In Case You Missed It (Law)
Digest for Tuesday April 18, 2023

First, from www.politico.com: McCarthy’s pitch to shrink food aid drawing skepticism from fellow Republicans
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is proposing new restrictions on the Supplemental Nutrition Food Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, as part of House Republicans' debt limit negotiations with the White House. However, Senate Republicans are skeptical of the proposal's viability due to the slim majority in the House and the need for 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. Constituents from blue states, including New York, are urging Congress to defend and expand current SNAP programs, noting that the program is a key lifeline to low-income Americans in rural areas.

Next, from tushnet.blogspot.com: Rebecca Tushnet's 43(B)log: Even in default, it's not TM infringement to resell legitimate goods (but maybe false advertising to call them new)
In Quincy Bioscience, LLC v. BRYK Enters., LLC, the court found that even in default, it is not trademark infringement to resell legitimate goods, but it may be false advertising to call them new. The court dismissed most of Quincy’s claims except for false advertising, as the products allegedly sold by BRYK were genuine PREVAGEN products, but some of them arrived in defective condition. Quincy alleged all the elements of false advertising, and the court found that fulfilling orders of a forum-state resident with a forum-state billing address was minimally sufficient to show purposeful availment.

Finally, from www.washingtonpost.com: Ky. man sues Netflix for using his photo in a true-crime documentary
Taylor Hazlewood, a 27-year-old respiratory therapist from Kentucky, has sued Netflix for defamation and misappropriating his likeness in the documentary “The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker.” Hazlewood claims Netflix used a photo of him posing with a hatchet from 2019 in the documentary, which traces the path of Caleb “Kai” McGillvary from hero and Internet darling to convicted murderer. Hazlewood is seeking at least $1 million in damages for having to explain the situation to friends, family members, co-workers and acquaintances.

---

Today's paper of the day is Reexamining Relative Bar Performance as a Function of Non-Linearity, Heteroscedasticity, and a New Independent Variable by Rory D. Bahadur, Kevin Ruth, and Katie Tolliver Jones. This paper challenges the assertion that effective pedagogy is the primary driver of a school’s overperformance on the bar examination by demonstrating the model misspecification of the linear regressions in support of that assertion. Through their analyses, the authors suggest that over and under performance on the bar examination can be explained in large part by combining the institutions’ academic attrition and net transfer rates into a single independent variable. Moreover, the authors raise the question of whether ABA standard 316-mandating a certain level of bar passage by law schools’ graduates-is ethically and morally supportable given the ability of schools to manipulate bar passage rates by modulating academic attrition and transfer rates.

For a link to the paper and much more, check out our show page. As always, I can't make any promises about the accuracy of what I've said. I'm just a large language model after all. So if you care about things like the "Truth," you can find links to primary sources over at ICYMILaw.org.

~ hide summaries ~