- Federal judge throws out wrongful-termination suit filed by pants suit judge Roy Pearson, he’ll probably appeal [D.C. Examiner] More: Lowering the Bar.
- Sebelius signs documents providing lawsuit immunity for swine flu vaccine developers [Orato]
- How Sacha Baron Cohen keeps from getting sued, part umpteen [The Frisky]
- More on British Chiropractic Association’s defamation suit against skeptic Singh [Citizen Media Law, Orac/Respectful Insolence; earlier here, here, and here]
- Next round of lawsuits against Dov Charney’s American Apparel may allege “looks discrimination”, though that’s probably not actually a relevant legal category [Gawker, Business Insider, earlier here, etc.]
- Demand that Chicago set aside municipal contracts for gay-owned businesses [Sun-Times]
- “Grandstanding anti-Craigslist politicians still not satisfied” [TechDirt, TG Daily]
- Judge Kozinski: this is America, behaving disrespectfully toward a cop isn’t a crime [Greenfield]
Archive for July, 2009
Auto dealerships and Congress
The New York Times’s editorialists are making sense.
“EU to Extinguish Lightbulb Art?”
This fall’s proposed European ban on incandescent bulbs, barbed with $70,000 fines, apparently makes no allowance for the upkeep of “works that take the lightbulb as a primary material, such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Light-Space-Modulator, which uses 140,” among works by Rauschenberg, Olafur Eliasson and a long list of other well-known artists. Another unpleasant effect on the art world will be to constrain the way installations can be lit, even if curators and others believe particular works are best served by incandescent illumination. [ARTINFO.com via Andrew Hazlett]
Orange County taco trucks
And their many legal headaches (via Sullum, “Hit and Run”).
Mississippi: A guilty plea from Judge DeLaughter
A major development in the still-developing Scruggs judicial influence scandals. Coverage: Patsy Brumfield/Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tom Freeland and more, guestblogger S. Todd Brown (Buffalo lawprof) at Point of Law.
Railroad not liable for goose attack
A lawyer for the conductor set upon by the angry fowl argued unsuccessfully that CSX should have detected and removed the goose nest, or at least put orange cones around it. [On Point News, Lowering the Bar]
“Plaintiff’s lawyer talks to Madoff in prison”
The mega-fraudster has turned down innumerable interview requests from others, and was not as forthcoming with prosecutors as they might have liked either, but apparently had a cordial and productive chat Tuesday with high-profile San Francisco plaintiff’s lawyer Joseph Cotchett, who pronounced the scoundrel “an absolute gentleman” and said he “answered every single question”. [Amir Efrati, WSJ Law Blog]
Crackdown in Britain on knives
It extends to wheeled pizza-cutters (via). Earlier here, here, and here.
Tweet critical of business gets woman sued for $50K
Former tenant Amanda Bonnen had just 22 followers on Twitter when she commented in a strongly negative way about Horizon Realty of Chicago. And here’s what a spokesman for Horizon is quoted as saying about its lawsuit:
We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.
[Podcasting News, Mashable] More: WSJ Law Blog, Charles @ Popehat, Volokh, Bayard/Citizen Media Law. And according to a followup in the WSJ Law Blog, Horizon has apologized for the “sue first” comment, characterizing it as tongue in cheek, and says when it filed the libel action it was already the defendant in a lawsuit filed by Bonnen.
Alexandria, Va. police chief touts sobriety checkpoint program
And of course you can guess the sequel. Update: he quits.