Judge Henry Politz, former Chief Judge of U.S. 5th Circuit, Passes Away
The local newspaper reports that he died of a heart attack on Saturday night. He was 70 years old, and had been battling cancer. He was widely loved and admired for his wit and for his dedication to the legal profession, especially to the mentoring of young lawyers. He will be greatly missed.
3:02:39 PM
President Bush's Violation of the Unwritten Rule -
From InstaPundit: "The rule is supposed to be that reporters ask dumb and slanted questions, and politicians don't call them on it. ...How are you going to be a media bigfoot if people actually start mocking you when you deserve it? "[Link]
Apparently, Bush jumped down the throat of NBC's David Gregory for asking a dumb question. The flip side of that rule is that when the politician doesn't answer a pointed question, but instead answers it as though a simpler question had been asked, the reporter doesn't call him on it. My God! We have to stick to the rules, or people are going to start expecting real give-and-take from reporters and politicians. And that could lead to all kinds of confusion.
9:59:11 AM
Where can I sue you? Personal jurisdiction - a legal concept in flux...
From New York Times: A Virginia prison warden learned that two Connecticut newspapers had written stories about his prison's treatment of inmates from that state, and he went to read the four articles on the Internet. He didn't like what he saw and decided to sue for libel. But he sued in his home state where the Connecticut newspapers have almost no circulation. The federal district judge ruled that the warden's lawsuit could proceed in his home state because the newspapers' Web sites were accessible there and that was where injury to his reputation would have taken place. The question of jurisdiction is now pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., where oral arguments are scheduled for June 3.
Law students are beseiged with the concept of personal jurisdiction (i.e. where can a defendant be sued?) almost from day one of law school. The original concept was that you could only sue people where they physically were located when you went to serve them. The pendulum is swinging pretty far in the other direction and it's now pretty much a balancing test: if you are (1) a company with adequate resources to litigate anywhere, and (2) you make a product or deliver a service that you know is in the "stream of commerce" and may wind up harming someone far away from you, then you may be sued where that person lives.
I predict that the Connecticut newspapers will be held to have "minimum contacts" with Virginia and will have to defend themselves there. The outcome should be different for a person who runs a website on his/her own and makes little or no money from the site.
9:48:48 AM
Death is never easy on loved ones. But now your E-mail can lend some comfort...
Buzz sent me a link to this site, which is called Timeless. The idea is that you can create E-mails that go out to people that you designate upon your death. For $12 per year you get a basic account which lets you send emails to up to 25 recipients and you can have a half a Meg of storage to attach video clips or whatever. The $18 annual account gives you more storage and more E-mail options. Their FAQ page explains that this is not intended to have a legal effect and that if you want to make a will or designate how your property should be distributed upon your death that you should contact a lawyer.
Well, that's obvious. What is not so obvious is that this sort of thing (which I think is a good idea, and may catch on) can complicate probate proceedings because it will create a written record of the deceased's state of mind at a certain point in time. In cases where the testator's state of mind is challenged as being subject to "undue influence" (see e.g. movie "Changing Lanes") this sort of information will provide additional evidence, which may or may not be a good thing depending on which side you are on in the dispute.
8:11:14 AM
