Dorf on Law

by Sherry F. Colb In my column for this week , I discuss a lawsuit brought by the animal protection organization "Compassion Over Killing" (COK) against a dairy conglomerate.  The lawsuit alleged price fixing because the dairy conglomerate was paying small farmers to have their dairy herds slaughtered, thereby artificially inflating the price of dairy by cutting the supply.  The lawsuit settled, with the dairy conglomerate having to pay rebates to consumers of dairy during the relevant period.  In my column, I question the wisdom of the lawsuit, if the goal of COK is to help animals.  In this post, I want to explore the two different ways in which a lawsuit that is nominally about protecting the interests of humans (e.g., to lower prices) could, in theory, also further the interests of animals. One way in which a lawsuit filed on behalf of humans could help animals is if the interests of the humans and the animals in the case are well-aligned.  This might ha...

by Michael Dorf In a classic Seinfeld clip, George Costanza reminds Jerry that "it's not a lie if you believe it." With this bit of wisdom in mind, the (apparently forced) resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn Monday night presents difficulties for the official story that Trump lost the ability to trust Flynn because Flynn's lying to Vice President Mike Pence led Pence to state untruths to the media. For one thing, as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed yesterday , President Trump already knew two weeks earlier that Flynn had dissembled when he told Pence he had not discussed lifting sanctions with the Russian ambassador during the transition. Thus, it appears that Flynn was not let go because he lied to VP Pence. Rather, as confirmed by the Tweeter in Chief on the morning after Flynn's resignation, apparently Flynn was let go because the public found out that Flynn lied to Pence. Why else would Trump think that leaks, rat...

By Eric Segall Given President Trump's recent (and not so recent) attacks on the federal judiciary, it is not surprising that Justice Stephen Breyer choose to speak out on Saturday about the public's mistaken notion that "we are actually politicians." Breyer emphasized that the Justices go through each case "with an open mind" and that he wants to hear "both sides" and "then I want to know what my colleagues think and then I want to talk it over." The Justices' job "is not to be on side A or side B but to decide [the case] correctly under the law." We need an independent judiciary now more than ever.  We also need an honest one. Justice Breyer may consider both sides of every case and hear what his colleagues have to say but after doing that he almost invariably votes with the other liberal Justices. On questions of abortion, affirmative action, campaign finance reform, gun control, federalism, sovereign immunity, and v...

by Neil H. Buchanan Horse-and-buggy transportation is a thing of the past, having been replaced early in the last century by the private automobile.  But we now know that the current system of transportation is on its way out, too, to be replaced by driverless cars.  How will that happen? That is an enormous question, and I expect to write a series of columns over the next few months exploring various aspects of this inevitable transition.  To a large degree, I will focus on issues of technology and economics, especially the effects on public finances.  While all of those issues are interesting, however, I will focus here on how public psychology will respond to this change in technology. This is actually my second column discussing driverless cars.  Late last year, I responded to an inadvertently funny New York Times guest op-ed , in which an author had laid out a number of baseless complaints about the move toward driverless cars. Among that op-...

by Andrew Bradt & Zachary Clopton As Civil Procedure teachers, the recent immigration-order fiasco has had a surreal quality to it: it’s as though our bizarre final-exam hypotheticals are coming to life in real time. Questions of standing, appealability, nationwide injunctions, and more are all playing out in front of our eyes—not to mention deep challenges for the separation of powers, federalism, and fundamental rights. But as proceduralists we also noted a seemingly obvious possibility that hasn’t been mentioned by the lawyers or the press. As these essentially identical cases began to proliferate in district courts across the country, why did no one seek consolidation of the cases as a multidistrictlitigation (or MDL). For the uninitiated, MDL is the statutory mechanism for consolidation of suits filed in multiple federal district courts before a single district judge for pretrial proceedings. All that is necessary for consolidation under the stat...