computer programmers, computer companies, designers of algorithms, Google, mapping companies, even states. It’s going to be very fertile ground for lawyers.”

"Shakespeare Didn't Really Want To Kill All The Lawyers, But We Should Deregulate Their Profession"

"If the market for legal services were deregulated, practitioners would quickly figure out the optimal kind and duration of training for them to succeed in business. It isn’t the years of law school classes (almost all of which is quickly forgotten) that make one competent, but instead the need to build your reputation through good service."

"In short, the licensing regulations in the legal profession don’t protect the public, but merely raise the cost of services, doing the most harm to those who can least afford to pay." (read the whole thing)

Would deregulation lower legal fees... what are your thoughts?

"Obama don't deport my mama"

"[I]t remains unclear whether Mr. Obama can do anything that would satisfy Latino activists without providing fuel for Republican accusations that he is baldly sidestepping the nation’s laws."

“What are we to do when a president, regardless of motivation, nullifies our vote by failing to faithfully execute the law?” Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, said in a fiery floor speech this week. “Why pursue immigration reform if presidents can turn off the very provisions that we pass?”

A move by Mr. Obama to limit deportations on his own would enrage House Republicans, who in recent weeks have cited Mr. Obama’s various executive actions — as well as his State of the Union promise to use a “pen and phone” to circumvent Congress when possible — as reasons they do not trust him enough to work with him on a broad issue like immigration.

“It looks to me like he’s preparing another trial balloon to go forth with more likely unconstitutional executive actions,” said Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, who has long been a vocal opponent of the president on immigration. “I don’t know how trust can be restored.”

Elsewhere, on a related note... "Man planning to sue his rescuers possibly in the country illegally"

The man who is planning to sue the rescuers who saved his life from a submerged car for $500,000 is likely in the country illegally, according to a comment given by the man’s lawyer to Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson.

Colorado rescuers saved Roy Ortiz from a submerged car in September, but now, Ortiz and his lawyer Ed Ferszt have filed an intent to sue the very first responders who saved Ortiz’s life. Why? Because they believe the rescue took two hours because the divers did not know Ortiz was alive in the flipped car.

“Of course he was thankful because those divers did have a major role to play in saving his life that day,” Ferszt told Denver’s ABC affiliate earlier this week. Read More

The New York Times and the Daily Caller 

NY Post: "Parents sued by teen don’t have to pay up — yet"

"A disgruntled New Jersey teenager lost her first bout in family court on Tuesday, when a judge refused to make mom and dad immediately fork over money to fund her private-school education."

Judge Peter Bogaard said there was no emergency need for the parents of 18-year-old Rachel Canning to open their wallets and pay for her education at Morris Catholic HS, where she’s a 12th-grade honor student, and other daily living costs.

In a potential precedent-setting lawsuit, Rachel accused parents Sean and Elizabeth Canning of throwing her out of their Lincoln Park home — but claims they should still be held responsible for paying school tuition, room, board, transportation and expenses.

Despite Tuesday’s setback, Rachel’s lawsuit is still going forward.

The teen has been living with a family friend ever since leaving home. The friend’s dad is former Morris County Freeholder John Inglesino, who is reportedly footing Rachel’s legal bill.

“For whatever reason, he’s [John Inglesino] enabling her and I don’t know why. I just know this is destroying my family,” Sean Canning said.

The dad claims he’s never been asked by Rachel’s hosts to sit down and talk about the awkward situation.

“It’s been completely through legal channels,” he said. “There’s never been talks with a middle ground.”

Could this be some sort of publicity gateway for a reality show?  Nothing is what it seems anymore. Now, where did I used to read that?

NY Post

Meet Colion Noir

 Colion Noir is one of the gun video commentators that I enjoy. I'd seen a few of his videos before he became involved with the NRA. He thinks my gun is ugly, but there you go! (I knew this would be a good interview because Glen Beck seems to see his job as facilitating communication with the interviewee instead of some dressed up version of combat that he's got to win.)

The LA Times had an article about Noir today that was pretty good. It talks a bit about the accusations that he's a token or "Uncle Tom" and that blacks were pro-gun control. This portion of the LA Times article stuck out at me:

The NRA does not release membership demographics, but according to a Pew Research Center survey, many gun owners in America are white — 31% of whites polled this year said they owned guns, compared with 15% of blacks and 11% of Latinos.

Polls being polls I wondered how much non-reporting happened. I also wondered if those percentages were of all blacks and all Latinos or if the poll had corrected for percentages of those blacks and Latinos living in cities with strict gun control. Now, to me of course, I look at gun ownership in the black community as a civil rights issue and suspect that much of the urban gun bans are actually about disarming blacks. Noir says the same:

"The same government who at one point hosed us down with water, attacked us with dogs and wouldn't allow us to eat at their restaurants told us we couldn't own guns when bumbling fools with sheets on their heads were riding around burning crosses on our lawns and murdering us," Noir says in the video as "Washington elitism" flashes across the screen. It was not a misreading of history, according to UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, author of "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America."

But Noir also says in the interview with Glen Beck and also the LA Times article mentions that blacks are likely to be pro-gun control because they associate weapons with the thug culture. If so, I don't care if Colion Noir is a "token" or anything else. He's giving voice to an alternative view of young black men with guns and that's a good thing. The NRA also has a new spokesperson who's a pretty young blond lady. I don't care if she's a token either. The point is that guns aren't about being an old white guy and that the 2nd Amendment is not an old white guy amendment and the Constitution itself is not an old white guy document. 

Also, grats to Colion Noir... he just passed the bar so... law blogging!