In Tampa, the Mons Venus strip club “is being sued for its alleged uninviting nature to people with disabilities.” Kendrick Duldulao, who uses a wheelchair, says there are no suitable ramps, “the hostess stand is too high, and the toilets and jukebox are inaccessible.” [BayNews9.com] More: Radley Balko (“Reached for comment, other Mons Venus patrons replied, ‘There’s a jukebox?'”)
Posts Tagged ‘Florida’
September 3 roundup
- TSA asserts security-line authority against … suspected embezzlers? [Coyote, Ken at Popehat]
- “How the Next Hurricane Could Bankrupt Florida” [Eli Lehrer, Frum Forum]
- In Yahoo settlement “vast majority of the class gets nothing” [Frith, Cal Civil Justice]
- Royal road to legal riches: work for the federal prosecutor in Manhattan [David Zaring, Conglomerate]
- Taxpayers, get ready to bail out union pension plans [The Lid]
- Japan moving closer to U.S.-style securities litigation? [D&O Diary]
- “Is the Contemporary Supreme Court Really That Conservative?” [Bartels, ConcurOp]
- “EEOC encourages anonymous harassment complaints” [eleven years ago at Overlawyered]
Allegation: “Deposition toe-tapping”
Plaintiffs in a Florida case say they caught the defense at it red-footed. [Bruce Carton, Legal Blog Watch]
“Burglar sues men who captured him, claims rough citizens arrest”
Michael Dupree, now serving a prison sentence for burglary and other charges, has filed a pro se suit against three men over what he says was excessive force in apprehending him. One of the three being sued is Anthony McKoy, whose bicycle Dupree stole after breaking into his car. [St. Petersburg Times, AP]
July 24 roundup
- San Francisco considers, then tables, ban on pet sales at stores [Amy Alkon]
- Florida: we’ll pull you into our courts as an online-defamation defendant even if you’ve never set foot here [CBS4.com]
- Bratz case: “Alex Kozinski gives Barbie a spanking” [AtL]
- GEICO launches counterattack against crash fraud in New York [PoL]
- When a lawyer sues the wrong doctor: hey, isn’t everyone entitled to mistakes now and then? [American Medical News, sanctions affirmed in Virginia case]
- “[Congressman Alan] Grayson’s shakedown lawsuit threatens D.C. business” [LaFetra, PLF/Examiner]
- Asbestos: Do component makers have a duty to warn about other manufacturers’ hazardous products? [Cal Biz Lit and two followups on California decisions, NAM and Levy Phillips & Konigsberg on a since-settled New York case against Foster Wheeler]
- Subsidies for durum wheat flowed in happy circle for everyone but taxpayer and consumer [Mark Perry]
A foreclosure lawyer’s business plan
David Streitfeld’s article yesterday in the New York Times on strategic foreclosure by homeowners includes this vignette of lawyers’ role (via Salmon):
In Florida, the average property spends 518 days in foreclosure, second only to New York’s 561 days. Defense attorneys stress they can keep this number high. …
[Local lawyer Mark P. Stopa] sends out letters — 1,700 in a recent week — to Floridians who have had a foreclosure suit filed against them by a lender.
Even if you have “no defenses,” the form letter says, “you may be able to keep living in your home for weeks, months or even years without paying your mortgage.”
About 10 new clients a week sign up, according to Mr. Stopa, who says he now has 350 clients in foreclosure, each of whom pays $1,500 a year for a maximum of six hours of attorney time. “I just do as much as needs to be done to force the bank to prove its case,” Mr. Stopa said.
“Palm Beach Gardens firm accused of filing lawsuits just to collect legal fees”
The firm often sues insurance companies for amounts under $50, sometimes under $5. A manager with one defendant said the lawyers can use a $1 settlement to leverage a demand for thousands in legal fees payable by defendants. The firm, which has filed more than a thousand cases since last summer, acquires potential claims from medical clinics which bill the insurers over care dispensed after no-fault auto accidents; often the clinics have been paid for the bulk of the case, leaving a small unpaid sum. [Jane Musgrave, Palm Beach Post]
Suit: no warning that 10,000-lb. safe was risky to move
Trying to move the contents of his Duval Street store to another location, a jeweler in Key West, Fla. was killed when the enormously heavy object fell on him; his widow’s suit “claims that Mutual Safe Co. and Harwood’s Miami Safe Co. failed to warn her husband of the life-threatening risks involved in moving the 10,000-pound, refrigerator-sized safe, according to the lawsuit filed in Monroe County circuit court Tuesday.” [Adam Linhardt, Key West Citizen; & welcome Lowering the Bar readers]
“Blogger gets SLAPPed for passing on government warnings”
Trouble on the consumer beat: a Florida travel company is suing travel gadfly Christopher Elliott over alleged inaccuracies in his reporting on regulatory actions taken by the state of Florida against the company (via Legal Satyricon).
March 24 roundup
- Jury orders Dutchess County, N.Y. school district to pay $1.25 million for not adequately addressing classmate harassment of “very dark skinned” half-Latino student; district protests that it had extensively pursued diversity/sensitivity programs [Poughkeepsie Journal]
- More unwisdom: “Oklahoma House of Representatives Proposes Ban on Use of Foreign Law in Oklahoma Courts” [Volokh, earlier on Arizona bill]
- Update: California environment czars won’t ban black cars, but watch out for what reflective-layer window mandates might do to cellphones and tollgate transponders [ShopFloor, earlier]
- “Firm Sanctioned for ‘Perfect Storm’ of Improper Practices in Debt Collection” [NYLJ]
- Critic of lie detector technology says U.K. libel law has silenced him [Times Online] Science journalist Simon Singh says fighting chiropractors’ libel suit is so draining that he’s quitting his column for the Guardian [Guardian, Citizen Media Law]
- Florida: father who lost wife, son in murder/suicide at gun range drops lawsuit against the store [Orlando Sentinel]
- Appeals court declines to overturn Mary Roberts sextortion conviction [MySanAntonio.com, opinion, related, earlier]
- Corporation for Public Newspapering? Stimulus bucks go to “public-interest investigative journalism” [SFWeekly]