We start off our picks this week with a dog sniff case from the Supreme Court. A side note that several opinions came down from the High Court this week - to check them all out go to Justia's Supreme Court Center , or sign up for our USSC Summary…
Articles Posted in Legal Research
Caldwell v. Cablevision Sys. Corp., New York Court of Appeals (2/7/13) After falling on the street and injuring her leg, Plaintiff commenced this negligence action against Communications Specialists, Inc. (CSI) for creating a hazardous condition in the road by failing to properly pave over a trench CSI cut to install…
Two legislative crowdsourcing efforts came across my desk today: OpenPACER and Fork the Law. I love the idea of collective effort to make laws. The government has tried this to some extent with Regulations.gov. There, you can sort, view, and comment on proposed…
The Judicial Council announced last week that they plan to expand a pilot program to push federal court opinions to FDSys. In theory, that means that all federal court opinions could be published and freely available in the FDSys database soon. FDSys is the digital repository for federal publications. It is…
CALI has developed a prototype for uploading, storing, and sharing official court opinions called CourtCloud. Elmer Masters, the Director of Internet Development there, calls it a “Dropbox for courts.” The purpose of CourtCloud is to help courts self-publish their opinions. I’ll break it down for non-technical people (such as myself):…
Americans for Safe Access, et al v. DEA, US DC Cir. (1/22/13) Constitutional Law, Drugs & Biotech, Government & Administrative Law, Health Law The DEA, under the authority of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, 21 U.S.C. 812(b)(1)(B), classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug, the most restricted drug classification…
Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, US Supreme Court (1/15/13) Admiralty & Maritime Law, Transportation Law Lozman’s floating home was a plywood structure with empty bilge space underneath to keep it afloat. He had it towed several times before deciding on a marina owned by the city of Riviera Beach.…
Happy new year! We're starting off 2013 with opinion picks that cover four "c"s of legal practice areas: copyright, construction law, contracts, and criminal law. Harney v. Sony Pictures Television, Inc., US 1st Cir. (1/7/13) Copyright Plaintiff, a freelance photographer, took a photograph of a man, who called himself Clark…
Access to opinions and codes is of particular interest to the bloggers at Justia. We complain mightily about private citation formats, paywalls to codes and caselaw online, privatization of court services and filings, and the government’s overall failure to provide us with official, free access to the public record. Last…
Ernest Hemingway makes his way into our Daily Summary picks this week. . . 907 Whitehead Street, Inc. v. Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, et al., US 11th Cir. (12/07/12) Agriculture Law, Government & Administrative Law The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum appealed the district court's post-trial order…