Sports doctors say more youngsters are coming in with arm injuries from excessive hard pitching on the baseball field. In Washington state, Jason Koenig has lost his lawsuit claiming that North Mason High School was negligent in not overriding his wishes to stay in for all nine innings, 140 pitches, in a game in April 2001, resulting in injury to his arm. (Tom Wyrwich, “Former high school pitcher hopes rules are changed to protect young arms”, Seattle Times, Apr. 29).
Author Archive
Ashley Alexandra Dupré sues “Girls Gone Wild”
“Kristen” from the Spitzer affair wants $10 million, saying the notorious video series photographed her when she was 17, not the requisite 18 — it seems likely that she had a hand in this deception herself — and now owes her $10 million for injury to her “business, reputation and good will”. (Curt Anderson, “Spitzer call girl sues ‘Girls Gone Wild’ for $10 million”, AP/Philly.com, Apr. 28; WSJ law blog, Apr. 29).
Academic litigation, cont’d: Dartmouth lecturer says she’ll sue students
“Priya Venkatesan (Dartmouth ’90, MS in Genetics, PhD in literature) emailed members of her Winter ’08 Writing 5 class Saturday night to announce her intention to seek damages from them for their being mean to her.” Venkatesan, who is working on a book entitled A Postmodernist in the Laboratory, was the instructor in a class called Science, Technology and Society, evidently an example of the Science Studies genre. “Essentially, I am pursuing litigation to see if I have a legal claim, that is, if the inappropriate and unprofessional behavior I was subjected to as a Research Associate and Lecturer at Dartmouth constitutes discrimination and harrassment [sic] on the basis of ethnicity, race and gender. This includes not just students, but a few faculty members that I worked with.” (Gawker, Apr. 29; Dartlog, Apr. 26; IvyGate, Apr. 29; Above the Law, Apr. 29).
Law professor sues his students
Richard Peltz, a specialist in media and First Amendment law at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, says he feels like a pariah after two students active in the school’s Black Law Students Association made “false accusations of racism” about him. Civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate, often quoted on the subject of campus free speech, contends that even if Peltz is correctly characterizing the students’ talk about him, a lawsuit is the wrong way to proceed. (Above the Law, Apr. 29; Michelle Hillen, “Experts watch as professor sues students”, Arkansas Online, Apr. 27). More: Bainbridge, Althouse, Caron (rounding up links).
Jerry Springer to deliver Northwestern Law commencement
Well, at least it may help take some of the media spotlight away from Prof. Bernardine Dohrn. (Above the Law; Chicago Tribune; FoxNews.com).
April 29 roundup
- “Dog owners in Switzerland will have to pass a test to prove they can control and care for their animal, or risk losing it, the Swiss government said yesterday.” [Daily Telegraph]
- 72-year-old mom visits daughter’s Southport, Ct. home, falls down stairs searching for bathroom at night, sues daughter for lack of night light, law firm boasts of her $2.475 million win on its website [Casper & deToledo, scroll to “Jeremy C. Virgil”]
- Can’t possibly be right: “Every American enjoys a constitutional right to sue any other American in a West Virginia court” [W.V. Record]
- Video contest for best spoof personal injury attorney ads [Sick of Lawsuits; YouTube]
- Good profile of Kathleen Seidel, courageous blogger nemesis of autism/vaccine litigation [Concord Monitor*, Orac]. Plus: all three White House hopefuls now pander to anti-vaxers, Dems having matched McCain [Orac]
- One dollar for every defamed Chinese person amounts to a mighty big lawsuit demand against CNN anchor Jack Cafferty [NYDN link now dead; Independent (U.K.)]
- Hapless Ben Stein whipped up one side of the street [Salmon on financial regulation] and down the other [Derbyshire on creationism]
- If only Weimar Germany had Canada-style hate-speech laws to prevent the rise of — wait, you mean they did? [Steyn/Maclean’s] Plus: unlawful in Alberta to expose a person to contempt based on his “source of income” [Levant quoting sec. 3 (1)(b) of Human Rights Law]
- Hey, these coupon settlements are giving all of us class action lawyers a bad name [Leviant/The Complex Litigator]
- Because patent law is bad enough all by itself? D.C. Circuit tosses out FTC’s antitrust ruling against Rambus [GrokLaw; earlier]
- “The fell attorney prowls for prey” — who wrote that line, and about which city? [four years ago on Overlawyered]
*Okay, one flaw in the profile: If Prof. Irving Gottesman compares Seidel to Erin Brockovich he probably doesn’t know much about Brockovich.
Update: court nixes “Deal or No Deal” lawsuit
Updating a Feb. 28 post:
The Supreme Court of Georgia has said “no deal” to a team of Columbus lawyers representing a proposed class of people seeking to recover money they spent participating in a feature of the NBC hit show “Deal or No Deal.”
The suit filed in federal court had contended that the Lucky Case Game — in which viewers, like the contestants on “Deal or No Deal,” try to pick a lucky suitcase — ran afoul of Georgia law because participants were charged 99 cents to play through their cell phones. The plaintiffs based their suit on a colonial-era Georgia statute that allows gamblers to recover their losses through lawsuits.
(Alyson M. Palmer, “Luck Runs Dry for ‘Deal’ Plaintiffs in Lawsuit Against NBC”, Fulton County Daily Report, Apr. 22).
Law school diversity, the compulsory way
It’s done through the ABA accreditation process (Gail Heriot, “The ABA’s ‘Diversity’ Diktat”, Wall Street Journal, Apr. 28).
Staggered sports schedules: and then came the bill
We’ve reported before (Dec. 24-27, 2001; May 7, 2005; parallel case in New York, Jul. 10, 2004) on the lawsuit charging Michigan high school sports directors with sex discrimination for scheduling girls’ sports in different seasons than boys’. Such cases are subject to “one-way” attorney fee shifting (plaintiffs collect if they win, but need not fear paying if they lose) and the rules for fee calculations are generous. Now the judge has approved a plaintiff’s fee that the athletic directors’ association say threatens to push their group into bankruptcy; opponents say it’s their own fault for resisting so long. Nearly $3 million in fees plus interest are set to go to Kristen Galles, a solo practitioner in Alexandria, Va., whose large number of billed hours at $390/hour may relate to her having worked without a paralegal or secretary. (Julie Mack, “Michigan High School Athletic Association owes $7.4 million in legal fees, interest to lawyers who won case to change the girls sports season”, Kalamazoo Gazette, Apr. 21)(via ABA Journal); “Athletic Group Ordered To Pay $7M”, AP/LexisOne, Apr. 2).
The right to be poisoned, cont’d
Another case, this time from Brooklyn, about how it’s terribly discriminatory and wrong and just plain mean for a landlord not to want to rent to a family with small kids on the grounds that old lead paint, dangerous to small kids, can be found on the premises. (Andy Newman, “Couple’s Suit Accuses Real Estate Firm of Bias Against Children”, New York Times, Apr. 25). For a similar case from Baltimore, see Nov. 30, 2000.