Tid Bits

California Legislature Rejects Class Action "Reform." There's an article here. I've never been a fan of any effort to have juries limited, and this "don't trust yourself, trust us in Washington or some other far away place to know what's right" advertising always makes me laugh, but they're winning. You can read an analysis here.

And on that note... This isn't an example of statutory interpretation, as such, but I ran across it and lived in Houston for a long time, and so the Enron fiasco always strikes a chord, as did this op ed piece about the Fifth Circuit's 2-1 split finding many third party defendants as morally bankrupt as they left Enron literally so, but finding no legal liability. It ends with a quote from someone only literally bankrupt: "I cannot understand judges who would look at the people who designed the theft, provided the money to do it and drove the getaway car, and say that they didn't do anything. This country boy," he says, "has a hard time interpreting these things."

And still related to that: Texas Supremes Reach Overturn Jury Verdict Quite Easily. Okay, I'm obviously just finding a theme when I'm reading this morning, but it came sort of naturally by flipping through the headlines. It ends with: “I don’t understand the legal system where good people in Daingerfield, Texas, sat on a jury for six weeks, heard mounds of evidence, testimony from retailers and parent company people and everyone, make a decision in our favor, and that decision could go to the appeals court and get a unanimous decision in our favor, then all of a sudden the Supreme Court just null-and-voids everything these people saw and heard, and what they said,” Dudley says. “It seems like there’s something wrong with it.”

And on an Unrelated Note: DC Gun Statute Unconstitutional. You can read about the decision here. The original panel decision is here, but I couldn't find online the order denying en banc consideration.