Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2009

Guestblogger thanks; best-blog contests

Many thanks to SSFC for his reader-applauded (and marathon-length) stint guest blogging while I finished a deadline over the holidays. Be sure to check out his blogging at Social Services for Feral Children, where he’s written a nice post on his experience here. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him back in this space before too long. ABA Journal blawg contest

On a different note, today is the last day of voting in the ABA Journal’s annual best law blog contest, so it’s the last occasion for us to pester you on it. We’ve run up a very decent vote but two other sites put on a big effort to win the “Niche” category this year and we’ll probably lose to one of them (unless Michelle Malkin tells her readers to vote for us or something). Whether or not we win, a strong showing brings visibility to this site, so thanks again for voting. And I’m happy to learn that Overlawyered has now made it to the finalist list for the first time at a second and quite well-known blog award competition. That one hasn’t started yet, so I’ll wait on giving it a proper announcement until Monday when voting begins, but you can see a preview here.

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Lure cat down from tree? No, someone might sue

Brutis the cat in Phoenix, Ariz. is safe now, but not until after a bit of hard feeling with the neighbor whose property he’d wandered on to:

[the Humane Society] suggested [owner] Michael leave food and water at the base of the tree, something Michael said he couldn’t do because his police officer neighbor would not let him back on the property.

Michael said the officer told him he was concerned that if someone got hurt while trying to get the cat on his property, he would be liable.

“He said no because of insurance,” explained Michael.

(ABC15.com).

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The law does not concern itself with trifling pinball-machine depictions

“The unauthorized placement of a pinball machine in a Mel Gibson movie might have technically violated the copyright laws but it is not actionable, a federal judge has ruled.” In the 2000 movie “What Women Want”, a Silver Slugger pinball machine is fleetingly visible in one scene, never for more than a few seconds at a time. Judge Denny Chin sensibly ruled that the pinball maker had no right to sue Paramount for royalties given that the machine is a mere element of the background: “It never appears by itself or in a close-up. It is never mentioned and plays no role in the plot.” (Mark Hamblett, NYLJ). Earlier here, here, etc.

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