Posts Tagged ‘Virginia’

August 18 roundup

  • Tiananmen Square events echo today in acrimonious defamation suit against filmmakers [Boston Globe]
  • Andrew Ferguson disrespectful toward David Kessler’s nanniferous book on obesity policy [Weekly Standard]
  • “Yes, People Dislike The RIAA Because Of Its Actions” [TechDirt]
  • The big difference race makes in medical school admissions [Discriminations, Mark Perry/Carpe Diem]
  • Texting, workplace flirtation and sexual harassment law [Forbes/MSNBC]
  • After real estate firm grabs and uses online pic, photographer finds satisfaction through small claims court [West Seattle Blog h/t @VBalasubramani]
  • Virginia: latest case seeking to open emotional-distress damages for death of pets gets help from former White House counsel Lanny Davis [WaPo, earlier]
  • Brazil police allege that host of true-crime TV series ordered killings to ensure good footage for the show [AP]

January 15 roundup

  • Judge Posner’s patience snaps in a class action: the case “is an example of the typical pathology of class action litigation, which is riven with conflicts of interest… The lawyers for the class could not concede the utter worthlessness of their claim because they wanted an award of attorneys’ fees.” Complete with a quotation from Leo Rosten about chutzpah [Mirfasihi v. Fleet Mortgage Corporation; NMC @ Folo, Courthouse News and again]
  • Erosion of mens rea prerequisite in criminal law should alarm all of us across left-right lines [Doug Berman on John Hasnas WLF paper]
  • “Federal drain law forces pool closings” [Boston Globe]
  • Gambling habit was no excuse for Woodbridge, Va. lawyer to forge clients’ signature on lawsuit settlements which he pocketed; Stephen Conrad drew a 11-year sentence after doing $4 million damage to clients. Also in Virginia, former Christiansburg attorney Gerard Marks pleaded guilty Nov. 13 to forgery [Va. Lawyers Weekly; earlier here, and, on Marks, first links here]
  • Plaintiff family in Anaheim, Calif. police-shooting lawsuit have an unusual demand: that statue of deceased victim be put up on Disneyland’s Main Street [Orange County Register]
  • Connecticut state lawyer who assumed bogus identity to send anonymous letter that got her boss fired, then claimed whistleblower protection, is let off with reprimand and nine hours of ethics training [Schwartz, earlier]
  • “Patent troll sues Oprah, Sony over online book viewing” [The Register; Illinois Computer Research, Scott Harris, etc.]
  • JetBlue incident at JFK: “240,000 dollars awarded to man forced to cover Arab T-shirt” [AFP/Yahoo, Raed Jarrar]

Update: Bloggers cleared in Virginia developer’s lawsuit

“The four bloggers named in a lawsuit brought forth by Christiansburg developer Roger Woody have been cleared of all charges by a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge.” The judge did not find it necessary to reach First Amendment issues but instead dismissed the case on demurrer; the four defendants had criticized Woody’s business practices.

Having invested a lot of time and energy into the issue, [defendant Terry Ellen] Carter said she was pleased with the judge’s decision and relieved after having gone through what she described as “the longest 10 and a half weeks ever.”

“We have a right to express our opinions without being hauled into court, and that right was upheld,” Carter said.

(Lerone Graham, “Bloggers cleared in lawsuit”, Roanoke Times, Oct. 15; earlier).

September 15 roundup

  • Saying fashion model broke his very fancy umbrella, N.Y. restaurant owner Nello Balan sues her for $1 million, but instead gets fined $500 for wasting court’s time [AP/FoxNews.com, NY Times]
  • Spokesman for Chesapeake, Va. schools says its OK for high school marching band to perform at Disney World, so long as they don’t ride any rides [Virginian-Pilot]
  • More on Chicago parking tickets: revenue-hungry Mayor Daley rebuffed in plan to boot cars after only two tickets [Sun-Times, Tribune]
  • Too old, in their 50s, to be raising kids? [Houston Chronicle via ABA Journal].
  • Britain’s stringent libel laws and welcome mat for “libel tourism” draw criticism from the U.N. (of all places) [Guardian]
  • Beaumont, Tex.: “Parents sue other driver, bar for daughter’s DUI death” [SE Texas Record, more, more]
  • “Three pony rule”: $600,000 a year is needlessly high for child support, even if mom has costly tastes [N.J.L.J., Unfiltered Minds]
  • Advocacy groups push to require health insurers and taxpayers to pay for kids’ weight-loss camps [NY Times]
  • Lester Brickman: those fraud-rife mass screening operations may account for 90 percent of mass tort claims [PoL]

August 7 roundup

Update: Virginia beer-sicles

A year ago (Jun. 26, 2007) guestblogger Christian Schneider reported on the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s suppression of a “frozen beer pop” specialty offered by the Alexandria restaurant Rustico. Now the state legislature has enacted a bill sponsored by Del. Adam Ebbin and Sen. Patsy Ticer (both D-Alexandria) re-legalizing the cooling treats, which went back on sale July 1 in such flavors as framboise, cherry kriek, cassis, plum, and chocolate stout. (Erin Zimmer, SeriousEats.com, Jun. 25; Gillian Gaynair, “Rustico brings back beer pops for summer”, Washington Business Journal, Jun. 20)(& welcome The Agitator and Reason “Hit and Run”, Belgian ladmag ZV, Christian Schneider/WPRI readers).