Here are some legal trends and trivia from this week:
đU.S. Supreme Court: Liberal justices' 'dissent rate' lowest since Roberts joined in 2005.
đ©But women are underrepresented at oral argument at the Supreme Court: just 20 womenâ19% of the 103 total advocatesâ argued before the justices.
âłCal. Supreme Court is taking longer to decide its cases.
đBut the Cal. Supreme Court ranks high in diversity, says the Brennan Center for Justice.
đ€Cal. Supreme Court bars treble damages against a public entity for child sex abuse coverup because government canât be liable for punitive damages. The holding overrules three of the Courtâs prior cases.
đČBut trial court was justified in imposing evidentiary sanctions on a school district for negligently erasing a videotape of a sexual assault on a student.
đ”Check your break room jukebox: The Ninth Circuit, reversing a trial court's dismissal, holds that it might well constitute sexual harassment for a business to play "sexually derogatory" or "misogynistic" music in the workplace.
đWho likes legalese? No oneânot even lawyers. So researchers drilled down to the cause: the âcopy-and-paste hypothesisâ: lawyers imitate what previous lawyers have done because the legalese can be incorporated routinely into contracts drafted for clients.
đ¶Look out, UC Berkeley: The âBerkeley Libraryâ naming has been canceled by Irelandâs premier university, Trinity College. A NY Times piece on the change noted that the libraryâs namesake âowned slaves in colonial Rhode Island and wrote pamphlets supportive of slavery.â Unless you are prepared to yield everything, yield nothing.