Philadelphia

Judicial Hellholes Kill Jobs and Redistribute Wealth

by Hans Bader on December 17, 2010 · 1 comment

in Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation

The most recent list of judicial hellholes has just been released by the American Tort Reform Association. It lists ”courts in Philadelphia; California’s Los Angeles and Humboldt counties; West Virginia; South Florida; Cook County, Illinois; and Clark County, Nevada, as some of the worst in the nation” for lawsuit abuse. The list is accompanied by an executive summary and a detailed report. (I previously wrote about how courts in Clark County are a threat to Nevada’s economy, and how they mishandle personal injury, divorce, and family law cases to redistribute wealth.)

As Carter Wood notes at Point of Law,

“Philadelphia’s transgressions are definitely noteworthy. Incredibly, there’s an actual strategy to encourage more litigation as a form of local ‘economic development.’ From ATRA’s news release:

Philadelphia is a source of great concern due to the philosophy and trial practices of its Complex Litigation Center, as well as the area’s reputation for excessive verdicts. The judicial leadership is engaged in a campaign to draw in massive personal injury lawsuits from around the country, viewing the increase in lawsuits and out-of-town lawyers as a boost for the court’s revenues and the local restaurants and hotels. Controversial practices, such as ‘reverse bifurcation,’ unfairness in multiple trials against the same defendant at the same time, and combining multiple cases into a single trial provide incentives for plaintiffs’ lawyers to bring their claims to the City of Brotherly Love. Punitive damage awards over $1 million have reportedly tripled in Philadelphia courts. State tort law that is out of the mainstream further encourages lawsuits.”

Another phenomenon fueling judicial hellholes is the vast amount of government red tape and new laws constantly being generated, which judicial hellholes turn into a basis for more lawsuits even when the red tape was only intended to be enforced by administrative penalties and not private lawsuits.  Activist judges treat technical infractions of arbitrary government rules as being negligence per se or breaches of a newly-created duty of care. ATRA general counsel Victor Schwartz has worked to rein in the worst excesses in this area, and to keep courts from imposing unjustified duties of care more generally (for example, he has worked to pass state laws barring courts from allowing trespassers to sue homeowners for accidental injuries sustained as a result of trespassing).

State attorney generals have also abused their power in recent years to enrich their cronies and foment more lawsuits. In 2010 and 2007, CEI issued reports rating the nation’s worst state attorneys general.

Image credit: maveric2003′s flickr photostream.

Pennsylvania’s perpetual prohibition

by Michelle Minton on April 20, 2010 · 1 comment

in Legal, Nanny State, Odds & Ends, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk

Philadelphians love our beer. Especially our little niche-serving craft-beers. The city of brewerly love has produced some of the countries best-loved brands and the by-our-Belgian-bootstraps attitude has inspired many brewers throughout the country. But from the recent behavior of those in charge of oversight for booze in PA you’d think we were a state of teetotalers. beer-week-philly-2

The problem is, when it comes to the regulation of booze there is zero competition. Since most of the people handling the regulations are appointees, citizens barely have a say in the matter. The result? A regime that regulates in a heavy-handed manner, that is inefficient, and performs a function nobody wants them to do.

In the free market a service provider that is inefficient or unable to perform the duties for which it was hired is replaced. However, when it comes to government oversight, there is little or no competition among regulators. Thus, even when a regulatory entity repeatedly demonstrates its inability to perform, businesses and individuals have no choice but to continue complying with these agencies’ deficiencies.

For example, take alcohol regulation in Pennsylvania and the recent bar raids in the city of Philadelphia. One bar owner, Leigh Maida, had three of her establishments raided raided by the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement last month based on a complaint from an anonymous source claiming that they were selling “un-registered beers.” The state of PA requires distributors of beers to register each brand they intend to sell in PA (for a fee of course). “something really crappy happened to us,” said Maida about the Bureau’s seizure of over 300 bottles of beer and 3 quarter-kegs.  As it turns out many of the beers confiscated were registered.

Maida claims that more than half of the beer taken was actually properly registered but the cops couldn’t find it on their lists because of “clerical errors” and “blatant ineptitude” between the police and Liquor Control Board (with whom he officers were deliberating with via phone.)

Case in point; Monk’s Café Sour Flemish Red Ale. The beer has been sold across PA at dozens of restaurants and distributors for more than seven years. The brand appears on the state’s online list as “Monk’s Café Ale” and because the names did”t match up, troopers seized 20 bottles and three kegs of the “illegal” ale from the three bars.

Police also took Duvel Belgian Golden Ale because it only appears on the list as “Duvel Beer”.

“After checking their inventory against the state’s official list of registered beers (which contains more than 2,800 brands) the officers seized four kegs and 317 bottles. Police calculations indicate that they now possess about 60.9 gallons of beer with an estimated value of $7,200.”

According to the Philadelphia Daily News State Police Sgt. William N. La Torre said that the beer would be kept in a secured location, as evidence, until the case is resolved, probably in six to eight months.

The burden of regulatory inefficiencies should not be shouldered by businesses. The Maida’s establishments has lost the ability to offer these beer for 6-8 months, if not permanently. By the time the bars re-acquire the brews they’ll potentially be past the date of best use, consumers who had wanted to purchase the brands would have been disappointed and the image of the bar has been severely damaged.

Regulations like this make it difficult for businesses to remain open in Pennsylvania. It’s to their credit that bars, brewers, and distributors can deal with the logistical and financial burdens of these regulations and continue to operate in spite of them. What is more harmful to Pennsylvanians: being served an unregistered beer or losing a businesses that serve customers, pay taxes, pay employees, and contribute to the state’s attractiveness for residents and visitors?
It’s time to axe the hangover regulations from prohibition and allow brewers, bar owners, and consumers to make their own decisions when raising their glasses.

Picture via Philly.com

Commission Asks Justice Department Why Pro-Obama Thugs Got Away With Menacing White Voters

by Hans Bader on June 22, 2009 · 1 comment

in Bailout Watch, Culture, Economy, Features, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere, Zeitgeist

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is demanding to know why the “Obama Justice Department took the unusual action last month of dismissing a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party in connection with a case of voter intimidation on Election Day on November 4, 2008. Members of the NBPP were caught on film blocking access to the polls and physically and verbally intimidating voters, even going so far as to wield a nightstick in front of voters and poll watchers. The Justice Department’s lawyers gathered evidence, obtained the affidavit of former civil rights advocate Bartle Bull, and filed a complaint. When the defendants did not respond and the court invited the Justice Department to file a default judgment, the case was inexplicably withdrawn.”

By dismissing the case, political appointees in the Obama Justice Department blocked action against a racist, anti-semitic hate group whose members included an Obama poll-watcher and city democratic official, who used racial epithets and physical intimidation to drive white voters away from a polling place in Philadelphia last year.

Even as it engages in costly, unauthorized, illegal auto bailouts, and a monumentally-costly stimulus package that will shrink the economy “in the long run,” the Obama Administration is abdicating core federal responsibilities like enforcing the voting-rights laws.

The Obama Justice Department has also rubberstamped unconstitutional legislation, failed to protect the voting rights of American servicemen, and been deafeningly silent about a liberal black political boss in Mississippi who prevented voters from casting ballots and engaged in vote fraud.

Today, the Supreme Court permitted more local governments to “bail out” of the “preclearance” provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which the Obama Justice Department is using to block states from requiring proof of citizenship to vote, and to force race-based redistricting. (The Obama Justice Department recently blocked Georgia’s attempts to prevent illegal alien voting by requiring voter ID).