Two craft brewers “found themselves on the brink of a product name dispute. Rather than calling in the lawyers, however, they drew upon their brewing talents to concoct a unique solution.” [95 Years]
Archive for April, 2010
Suit: no warning that 10,000-lb. safe was risky to move
Trying to move the contents of his Duval Street store to another location, a jeweler in Key West, Fla. was killed when the enormously heavy object fell on him; his widow’s suit “claims that Mutual Safe Co. and Harwood’s Miami Safe Co. failed to warn her husband of the life-threatening risks involved in moving the 10,000-pound, refrigerator-sized safe, according to the lawsuit filed in Monroe County circuit court Tuesday.” [Adam Linhardt, Key West Citizen; & welcome Lowering the Bar readers]
Facebook page critical of towing company
T & J Towing of Kalamazoo, Mich. has filed a lawsuit demanding $750,000 from the Western Michigan University student who started the Facebook page “Kalamazoo Residents Against T&J Towing“. [WOOD and Consumerist via Switched; Kalamazoo Gazette (Facebook group reaches 10,000 members); & welcome Kashmir Hill/Above the Law readers]
Bad new idea dept.: privacy takedowns
Jim Harper at Cato at Liberty says a proposed “Cyber Privacy Act” introduced by Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) would “regulate every Internet site that has a comment section. He thinks it’s going to protect privacy, but he’s sorely mistaken. Its passage would undermine privacy and limit free speech.”
Lawyer conceals client’s death from opponent
Only after the settlement was in hand did a Minnesota lawyer let slip the rather material fact that his client had some time back departed this earthly frame. [Minneapolis Star-Tribune “The Whistleblower” via ABA Journal] Ironically, the lawyer was suing over a credit report that had mistakenly reported his client as dead (back when he was alive). The lawyer, who had been disciplined seven other times, has now been barred from working for a year.
More: Discussion in comments at Legal Ethics Forum, including Prof. Monroe Freedman: “I disagree with [this kind of] result.”
Court asked to force couple to use township water
The court ruled a while back that an elderly Claysburg, Pa.-area couple, Donald R. and Janet Burket, are legally obliged to hook into the Greenfield Township water system. “They have done that and they are paying the standard monthly rate for township water, but the Burkets contend that while they are hooked into the system, they should not be required to actually use the water for daily living purposes.” Janet Burket says the chlorine bothers her, and the township has gone back to court in search of a court order compelling them to use public water “for all human consumption in the residence,” on pain of contempt fines. [Altoona Mirror, editorial; mediator assigned]
Expansion of hate crimes laws
States have begun to add the homeless as a protected group. Hans Bader offers a critique.
“Birther-In-Chief Orly Taitz Loses Again”
“Among other things, Taitz has had trouble proving that she has standing to pursue these cases, mainly because she doesn’t.” [Lowering the Bar]
61 year old Briton cops to possessing Swiss Army knife
Rodney Knowles, who says he used the device to cut up fruit on picnics with his wife, ran afoul of Britain’s stringent anti-knife laws. [Daily Mail]
FTC blogger regs skewered in Harvard Law Review
As unconstitutional (PDF). Incidentally, this may mark the first time Overlawyered (as distinct from my other writing) has been cited in the HLR — see footnotes 25 and 28. But I’m not really sure.