Update: Blockbuster late fees

To settle litigation filed by the attorneys general of 47 states, the Blockbuster video chain

has agreed to take down the “No Late Fees” signs in its video stores. Customers will continue to pay extra to rent movies for longer than a week — but Blockbuster won’t call that a late fee.

It will be a “restocking” fee or something similar.

The company also agreed to make refunds available for some customers who paid under the earlier policy, and to pay $630,000 to the state AGs for their pains. New Hampshire and Vermont declined to join the action, with the head of consumer protection in New Hampshire explaining that there hadn’t been complaints from his state’s customers; New Jersey continues to pursue its own suit (see Mar. 10). (Michael D. Sorkin, “Blockbuster settles case over signs advertising no late fees”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mar. 30; Peter Lewis, “State settles Blockbuster late-fee allegations”, Seattle Times, Mar. 30; “N.H. opts out of Blockbuster late fees settlement”, Portsmouth Herald News, Mar. 31).

Filed under: attorneys general, class actions, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Seattle, Vermont

Parking under the influence

Under Alabama law, if you’ve had too much to drink and decide to sleep it off in your parked car, officers can and do arrest you for DUI, no matter that the keys never left your pocket. A sheriff explains that, after all, the inebriate might wake up and decide to start up the car, so it’s better to make an arrest (which carries a penalty for a first offense that includes loss of license) before that can happen (“Drunks Arrested For Parking Under the Influence”, WAFF Huntsville, Apr. 13; Sheryl Marsh, Decatur Daily, Apr. 12) (via Balko who got it from DUIblog, who has more).

Filed under: Alabama, crime and punishment

Compulsive gambler

Donald Carroll says the Borgata casino in Atlantic City was too helpful in getting his credit reinstated. (Judy DeHaven, “Gambler says Borgata took him on limo ride back to debt”, Newark Star-Ledger, Apr. 3). See Apr. 28, 2004 and links from there (& letter to the editor, May 10).

Filed under: compulsive gambling, personal responsibility

Wal-Mart vs. Kevin Brancato

Kevin Brancato, a Ph.D. candidate at George Mason who heads the masthead at the economics blog Truck and Barter, also publishes a weblog entirely devoted to following the fortunes (policy and otherwise) of the Wal-Mart Corporation, by the name of AlwaysLowPrices.net (see our cites to it on Apr. 13, 2004 and Apr. 6, 2005). In contrast to the Wal-Mart-bashing line taken by so many other sites, Brancato frequently, though not invariably, rises to the defense of the company and the efficiencies of its way of doing business. This has done nothing to prevent Wal-Mart’s lawyers from sending him a cease and desist letter ordering him to vacate the name and URL “AlwaysLowPrices”, a phrase which is of course Wal-Mart’s service mark. (T&B, Apr. 5). Kevin Heller at TechLawAdvisor (Apr. 6) doesn’t think he stands much of a chance if Wal-Mart goes to court.

Filed under: bloggers and the law, online speech, trademarks, Wal-Mart

Medevac helicopters

Getting more of a workout in Pennsylvania these days, what with neurosurgeons and trauma centers becoming scarcer outside the biggest cities (Reid Kanaley and Dawn Fallik, “Medevacs becoming more frequent fliers”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 18).

Filed under: medical, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Falls off his mountain bike

By reader acclaim, from Canada:

A mountain biker who launched a million-dollar lawsuit after falling off his bike has lit a fire under Collingwood area bike enthusiasts who fear the suit will close their trails. James Leone is suing the Toronto Outing Club and its Kolapore Uplands Wilderness Ski Trails Committee as well as the Town of The Blue Mountains, the Grey-Bruce Trails Network and the province for an accident he had while mountain biking last August.

The 31-year-old personal injury lawyer from Toronto claims he suffered fractured vertebrae and several soft-tissue injuries when his bicycle came to an abrupt stop after hitting a hole in the trail, sending him over the handlebars.

A trail specialist with the International Mountain Bike Association, Laura Woolner, said the case could have an “enormous impact on non-profit clubs” because of the need to buy expensive insurance: “Essentially it could shut them down,” she said. (Tracy McLaughlin, “Lawsuit a threat to trails”, Toronto Sun, Apr. 17). Fark has a long, disrespectful thread. More: the hazards of mountain biking also figured in Ted’s Mar. 29 entry.

Filed under: Canada, personal responsibility

Confucianism and hyperlitigation

Decline and Fall of Western Civilization (that’s the name of the blog) on some antecedents of overzealous use of the courts (lower case in original):

it seems we are far from the first society to be so enthralled. china under the 17th c qing dynasty saw the rise of the songshi, the “litigation master”, who was blamed for a massive litigation backlog that overwhelmed the system of adjudication and worked to undermine the classical and confucian principles of harmonious social behavior. (the songshi were ultimately proscribed in the 18th and 19th c.) the elizabethan pettifogger is another derisory example from an age that saw itself awash in trivial litigation.

“Gaius Marius”, who writes the blog, has more on Confucius-influenced attitudes toward litigation as disharmonious and a breach of the social peace; the word songgun apparently translates from the Chinese as “litigation hooligan”. All that plus a kind reference to this site as “invaluable” (Mar. 14).

Childhood bully loses appeal against Eminem

“A man who bullied Eminem at school has been told he cannot sue the superstar over lyrics in which the rapper claimed he was almost killed by his schoolmate. A Michigan appeals court dismissed DeAngelo Bailey’s legal action because most fans would not take Eminem’s story of a vicious attack seriously.” (“Eminem safe from bully’s lawsuit”, BBC, Apr. 16; Ben Schmitt, “Eminem’s bully loses court appeal”, Detroit Free Press, Apr. 16). More: opinion (PDF) courtesy ALP.

Filed under: Michigan, music and musicians

Update: copyrightable yoga sequences

A federal judge ruled last month that the current state of intellectual property law does not necessarily preclude Bikram Choudhury’s claim to copyright over a particular sequence of yoga postures; litigation continues in the case (see Feb. 9, 2004). (“Yoga Is Focus in Groundbreaking Copyright Case”, PrimeZone/Linux Insider, Apr. 9). The Seattle Times (“Download”, Apr. 4) notes that Choudhury’s adversaries, a group of yoga instructors calling themselves Open Source Yoga Unity (OSYU), say they have banded together to fight the “litigious position of Bikram Choudhury”: “Hmmm, you have to wonder what that position might look like in the studio.”

Update: Illinois Senate defeats gun-suit bills

On Apr. 7 I wrote (prematurely as it turned out) that the Illinois legislature had killed two bills which would have encouraged lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers, the bills having been defeated in the Judiciary committee of the Illinois Senate. Sought by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the bills were aimed in part at reviving his litigation against gun dealers and manufacturers, which had been thrown out by the state Supreme Court. However, Daley’s allies in the legislature hastily got a different committee in the state’s upper house, the Executive Committee, which is more heavily dominated by members from Chicago, to give its narrow approval to the measures in order to bring them to the floor (Brian Mackey, “Gun-control measures approved”, Copley/Peoria Journal-Star, Apr. 14). To no avail: the full Senate defeated both measures Thursday night by 24-31 votes. (John O’Connor, “Gun bills fail to pass Senate”, AP/Bloomington Pantagraph, Apr. 15).

Filed under: guns, Illinois