As readers may recall (May 2; Mar. 29, 2004) a judge this spring dismissed an antitrust class action suit filed by a Minneapolis law firm which had claimed that Madison, Wis. campus-area taverns unlawfully colluded to discontinue “happy hour” and similar discounts. As the taverns showed, the demise of the happy hour discounts came after pressure from university and government-sponsored groups which alleged that the discounts contributed to overuse of alcohol on campus. Now, nothing discouraged, the same law firm is back, suing in federal court this time. Its action “accuses 25 downtown bars of charging patrons excessive amounts for drinks, and names Chancellor John Wiley and two city officials for conspiring” in the price rises. (Daily Cardinal, Oct. 6)(via Althouse).
Author Archive
Update: custard finger-finder sues
Clarence Stowers, the North Carolina man who gained notoriety (see May 9) for refusing to return the employee’s fingertip he found in a mouthful of frozen custard, thus preventing doctors from reattaching it to its owner — it was more valuable to Stowers as evidence, you see — has now filed the inevitable lawsuit against Kohl’s Frozen Custard and the Carvel Corporation, which made the mixing machine. Stowers says he suffered post-traumatic syndrome and nightmares and wants money for that. People who have nightmares about Stowers himself, however, are out of luck lawsuit-wise. (“Man Who Bit Finger In Custard Sues”, AP/CBS News, Oct. 7).
Site upgrade update
* After much tinkering over the past two days I’ve settled for the moment on a modified version of Lilia Ahner’s style Stevenson from the Movable Type style library. Fonts are bigger than in the first Wednesday design, and readability better, but I’m still hearing from readers saying they’d like access to a style-switch or font-enlargement option. Anyone know of one that’s easy to install on a MT site?
* TrackBacks are back, at least for the moment. MT 3.2 supports TrackBack preapproval, and it remains to be seen whether the former rate of 200+ spams a day will resume now that TrackBacks do not appear automatically.
* I’ve installed a handy new archives page collecting links to archives through mid-2003 (earlier archives are here), and fixed (via redirects) the broken URLs on monthly and category archives generated by the earlier version of Movable Type. That still leaves a problem with the 2,700 or so individual links generated by the earlier version, each of which now exists in two versions: a new descriptive-word-URL version, and the old numbered-individual-URL version. Rather than let the old links break, I moved the whole lot of them to the new site via FTP, but this leaves two problems: 1) each exists in two versions now, which is likely to confuse the many visitors who reach this page via search engines; 2) the old version now fails to display styles properly. The logical next step would be to install redirects for all the old URLs, but MT seems unable to generate a simple list mapping old onto new posts for this purpose. If any technically inclined readers can help out on this, drop me a line.
Suing anonymous bloggers
The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled that a defamation plaintiff is not automatically entitled to compel an internet service provider to lay bare the blogger’s identity, absent a showing of sufficient facts supporting the defamation case to defeat a motion for summary judgment. (J.L. Miller, “Del. court protects blogger’s identity”, WIlmington News-Journal, Oct. 6; Francis Pileggi, Oct. 6). Prof. Bainbridge (Oct. 6) calls it “a major win for bloggers and the First Amendment.”
The bear’s death warrant? Public liability
We’ve reported before (Mar. 18, 2004) on how, after court decisions in Arizona eroded the state’s longstanding immunity from being sued over the actions of wild animals, lawyers began obtaining large verdicts from public managers over humans’ harmful encounters with wildlife — with the result that managers began moving to a “when in doubt, take it doubt” policy of slaughtering wild creatures that might pose even a remote threat to people. The continuing results of the policy came in for some public discussion last month after a bear wandered into a residential area near Rumsey Park in Payson, Ariz. and was euthanized by Arizona Game and Fish personnel:
[Ranger Cathe] Descheemaker said that the two Game and Fish officials were no doubt following procedure, and that bears are routinely destroyed ever since the agency was sued when a bear mauled a 16-year-old girl in 1996 on Mt. Lemmon near Tucson.
“Since Game and Fish lost that lawsuit, they do not relocate any bears,” she said. “The fact that bear was in town was its death warrant.”
(Jim Keyworth, “Bear found near Rumsey Park destroyed”, Payson Roundup, Sept. 6). For another set of complications that can arise from public liability for wildlife — namely, pressure to close off the general public’s access to wilderness — see Mar. 29.
Sensitivity in the U.K.
“Novelty pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office — in case they offend Muslim staff. Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.” (“Muslims win toy pigs ban”, The Sun, recent undated; Mark Steyn, “Making a pig’s ear of defending democracy”, DailyTelegraph, Oct. 4; Bookworm Room, Oct. 4). And: “Prison staff have been told to stop wearing Cross of St George tiepins because they could be ‘misinterpreted” as a racist symbol. Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, was ‘concerned” to see a number of officers at Wakefield jail in Yorkshire wearing the tiepins, apparently in support of a cancer charity.” The Cross of St. George is the English national flag. (Philip Johnston, “Prison bans Cross of St George tiepins”, Daily Telegraph, Oct. 4).
“Man Sues Online Dating Service After Being Rejected”
“Soheil Davood claims his paid subscription to JDate.com, billed as ‘the world’s largest Jewish singles community,’ guaranteed that he would find ‘high-quality, successful Jewish personals without wasting precious time.'” However, he claims that “SuperFriendlyGal” didn’t turn out to live up to her name, and (he alleges) after some initially enticing chat dumped him harshly. “Davood, who is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, claims the Web site is ‘defective’ because it was poorly designed and monitored, which exposed him to ‘serious psychological injury.'” (NBC4.TV, Sept. 20)(via Jeff Lewis).
Errin’ on the airwaves
Tom Bray of the Detroit News weighs in on the controversy over the Harvard School of Public Health’s decision to give an award to Erin Brockovich (earlier: Sept. 30) and points out that the glamourpuss toxic-tort-chaser is making a push into TV:
She is listed as the executive producer of an upcoming NBC series titled “Class Action,” which will lionize a team of fictional plaintiff’s attorneys who specialize in class-action lawsuits.
(“Radical parody threatens environmental movement”, Oct. 2)(via Toxic Tort News).
“I am not a puppy. Don’t try to train me”
California’s new law requiring all supervisors to experience sensitivity training to prevent sexual harassment (see Oct. 22, 2004) draws an eloquently annoyed response from Mark Kleiman (Sept. 30)(via Cathy Young, who has her own blog now). His follow-up post (Oct. 3) is equally worth reading, and includes a rude acronym for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
Rehosted (and on MT 3.2)
You can probably tell by the slightly altered style that this is the new version of Overlawyered rehosted on Hosting Matters and powered by the new Movable Type 3.2. A few points:
* I expect to be tinkering further with the style. In particular, I’d like to reduce the wasted space, widen the right sidebar, and give readers a way to increase font size, especially on the sidebar. (Update: I’ve done some of these things in the course of the day, and will be checking out some further suggestions from readers.) Suggestions are welcome, especially from readers who are familiar with Movable Type and stylesheets, I myself being an amateur.
* The new version of MT stores archives using a different filename format. This will result in some broken links for archives and older topical pages, at least temporarily, although I expect to install redirects that will help. All of the archives remain accessible through date-based browsing (see sidebar on front page) as well as through site search (more than one search may be necessary, though).
* I’ve cross-posted a few items I posted over the past two weeks at Point of Law. I trust all of you have bookmarked that site by now, and you should go on visiting it even after regular posting at this site resumes.
P.S. Well, at least we’ve got the serifs back now.