Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law

Notable cases evaluation

Hi. I kindly ask you to evaluate edits to William T. Reid IV article (Reid is a co-founder of Reid Collins & Tsai) made by Melcous - who removed the whole section of “Notable cases” - answering 3 questions:

1. Do you feel that "Notable cases" in this article provides value to Wikipedia users and should be kept?
2. If “Yes”, does it need any changes?
3. If “No”, why?

I would specifically value comments from User:7&6=thirteen, Mendaliv and BD2412, who commented on the of Reid Collins & Tsai article and know the subject well.

Author’s point of view

I have created this article as a paid editor. Prior to writing it I’ve checked some other articles about lawyers and noticed that some of the bigger ones (that go beyond stab or minimal information) have a separate section named “Notable cases”. Some examples are David Boies, Brendan Sullivan, Dean Pregerson, Alex Kozinski, Charles Antone Horsky, Martin W. Littleton, Tom Rickhoff, Adam Loewy, Chris Hansen (attorney), C. Vernon Mason, John J. Duffy Jr., Deepak Gupta (attorney), Ron Kuby, Michael Tigar, Yale Galanter, Michael W. McConnell, but there are much more. By the way, I noticed that this part is mostly present at articles about judges. Of course, I am aware of WP:OSE, just highlighting here that some articles about lawyers have this part, while others don’t.

Working on this part I selected only the cases that have big scale or some importance for the law field (InverWorld case is mention in the UN international law publication, Brack v. Omni Loan Co was featured in some books, City of San Antonio, et al. v. Hotels.com, L.P. is an important case of the taxing practices). Antonio de la Rúa agains Shakira is a bit of an exception here, but I kept it because it involved multiple jurisdictions and I thought it was a curious one.

Editor's point of view

The reasoning provided by the editor who deleted this part is this:

Anyway, the reason I removed it, as stated in the edit summary, is that this kind of information does not appear to me to be encyclopedic. It is verging on both promotional and resume-like. There is already a career section which includes a few of the cases he has worked on in order to establish his notability. This is an encyclopedic biography but it is not a 'who's who' article on a lawyer - listing cases like this seems to suggest someone is wanting this article to serve another purpose, which when combined with paid editing doesn't sit well with me.

The text in question

• In 2001-2003, Reid worked on a complicated litigation case against InverWorld, an investment company accused in 1999 of fraud and violation of securities laws by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that resulted in $475 million dollars of losses to its clients (mostly Mexican citizens). Classified later as a Ponzi scheme, the case involved three jurisdictions (the United States, the United Kingdom and the Cayman Islands -- InverWorld’s owner, Jose Zollino, was a Mexican national who moved to San Antonio. There he established InverWorld and related companies for offshore transactions) and several parties creating insolvency agreements approved by the courts in each of the three jurisdictions (“The clients were a tandem of a U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee and a Cayman Liquidator. I even had joint hearings with the U.S. Bankruptcy Judge and the Cayman Judge and two sets of lawyers on the phone,” recalled Reid in a 2016 Lawdragon feature). Reid and Diamond McCarthy consequently sued third-parties allegedly involved in the fraud including the law firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle (resulting in $24 million settlement), Deloitte & Touche auditors, Wells Fargo and UBS banks.
• Reid was one of the lawyers representing Omni Loan Co in the Brack v. Omni Loan Co., Ltd. (2008) case that clarified choice-of-law practice related to consumer bank loans made outside the state of residence.

• In 2009, Reid got involved in an almost decade-long legal clash between San Antonio municipalities and a group of online hotel operations (mostly owned by Expedia, Inc.) that started in May 2006 when the city filed a putative statewide class action suit City of San Antonio, et al. v. Hotels.com, L.P., et al. SA06CA0381, stating that defendants had failed to pay to the city hotel accommodations taxes in full, as required by municipal ordinance. These claims followed the same demands from the likes of Los Angeles in 2004, Chicago in 2005, and San Diego and Atlanta in 2006. The case proceeded to trial on October 5, 2009. On October 30, 2009, the jury awarded plaintiffs a total of $20.6 million in damages. Reid tried the case with two lawyers from McKool Smith.
• In November 2012, Reid filed a $100 million lawsuit against Shakira on behalf of her former boyfriend and business partner Antonio de la Rúa in the New York Supreme Court, seeking to "recover damages" for breach of contract and of fiduciary duty. The pop star claimed de la Rua had never been more than a boyfriend and an advisor and sought to have the lawsuit dismissed on the grounds that the New York County Supreme Court was not the proper venue. On April 2013, de la Rua sued Shakira again under identical claims in the Los Angeles Superior Court. However, an LA judge dismissed the lawsuit in early in August 2013 on forum non conveniens. Previous attempts to sue Shakira in New York and Geneva also failed.
• In July 2013, Reid filed a lawsuit on behalf of Highland Capital Management against Credit Suisse for defrauding investors in the Lake Las Vegas development ( Claymore Holdings LLC vs. Credit Suisse. Case no. 13-07858, 12-19-14) in Dallas. The case was heard before a jury in December 2014 and resulted in a $40 million award for the investors. Internal emails of Credit Suisse executives presented during the trial exposed that they were fully aware of the fraud. Following the trial, Reid sued Credit Suisse again in June 2015, demanding the rescission of Highland’s $250 million investment in a syndicated loan, along with fees and 8 years of pre-judgment interest (adding up to $376 million). In September 2015, this case resulted in a $287.5 million judgment in favor of Highland’s Claymore Holdings.

References

Working on constitutional colorblindness for class assignment

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I've proposed moving Judiciary of the Republic of Ireland back to Courts of the Republic of Ireland, its old location. Talk page here. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t Today, 4:34 pm

Please comment on this RfC

Please see this RfC on whether the Alford plea justifies the "(criminal)" parenthetical disambiguator. Thanks, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions}

Law article "Common recovery", no References since 2006

Expert help please

JoeHebda (talk) 19:06, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Greetings, Sharing with Law WP about article Common recovery was tagged in 2006 as having no references. Hoping members of Law wikiproject may be able to improve this article (totally outside my area of expertise). Thanks. JoeHebda (talk) 00:27, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Requested page move

There is a requested move at Talk:Environs (journal) that would very much benefit from your input. Please come and help! Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  21:52, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Law Firm article titles

Wanted to get people's thoughts on the current practice for titling law firm articles. As an example, I was surprised to see the article at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, while Skadden and Skadden Arps are both redirects; this practice seems contrary to WP:COMMONNAME. The full firm name practice also seems like it would generate much more article moving, particularly among smaller firms that change their named partners more frequently. Thoughts? UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:38, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

private use

Do we have an article on "Private use" in law (ie. versus public use) or copyright law ? The current redirect seems inappropriate, considering the existence of private use airports and private use under copyright law, particularly the Betamax case -- 70.51.201.106 (talk) 07:09, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Subsequent legal decisions as secondary sources

A question for WikiLaw: if I am writing an article about a court decision, would subsequent decisions that reference the case that is the topic of the article I am writing count as secondary sources? For example, when a Supreme Court decision references a previous decision--"As the court found in X vs. Y, you can't do that..." could be cited in the article on the case X v. Y to establish its importance, legacy, etc. I'm conscious that for some Wikiprojects the distinction between primary/secondary is binary. It is more complicated in Law where a source can be both depending on how it is used. I've checked WP:LAWMOS and it doesn't offer much guidance on decisions as secondary sources. AugusteBlanqui (talk) 12:51, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

What do you view as the consequence of which way that later court opinion is viewed? postdlf (talk) 13:37, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Let's say I'm writing the Wikipedia article for the case X v. Y. I have a subsequent Supreme Court decision that says, "As the court found in X v. Y, you can't do that." I want to use this statement in the lead of my article on the case X v. Y: "X v. Y was a Supreme Court case that established the liability of people who do a thing." There may not be a newspaper or journal article that says that because the case is recent or from a country with a small jurisdiction. In this case, I'm asking would editors agree that a subsequent decision that offers a summary of a previous case and references it as a precedent establishes the notability of the original case. AugusteBlanqui (talk) 13:47, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

As a general principle, Supreme Court cases are notable (and secondary sources such as newspaper articles, law review articles, and textbook references can be found for almost all of them). I wouldn't use a reference from a later case to establish notability, but I would have no problem using it to establish the facts and holding of the previous case. bd2412 T 15:19, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for asking this question AugusteBlanqui! You prompted me to search for any guidance and I found a very helpful essay: Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (law) - A crisply written, nicely organized, cogent essay. Highly recommended!

Also see the two comments by Find bruce (talk) on the article's Talk page. Find bruce directly addresses your question:

Describing case law as exclusively a primary source does not reflect the nuanced nature of judicial decisions. Most case law deals with 3 matters (1) findings of fact (2) setting out the law & (3) applying the law to the facts. The typical judgment is only a primary source in relation to the 3rd. In relation to findings of fact, these are only made having considered primary sources and thus are clearly "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy".

All the best - Mark ...   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 05:44, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words Markworthen - I should add that my opinion is not necessarily shared by everyone, not least of which because my perspective from Australia may be different to elsewhere. Where wiki editors regularly come unstuck is in mimicking decisions, textbooks, journal articles etc by saying "the court found in X v Y that ..." and then give a reference to X v Y. The sort of approach AugusteBlanqui sets out seems to me to be on the right track, especially for more recent decisions where there is often less widely published consideration. It doesn't mean that the judge's view is correct - there are often disagreements among judges as well as lawyers & academics. As an encyclopedia we don't need to argue for one - where there is disagreement among reliable sources, Wikipedia's role is to note it in a balanced way. Find bruce (talk) 07:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks--this is very helpful Markworthen and Find bruce. AugusteBlanqui (talk) 08:57, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal: Migrant worker/Foreign worker

Discussion is invited about a proposal to merge 'Foreign worker' into 'Migrant worker'. Thanks - Meticulo (talk) 12:32, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Criminal justice financial obligations

I just stubbed Criminal justice financial obligations. Sorry for it being just a single sentence. I will deorphan it and do what else I can. If anyone out there cares about the subject, please consider adding a bit to expand it. There are plenty of refs pasted its talk page. Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:45, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Bills and invoices for criminal justice financial obligations

Hi. I'm looking for the bills and invoices given to those who were incarcerated. They are for the Criminal justice financial obligations article.

Examples:

• Bill for per diem jail charges
• Fines
• Restitution
• Bill for court costs

An example of what I am after is contained roughly half way into this pdf.

(I cannot find anything at commons.)

So, if anyone has something like this and can take a photo of it to upload to commons, it would really improve the article.

Many thanks!

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

To add. Specifically we would need documents from an employee of the US Federal Government, or a state that releases it's content into the public domain (Florida and Maryland...others?). GMG^talk 23:05, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

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Requests for comment are sought at Talk:2010–2017 Toronto serial homicides § RfC on drug name on how to state the name of a drug mentioned in court documents about a living person. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:33, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

WP 1.0 Bot Beta

Hello! Your WikiProject has been selected to participate in the WP 1.0 Bot rewrite beta. This means that, starting in the next few days or weeks, your assessment tables will be updated using code in the new bot, codenamed Lucky. You can read more about this change on the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team page. Thanks! audiodude (talk) 05:43, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Task: Compelling state interest

I am willing to work on the Compelling state interest but would like to briefly outline my planned approach and get anyone else's thoughts on the topic.

I assume that the compelling state interest page is intended to cover the kind and types of "government interests" that the federal government or a state government must have when it produces legislation or a regulation that is alleged to infringe on a constitutional right. Based on this assumption, I am thinking about about structuring the page something like this:

• Intro
  • Provide an explanation of what a government interest is and when the courts require that one exist. This section would also briefly mention that the level of government interest needed (i.e., legitimate government interest, substantial government interest, compelling government interest, etc.) is tied directly to severity of the alleged infringement. For example, infringement of a fundamental right triggers strict scrutiny, which requires proof of a compelling state interest. (Think, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973)).
• Legitimate state interest (Rational-basis review)
  • provide brief case illustrations where this type of interest was required to provide examples of what would qualify as this kind of interest.
• Substantial state interest (Intermediate scrutiny)
  • provide brief case illustrations where this type of interest was required to provide examples of what would qualify as this kind of interest.
• Compelling state interest (Strict scrutiny)
  • provide brief case illustrations where this type of interest was required to provide examples of what would qualify as this kind of interest.

And that would pretty much be it.

Excited to hear others' thoughts.

HoldingAces (talk) 17:04, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to flesh out articles on government interest and your outline above is a good start to an outline. However, I'm concerned that you linked directly to Government interest instead of the redirect Compelling state interest, while piping Compelling state interest. Where are you going to put the article, and what is it going to cover? Compelling state interest is a term of art in U.S. law, applicable in strict scrutiny cases. As your outline acknowledges, legitimate and substantial state intrest are other forms of government interest. However, I would hesitate to say that the concept of Government interest is unique to U.S. legal thought, and an article at Government interest should take a comparative view to capture non-U.S. (and non-legal) use of the term. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:36, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. Sorry about the confusion with the links, and I guess I am still a little confused. I am not familiar with non-U.S. and non-legal use of the term government interest, so I would not feel comfortable writing on the topic. So would creating a new page titled something like "Government interest in U.S. law" be a good idea? I am not sure having a different page for each type of U.S. government interest (i.e., compelling, substantial, and legitimate) would be best. I feel that the different types of interests are so closely related that having them in one article would make the most sense. And of course, if that article grows to large, they could be spliced out a later time. HoldingAces (talk) 21:18, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

HoldingAces, Perhaps making it clear in the introductory paragraph that the article is specifically dealing with the concept as used in U.S. law, and/or including a hatnote pointing to National interest and Government debt (as some people searching for "Government interest" are probably thinking interest on debt), would help. I think National interest should probably cover anything non-us that would otherwise be covered in Government interest. Confusingly, State interest currently redirects to National interest, but when I was in con-law classes in law school it seemed Government interest and State interest were used interchangably in case law, depending on if the acting government was a State-level government, local or municipal government, or the Federal government. I'm not sure that's the best redirect target, but it can always be changed. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:25, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion

Comments welcome here: [1] Roger 8 Roger (talk) 15:39, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

A new article on a clause of the U.S. Constitution

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Law School Deans

Can someone familiar with the role of law school deans perhaps provide input to the discussion here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hammersoft#Decline

Thanks. --2604:2000:E010:1100:10D5:843F:172A:398D (talk) 17:23, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Notability of Law School Deans

I have opened discussion as to whether a law school Dean of a major academic institution should be considered notable, here.--2604:2000:E010:1100:8069:D17F:7325:3D9 (talk) 03:51, 16 March 2019 (UTC)