Posts Tagged ‘Cleveland’

Ohio: county yanks obese child from family

“An 8-year-old Cleveland Heights boy was taken from his family and placed in foster care last month after county case workers said his mother wasn’t doing enough to control his weight.” Lawyers for the mother of the >200-lb. boy “think the county has overreached in this case by arguing that medical conditions the boy is at risk for — but doesn’t yet have — pose an imminent danger to his health.” The county claims that the mother has ignored doctor’s orders, which she denies. [Rachel Dissell, Cleveland Plain Dealer; see correction on weight in comments]

P.S. As several press accounts note, the issue has been building for a while, notably this summer when Harvard researchers published a piece in JAMA calling for wider removal of obese children from homes.

July 28 roundup

  • Wild hypotheticals were grist for complaint: “Widener law professor cleared of harassment charges” [NLJ, earlier here, here, here]
  • Ninth Circuit: Facebook didn’t breach user’s right to accommodation of mental disability [Volokh]
  • House Judiciary hearing on litigation and economic prosperity [Wajert]
  • “University of Michigan to stop worrying about lawsuits, start releasing orphan works” [Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing]
  • PBS airs “The Story Behind Wacky Warning Labels” [Bob Dorigo Jones]
  • Fifth Circuit “candy cane” religion-in-schools case controversial among conservatives [David Upham, NR Bench Memos]
  • Great moments in public records law [Cleveland Plain Dealer, earlier related]

August 5 roundup

  • Wouldn’t it be nice if Congress lifted the ban on Internet gambling [Steve Chapman]
  • Design of New Orleans shotgun houses is an adaptation to tax laws [Candy Chang]
  • Lawyer-enriching Costco class action settlement draws an objection from a blogger often linked in this space [Amy Alkon]
  • “Fourth Circuit slaps down N.C. attorney general’s suit against TVA” [Wood/PoL, Jackson]
  • South Carolina jury’s $2.375 million award based on premise that Nissan should have followed European, not U.S. crashworthiness standards [Abnormal Use]
  • City of Cleveland won’t take no for answer in dumb lawsuit against mortgage lenders [Funnell]
  • Charles H. Green at TrustMatters hosts Blawg Review #275;
  • Duke lacrosse fiasco: Nifong’s media and law-school enablers [three years ago at Overlawyered]

April 4 roundup

Ohio: Turning the table on a serial ADA plaintiff

Cleveland federal judge Donald Nugent has dismissed a disabled-access lawsuit by Bonnie Kramer against a real estate management company and allowed a counterclaim to go forward against Kramer and her lawyers “alleging abuse of process, fraud, civil conspiracy to commit fraud, spoliation and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations violations”. Kramer, a self-styled “tester”, has been plaintiff in more than 100 actions under the ADA. [Andrew Longstreth, American Lawyer] More on “Disabled Patriots of America” group: Charlie Deitch, Pittsburgh City Paper.

Security guard who slept on job loses lawsuit

Night-shift security guard Theodore Rongers had argued that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, his hospital employer “had a duty to reasonably accommodate the side effect of his heart medication by permitting him to sleep during his shift”. [Ohio Employer’s Law Blog; Rongers v. University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Ct. of Appeals, May 7 (PDF)] I discussed sleeping guards who were more successful in saving their jobs in my book The Excuse Factory (Google Books, limited search), published a decade ago and excerpted at the time in Washington Monthly (see also).

“Innovative” city suits against foreclosing lenders

City governments, sometimes in league with private counsel working on contingency fee, “have started suing banks and mortgage companies to recoup their costs” on such services as “fire departments, police, code enforcement or even demolition” in blighted neighborhoods. “The lawsuits were filed in recent months under different theories, in state and federal court. Cleveland and Buffalo filed suits under public nuisance laws. Minneapolis’ suit was brought on consumer fraud grounds, while Baltimore took the unusual approach of filing suit in federal court under alleged Fair Housing Act violations.” Bank of New York says it was included in Buffalo’s suit against 39 lenders even though it neither originated nor purchased loans, but merely acted as trustee. (Julie Kay, “Empty Homes Spur Cities’ Suits”, National Law Journal, May 9).