University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog

Flooding, tenants and the law

The Centre for Public Legal Education in Alberta has produced a pamphlet for tenants and landlords regarding their obligatrions to each other after the flooding in Southern Alberta. You can find a link to it at this post on Blogosaurus Lex, along with links to an audio Q&A.

Light blogging

for me for the next few days.

Odd Lineups

The case of Adoptive Parents v. Baby Girl is also unusual because of the odd lineup: Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer joined. Thomas and Breyer also filed concurring opinions.  Justice Scalia filed a dissenting opinion, and so did Justice Sotomayor who was joined by Justices Ginsburg, Kagan, and Scalia in part.

Although this is not as odd as the lineup in the Prop. 8 case, Hollingsworth v. Perry: Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justices Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan joined. Justices Kennedy filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor joined.

Adoptions and SCOTUS

With all the media attention on the Voting Righst Act case as well as the gay marriage rulings, you would be forgiven if you missed the case of Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, a case dealing with the question of adoptions and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). ICWA was passed by Congress to protect Native American children from being removed from their tribes and families. What happens, however, when the mother puts up the child for adoption, a non-native american adopts the child, and then the father (who had relinquished custody earlier on the undestanding that the mother was looking after the child) objects? Why litigation ensues, and it reached the US Supreme Court. 

The Court held, overruling the lower court which gave custody to the father, that the adoptive parents could prevail.

Law Professor Marcia Zug explains why the Court reached the wrong decision, but it may not be that bad for ICWA.

Internet is getting old

Post Secondary Education Blog makes the point that the Internet is now older than incoming university students. This means the Internet(s) is old!

Jon Stewart in Cairo

 

Jon Stewart is making a movie in the middle east. He was aguest in Egypt on the equivalent show that he inspired over there "El-Bernameg":

Around the 10-11 minute point, he explains that speech even if insulting never causes injury. It may add insult to injury but never causes it. That is the American view of free speech.

In Canada, insult can also be sanctionable  as the Supreme Court in Whatcott showed. Its ramifications were felt by a comedian, just the other day, when he and the comedy club owner were both fined for his offensive jokes. 

Jackie Chan on Bruce Lee

Running of Interns

Today, the United States Supreme Court released its gay marriage rulings today. This means that tons of interns have to get the paper opinions and then run them back to their news anchors to digest the decision and report on it right away.

Presumed Guiltocent

Constitutional Crisis?

For once, not here but down in Australia where the incumbent PM has been turfed by her party and replaced by her predecessor. There are many possible scenarios.

English Majors

Why is the English major declining when we need good writers all the time? How else would know that social networking was conducted in coffee houses back in the day.

The power to destory

I am not a fan of electric cars, in general, but I do applaud Tesla's efforts at getting their cars out there. Indeed, I can tell that their product must be doing something right, when traditional car dealers bandy together to try to ban its sales in NY state, or in many other states.

Indeed, anytime traditional entrenched interests are threatened by the market, they run to the state for protection. Hence, that is why France doesn't want Amazon to offer free shipping, or why that threat to money and banking Bitcoin is being shut down in California, or why when some resourceful teenagers created a cheaper alternative to car renting they were also being threatened by the state.

If we want success stories like Supermarkets moving into Detroit, because it so cheap to operate there now, we need more free entry and exit. Speaking of special interests, here is an interesting story on how the one per cent control politics in the US.

Kickstarter Setbacks

A while back, it seemed that Kickstarter or crowdfunidng in general would be the next place to raise cash for investment ventures. Between the successes of Pebble and Veronica Mars , it seemed to be the next place for venture capitalists to populate. Pundits offered advice, experts argued for its merits, while others cautioned against it. The Securities and Exchange Commission is now tasked with looking into its role with traditonal securities laws. 

So why do we care? Because securities laws were put into place to protect investors from investing in things they may not understand or know anything about. You know, things like fake beef or aggressive sex tips.

Brazil Protests and Edmonton Stadium

In Brazil, many are not happy at all the way their politicos are spending public dollars on stadiums and neglecting essential services. Even the beloved soccer player Pele has not been spared the wrath of the masses. What to do? The president tried to poll the public but that is running into trouble.

Closer to home despite a poll showing the opposition to spending taxpayer dollars on a stadium in Edmonton, nonetheless our politicos went ahead and decided to spend our money on private deals. The difference is that we are still satisified with life to not get worked up over these policy decisions. It is bad enough our roads in the city are full of potholes, and now with the flooding, who knows what the costs will be? Will this force council to reconsider? 

I am not hopeful, but the events in Brazil show that even when public moneys being spent seem to make political sense, sometimes the reality on the ground is very different. The problem as Brazil demonstrates, is that the solutions are not that easy either.

Real World Animal Zombies

Zombie movies are all over with the latest being World War Z. It turns out that in the animal kingdom, there are real examples of zombies. Not only are these just plain scary, they may actually be able to come after humans.

No more software patents?

Software has always been subject to both copyright and patent law, which gives it double protection, and perhaps causes too much litigation and stifling of innovation. 

In Germany, their parliament has decided to move away from software patents, leaving them only under the realm of copyright.

No one is innocent?

If you have nothing to hide, why do you care if the state spies on you? That is always the argument made by the pro-security crowd, especially in the US. The problem is, and especially in the US, everybody has technically broken the law. Furthermore, in the US, the state does not even have to prove mens rea in any meaningful fashion since 1943 (U.S. v. Dotterweich; see also my paper on the subject) 

It just keeps on coming

A man spends 24 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. He is finally released, exonerated by DNA evidence. He even gets some cash from the state of Texas to compensate him for his loss of years. 

Now his ex-wife wants a portion of that (h/t Overlawyered). She argues, she is entitled to half his stuff. He argues this is not lost wages, but compensation due long after their dicorce. 

Undoubtedly, this is a novel case that will require much litigation to settle. One thing is for sure, none of the two will be richer, as only the lawyers may profit from this.

Enron Fallout

Tom Kirkendall, one of the few voices of sanity in the ongoing witch-hunt against corporate fraud, wrote a letter to Judge Lake who was re-sentenching Jeff Skilling for his role in the Enron fall. Here is an excerpt:

Society needs to have appropriate punishment and accounting for clear-cut businesscrimes. But in cases such as Enron or the failed Wall Street firms, the civil lawsuits – unlike thecriminal prosecutions – included all the potentially responsible parties involved, such as the directors who approved the questionable business judgments and accountants and lawyers whomay have facilitated them. Accordingly, any responsibility that those various corporate actors had for the demise of their companies could be properly allocated in the civil justice system among all the responsible parties. That is a much more rational and effective way to deal withdamages from questionable business judgments, which simply are not clear-cut crimes. 

The foregoing is underscored by the fact that there is no meaningful difference betweenthe questionable business judgments and public statements that Wall Street executives such as Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Mortgage or Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers made, on onehand, with those that Mr. Skilling made on behalf of Enron, on the other, as each of those executives struggled to preserve their respective trust-based businesses in the face of financial losses caused by a loss of trust in the marketplace. Nevertheless, neither Mr. Mozilo, Mr. Fuldnor any other Wall Street executive whose company suffered massive losses during the 2008 financial crisis faced a criminal prosecution over questionable business judgment.

Sad Chocolate

Details here.