- Speech-curbing proposals continue to get polite academic reception: NYU’s Jeremy Waldron, big advocate of laws to curb “hate speech”, delivered Holmes Lectures at Harvard this past week [HLS, schedule]
- Lawsuit over collectible baseball hit into stands by Phillies’ Ryan Howard, his 200th career homer [Howard Wasserman, PrawfsBlawg; NJLRA]
- Orchid-importer prosecution a poster case for the evils of overcriminalization? Maybe not [Ken at Popehat]
- Texas State Fair and city of Dallas don’t have to allow evangelist to distribute religious tracts inside the fair, judge rules after three years [Dallas Observer blog]
- Drug maker: FDA’s curbs on truthful promotion of off-label uses impair our First Amendment speech rights [Beck and Herrmann and more, Point of Law and more]
- Did plaintiff Eolas Technologies go to unusual lengths to ensure Eastern District of Texas venue for its patent litigation? [Joe Mullin, IP Law and Business via Alison Frankel, AmLaw]
- Update: “Lesbian Denied Infertility Treatment Settles Lawsuit” [San Diego 6, earlier]
- Even in the Ninth Circuit, “psychological injury resulting from a legitimate personnel action” is not compensable [Volokh]
Posts Tagged ‘emotional distress’
“Convicted thief sues store he robbed”
Scott Thomas Zielinski was shot while robbing Nick’s Short Stop Party Store in Clinton Township, Michigan, at knifepoint, and is serving an 8-to-22 year sentence. Now he’s suing the store’s owner and some of its clerks for in excess of $125,000 for pain and suffering and emotional distress. [WXYZ] More: reader VMS recalls the story of an unrepaired stair tread.
Match.com: your inactive profiles are breaking hearts
Sean McGinn of Brooklyn, and lawyers seeking class-action status, say Match.com left canceled profiles up, resulting in “humiliation and disappointment” suffered by paying members who sent love-struck missives to the old accounts. [New York Post, Obscure Store, Eric Turkewitz, Above the Law]
Corri Fetman sues Playboy
Chicago attorney Corri Fetman won a secure place in the Tasteless Lawyer-Ad Hall of Fame with her firm’s billboard showing a temptress and muscleman with the slogan: “Life’s short. Get a divorce.” She parlayed that fame into a spot as “Lawyer of Love” columnist (and subject of undressed photography) for the magazine Playboy. Now she’s suing, alleging she was sexually harassed and later deprived of her column by a lascivious executive at the publication. Her suit charges, among other things, “gender violence” and emotional distress.
Fetman lost her focus at work, grew depressed and anxious and sought medical care, [attorney Timothy] Ashe said. “Everybody has a breaking point,” he said. “She is not an overly sensitive person.”
[Chicago Tribune via Obscure Store].
“PTSD Damages For A Non-Event”
We briefly mentioned the other day the remarkable litigation over a laptop theft which (it seemed at the time) might have led to a data breach imperiling the personal information of military veterans. The feared breach resulted in an emergency request to Congress for $160 million to provide credit counseling to veterans, and, more recently, a $20 million settlement of class-action claims brought against the Veterans Administration, based at least in part on allegations of emotional distress associated with the (unfounded, as it turned out) fear of identity theft. If you’re wondering who the biggest winner will be from all this, Bank Lawyer’s Blog is pleased to provide the answer.
Intercom announcement mentioned his wheelchair
So Anthony Faggiani of East Islip, N.Y. is suing the Long Island Rail Road for “serious psychological injuries and distress.”
“Can the Passengers of Flight 1549 Sue for Emotional Distress?”
Asks Dan Slater at the WSJ Law Blog.
Suing rude and sarcastic doctors
If rudeness and sarcasm are indeed now actionable in Texas, as Amy Modica in her suit seems to be hoping they are, a lot of bloggers will have to stay out of the state.
Football-keeping neighbor sues parents
Ohio: “The 88-year-old Blue Ash woman arrested after refusing to give a 13-year-old neighborhood boy his football back after it landed in her yard has sued the youth’s parents, alleging emotional distress. The lawsuit by attorney H. Louis Sirkin on behalf of Edna Jester contends that Paul and Kelly Tanis “and their minor children ‘regularly and without permission’ enter Jester’s yard to retrieve footballs and other play items that have been ‘carelessly tossed’ onto her property, the suit adds. …The Blue Ash city solicitor and city prosecutor later dropped the misdemeanor theft charge filed against Jester after she refused a police officer’s order to return the Tanis boy’s football.” (Barry M. Horstman, “Football keeper files lawsuit”, Cincinnati Enquirer, Jan. 3).
“Cisco Turns Up Heat in ‘Patent Troll’ Case”
If, like Eric Albritton, you’re a successful Texas lawyer who wants to claim that critical postings on the Patent Troll Tracker blog caused you “embarrassment, humiliation, mental pain and anguish,” you might actually have to document that. (Molly McDonough, ABA Journal, Nov. 3; earlier).