We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.
Joint Statement, Dec. 20, 2007, explaining that the two will recommence production of The Colbert Report and The Daily Show
The WSJ reports that the Delaware chancery court rejected United Rental Inc.’s bid to force Cerberus to consummate a $4 billion buy-out.
Blawgletter doesn’t have the details, but we imagine that Chancellor William Chandler shared our doubts about URI’s case. We "wonder[ed] whether [URI’s] lawyers read section 8.2(e) of the Agreement and Plan of Merger
The greatest judge since Solomon?
"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every
The NYT reports that the first-ever quarterly loss at Bear Stearns foretokens more agony on Wall Street. The article doesn’t explain why.
Blawgletter has heard that the subprime fallout won’t end until investors learn where the risk of subprime borrower defaults ended up. Apparently the subprime industry did such a terrific job of shifting risk
Nummers!
The WSJ reports this afternoon that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division has opened an investigation into potential anticompetitive activities in the chocolate industry. The disclosure follows issuance of search warrants in Canada for a similar probe. See This Price-Fixing Case Looks Pretty Sweet.
The article says that "Justice Department antitrust enforcers
When can a defense prevent dismissal of a case? When the plaintiff wants a dismissal to avoid the defense.
That sums up the Fifth Circuit’s decision today in Hyde v. Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., No. 05-10203 (5th Cir. Dec. 20, 2007). The plaintiff, George W. Hyde, brought the case in Texas state court. He alleged
A unanimous panel of the Third Circuit today affirmed an order compelling arbitration of federal claims on a non-class basis. The court did so despite two Pennsylvania appellate decisions that went the other way, holding that bans on class arbitrations ran afoul of state law unconscionability principles. It justified the ruling on the ground that
Say you get an opposing lawyer’s notes, perhaps because he left them in your conference room after taking a deposition. What ought you to do with them? Does your duty to your client compel you to read them? Or do your obligations as an officer of the court bar you from taking advantage?
The Supreme
This Arthur Miller never knew Marilyn Monroe. We think.
Blawgletter recalls our first law school class. Arthur Miller — then the reporter for the advisory committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure — boasted (probably in a gangster pinstripe suit) that we could have our stinkin’ substantive law if we liked it so freakin’
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski in a, er, non-judicial setting.
We do not call this process sham pleading; we call it litigation.
PAE Gov’t Services, Inc. v. MPRI, Inc., No. 06-56438 (9th Cir. Dec. 18, 2007) (Kozinski, C.J.) (explaining reversal of order striking complaint that district court believed contradicted earlier pleading) (footnote omitted).