- Time for another aspirin: Harvard Law’s Charles Ogletree, key backer of lawsuits for slave reparations, mentioned as possible Attorney General [CBS News, BostonChannel WCVB, Newsweek; earlier speculation about post as civil rights chief]
- Calif. law requires supervisors to attend sexual harassment prevention training, a/k/a sensitivity training, but UC Irvine biologist Alexander McPherson says he’ll face suspension rather than submit [AP/FoxNews.com, On the Record (UCI), Morrissey, Inside Higher Ed, OC Register; ScienceBlogs’ Thus Spake Zuska flays him]
- Fan “not entitled to a permanent injunction requiring American Idol singer Clay Aiken to endorse her unauthorized biography” [Feral Child]
- Local authority in U.K. orders employees not to use Latin phrases such as bona fide, e.g., ad lib, et cetera, i.e., inter alia, per se, quid pro quo, vice versa “and even via” [via — uh-oh — Zincavage and Feral Child]
- Participants in 10th annual Boulder, Colo. Naked Pumpkin Run may have to register as sex offenders [Daily Camera, Obscure Store]
- Joins drunk in car as his passenger, then after crash collects $5 million from restaurant where he drank [AP/WBZ Boston, 99 Restaurant chain]
- Election may be over, but candidates’ defamation lawsuits against each other over linger on [Above the Law, NLJ]
- School nutrition regs endanger bake sales, but they’ll let you have “Healthy Hallowe’en Vegetable Platter” instead [NY Times]
Posts Tagged ‘personal responsibility’
Another mechanical-bull suit
$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).
“Balanced the extremely hot cup of coffee on her thigh”
Not a great thing to do when pulling away from a Starbucks window and negotiating a turn onto the roadway. Jordan Triplett, 23, wants $250,000 in the Knoxville, Tenn. suit. (Starbucks Gossip via Obscure Store).
“Tunneling boy’s mother sues utility”
“A Canadian woman whose 9-year-old son tunneled [under a fence] into an electric sub-station and was badly burned is suing a Manitoba power utility for negligence.” (UPI, Oct. 22).
“Woman didn’t know she was pregnant, gives birth”
And now here comes the lawsuit against the hospital, blaming it for the baby’s deficits. Attorney Harold “Tripp” Sebring III has couched the suit against University Community Hospital in Tampa as one on behalf of the child, Brianna Rose Lumley, rather than the mother, Robin Lumley. Per Chicago psychiatric trauma specialist Alexander E. Obolsky, the suit represents “chutzpah”: “This is America. You’ve got to love this country. This woman doesn’t know she is pregnant, but somebody else should.” (Colleen Jenkins, “St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 7).
Drunken ride on mechanical bull
“Things are supposed to be fun, not injury-producing,” says attorney Lawrence Saftler, whose client, Manhattan screenwriter Aaron Schnore, didn’t succeed in staying on the raging mechanical bull at Johnny Utah’s restaurant in midtown. (Jose Martinez, “Raging bull rider suing restaurant”, New York Daily News, Sept. 5; Popehat).
“Zapped Amtrak trespasser sues”
Brian Hopkins, 25, of Astoria, Queens, New York City, “who survived an electric shock and fire two years ago when he climbed atop an empty, stopped Amtrak train after a night of bar hopping in Boston is suing the railroad – because Amtrak didn’t do enough to protect trespassers like him.” (Kathianne Boniello, New York Post, Aug. 31).
Touch-a-car-for-the-longest contest
In Longview, east Texas, the Patterson Nissan dealership held a contest awarding prizes to the participants who could hold their hands on a car the longest. One contestant dropped out, ran to a nearby store where he broke a gun out of its case, and shot himself. The dealership has now settled the lawsuit by Richard Thomas Vega II’s widow claiming that the stress and sleep deprivation of the event amounted to “brainwashing” and that the sponsors failed to make allowances for temporary loss of sanity. (AP/FoxNews.com, Aug. 17).
Criminals who sue dept.: the case of Danieal Kelly
The old joke is that chutzpah is defined as the case of the orphan who kills his parents and then begs the court for mercy because he’s an orphan.
A pair of Philadelphia parents, however, may redefine the idea for all time. Danieal Kelly, who suffered from crippling cerebral palsy, was 14 when she starved to death in a West Philadelphia rowhouse, covered in bedsores, weighing just 42 pounds. Her mother, “Andrea Kelly was charged with murder on July 31. Daniel Kelly, who authorities say abandoned his daughter despite knowledge of her mother’s neglect, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child.” (Three friends of the mother were charged with perjury for lying to a grand jury; four social workers were also charged with felony endangerment, which will no doubt screw up incentives further for over-reacting child protective services everywhere.)
The parents responded as any parents would, and sued the city, the state, city and state agencies, and four social workers, blaming them for Kelly’s death, and seeking damages for “love, tutelage, companionship, support, comfort and consortium” as well as the “economic value of her life expectancy”–which couldn’t possibly be anything other than the taxpayer-funded disability benefits. Public outrage has caused the lawyers, Brian Mildenberg and Eric Zajac, to substitute other parties as plaintiffs so that there is no direct hint of Daniel and Andrea Kelly profiting, but the underlying appallingness of the suit remains. (Julie Shaw & Catherine Lucey, “Lawsuit by Danieal’s parents called ‘disgusting'”, Phil. Inquirer, Aug. 13; Nancy Phillips and Kia Gregory, “Danieal Kelly’s parents sue the city”, Phil. Inquirer, Aug. 13; John Sullivan and Craig R. McCoy, “Nine indicted in fatal neglect of girl”, Phil. Inquirer, Aug. 1; ongoing Inquirer coverage).