3d DCA Watch -- Good Luck With the Florida Legislature!

I don't know what I'm more happy about -- that the Beatles are finally on iTunes, or that the turning-children-into-compliant-consumers processing machine otherwise known as Wannado City is finally gone (via SFDB)

I already own all the Beatles records, so I'm going with Wannadon't City.

Let's see what tasty legal morsels the bunker denizens have prepared for us this week:

Markham v. FUAC:

This is a classic hold-your-nose opinion from the 3d, in which a manifest miscarriage of justice occurs to a hapless (now unemployed) citizen, but legal "technicalities" require that he be totally shafted out of unemployment benefits.

From Judge Salter's sympathetic concurrence:

This is another unemployment compensation benefits case in which the employer wins on a technicality and the former employee is denied even the meager safety net provided by law to cushion the trauma of unemployment. While I am obligated to concur in affirming the Commission’s order finding Mr. Markham’s appeal untimely, I write to identify a recurring problem that merits attention by the Legislature and the Agency for Workforce Innovation. That problem is the “short fuse” on procedural defaults applicable to appeals to the Agency.

Judge Ramirez is even more pointed:

Thus, Oak Construction Co., Inc. saved itself the additional unemployment taxes it may have incurred, and can discharge Mr. Markham with impunity. This in the midst of an economic recession and Mr. Markham’s inability to receive any assistance from the Agency for Workforce Innovation. We are powerless to redress this grave injustice.

 While the good Judges' hearts are (as always) in the right place, I'm not so sure the legislature is going to fix this injustice anytime soon.

From today's Herald:

Haridopolos, a college professor, used his opening remarks to set the tone for what he has pledged will be the most conservative Senate in more than 100 years.....Haridopolos warned: ``If your piece of legislation raises a tax, makes it easier to file a lawsuit against a fellow Floridian or increases red tape, then I don't like your chances.''

Looks like you'll have to keep holding your noses a while longer, your honors.