Stay in the know with IJ's Short Circuit

The Institute for Justice has created a free weekly case alert service for those interested in knowing about noteworthy federal circuit cases. The publication, Short Circuit, is a weekly Friday e-mail with entertaining and opinionated short summaries of new cases with links to the opinions. It's not comprehensive, to be sure: IJ describes it as "an inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal." And it's also still in beta form. But I've been getting the summaries for seven weeks now, and I hope it continues. Here's an excerpt from this week's e-mail:

Fun fact: If you rent-to-own a laptop computer, the company renting it may have installed spyware that takes pictures of you and screenshots of what you're looking at. Also, the 3rd Circuit believes that you are a member of an ascertainable class.

"But your Honor, can kidnapping really be considered a 'crime of violence?'" "Yes. Yes it can," says the 4th Circuit.

People who work on the back end of garbage trucks are called "hoppers." Used in a sentence: The 5th Circuit held it was improper for district court to order employer to negotiate with the hoppers' union, because the employer's conduct wasn't egregious.

If you commit a petty offense in a federal enclave, you have no right to a trial before an Article III judge; a magistrate judge will do just fine. So holds the 5th Circuit over a vigorous dissent.

If a police officer leaves you handcuffed, face down, in the middle of the road, at night, while wearing dark clothes, and you are hit by a car and suffer severe brain damage as a result, then the 6th Circuit thinks a jury might find that the officer acted with deliberate indifference to your safety.

Senator sues, arguing that Office of Personnel and Management has no authority to override provision of ACA requiring Congress and staff to purchase health insurance through those crummy exchanges. 7th Circuit: Being treated like a more-equal pig may be embarrassing, but it's not a redressable injury. No standing for you!

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