“A federal judge recently ruled that the owner of Entrepreneur Magazine, a small-business publication with about 2 million readers nationwide, has … ‘exclusive right to use the mark in commerce.’ … So you can call yourself an entrepreneur, but if you want to include the word in the name of your business — particularly one in publishing — look out.” This summer, the court “awarded Entrepreneur Media a permanent injunction and $669,656 in damages” against Scott Smith, who ran a public relations firm called Entrepreneur PR. The court accepted the media company’s contention that Smith intentionally infringed on the trademark, “attempting to affiliate his firm with the magazine and feed off its popularity.” (Christine Van Dusen, “‘Entrepreneur’ a trademarked word, court rules”, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Aug. 20; article and court opinion at magazine site; Janet Attard, “Business Information and Ideas To Go”, BusinessKnowHow.com, undated; Smith’s response; Scott Allen, “What’s in a Name?”, About.com, undated; Steve Strauss, “Playing the Name Game”, USA Today, Jul. 10, 2002 (earlier 9th Circuit ruling favorable to Smith); Peter I. Hupalo, “Entrepreneur: The Soap Opera Continues”, Thinking Like an Entrepreneur, undated). Scott is now appealing (”What’s in a Name?”, FreshInc., Aug. 14). On Nov. 1, 2001 we covered the magazine’s efforts to enforce its trademark against a different (and unrelated) defendant, the proprietors of the website Entrepreneurs.com.
From the monthly archives:
August 2003
Another portion of the municipal gun-suit campaign is ending with a whimper, not a bang: San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office has announced a tentative settlement of litigation by California local governments against several gun dealers and distributors. If the deal is approved by the 12 governments and a San Diego judge, the dealers and distributors would change certain business practices and pay the plaintiff governments $70,000 — far less than the $2 million the governments are estimated to have racked up thus far in legal expenses, even though the suits have been touted in the past as a moneymaking proposition. “Earlier this year, San Diego Superior Court Judge Vincent DiFiglia granted summary judgment in favor of about 20 manufacturers and trade associations, including big-name companies such as Beretta and Smith & Wesson, Clements said. The plaintiff jurisdictions have appealed that decision. But the five dealers and distributors were to face a trial.”
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This is a trifle off-topic, but a pair of posts by Amanda Butler highlight some intriguing issues about the way the law treats children, an issue I touched on briefly in a previous post on voting ages. Here is one post on Patrick Kennedy, sentenced to death for raping a child, and here is another, about a decision by the Missouri Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional to execute murderers under the age of 18.
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Down Under, Victoria’s Attorney General has come out in favor of a pretty far-reaching set of legal reforms designed to protect consumers:
While it is appropriate that justice is blind, that does not mean the Bracks Government is blind to the needs of the Victorian public.
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New Orleans: “The city’s public transit system should pay $51.4 million to the family of an 11-year-old girl whose arm was crushed beneath the wheels of a streetcar after she fell out of a window five years ago, a jury has decided.” A lawyer for the regional transit authority argued in vain that if the girl’s parents had been supervising her adequately she would not have fallen out of the streetcar window in the first place. (”Girl wins $51.4 million for streetcar accident”, AP/New Orleans Times-Picayune, Aug. 29). Ernest Svenson (Ernie the Attorney) writes to add that the printed edition of the newspaper contains the following passage, absent from the currently online version: “After the verdict was rendered a partylike atmosphere prevailed in the hallways outside Judge C. Hunter King’s courtroom, where jurors posed for photographs with [winning lawyer Johnnie] Cochran and the judge.” And he (Svenson) adds: “Which is nice, because that sort of thing is guaranteed to enhance public perception of our judicial system.” Addendum: the fuller version of the newspaper story is now online. Update Sept. 15: more about Judge King. Further update Oct. 25: Judge King removed from bench.
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If he wanted to avoid emotional trauma, maybe he chose the wrong line of work? From Glasgow, Scotland: “A former policeman who sued a widower because he experienced the trauma of seeing the man’s wife die in a crash with his speeding patrol car has won ?87,275 damages. George Gilfillan was awarded the money even though a judge ruled that he was driving ‘much too fast’ and said that he was 50 per cent to blame.” The court also awarded the widower ?16,000 in a counterclaim. (Tom Peterkin, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 13).
If he wanted to avoid emotional trauma, maybe he chose the wrong line of work? From Glasgow, Scotland: “A former policeman who sued a widower because he experienced the trauma of seeing the man’s wife die in a crash with his speeding patrol car has won ?87,275 damages. George Gilfillan was awarded the money even though a judge ruled that he was driving ‘much too fast’ and said that he was 50 per cent to blame.” The court also awarded the widower ?16,000 in a counterclaim. (Tom Peterkin, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 13).
If he wanted to avoid emotional trauma, maybe he chose the wrong line of work? From Glasgow, Scotland: “A former policeman who sued a widower because he experienced the trauma of seeing the man’s wife die in a crash with his speeding patrol car has won ?87,275 damages. George Gilfillan was awarded the money even though a judge ruled that he was driving ‘much too fast’ and said that he was 50 per cent to blame.” The court also awarded the widower ?16,000 in a counterclaim. (Tom Peterkin, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 13).
If he wanted to avoid emotional trauma, maybe he chose the wrong line of work? From Glasgow, Scotland: “A former policeman who sued a widower because he experienced the trauma of seeing the man’s wife die in a crash with his speeding patrol car has won ?87,275 damages. George Gilfillan was awarded the money even though a judge ruled that he was driving ‘much too fast’ and said that he was 50 per cent to blame.” The court also awarded the widower ?16,000 in a counterclaim. (Tom Peterkin, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 13).
If he wanted to avoid emotional trauma, maybe he chose the wrong line of work? From Glasgow, Scotland: “A former policeman who sued a widower because he experienced the trauma of seeing the man’s wife die in a crash with his speeding patrol car has won ?87,275 damages. George Gilfillan was awarded the money even though a judge ruled that he was driving ‘much too fast’ and said that he was 50 per cent to blame.” The court also awarded the widower ?16,000 in a counterclaim. (Tom Peterkin, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 13).
If he wanted to avoid emotional trauma, maybe he chose the wrong line of work? From Glasgow, Scotland: “A former policeman who sued a widower because he experienced the trauma of seeing the man’s wife die in a crash with his speeding patrol car has won ?87,275 damages. George Gilfillan was awarded the money even though a judge ruled that he was driving ‘much too fast’ and said that he was 50 per cent to blame.” The court also awarded the widower ?16,000 in a counterclaim. (Tom Peterkin, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 13).
If he wanted to avoid emotional trauma, maybe he chose the wrong line of work? From Glasgow, Scotland: “A former policeman who sued a widower because he experienced the trauma of seeing the man’s wife die in a crash with his speeding patrol car has won ?87,275 damages. George Gilfillan was awarded the money even though a judge ruled that he was driving ‘much too fast’ and said that he was 50 per cent to blame.” The court also awarded the widower ?16,000 in a counterclaim. (Tom Peterkin, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 13).
If he wanted to avoid emotional trauma, maybe he chose the wrong line of work? From Glasgow, Scotland: “A former policeman who sued a widower because he experienced the trauma of seeing the man’s wife die in a crash with his speeding patrol car has won ?87,275 damages. George Gilfillan was awarded the money even though a judge ruled that he was driving ‘much too fast’ and said that he was 50 per cent to blame.” The court also awarded the widower ?16,000 in a counterclaim. (Tom Peterkin, Daily Telegraph, Aug. 13).
“A group of workers’ compensation attorneys is increasingly relying on its clients to finance a political warchest created to influence elections, and some injured workers are angry about it,” reports Oklahoma’s largest newspaper. The president of Lawyers for Working Oklahomans says client donations to its PAC are “strictly voluntary”, which is not how several clients remember it. “Some said they didn’t even know they had made donations. ‘I didn’t see why I had to but they already had it taken out of my check,’ said Tom Rice, 42, of Washington, Okla., a laid-off crane operator listed as donating $68. … Also unaware was former hairdresser Christina Dueck, 31, of Norman. She is listed as a $340 donor. ‘I cannot believe that. You’re kidding me. That’s ridiculous,’ said Dueck, who settled her comp case in November for $35,000.” A Chickasha welder said he learned after the fact about the deduction: “What can you do about it? They didn’t give you no choice,” he said. “It’s politics.” “I didn’t know I donated to it. I guess I didn’t pay that much attention,” said a flour mill worker. The PAC, formed in 1999, “has already had an impact on state politics. It spent $67,210 in October on independent political ads that helped Gov. Brad Henry (D) to his upset victory.” (Nolan Clay, Sunday Oklahoman, Aug. 10 (search for pay archives with registration); “Concerns raised over donations to a lawyers’ political action committee”, AP/KOTV, Aug. 12; AP/KJRH, Googlecached)).
With some inspiration from an article at a previous Overlawyered post, David Giacalone is inquiring into whether ethics classes make one more ethical.
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New in the Annals of Internal Medicine: “Fear of litigation either stifles hospital efforts to improve patient safety or drives them underground, according to the latest article in a journal series …” In the case under study, a critically ill patient suffered permanent brain damage while under hospital care; the authors, both with the Harvard School of Public Health, consider it “unreasonable” to blame the attending doctor but a suit was filed nonetheless. In the incident’s aftermath, the hospital did not take vigorous measures to involve its staff in any debate about whether procedures needed to be changed — a logical enough course of action given that “generally, hospitals must confine discussions about adverse events to small committees of insiders” if they are to avoid losing their privilege against turning over the results of peer review investigations to hostile lawyers. In the case at hand, “it seems that it would have been beneficial for the hospital and staff to have openly evaluated issues of seamless cross-coverage, protocols for emergent intubation on the floor, and timely transfer to the ICU. Unfortunately, it appears that nothing of this sort occurred.” (”Fear of Litigation Stifles Hospitals’ Efforts To Improve Patient Safety”, press release, California HealthCare Foundation, Aug. 19; Troyen A. Brennan and Michelle M. Mello, “Patient Safety and Medical Malpractice: A Case Study”, Annals of Internal Medicine, Aug. 13; CHCF case study series)
Those mean old appeals judges: now they’ve gone and reversed a Texas jury’s $10.5 million award against the city of Galveston and the lessee of its Flagship Pier on behalf of the survivors of a couple whose car, rolling backwards, broke through railings and plunged into the water one night in 1996. The court ruled that the defendants, by failing to erect a stronger guardrail, had not injured the couple willingly, wantonly or through gross negligence as specified under state law dealing with recreation facilities. “Medical evidence presented at the trial showed that [Kenneth Wayne] Garza, who had been convicted on numerous occasions for drunken driving, and [passenger Dorey] Fabian were legally drunk, but the jury found Garza only 10 percent accountable for the accident.” (Carter Thompson, “Flagship accident verdict reversed”, Galveston County Daily News, Aug. 26).
Our editor is scheduled to appear this evening at 8 p.m. Pacific time on Vancouver’s CKNW, am 980, with host David Berner. The main topic on the agenda — is Canada going the litigious way of the U.S.? — plays off a feature article that ran yesterday in the Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen and other CanWest newspapers but doesn’t seem to be online yet.
