…resulted in a pro se suit from a black customer alleging that the airing of the popular country song constituted racial discrimination. The Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss the suit against the Wichita, Kansas restaurant. (Brackens v. Texas Roadhouse in Wichita (PDF); Mississippi Law Blog, Feb. 6).
Incidentally, even before posting this item, this website already provides one of the very few current search hits on “Redneck Woman” + “Fifth Circuit”.
Last month, Micheal Ray Richardson, the coach of the Continental Basketball Association’s Albany Patroons, lost his job after reports in the local paper, the Albany Times Union, that he had allegedly made anti-Semitic and anti-gay comments. Now Richardson, according to reports, is planning to file a lawsuit against the newspaper this week for $5 million for defamation for these news reports. Obviously, if the newspaper report was false, Richardson would have a strong case. But I think he may want to work on his arguments just a little bit:
Richardson, a former Knicks first-round draft pick, did not deny that he uttered the gay slur at a group of fans that were harassing him, but said that it was not meant as a homophobic slur.
Moreover, although he claims that his comments were mischaracterized, with one exception, he doesn’t seem to deny his remarks about Jews, either:
“Micheal recalls saying ‘Jewish lawyer,’ not ‘Jew,’ ” his lawyer, John Aretakis, told The Post.
Oh. I might have been inclined to take this lawsuit more seriously, except that the lawyer’s name struck my eye. It’s our old friend, John Aretakis. (I guess meritless lawsuits against the Catholic Church don’t pay all the bills.) But at least he doesn’t pretend it isn’t about the money:
“This is stupid political correctness gone mad,” said Aretakis, who told The Post that representatives from the Times Union asked him, “Would an apology make this lawsuit go away?”
“The answer is no,” Aretakis said.
Unfortunately for Richardson, if media reports are right, Aretakis — besides misspelling his own client’s name — seems to have misunderstood the legal standard for defamation, inventing a theory of “malice” (based on the notion that the reporter was getting revenge on the team because his car was towed by the team two years ago) that ignores the requirement that the story be untrue.
Last month, Mohammed A. Hussain went to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore for a medical procedure. Before it began, he wanted to pray; he alleges he was mistreated by a hospital security guard, who “proceeded to manhandle him, yell racial epithets at him, push him down the corridor and order him to exit the hospital.”
So, on Friday Hussain filed a $30 million lawsuit, alleging assault, battery and the ubiquitous emotional distress. But (you guessed) it:
Hussain’s attorney, David Ellin, said his client sued the hospital because he did not think executives were taking his case seriously enough.
“He felt the only way to get their attention and make any changes was to really put their feet to the fire and file a lawsuit,” Ellin said.
Ellin said Hussain’s aim with the suit is not to win compensation but to raise awareness about Islam and religious prejudices.
“This is really done to try to educate people on the religion of Islam and make people more tolerant and just educate them on different religious backgrounds,” Ellin said.
And if he happens to also get $30 million for it, hey, so much the better.
Defamation-suit Hall of Fame: a New Zealand prisoner serving a life sentence for the notoriously brutal murder of a 17-year-old girl has won cash compensation from newspapers which described him as a rapist. “Andrew Ronald MacMillan was granted legal aid – a government- funded scheme which allows people who cannot afford legal representation to get a lawyer – to sue Fairfax Media, publishers of New Zealand newspapers The Press and Dominion Post, for defamation and punitive damages.” The victim, whose body was discovered nearly naked, had suffered violence in intimate places, but authorities never charged MacMillan with rape in the case. (“Murderer gets compensation from paper over rape allegation”, DPA/MonstersAndCritics.com, Apr. 10). Two and a half years ago MacMillan won $1200 for hurt feelings and humiliation because the Corrections Department had not shown him the text of a letter accusing him of misbehavior while on prison furlough. (Bridget Carter, “‘Hurt feelings’ win killer $1200 compensation”, New Zealand Herald, Aug. 23, 2004).
In August 2002, the Greens, a black couple, were shopping in a local department store in Kansas City. They allege that a sales clerk named Linda McCrary refused to help them purchase several items, forcing them to wait for another clerk (who did assist them in completing the $500 purchase). They then allege that, while waiting for that helpful clerk to sell them a watch, they heard McCrary curse at them, using a racial slur, and then stalk off. The helpful clerk immediately apologized, as did a sales manager. But nonetheless, this incident was so traumatic for the couple — including the husband, who was a police officer — that they not only felt too distressed to finish buying the watch, but they felt the need to return the items they had already purchased. A day or two later, the store manager called the Greens, apologized again, told them that McCrary had been fired, and offered them a 20% discount off their purchase. After they rejected his offer, he sent them a letter of apology and again offered a discount.
Now, assuming the Greens are telling the truth — there seems to be substantial evidence supporting their version of events — McCrary deserves to be condemned wholeheartedly, and the Greens were entitled to an apology (which they got). But that, of course, wouldn’t allow them to cash in on this incident. So, instead the couple waited two years, and then filed a lawsuit demanding $5.5 million, claiming that the store had illegally violated their rights to make contracts because they were black.
The lower court granted summary judgment to the store, noting that other clerks were willing to help the Greens and they could have completed their purchase. But last week, an appeals court reversed that ruling, holding that a jury could find that the Greens were prevented from completing their purchase, and the store was negligent in hiring/not firing McCrary sooner. Perhaps the most damaging part of the court’s opinion was when it noted that the store, as employer, could be liable for failure to investigate McCrary before hiring her for a routine retail sales job:
Dillard’s also apparently did not inquire into unexplained anomalies in McCrary’s employment history when she applied for a job at its store. After being purportedly “downsized,” McCrary moved from a relatively high paying job at AT&T to an unskilled position at Kmart. Kmart employed her for only two months and laid her off in the month of December when the holiday shopping season would presumably increase Kmart’s demand for labor.
When stores can be sued for millions of dollars for not “inquiring” about trivial resume issues involving low level employees, that will do wonders for employment rates.
Amusing side note: the Greens originally filed their complaint on August 9, 2004; a week later they filed an amended complaint. Aside from correcting a few typographical errors, the only change they made from the original to the amended complaint was to correct their demand for punitive damages from “$500,000” to “$5,000,000.” I guess that was about the money.
A major scandal has erupted in Ontario in recent weeks following reports that some lottery retailers have for years been cheating their customers out of winning tickets, instead cashing in the tickets themselves. Now the law firm of McPhadden, Samac, Merner & Barry has filed a would-be class action lawsuit on behalf of all persons who bought lottery tickets since 1975, charging that the lottery failed to exercise its responsibility to prevent cheating, and demanding C$1.1 billion including C$100 million in punitive damages.
Perhaps the most interesting question raised by the legal action is: assuming a remedy cannot be had against the rogue retailers, what is a suitable remedy against the allegedly negligent lottery authorities? According to CTV, the law firm has proposed to hold a “free lottery”, or, perhaps more precisely, a lottery that would compensate for past unfairness by enabling Ontarians to buy a ticket which would be eligible for a payoff above the usual. (Those who could prove they had played the lottery in the past would be entitled to one free ticket.) (“Class-action suit launched against lotto agency”, Mar. 28).
Details of the proposed “remedial” lottery are hazy in the CTV account, but a couple of practical difficulties immediately come to mind. Start with the assumption that a “remedial” pot would be fixed at a certain lump sum intended to punish the province for its past negligence — let’s say C$100 million — and that such a sum greatly exceeds a typical lottery pot. Since there is no upper limit to the number of tickets that purchasers could buy in pursuit of the extra-large pot, the province might in fact wind up making money on its penitential lottery, even taking into account the obligation to dispense a certain number of free single tickets to persons who could bring in the paperwork to show they were past lottery players. Alternatively, assume that the province undertakes to run a one-time penitential lottery with a higher payout than usual — say, 95 percent rather than the usual 40 or 60 percent or whatever. Again it’s possible that by stoking player interest in a much-publicized “good-odds” lottery, the authorities will come out ahead (perhaps having hooked many novices into buying their first lottery tickets).
The practical difficulties if the province is so rash as to promise a lottery with a payout of, say, 110 percent of the money put in, will be left as an exercise to the reader.
At American Thinker, Michael Margolies notes the fiftieth anniversary of “one of Hollywood’s most revered, indeed sacrosanct films”, but finds the work on calmer viewing to be emotionally manipulative, stacked from first frame to last, and even “dishonest”. (“12 Angry Men Turns 50”, Mar. 31).
North Carolina lawyers were up in arms after a seven-month Raleigh News & Observer investigation reported that an attorney who was a Wake County Court-appointed guardian to manage the financial affairs of a series of incompetent parties had been awarded $3.4 million in legal fees since 1991 by courts from his fiduciaries’ accounts. Not over the possibility that cozy political connections and a flawed guardianship system permitted Robert Monroe to regularly charge the legal maximum commission and be “handsomely compensated for not having to do very much,” but apparently over the fact that the newspaper reported the story at all. [News & Observer; News & Observer ombudsman, both via Obbie]
This time the awful idea of installing alcohol sensors in everyone’s car has surfaced in Pennsylvania, and in worse form than ever: cars would refuse to start even when a driver’s blood alcohol level was much below the legal maximum. (Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”, Mar. 27). Earlier: May 28, 2006 (New York).
Around the age of eleven, I had settled on an ambition: I would become a lawyer. A friend of my Aunt Marge’s had introduced me to the wonders of the law: “Look around you — negligence everywhere, as far as the eye can see.” “How about that person crossing the street outside the crosswalk,” I asked, “is that negligence?” “It sure is.” The perspective was illuminating….I found myself in a world in which everyone was at fault for something if only you looked closely enough. This would, of course, include oneself.
“Choices and Consequences” in Mary Eberstadt, ed., Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys (Threshold Editions, 2007).