Two former members of an Australian church “want their money back, claiming they handed over more than A$400,000 and A$1 million respectively to the church based on lies about a doomsday scenario.” [ABC.net.au]
Posts Tagged ‘churches’
“Lawyer Says Televangelist’s No-Divorce Policy May Have Led to Killing”
A stretch? The security chief for Missouri-based Joyce Meyer Ministries has been charged with the murder of his wife and family, and lawyers pursuing a wrongful-death case now say they want to include the financially successful ministry as a defendant. [ABA Journal, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, UPI]
October 10 roundup
- Greenwich, Connecticut real estate board may discipline member whose blog (often linked in this space) regularly pokes fun at overpriced houses. Antitrust/First Amendment problem? [Chris Fountain, For What It’s Worth]
- “Religious group sued for allegedly inciting harm through prayers” [USA Today]
- Legally driven waste of water in parched California should reopen Endangered Species Act debate [Max Schulz, American Spectator] “More Unintended Consequences — Endangered Species Edition” [Ronald Bailey, Reason; related AEI panel]
- “Apple v Woolworth re Apple Logos In Australia” [Trademark Blog]
- Speaking of Australia, Consumers Union’s Consumerist site publishes fake “Aussie McDonald’s fraud plot” memo as real — revises post later, but without mentioning it was taken in by hoax [HardArticle]
- Pennsylvania couple learns about squatter’s-rights law the hard way [Hazleton Standard Speaker]
- Maybe Saratoga Springs, N.Y. will let middle schoolers bike — or even walk! — to school [Albany Times-Union, Lenore Skenazy/Free Range Kids, Patrick at Popehat, Doug Mataconis/Liberty Papers]
- Milberg, the disgraced class action firm of Mel Weiss and Bill Lerach fame, is hot again [NLJ]
Connecticut soup kitchen, cont’d
Updating our August 21 item: The Health Department in Middletown, Connecticut issued a “citation against St. Vincent DePaul Place on Tuesday for accepting some donated food from unlicensed kitchens. 
The department has asked the nonprofit group, which runs a soup kitchen, to comply with the health code by accepting food that comes only from licensed kitchens.” [Middletown Eye] The state’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, is asking the legislature to loosen rules for charitable kitchens. [Hartford Courant] We covered the Connecticut pie menace nearly ten years ago [Dec. 13, 1999] and have since noted legal crimps put on cookies for troops, church potlucks, and much more.
Lawsuits against God
The Wikipedia entry on that topic makes one list of the ten best Wikipedia entries. We covered the Ernie Chambers lawsuit here, here, and here. Law Is Cool points out that the entry for “Lawsuits Against the Devil” deserves a look as well. More: Advocates’ Studio (noting that “no pocket is deeper” than the Almighty’s).
“Excuse Me, Ma’am, We’ve Had Reports of Prayer”
The zoning and use-permit woes of Bible study groups [Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”; San Diego 10 News] Update: County backs down [San Diego Union-Tribune via Common Room]
More “swoon and fall” church claims
Upholding a $40,000 jury award, the Michigan Court of Appeals has “said a church was liable for the fall of a woman who was ‘slain in the spirit’ during an altar call” (see Jun. 21, 2007) [On Point News] And per the same site, a new Oregon case presents a somewhat different fact pattern: Shin Lim Kim was allegedly acting as a “catcher” at the Portland Onnuri Church in Beaverton, but suffered a fractured spinal vertebra when fellow congregant Hyun Joo Hoon fell on her:
The church was negligent, the complaint says, in not providing multiple catchers; failing to discuss “safe catching strategy” with congregants; selecting Kim — “a small and not particularly strong person” — as a catcher; and failing to instruct congregants on “the correct procedures to fall, so that they would not injure themselves and injure the person assisting and/or catching them.”
More coverage of this genre of suits: June 8, 2008.
March 31 roundup
- Litigation over high-tech products is rife, but major benefits for consumers can be hard to discern [Low End Mac]
- “United settles with female ex-pilot who found p0rn in cockpits” [Obscure Store]
- California suit charges negligent “laying on of hands” at church service [Lowering the Bar]
- UN resolution against “defamation of religion” imperils free speech [Paula Schriefer, Freedom House/CSM, Steyn/NR “Corner”, National Secular Society (U.K.), Ilya Somin @ Volokh
- DivorceNetwork.com, social networking for those caught up in family law battles? [Ambrogi, Legal BlogWatch]
- Prosecutors behaving badly in Wayne County (Mich.), Miami, Santa Clara County [Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”]
- After nine years, the notorious Bill Lerach California-unfair-competition-law suit against Kwikset (over several screws from Taiwan in a lock marked “Made in America”) finally winds down [California Civil Justice, earlier]
- Oklahoma AG Drew Edmondson to poultry companies: my pals will bankrupt you with massive verdicts unless you settle [Rizo/Legal NewsLine; more]
CPSIA and religious goods
Just posted at Musings from a Catholic Bookstore:
We currently have received certification from one vendor (about 10 products) which means that we have been forced to discontinue 1ooo products that we currently don’t have in stock to avoid breaking the law after February 10th. We currently have about 600 different kid’s items in stock that are discounted and won’t be available after February 10th unless we get more certificates from vendors.
The upshot of this? The First Communion season (February – May) is usually the second busiest season of the year for Catholic retailers. This year, unless our vendors get their acts together, it will be the worst season ever because there won’t be any First Communion dresses, kid’s missals, kid’s rosaries, etc. available for purchase.
I wonder how many Catholic retailers that are currently on the edge this will put over into failure? Knowing our industry it is quite likely that many, in spite of our contacting them, will continue operating as if the law doesn’t exist. At least until they get fined out of existence.
Anyway, stock up on First Communion and other kid’s items now because they may not be available next month.
$25M suit for affair with priest
The plaintiff alleges she gave in to the defendant priest’s sexual advances after confessing her marital difficulties to him. She alleges the priest assured her the sex was “ordained by God” so she thereafter engaged in intercourse with him. This, of course, is all due to the negligence of the local Catholic diocese according to her suit and not her own poor judgment in falling for such a lame pickup line. (“Confession Obsession?”, The Smoking Gun, Oct. 29).