Subject title via Mark Steyn
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGZiMTQzMzdkZWI2NzEzMmJjMGI4ZjNkNzliMmZlOTM=I was interested to see that Sonia Sotomayor was the judge in the New York Times v. Tasini case, a case close to my heart. The authors of various freelance contributions to the Times sued over the paper's subsequent licensing of their writing to electronic databases that then re-sold the pieces to customers for $3.95 per. It was a fairly obvious breach of the 1976 Copyright Act, as well as of the more basic principle that rights not specifically assigned remain with the owner.
Judge Sotomayor cheerfully sided with the Times, a ruling that (as appears to be not uncommon with this jurist) was subsequently overturned at the Supreme Court — 7-2 (with David Souter being among the seven).
New York Times v. TasiniMark notes that when it's the "Big Guy" (NYT) verses the "Little Guy" (freelance writers) the empathy of Obama's court pick flaunts the Consititution, the individual and common sense in favor of the Liberal's favorite fish wrap. (Quelle surprise)
AND...
Moving from intellectual property to actual property we have example number two.
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_05_24-2009_05_30.shtml#1243364120Sotomayor's Troubling Property Rights Ruling in Didden v. Village of Port Chester: University of Chicago and NYU law professor Richard Epstein points out that Judge Sotomayor was on a Second Circuit panel that issued the unsigned opinion in one of the worst property rights decisions in recent years, in the case of Didden v. Village of Port Chester. This does not bode well for her likely future rulings on property rights issues that come before the Supreme Court. In a 2007 National Law Journal op ed on Didden (no longer available on line, but excerpted here), Epstein and I discussed the facts of this disturbing case:
The U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London generated a backlash on both sides of the political spectrum..... Many of the rear-guard defenders of this ill-conceived decision insisted that abusive condemnations are an aberration in an otherwise sound planning process. They, it turns out, were wrong. Didden v. Village of Port Chester, a most unfortunate decision out of the 2d U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, helps demonstrate the shortcomings of their optimistic view.
In 1999, the village of Port Chester, N.Y., established a "redevelopment area" and gave its designated developer, Gregg Wasser, a virtual blank check to condemn property within it. In 2003, property owners Bart Didden and Dominick Bologna approached Wasser for permission to build a CVS pharmacy on land they own inside the zone. His response: Either pay me $800,000 or give me a 50% partnership interest in the CVS project. Wasser threatened to have the local government condemn the land if his demands weren't met. When the owners refused to oblige, their property was condemned the next day.
Didden and Bologna challenged the condemnation in federal court, on the grounds that it was not for a "public use," as the Fifth Amendment requires. Their view, quite simply, was that out-and-out extortion does not qualify as a public use. Nonetheless, the 2d Circuit . . . upheld this flexing of political muscle.
That's only two though they do not bode well at all for individual (see: Constitutional) rights in the USofA. You can really get things going research-wise at the last link of the OP...
NRO's Bench memo's...
"Her Majesty Sonia Sotomayor" (here be tons o' "ammunition")
