Once again, second thoughts prove unavailing after modesty is cast to the winds: “A magazine that published a photograph of a woman baring her breasts at a pig roast for motorcycle enthusiasts did not intrude on her privacy, a federal judge has ruled. Tonya Barnhart sued Paisano Publications LLC, publisher of Easyriders magazine, after it ran the picture of her in its March 2005 issue, claiming unreasonable intrusion, false light invasion of privacy and appropriation of her likeness.” But U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz of Maryland ruled against Barnhart on summary judgment. Her behavior “cannot reasonably be said to have constituted a private act,” Motz wrote. “She exposed herself at an outdoor fundraising event open to any members of the public who purchased a ticket.” (“Judge: Photo of woman baring her breasts didn’t violate privacy”, Examiner.com, Oct. 23; “Woman Can’t Sue Magazine After Flashing Breasts”, AP/WBAL, Oct. 23; link to Memorandum and Order). Similar: Jul. 4, 2006, etc.
Author Archive
School discipline, by the numbers
“To avoid charges of ‘racism,’ we disciplined black and white students differently.” (Edmund Janko, City Journal/OpinionJournal.com, Oct. 25). According to the byline, “Mr. Janko taught in the English department of Bayside High School in New York City from 1957 to 1990.”.
Mysterious awards dept.
Update: appeals court tosses $18M Gannett verdict
Following urgings by prominent attorney and frequent Overlawyered mentionee Willie Gary, a jury in Pensacola, Fla. had awarded the sum to a road builder who said he was defamed by an investigative-journalism piece in the newspaper chain’s Pensacola News-Journal (Mar. 30-31, 2001; Dec. 23, 2003; Jan. 7, 2004). The Florida appeals court “ruled that Joe Anderson’s case should have been dismissed because he mischaracterized his lawsuit as a ‘false-light claim’ to get around a two-year statute of limitations that applies in libel cases. The court said that since its decision was based on the statute-of-limitations issue, it did not rule on several other arguments for reversal raised by the newspaper.” (Ginny Graybiel, “News Journal suit reversed”, Oct. 21).
Update: Giving the state a share of punitives
Remember the legislation proposed in California by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Jun. 2, 2004), and passed amid much hoopla, asserting a claim by the state to 75 percent of punitive damage awards? It’s raised “not even a penny” for the state’s Public Benefit Trust Fund, reports John Howard for Capital Weekly (“Behind-the-scenes shell game marked punitive-damages plan”, Sept. 7). This is pretty much what I predicted in my WSJ op-ed at the time; it’s just too easy for lawyers to escape the law’s reach by settling cases before final judgment (if necessary, characterizing the sums that change hands as compensatory only). Decs and Excs Sept. 20 also points out peculiarities in the law’s specified time span of coverage that would have encouraged evasive action. Schwarzenegger has now vetoed a renewal of the law, but on grounds that the renewal had been saddled with amendments added without adequate discussion; he left the door open to reconsider the issue next year.
EEOC challenges Exxon’s pilot age limit
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued ExxonMobil last month over its policy of requiring pilots of its planes to retire at age 60. The federal agency prefers individualized assessments of age-related inability to handle the duties of the job — which in this case might mean that an employer would start the removal process for an elderly pilot only after a legally bulletproof file had been assembled documenting the pilot’s decline in capabilities.
Exxon Mobil spokesman Russ Roberts said the company’s policy addressed the issue of safety and was modeled after Federal Aviation Administration guidelines. He said the policy is long-standing and consistent, not arbitrary and discriminatory.
“Our pilots face the same challenges commercial pilots do flying large, complex, high-speed jets,” he said. “We told the EEOC that we would not change our safety practices in response to complaints filed by pilots.”
(Steve Quinn, “Suit Accuses Exxon of Age Discrimination”, AP/CBSNews.com, Sept. 23). At the Denver Post, columnist Al Lewis discusses this and other recent age-bias lawsuits (“Gray hair + pink slip = lawsuit”, Sept. 27). More on the subject: Oct. 19, etc.
“We’re Google. So Sue Us”
The company almost seems to base its business plan on stepping into legal trouble (Katie Hafner, New York Times, Oct. 19).
“Consent”
With echoes of the debate over campus “sexual consent” policies, here’s a funny short film that has been around for a while, but which I didn’t hear about until lately. It’s directed by Jason Reitman, who went on to do Thank You For Smoking. Adult content (original from Atom Films/YouTube version)(h/t: reader M.C.).
Law firm extracts $200 million in class action
…and gets sued for malpractice by a second law firm contending that even more would have been extracted had the winning lawyers thrown in a claim under California’s wide-open unfair competition law. Result: San Francisco’s Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff has agreed to pay $1.5 million to resolve the claims (whether “for nuisance value” or “in contemplation of losing” will have to be left for others to decide), malpractice insurance rates for plaintiff’s lawyers may experience upward pressure, and class action lawyers have been sent a lesson, namely that they’d better throw in every colorable charge to play it safe in future. The underlying lawsuit was an overtime action against the Farmers Insurance group. (Matthew Hirsch, “Rudy Exelrod Settles Malpractice Suit”, The Recorder/Law.com, Oct. 11; Internet and Class Action Law Blog, Oct. 11).
Patenting tax avoidance strategies
Notes New York Times columnist Floyd Norris: “Now you may face a patent infringement suit if you use a tax strategy someone else thought of first. …a federal appeals court ruled in 1998 that business methods can be patented, and since then the Patent Office has issued 49 tax-strategy patents, with many more pending.” Paul Caron has more (Oct. 20; Floyd Norris, “Patent law is getting tax crazy”, NYT/IHT, Oct. 19; Slashdot).
P.S. At Slashdot, commenter msobkow writes: “Patience. It’s a matter of time before the remains of SCO patent the use of patent lawsuits as a business model. The hope would be to get into a lawsuit over that patent, creating a potential infinite recursion and thereby an infinite revenue stream out of thin air.”